Learning & Teaching
Term 1 Learning and Teaching highlights include:
- Over 500 of our Year 7 and 9 students completed a NAPLAN test, and we look forward to the results coming out next term.
- Learning growth and achievement awards for our Year 7 and 8 students.
- Open night - we had great weather and a great turnout for our Open Night event last week. It was an opportunity to showcase the facilities, programs, opportunities and learning environment we offer at the college. Parents were very positive about the evening and their children were so engaged that they could not get them to leave. Thanks to our wonderful staff for the effort they put into making the evening such a success.
- Academic Review Conferences - High participation and engagement from students in these term 1 conferences - students yet to complete their ARC goals need to do so and send them to their ARC mentors. These will appear in Maestro next term.
- Maestro – all the rubrics from 7-12 are now in the Maestro Dashboards together with some additional displays for learning growth.
High Expectations & Explicit Instruction
A core group of our leaders have participated a short Course at La Trobe university on explicit instruction and the latest research science on how students learn. This work has helped us to reimagine our instructional model with a tight focus on well-designed curriculum that strips out reductant information and helps students focus on the important concepts and skills.
This model will be launched with staff and students next term alongside professional development for teachers around practices that maximise student cognitive engagement and learning. We are also developing a Wantirna College Learning model for our students to complement the instructional model, making it clear to students what's required on them at each stage.
A group of leaders including Carrie and I, visited Rosebud Secondary College last Friday to observe how they have implemented core learning routines into every class, for entering and exiting class, questioning and getting students attention. We have had similar routines at the College for some time now and are looking forward to adding more precision and consistency with how they are used next term based on our observations of their use at Rosebud.
Research evidence in Australia and overseas shows that when teachers maintain high expectations of student engagement, learning outcomes improve for every student regardless of their starting point. We know that it is important to teach and reinforce high expectations every day, not only by telling students to do something, but showing them how to do it and allowing them opportunities to practise (Bennett, 2020). This will be front, and centre of the professional development work we do with staff next term.
Preparing for Term 2
The most successful learners are those who come to class on time, prepared for learning, with all the equipment they require to engage meaningfully in the lesson - a fully charged laptop, fully equipped pencil case (pens, pencils, sharpener, ruler, calculator), access to the learning platforms (E.G. Mathspace, Education Perfect and Edrolo), workbooks, and textbooks (as required).
As parents you can support our strong focus on high expectations by ensuring that your child has the right equipment (workbook, calculator, pencil case, textbooks) for every lesson, they get to school on time with their laptops charged and that that they have purchased the textbooks. It is also important that students wear the correct uniform. If you are having financial challenges and need support to purchase equipment, please contact Peter Cameron (Business Manager) or Sanela Avdic (Student Wellbeing).
Library News
We welcome Neang Cao to the library next term for term 2. Neang is an experienced librarian who is replacing Jo Montgomery who is on LSL in Europe for Term 2 (lucky Jo!)
Natalie Manser
Assistant Principal
mar@wantirnacollege.vic.gov.au