A message from Jess Debono
Dohertys Creek P-9 College.
We are over half way through the term and speeding towards the end of the year. It's almost unbelievable when we quantify this as more than 7/8's of the way through 2024!
Our Preps are almost finished their first year of primary school. When they first arrived, they were tiny people in what would've been a huge school. They've learnt to read, write, manipulate numbers, make friends and play games and navigate the yard, with much older and larger people. Next year, they will be the bigger people, for a new set of tiny preps.
Our Year 9's will leave us in 5 short weeks. When they started with us in 2019, they were fresh faced Grade 4's. Now, they are independent young people, making choices for their own education pathway, asking for educational references and applying for and obtaining paid casual employment in our local area.
Our teachers, as always, are busy in classrooms with their programs. Term 4 adds an extra layer of assessments and collaboration as we move towards semester reporting - exams, benchmarking conferences, writing moderation pieces, common assessment tasks and using questioning techniques and other formative assessment strategies to complete data walls. Students are planning to share their learning through our Celebrations of Learning and our performing arts team has been busy teaching and preparing for both videoed and live performances as part of their curriculum. The camping program has been a highlight for Grades 4-5 at Camp Sunnystones, on onsite we've held our Prep Breakfast and the Year 1 Stay Late.
Year 9 students have progressed their transition towards senior secondary schools. Year 6 students will take part in their transition this term, with Statewide Step Up day locked in for Tuesday 10th December, where grade 6 students in all public schools across Victoria 'step up' to Year 7. At our school, all secondary students will step up to their 2025 year level on this day.
Our Primary students will step up on Tuesday 17th December. We have spent time as PLCs planning for 2025 class groups, whilst the leadership team have been looking at placement of classes in the spaces across the school. The principal group have begun working on and will shortly finalise our Annual Implementation Plan, which outlines our Learning and Wellbeing targets, indicators for success and implementation plan. There is a lot of work to be done!
Meanwhile, our students are blissfully unaware of the sprint towards the end of year! It has been wonderful touring classrooms and walking through the yard. Whilst families might be a touch tired and ready for the end of year and the Christmas holiday season, there is no sense of tiredness from our young people. The yard and classrooms are bustling with energy and focussed learning. Whether this be our secondary students revising for their exams which have taken place this week, or our budding inquirers in the younger levels finding out about history, researching community or creating indigenous gardens and exploring sustainable practices.
We are incredibly proud of the work we've done in 2024. We're not finished yet, but it is important to pause, take stock, reflect on and celebrate each student, teacher and group. Thank you families for your continued work with our staff. Our community is a village and we are so grateful to be a part of it and share in your child's journey.