ASSISTANT PRINCIPALS' REPORT
PARENT-TEACHER-STUDENT INTERVIEWS
Parent-Teacher-Student Conferences can now be booked using Compass. These interviews are an excellent opportunity to discuss your child’s progress and strategies to support their academic work. We look forward to seeing you at this important event. Students are required to attend in full school uniform.
EXCURSIONS
Parental consent and payment for students’ participation in College excursions can usually be processed on Compass. The information on Compass will include a deadline for consent/payment that must be adhered to, to enable the College’s staff to finalise bookings, transport, etc. Please contact the College if you need assistance using Compass.
ILLNESS
At this time of year there are always viruses going around. If your child is really ill, school is not the place to be for their own wellbeing. Some students have attended school recently when they are clearly unwell and have been sent home again. Not only is this uncomfortable for the student concerned it also spreads the illness in the school community. Please keep your child home if they are too ill to come to school.
MEASURING EXCELLENCE IN CRITICAL & CREATIVE THINKING AT YEAR 10
The Victorian Government is committed to ensuring more students will reach the highest levels of achievement in Critical and Creative Thinking. This target highlights the importance of Critical and Creative Thinking skills and will help Victoria achieve its goals for better learning and life outcomes for all students.
Our school has been given the opportunity to contribute to the process of collecting baseline data in Critical and Creative Thinking across the state. A random sample of our Year 10 students will be selected to participate in this process during the remaining weeks in Term 3 and once identified, information forms will be sent home to provide further information about the participation process. Achievement in critical and creative thinking will be assessed by a newly developed online assessment tool, which involves visual and written problems.
This is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the first ever collection of baseline data in Critical and Creative Thinking in Victoria and the participation of students at this school will play a significant role in the development of this important target.
NAPLAN RESULTS
The NAPLAN results have arrived at the school and will be sent home to all students in Years 7 and 9 who completed the NAPLAN tests in May. Included in the letter is an information sheet and tests results. Please feel free to ring if there are questions you may have regarding these results.
NAPLAN ONLINE TRIAL
McKinnon has been selected to participate in a trial of an online NAPLAN test. Next year the Department of Education is offering schools the opportunity to complete the test online. Over the next few years DET aims to conduct all NAPLAN testing on computers. In order to stay ahead of the curve in this area, we have agreed to trial these tests with a sample group of students in Years 7 and 9 at the end of August. Our selected students will undertake only two tests on one day in Periods 1 to 4.
VISITORS
Managing the presence of visitors to the College is critical to maintaining the safety and well-being of staff and students. Requests (by family members, for example) to meet with students will be determined by the Principal, considering the best interests of the child and the safety and well-being of the College’s staff members.
To minimise disruptions to the regular school program, parents should only attend at the school to deliver and collect their children at the commencement and conclusion of the school day (or earlier if the child is ill, has a medical appointment, etc); in such instances parents/guardians do not need to sign in. Parents are discouraged from attending the College to meet with their child.
If parents need to attend at the College due to an emergency, they should attempt to contact the school prior to their attendance. Save for emergency situations, parents should only be at school for scheduled meetings with staff members and pre-arranged volunteering.
All visitors are required to come to the General Office; parents and former students are not permitted to move around the College grounds throughout the day.