Learning  

Dear Parents /Guardians,

At the end of Term 1, I would like to congratulate the students and teachers in what they have achieved over the past 8 weeks. It has been a short, but very busy term, where students have been involved many rich experiences both in their subjects and through the wide variety of co-curricular activities. 

Feedback for Parents and Students

Term 1 Progress Reports are now available to families on Compass. These reports reflect a student's approach to learning. Separate to the Approaches to Learning, feedback and results from assessments can be found in the Learning Tasks section on Compass as well as the attendance percentage for each subject. Some parents may have also received communication from teachers with grade notifications or notification of homework not been submitted. 

If students are struggling with completing work or performing to their best of their ability, I encourage you to speak with their subject teachers during Student Parent Teacher Conferences next term or contact their mentor group teacher for some strategies. You may also refer to some of the tips for learning from the newsletters this term. Below I also detail what students can do to maintain continuity of learning if they are absent. 

Understanding Progress Reports

At the College, we acknowledge that students are of various academic ability levels and will have different expectations and goals in terms of results. However, we expect all students to strive to be the very best they can be and have high expectations in their approach to learning. 

Overall our students work well and do everything that they are asked to do by the teachers and we are proud of this.  The majority of our students are doing this and they and will be marked as ‘Usually’ in their approaches to learning. 

However, in order to be the very best versions of themselves and achieve success, we are challenging our young people to go beyond what is asked and to do the extra ten percent. We hope for our students to be proactive in their learning by seeking out further opportunities to extend or consolidate their knowledge and skills, doing extra revision, preparation or study in addition to set classwork and homework, trying different study techniques, asking thoughtful questions, being self reflective on their own learning and using feedback to improve whilst also providing feedback to others and working with others to improve.  Students who are going over and above and doing this will be marked as ‘Consistently’.

I challenge each and encourage all students to strive to be the best version of themselves and to look for opportunities to be a better learner. 

Tips for Learning and Lesson Plans 

In previous newsletters, I have referred to the importance of homework, Homework Club and Homework Guidelines for Year 7 – 12 which can be found in the college planner. I also described ‘spaced practice’ which is a highly effective way for students to remember what they have learned and retained knowledge. 

All teachers are now sharing the Learning Intention and Success Criteria of the lessons and units with students in the Lesson Plans on Compass. Having the Success Criteria available to students encourages students to take ownership and responsibility for their learning.  

Students can now list the Success Criteria for each lesson and use this as a guide for their spaced practice. Students should record the success criteria and use these to check for understanding on the day of learning, again on the next day, then again at the end of the week, then one week later and once more a couple of weeks later.  The holidays also provide a further opportunity for students to revisit the learning intentions from this term and ensure they feel confident about what they have learned this term.

When students are absent, they should be referring to the lesson plans on Compass and complete the learning they have missed prior to the previous lesson so they do not have gaps in their learning. It is the student’s responsibility to catch up with work they have missed.  

Year 7 and 9 NAPLAN Testing

Thank you to all Year 7 and 9 students for their engagement in NAPLAN, we look forward to receiving their results later in the year. Thank you also to all staff involved and in particular to Mr John Andritsos for his organisation in preparing and running NAPLAN so that it ran smoothly for students. 

If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact me.

I wish you all a Happy Easter and safe holidays.

Ms Lucy Neil

Deputy Principal, Learning & Teaching