Principals Report

Connecting with families

Thank you to the many families who have taken the opportunity to connect and link with us over the first few weeks of the year. Our recent Success Integrated session was well supported by families and aimed to ensure that the valuable information provided to students about achieving success was available to parents to support their efforts in guiding and supporting their son or daughter.

Our work in this space continued this week with an extremely popular Year 7 Family BBQ Night. It was great to welcome many of our new families to the College and we look forward to a long and successful partnership with you.

Expectations of students

At the start of the school year we have been working with students to establish some high expectations for student life at the College. These expectations relate to student learning, student behaviours and student interactions within the College. As a school we would greatly appreciate your support as parents in regards to the following:

Student Mobile Phones – All students are now expected to place their mobile phone in a container on the teachers desk at the start of each lesson. If the teacher requires students to use their mobile device for learning then this will be allowed but otherwise students are asked to leave their phone in the container for the duration of the lesson. Previous years have shown us that students with mobile devices disadvantage both their own learning and the learning of others around them. In an effort to minimise distractions and ensure all students have the opportunity to reach their learning potential this new system has been introduced.
Being prepared to learn – One of the best things that our students can do each day is come to class prepared and ready to learn. The first element of this is arriving on time and the second component is making sure that they have all the required materials ready to learn. Please support your son or daughter to be ready to learn by encouraging their punctuality and ensuring they have all the required materials for school each day.
Sunsmart – The facts about damaging UV rays are well known and supported by a wealth of research and evidence. We don’t want your son or daughter to experience the dangerous side effects of prolonged exposure to damaging UV rays and as such ask that each student has a broad brimmed hat for school each day. Hats are available from the College and in an effort to make this an easy one for all students, any type of broad brimmed hat is acceptable.

Student Attendance

One of our aims as a College is to ensure that we support each student to make the most of their time with us. The easiest way to achieve this is by ensuring our students are attending school regularly. Our aim in 2018 is for each student in the school to have a minimum attendance rate of 90%. Parents will be supported with this through regular communication in regards to students absences. Please support us by ensuring that your son or daughter is at school every day, unless of course they are unwell and unable to attend. Data from across the state shows that on average a secondary school student has 17 days absent each year, so it is definitely not out of reach for us to achieve a 90% attendance rate.

Remember, we have a range of staff at the College to support students and parents with attendance, so please do not hesitate in contacting us if regular school attendance is an issue for your family.

Student Achievements

Did you know that each week we see hundreds of fantastic achievements from your children?

We know that secondary school students do not always come home and share the great things that they are doing or achieving whilst at school. So to assist you with this we are asking teachers to start recording students achievements on Xuno each day. Parents can stay up to date with student achievements, attendances, daily schedules and more via our College Xuno Portal. Our Portal can be found at https://portal.mcguireco.vic.edu.au/

Please make use of the attached information sheet or contact our College office for more information.

Maths Pathways

We are delighted to announce that McGuire College has received a generous donation to help us introduce a new maths learning model called Maths Pathway. The funding has been delivered through a partnership between SC Johnson, a family company that markets leading household brands such as KIWI® and WINDEX® and has a history of supporting education, and charity Schools Plus. It will support our use of Maths Pathway for Year 7 students from February 2018.

Over the course of 2018, we aim to increase students engagement and achievement levels in Mathematics.

Our new staff at McGuire College

Over the next few editions of the newsletter we will introduce you to some of the new faces around the College. Please take the opportunity to welcome our new staff.

Kind regards

Brad Moyle

Principal

Cassandra O'Keeffe

Art/Photography

Kristena Reynolds

Maths, Science, Digital Technology Teacher

Dale Cuthbert

Health, Phys Ed & Outdoor Ed Teacher

Daniel Johnson

Health, HHD, PE, VET Teacher

Nathan Reid

Outdoor Ed, HHD, Pathways Teacher

Joel Male

Integration Aide

School Canteen