Principal Report
Term 2 Reflection
Although Term 2 has been our longest term this year (11 weeks), the time has flown by! The term has been filled with some excellent opportunities for our students, including Athletics Day, ANZAC Day March, the annual Music Festival, Junior/Intermediate/Senior Sport, Outdoor Education Camp, VCE Careers Expo, Pathways Information Night, numerous excursions and incursions, Year 10 Work Experience Week, Cross Country, Year 9 Camp, Exam Week….the list goes on. As previously communicated, the term also had some sad news with Ms Leonie McGinley passing away. Although extremely sad news, the situation exemplified the community spirit and support that staff, students and families provided one another during this challenging time.
School Values
As part of the implementation of becoming recognised as a School Wide Positive Behaviour (SWPB) school, I'm pleased to announce that we have made significant progress in reviewing and refining our School Values - the first phase of SWPB implementation. As many of you will know, we have sought input and feedback from parents, students, and staff to confirm the values of Koo Wee Rup Secondary College. Although we have some further work to do to define the values and update the material on our website and around the college, I'm excited to announce that our three values will be Connection, Growth, and Respect.
There was a strong emphasis on each of these three values throughout the review process and our next steps as a college will be to develop a SWPB behaviour matrix that will help define what our values will look like in action.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved in this important process.
Preparation for School Review
Thank you to staff, students, and parents/carers who contributed feedback in preparation for our School Review next term. The information provided highlighted both our areas of strength as a college and our areas of focus. This information will help inform the review process in Term 3 and the development of our next four-year Strategic Plan.
Safe and Orderly Learning Environment
Over the past term, all teachers at KWRSC have participated in several professional learning sessions about how to support our students best to behave appropriately in a classroom and allow for greater and more impactful learning. The big idea we have explored is that ‘Behaviour is a Curriculum’ and should be taught, like any other subject. Additionally, we have delved into the science of learning, notably Sweller’s Cognitive Load Theory, which looks at the working memory and how learning happens. The work was informed by educational theory, Tim McDonald’s Classroom Mastery and a visit to Rosebud Secondary College (who have achieved great success in implementing Routines and teaching the behaviour curriculum), and the work of Tom Bennett (OBE) who is an independent advisor to the UK government on behaviour management in schools.
With this in mind, we have created a set of very clear expectations for how students need to behave when entering the classroom (Entry Routine) how students need to behave when a teacher asks for the class’ attention (Cue to Start Routine) and how students need to behave when packing up and leaving the classroom (Exit Routine).
From Day 1 of Term 3, all students from Year 7-12 will practice these routines with each of their teachers, in each and every class. The aim is for these routines to become a habit. Doing so frees up students’ working memory or their ‘bandwidth’ and allows for deeper subject-based learning to occur, as the brain has ‘room’ to focus on this, rather than being clogged up with what behaviours to do, class to class, teacher to teacher, at various key points in the lesson. The benefit we foresee will be a calmer and safer learning environment, better opportunities for more focused and deeper learning, and a consistent school-wide approach known to all members of the College. If parents are interested in seeing an example of the approach in practice you can take a look at this short clip: Rosebud Secondary College ABC 7:30 Report
A reminder that students need to attend school in their correct school uniform and bring all required learning materials to class. Change of Semester has occurred and so students will need to ensure they have the correct learning materials for these classes. Students should bring their laptop to each class, as well as learning materials including exercise books, textbooks, pencil case and other subject specific learning materials (such as calculators). The College very much appreciates parents and guardians’ support in ensuring students bring these materials to school.
I hope that families enjoy the upcoming break and look forward to Term 3.