DEPUTY PRINCIPAL - TEACHING & LEARNING REPORT 

Welcome back to Term 2. I hope all members of our College community had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday break. I hope our students are refreshed and re-energised for another exciting term of learning. We have much to look forward to this term and plenty of opportunities to celebrate our students’ achievements in many areas.

Year 7 Reflections on Term 1

Our Year 7s have been with us for a term now, and we hope they feel settled into secondary school. At the end of Term 1 I asked Year 7 students to complete a short survey on their learning. Our Year 7s shared some very interesting insights into their learning from Term 1. Here are some of the responses received:

Explain your highlight from Term 1:

• Making new friends with heaps of other people and building up my confidence.
• Camp was something that I loved. I have never done anything like it before!
• My highlight from Term 1 was probably camp because we got to do fun activities outside, I had a really good teacher and good people in my group as well.
• My highlight of the term was the swimming carnival especially when I was swimming against my friends.
• I liked making ice cream in Science.
• Summer Sports because we got to be active.
• Woodwork was one of my highlights and sport. In Woodwork we made stuff and could take it home. Sport was fun because Ms Frame is a good and nice teacher and what we did was fun.

Outline the differences you have seen from primary school to secondary school:

• More chances for friends, different teachers and moving around to different classes.
• The teachers give you a bit more pressure to get things done, which I love, also that we get more challenging work.
• High school is more structured and you have to be more organised
• Some differences are homework, different subjects and teachers, homeroom, excursions and going of school grounds to do activities.
• There is a lot more homework and writing involved compared to everything being set out for you in previous years.
• Different teachers and different classrooms.

Describe your highlight from Year 7 camp:

• I loved hanging out with my friends at Lanes and Games. So much fun!
• My highlight was when we went canoeing because it was in the water and we got to have a swim after.
• My highlight of school camp was the giant swing.
• The giant swing and canoeing.
• Year 7 camp was fun. I especially liked the laser tag and bowling.
• Being able to swim at the waterfall.

Identify any challenges you've faced so far in Year 7. How did you overcome these challenges?

• Lockers, just practise and know the teachers and older student are always there to help.
• I have been away a lot this term and only came to school for 5 whole weeks. I overcame that challenge by being comfortable with talking to teachers and being given the chance to catch up with work.
• High school isn’t as hard as I thought it would be and there hasn’t really been many challenges for me.
• I struggled with Maths a little bit at the start because it’s so different from primary school, but to overcome it I tried to think about everything in different ways and creating a new mindset.

2022 NAPLAN

2022 NAPLAN will occur on the following days:

Year 7 NAPLAN classrooms: 

7A: Room 1 

7B: Room 3

7C: Room 4 

7D: Room 5

7E: Room 6

Year 9 NAPLAN classrooms: 

9A: Room 10

9B: Room 16 

9C Room 17

9D: Room 11

The NAPLAN tests will be conducted online. Students must bring a pen or pencil and headphones for the writing, conventions of language and numeracy tests. Please remind your child of these requirements. Parents and guardians will receive a NAPLAN report from the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) later in the year showing their child’s achievements against the national standards.

Ms Sally Op’t Hoog, our Learning Diversity Leader, will contact parents and guardians of the students she supports to discuss the NAPLAN tests.

We wish our students all the best as they complete this year’s NAPLAN tests.

VCE Information

Our VCE students have completed their first term of Unit 1 (Year 11) and Unit 3 (Year 12) subjects. At the start of the new term, I thought I would provide some further information on the VCE policies and procedures.

What is a Study Design?

• Each subject at VCE level has a Study Design. The study designs for each subject are produced by the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). They detail the areas of study, key knowledge and skills students are required to demonstrate an understanding of in order to achieve a satisfactory result for each unit.
• Study designs are available from the VCAA website and our VCE teachers refer to them a lot in their classes.
• The external examinations for Unit 3/4 (Year 12) subjects are constructed using the key knowledge and skills outlined in the Study Design.
• Students should make sure they understand the key knowledge and skills from the Study Design before the end of year examinations.

Examinations

• The end of year Unit 3/4 (Year 12) exams are externally set and assessed by the VCAA. Every student taking the same Unit 3/4 subject will complete the same exam at the same time. Languages, music, dance and drama also have a performance exam along with a written exam. 
• The external examinations are marked by assessors who are experts in their area of study. All VCE studies are marked to the same standard and there are multiple checks to make sure marking is fair and consistent.

Past Exams and Reports

• Past VCE and VCE VET examination reports are a great tool for students to use when they are preparing for their Unit 3/4 external examinations. By completing past examination papers, students are able to familiarise themselves with the format of the exam, the time required to complete each section, practise applying their knowledge and skills and understand their strengths and areas for improvement.
• All past examinations on the VCAA website are accompanied by an examination report. This report contains useful information and advice based on the previous performance of students in the study. The reports usually contain sample answers to questions from the written examination. It is highly recommended students read these reports as they prepare for their exams.
• Further information can be found on the VCAA website at: https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/HomePage.aspx 

A guide to support parents of VCE/VCAL students is available on PAM.

We wish our VCE and VCAL students all the very best for their studies this year.

World Creativity Day and Innovation Day – Thursday 21 April

‘The United Nations designated 21 April as World Creativity and Innovation Day to raise the awareness of the role of creativity and innovation in all aspects of human development’ (un.org website). Schools are places where creativity and innovation flourish.

Recently I read an article on the Hawker Brownlow Website on World Creativity and Innovation Day:

Crises are crucibles of creativity, and the COVID pandemic has seen creativity flourishing in many areas of our lives. The collaborative creativity of scientists has seen an incredibly rapid development of vaccines. Millions of people in lockdown around the world turned their own personal creativity to cope with the stresses and strains of uncertainty. All over the globe, teachers have been forced to look at new and creative ways of education, both face to face and online, and often a mix of both at the same time. It is a credit to the profession that educators became agile and adaptive in order to support the needs of their students.

The full text of the article can be found here.