From the Director of Teaching and Learning K-12

Rostrum Voice of Youth public speaking competition 

The Southern Finals for the 2025 Rostrum Voice of Youth public speaking competition were held at The Friends' School on Saturday 3 May. The College had four competitors, each of whom prepared and delivered a six to eight-minute speech, followed by a three-minute short notice speech. 

In the junior section, Niamh Coomber (Year 7) received an Encouragement Award for a humourous recounting of the Stepping Stones of writing a speech and avoiding the pitfalls of procrastination. 

There were three strong performances in the senior section: Year 10 student Talia Wighton reflected on two defining moments of persistence and kindness that have shaped her life so far; Year 11 student Hal Cormack spoke about the difficulties of change and two inspirational teachers who encouraged them to embrace and cope with it; and Year 10 student Cara Watt’s honest account of her personal experience with coping with change as a person with autism earned her an Encouragement Award for thoroughly capturing the audience’s attention.

Congratulations to Niamh, Talia, Hal and Cara for their hard work and courage.

The Science of Learning workshop

The teaching and learning staff participated in a whole-college workshop on Monday 29 April. This collaborative experience allowed staff to engage with the theory and practices of The Science of Learning. Teachers are readily integrating engagement norms within their classrooms to ensure students are actively involved in the learning process while checking their understanding of taught concepts, knowledge and skills. 

A group of secondary teachers will continue their learning by participating in a workshop run by the Shaping Minds team from Perth on Thursday 8 May at MacKillop College.

Prep to Year 12 reporting changes 

The first reporting cycle occurs in Term 2, with families receiving access to their child’s mid-year report on Connect on Friday 4 July. Catholic Education Tasmania (CET) has been working with schools, principals and educators on a consistent, system-wide approach to reporting. As a result, all direct-funded schools will be moving towards a CET-generated report, with consistent language and formatting. The College will be using this new report for P-12 for both mid-year and end-of-year reports this academic year.

Some significant changes to the report include:

• A two-point scale of ‘Needs Attention’ to ‘Meets Expectations’ for Application to Learning (previously a four-point scale).
• Removal of a classroom or pastoral care comment in favour of a range of Application to Learning indicators.
• Replacement of the St Mary’s brand with a generic CET template.
• Removal of learning area strands.
• Adjusting the approach to Learning Conferences by encouraging all families to attend rather than requesting individuals. There will be no requests for Learning Conferences in the report.

Parents and carers are strongly encouraged to engage with the feedback provided on Connect and at the Learning Conferences to understand their children’s strengths and areas for improvement.

Additional information regarding reports will be communicated later in the term.