Principal's Report

Year 9 Future Makers

Our Year 9 Future Makers have been gone for a week now, with the rest of this week taken up with completing their journey, an extended camp out that often pushes the students out of their comfort zone while still being supported, and then reflection on what they were able to achieve individually, as well as being part of a group on their journey. Due to the poor weather conditions, the Bogong staff decided to delay the start of the of journey. It is often in these types of situations that personal growth is achieved. The supportive team of staff at Outdoor School – Bogong, along with our school staff that assist, are there to help the students recognise these amazing moments in their life, which can often be life changing. Why do I believe in the Future Makers program and why it is so important for our Year 9s? Our students need to see that they make their own future. How great it can be is up to them.

Conferences (formerly Parent-Teacher Interviews)

Conferences are being held on Wednesday 13th, from 4 – 7pm. Bookings can be made through Compass so you can talk to your child’s teachers about their progress so far this term. If you are unable to book a time, you are always welcome to call school or email the teacher directly.

Casual dress day this Friday

Our traditional casual dress day on the last day of term is a fundraiser to support the Bali Street Mums project, but this year, will also support the Dederang-Mount Beauty Under 14s Football team, who will be facing their final game on the weekend. Students who come out of uniform must bring a gold coin, collected in Home Groups, and can wear red and black to support our local team, or their own team’s colours. Students who don’t want to pay can wear full uniform.

Year 12 Practice Exams

In this last week of term, our Year 12s are facing practice exams in all their subjects, however these ones are different from past experiences, in that they reflect the actual exam that the students will be facing in just a few short weeks. Few students have ever practiced sitting a 3 hour long English exam or sitting both parts of a Maths exam under exam conditions and this practice was considered beneficial for the students. While many students will be relaxing over the holiday break, our Year 12s will be using much of this time for exam revision, as they realistically have about 6 weeks of their high schooling left.

As Year 12 parents, be aware that your child may have elevated stress levels, but make sure they have some balance over these holidays; while there needs to be study, there also needs to be some rest.

NAPLAN results

Our Year 7 to 9 students performed quite well when compared to similar schools and other schools in our network. While the system of reporting has now changed to look at performance levels ranging from exceeding, strong, developing and needs additional support, these ratings will help, in time, to be able to see the performance of students against the curriculum. I’d like to congratulate the Primary Schools for their efforts, as the majority of the Year 7 results are based on the last 7 years of their education in primary schools.

The areas that compared well against similar schools are reading and grammar and punctuation (for both year levels), spelling, grammar and punctuation and numeracy for Year 7s and grammar and punctuation for Year 9s.

An area that could be improved are writing for both year levels. This supports the school’s Write to Learn strategy that was formed as an action in the 2023 Annual Implementation Plan (AIP), designed to improve writing, that teachers will be trialling until the end of this term. 

Well done, and thank you, to the teachers for their work and preparation with the students. Further analysis of the data will be shared in later newsletters.