What value NAPLAN?
Amy Porter, College Principal
I would like to start by congratulating the wonderful team of students, staff, alumni and parents for producing such an amazing school production - WE WILL ROCK YOU. I acknowledge the hours of hard work and the dedication shown by our students and led by incredible teachers Amy Porter, Matthew Weekes, Prue Slingsby, Heather Fehring, Luke Devenish, Theo Pike, Beth George, Viv McElwee. Thanks also to the school art department. I would particularly like to acknowledge Heather Fehring, an incredible teacher, who is retiring at the end of 2023. Her unseen work on 36 school productions for the College, is truly treasured by our whole community.
A huge thanks to the following parents/alumni:
Harry Brammell
Sara Bayley
Emma Strong
Saber Tang
Alessio Pittau
Michelle Jeavons
Vince Attree
Michael Eather
Arran Bell
Josh Bourke
& all parents who have assisted with canteen, costumes, sets and flower selling.
We are really pleased with our NAPLAN results this year, and I would like to acknowledge the hard work of our teachers and the hard work of our colleagues in the primary school sector, as the Year 7 results are a reflection of their incredible work with students. We are lucky to work in such a positive and academically focused region.
NAPLAN is just one snapshot of students achievement in one year, but it does provide us with invaluable data to target teaching strategies to support individual students and cohorts to make improvements. For us, NAPLAN at Year 9 has been an indicator that programmes such as our reading and math tutoring and ADVANCE literacy programmes do make an impact, with under 10 students falling into the 'needs attention' or lowest testing band for reading and numeracy. NAPLAN has also indicated that we need to do some targeted work on grammar and punctuation in Year 9. I am asking for parental support at home to improve one skill area for our students: Identifies correct use of capital letters for sentence beginnings and proper nouns. This is an issue at both Year 7 and 9 and something that can be easily responded to.
Number of students in the TOP 2 proficiency bands in 2023.
2023 YEAR 7 NAPLAN RESULTS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Domain | Sandringham College | Similar Schools | State |
| Reading | 87% | 83% | 66% |
| Writing | 76% | 75% | 60% |
| Spelling | 82% | 81% | 69% |
| Numeracy | 83% | 80% | 63% |
| Grammar and Punctuation | 76% | 75% | 58% |
2023 YEAR 9 NAPLAN RESULTS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
DOMAIN | Sandringham College | Similar Schools | State |
| Reading | 79% | 78% | 60% |
| Writing | 77% | 75% | 58% |
| Spelling | 80% | 82% | 67% |
| Numeracy | 82% | 77% | 60% |
| Grammar and Punctuation | 65% | 70% | 52% |
How can parents assist with GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION.
Below is one key area that we are asking for parent assistance with.
| Skill Description | What can parents do? |
| Identifies correct use of capital letters for sentence beginnings and proper nouns. | Talk to your child about the difference between academic or formal writing used at school and work and informal writing normally found in texting or online messaging.
Remind your child about capital letters at the start of a sentence and a full stop on the end, and that there is no grammar auto-correct in the VCE Exams!
Below is information to assist you that is provided by RMIT University for students. https://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/capital-letters
|
Capital letters
Follow the conventions below for using capital letters in academic writing.
The first word of a sentence or quoted speech
My first essay is due tomorrow. The minister said, ‘That compromise is not justified’.
The pronoun ‘I’
James and I are in the same group.
Abbreviations and acronyms
RMIT, ANZ, USB, DVD, RADAR, ANZAC
Proper nouns (names)
- Names of people and their titles
Example: Jenny, Brian, Mr Nathan Buckley, Professor Margaret Gardiner - Names of specific groups of people, languages, and religions
Example: Australian, Muslim, Asian
Note: Aboriginal and Indigenous are used to refer to Australia’s first peoples. - Names of specific places on a map
Example: Cardigan Street, Sydney Road, New York City, Federation Square - Names of courses and school subjects with numbers
Example: MATH2123 Mathematics and Statistics, Chemistry Unit 3, HUSO2162 Social History of Ideas - Titles: the first, last, and all important words in titles (including books, newspapers, magazines, newspapers, plays, films, stories, songs, art works, television programs)
Example: A Tale of Two Cities, The Age, Mona Lisa, Introduction to Academic Writing - Names of specific geographic areas
Example: South-East Asia, Southern Ocean, East Gippsland, Middle East - Time indicators: names of days, months, special religious days and public events, historical and cultural periods, but NOT the name of seasons.
Example: Monday, Australia Day, November, Mother’s Day, summer, winter, autumn - Names of specific structures
Example: The Great Wall of China, Parliament House, Myer - Names of organisations
Example: Curtin University, Red Cross, Northcote Primary School
Situational Awareness
You may have heard about the stabbing of a student outside of Glen Eira College on Monday afternoon. Vic Police are looking for a group of offenders they believe are behind multiple attacks on school students in Melbourne's south-east. These youths seem to be targeting students for phones/earbuds etc. Too often I watch our students walking home glued to their phones with their earphones in, they are oblivious to their surroundings and to any potential risks. Whilst we don't want to victim blame or to scare children, I do encourage you to talk to your child about situational awareness.
Situational Awareness
1. be aware of the route that they take to and from school - are there any 'risk areas' that they should avoid
2. be aware of what is happening around them as they walk or ride to or from school
3. take note of unfamiliar vehicles or people
4. take note of people who seem aggressive or acting unusually and aim to avoid - cross the street, go into a local shop5. report any concerns to the school or to you as parents
I also encourage parents to report any concerns to the school or Vic Police.
Below is a Youtube video that may support you to have conversations with your child. We will be going through the first 5min in our upsomassembly with our Year 7-9 students.
