Learning & Teaching

Hot Off The Press! 

Semester 2 Student Academic Review Conferences - New Model! 

Over recent years, data from our current student conference model shows limited engagement from parents and students - too low to be effective in improving/influencing student wellbeing and academic outcomes for most of our students. On average just 25% of households have attended the Semester 2 conferences in recent years. Many parents that do attend conferences report finding it challenging to manage the practicalities of multiple bookings for 7 min interviews. 

The aim of our conferences is to have a meaningful and impactful 3-way discussion between parents-students-teachers about learning behaviours, learning progress and future improvements. This cannot be achieved if parents do not attend and if the interviews are too brief to facilitate meaningful dialogue. Often parents hear similar messages from their teachers. 

The Senior School team have had success in the past couple of years with a different model, the Academic Review Conferences for Year 11 and 12 students, and we intend to trial this model across the college next semester. The aim of these conferences is to explore all the available data for students and have deeper discussions about learning behaviours, learning progress and future improvements. Excitingly, the engagement in these conferences has been approximately 95%!

Comparing The Current and New Model

Supervision will be available in the library throughout the day for students who are unable to travel back home.

Developmental Rubrics Term 2

Thanks for your patience whilst we have been updating and improving our Learning Continua and Developmental Rubrics from Year 7-10. We are very pleased to announce that the Developmental Rubrics for Term 2 units of learning are now on Maestro. 

Our rubrics give feedback about the skills and knowledge students are working on and mastering, and what they need to do next. We will need to give teachers and students time to provide their feedback in the rubrics over coming weeks.

Maestro support materials are available to parents and students on Compass through the 'School Resources' tab, where you can find a range of step-by-step guides to help navigate the Developmental Rubrics and the Student Dashboards.

All parents/students in Year 7-10 should have existing accounts and most have activated these accounts. If you are unsure you can find a direct link to Maestro in Compass under the 'Star' icon. Any issues logging in please email me. 

We encourage you to log in and view the Developmental Rubrics that are currently appearing and to explore the Student Dashboard.

Natalie Manser 

Assistant Principal

mar@wantirnacollege.vic.gov.au