PRINCIPAL'S REPORT

Key Dates

9 - 13 Sept               School Production Week

18 - 20 Sept             Year 9 Camp

22 October              Year 12 Graduation

25 October              Multicultural Festival

Mr Nicholas Adamou

Principal

Principal For A Day Program

Victoria’s Principal For A Day (PFAD) program, now in its 18th year, operates in Victorian government primary, secondary and special schools and is a collaboration between the Department of Education and Training through the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership and ACER.

Principal For A Day, Cr Bruce Harwood, Mayor, City of Greater Geelong and School Captains, Brianna Pendlebury, Sarah Diprose, Beth Cook, Bailey Kitchen and Jasper George shared lunch together.

 

The program brings business and community leaders together with school leaders, with the aims of:

  • increasing understanding and awareness between schools, business and the wider community
  • promoting the great work that schools do
  • enabling participants to develop ongoing relationships, partnerships and programs.

I, as a School Principal benefit from insights on leadership from successful leaders in other spheres, the opportunity to showcase my school to business and community leaders, and the potential for developing ongoing and mutually beneficial relationships for the school and its students.

 

The business and community leaders benefit from an insight into the issues facing schools and the work they do, opportunities to share ideas and perspectives on organisational leadership and skills sharing and a chance to make a contribution to the community.

 

The ‘principal for a day’ shadows the school principal, and participates in normal day-to-day activities in the secondary school. The principal and the ‘principal for a day’ discuss the challenges and current issues each is facing in their leadership role. 

It was an absolute pleasure to host Bruce Harwood, Mayor of the City of Greater Geelong. During the day we had the opportunity to discuss current educational themes and DET initiatives. Bruce also had the opportunity to visit classes, speak to a number of students and staff and immerse himself in the life a high school day at NGSC. We hope that the PFAD program will strengthen the great relationship that The City of Greater Geelong and NGSC have into the future.  

NAPLAN Reports 2019

The 2019 NAPLAN tests were held on early in Term Two. As mentioned in previous publications, NAPLAN is a valuable assessment tool for governments, schools and parents to understand and improve the literacy and numeracy outcomes of students.

NAPLAN provides parents of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 with a report on their child’s performance in literacy and numeracy against the national average. Schools and teachers use NAPLAN data to improve teaching and learning programs in the classroom.

The school has received the NAPLAN Reporting package early this week and all Parents/Guardians/Carers have been mailed their children’s individual reports. Parents/Guardians/Carers by now should have received their childrens confidential report for each student who participated in this year’s NAPLAN tests.

An electronic copy of the Student Report information sheet is available via the VCAA’s website https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au. The student Report information sheet is also available in other languages. 

Any Parents/Guardians/Carers of children in Years 7 and 9 that have taken this year’s NAPLAN tests and they haven’t received their reports please contact the school.

Your child’s English and Mathematics Teachers or the School Principal are able to address any concerns or queries you may have about your child’s results. 

More information about NAPLAN tests and the National Assessment Program can be found by visiting the NAP website www.nap.edu.au.

How to Cultivate the Curiosity Classroom

At North Geelong SC what we want to see “is the child, in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child” – George Bernard Shaw, The Quintessence of G.B.S.

 

Learning is what we humans do best and we have been doing since the beginning of the world and over the centuries. We learn throughout our lives by wondering and exploring, experiencing and playing. North Geelong SC is about harnessing and cultivating that overwhelming drive in learners; the drive to know, understand, and engage in the world and its ideas. 

 

The philosopher Cicero defined curiosity as a love of knowledge without the lure of profit, in other words, an intrinsic passion to know. The modern definition of curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. Aristotle claimed that the desire to know is among the deepest human urges, and Francis Crick, the Noble Prize-winning scientist who discovered the DNA structure, was often described as childlike in his curiosity. 

 

Curiosity has been hailed as the major impetus behind cognitive development, education, and scientific discovery. It is the drive that brings learners to knowledge. Curiosity is about being aware and open, checking things out, experimenting, and interacting within one’s surroundings. In our classrooms, teaching and learning spaces, indoor and outdoor, on a daily basis, our teachers endeavour to gain the unique opportunity of being able to mine students’ deepest held wonder, making their attention natural and effortless, and allowing them to fully engage with their learning. Creating the conditions for curiosity and tailing programs to student individual needs allow us to achieve more authentic motivation from both teachers and students, leading to a much deeper learning. 

 

Latest evidence based programs are offered to our students, creating learning communities that enable curiosity amongst like-minded teenagers to engage in their own learning. Programs such as: SEAL, Broad VCE, VCAL, Scholarships, Student Leadership, Excellence in Sports (Soccer and Football), STEM, ACE, STAR, Performing Arts and an array of extracurricular programs enable our students to feed their curiosity and, gain skills that will support them in their future pathways.

Television

Television, like most things, is neither a good nor bad thing providing it is watched in moderation. Latest research suggests that two hours per day is the maximum amount of television a school age child should watch. Any more than 10 to 14 hours of viewing per week has a measurable negative impact on a child's academic performance.

 

Television can provide an educational and entertainment benefit to children; however research has clearly shown that excessive television watching makes children less sensitive to pain and suffering of others, more aggressive towards others, and less active.

 

Many researchers believe that there is a definite link between the emerging problem of childhood obesity and excessive TV watching. Watching television is a sedentary activity.

Children who watch television for more than two hours a day are more likely to have an unhealthy diet, are less likely to eat fruit and less likely to participate in physical activity.

They are also more likely to snack on foods that are high in sugar, fat or salt. 

 

Homework, studying, learning and performing at school also suffer from excessive television watching, as stated above. In particular for our senior students, who are 6 weeks away from their final VCE exams, it is paramount that they restrict their TV viewing. Studying and organising their time effectively, and including physical exercise is the essence for success at the final exams. 

 

So what are some of the steps that parents can take to limit the negative impact of excessive TV viewing? Here are some useful tips for parents/guardians/carers:

  • Limit the number of viewing hours. Approximately, an ‘allowance’ of 10 to 12 hours of television viewing per week. Give the child the option as to how to allocate those hours per week, however they cannot be ‘banked’, that is, carried over to other weeks. This restriction on supply tends to make children more discerning in their viewing habits
  • Limit the programs your children watch. As an adult you are in a position to make judgments that some programs are simply inappropriate for children of a particular age. Parents are wise to be guided by the classification of programs suggested in the TV Guide
  • Do not permit television watching during meals. Make this a time when families can discuss the events of the day and matters of common interest, such as friendships, school related topics and other
  • Be a good role model. Don't watch television yourself simply because you don't feel like doing anything else. Also make a point of never leaving the television on for long periods of time
  • With younger children in particular;
  • Watch programs with them
  • Offer alternatives to television. Keep a supply of inexpensive fun things to occupy your children such as craft materials, model kits, origami paper, board games and puzzle books. Having such a supply on hand means you'll always have a reply to the retort that, "there is nothing to do."
  • Consider having a number of TV-free days in each week when the television simply isn't turned on
  • Do not allow children to have a television set in their own bedroom. Where there is a television in the child's room parents cannot exercise any supervision over what is watched or when
  • If a particular program is important to your child, but conflicts with other important things such as meal times, family social occasions or homework, record the program so that it can be watched at a time that best fits in with the family routine
  • Avoid morning television before children go to school. Early morning viewing has an effect on the rest of their day and creates time pressures that are simply not necessary.

Many of the criticisms which apply to excessive watching of television also apply to excessive electronic game playing or mobile phone and social media usage. The same general principles should apply in determining how long children spend on these activities.