The Arrow

From the Senior School Assistant Principal 

Ella Price

Senior School Programs in 2024

We are excited to share our 2024 Senior School programs with our Auburn community. In 2024 Year 11 students will either complete our VCE, VCE (Vocational Major) or our International Baccalaureate program. The design of these three programs is below to support our current Year 10 students to understand what their 2024 programs will look like. These have been designed in response to student subject selections, shaping each program to best cater for our students next year. Students in Year 7-9 can strengthen their understanding of our Senior School programs by reviewing the 2024 structures in preparation for future decisions in their course counselling.

Students and families can direct questions around our programs to myself or Peter Ryan (Leading Teacher - Curriculum 10-12).

 

 

Reflecting on Term 3

We have been using the Locus of Control this week to support students to:

  1. reflect on their Term 3 progress 
  2. set goals that they can control 

At this point of the term and year students can tend to focus a large amount of their energy and time on things that they can’t control. This can create a sense of frustration as they worry over their late bus or a situation their friend might be in. We are encouraging our Senior School students to focus initially on their own thoughts, actions and decisions at school, supporting them to grow individually before the end of their 2023 program. 

 

Today are our final Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences for the year. We thank our families for booking in and protecting time to meet with our teachers to discuss this child’s progress. 

Using our Term 3 Learning Behaviour data we are pleased to see our three year levels with an average over our benchmark of 6.0. This demonstrates consistency across our students and an aspiration to demonstrate our outlined learning behaviours. Furthermore, I am happy to see Respects the rights of others to learn as our highest criteria as the Senior School with students arriving on time, following teacher instructions, respecting opinions or beliefs of others and conducting themselves safely in the classroom.

 

 

We have identified that our Senior School students would benefit from strengthening the areas of Completes required work and Works productively in class. These two criteria complement each other and so a targeted approach is likely to see improvement in both areas. Below are some goals that we provide to students as samples in their My Learning Growth documents. We encourage families to review these with their child so that they can see what their child has selected for their goals for this term, supporting you to support them to enact these in the coming weeks.

 

Completes required work:

  • I will plan out my week and prioritise homework that is due the next day.
  • I will finish all my CATs/SACs.
  • I will submit my CATs/SACs on time. 
  • I will review the CAT/SAC calendar weekly to check that I know what tasks are due.
  • I will ask for help when I struggle to complete my homework so that I can try and complete it all. 
  • I will complete and submit all Snapshot Tasks by the due date.
  • I will submit work as soon as it is complete and seek extension tasks to strengthen my understanding.

Works productively in class:

  • I will go to the bathroom at recess/lunch so maximise productivity in class. 
  • I will sit with peers that support me to use class time productively.
  • If I have not finished my class work, I will let the teacher know. If I need help to complete it, I will ask questions before the class is over.
  • I will start my work in class without the teacher having to prompt me.
  • I will make sure my workbook is organised, with a title and subheadings for each lesson. I will use coloured pens and highlighters for key points to help prompt me. 
  • If I finished all application tasks I will ask the teacher for extension work, rather than getting distracted with peers or on my laptop.

Trial examinations for Units 3 & 4 subjects

Year 11 & 12 students who study a Unit 3&4 subject will have a trial examination in the second week of the holidays (Monday 25th - Thursday 28th September).

This is a compulsory part of our program for these subjects and supports students to sit a full examination for their subjects in VCAA conditions. Teachers will use these exams to target their final teaching at the beginning of Term 4 as well as to determine indicative grades for VCAA.

Students on the Central Australia Trip will complete their exam on the Thursday. 

The trial examination timetable will be released shortly on Compass and students will be briefed in their Wednesday study period next week with further details.