Assistant Principals' Reports

Upcoming Exams

Our Year 10 and 11 students are currently finalising assessment tasks, and embarking on study and revision activities as they head towards their semester exams.   Parents and carers can log in to Compass to see their child’s current progress on their assessment tasks.

Teachers have been creating exam guides for their classes and posting these documents as an amber chronicle, so that parents and students can see what skills and knowledge will be covered on the exam, and what they should be reading over as they study and revise.  The exam guides should be visible for Year 11 subjects and will become available for Year 10 students in the next few days, due to Year 11 exams starting earlier than Year 10 exams.

Year 10 students also had a guest speaker come in last week to discuss the importance of motivation and preparation for the upcoming exams.  This was a very positive experience for the students.  The guest speaker was lively, and also had a DJ accompany him, which kept the students very engaged in the message that he was delivering.

Year 10 maths

Year 10 maths team, under the leadership of Brad Gibbs (Maths Improvement leader), has been working on a project to support differentiation in the Year 10 mathematics classrooms. 

Curriculum achievement standards have been analysed against VCE math pathways, with particular areas prioritised.  This has enabled goal setting to create a developmental program which has increased staff collaboration and to promote student learning growth.

Skills have been broken up into short 3 week units, and placed on a learning continuum to create a clear learning pathway.  “I can” statements have been used to break the curriculum into digestible chunks.  

Assessment rubrics were created using the maths competencies.  Further skills rubrics were developed, with links of resources for students to access to demonstrate their competency.

An example of a developmental rubric using the maths competencies can be seen below.  This rubric is uploaded on the students Learning tasks on Compass after a pre-test, and post test:

Students have a master class, where a lesson is delivered to all classes simultaneously in EPAC.  Students are then directed to the lesson plan on their compass dashboard where they can access tasks at their level (as indicated from the pre-test developmental rubric):

This allows for choice in activities, which students have been enjoying.

Teachers run mini lessons through classes, where they gather small groups of students together, to support skill development.

Students collaborate together as they work towards providing the evidence of their skill development and competencies.  They then gather and upload their evidence to the Compass Learning Task through using the webcam on their laptop. 

After the first 3 week unit, the average achievement on the pre-test increased from 58% to 71%.  This is also an average growth of 1.5 years growth for this topic, which is a fantastic improvement in learning growth.

Janine McMahon - Assistant Principal

Covid-19 snap lockdown – again

Well, here we are again. Back to remote learning. It is important as parents and carers to support your young people with their class work. We can do this in a number of ways, giving them a physical space to complete their learning, offering support for their tasks, allowing them to connect with others while they work, the list goes on. We have done this before and what works for one young person may not be the same for another. 

Wellbeing during Covid-19 snap lockdown

If your young person or one of their friends is experiencing difficulties during lockdown, there are a range of ways that they can receive support. Our Wellbeing department has put a list of potential supports on Compass for young people to access. Please help them reach out if they need support.

National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week

At Emerald Secondary College we support National Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week. This year National Sorry Day was held on Wednesday 26th May and Reconciliation week is then held from Thursday 27th May – Thursday 3rd June. Every May 26 in Australia, National Sorry Day reminds us of the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In 2001, Reconciliation Australia was established to continue to provide national leadership on reconciliation. In the same year, approximately 300,000 people walked across Sydney Harbour Bridge as part of National Reconciliation Week - and subsequently across bridges in cities and towns - to show their support for reconciliation. Today, National Reconciliation Week is celebrated in workplaces, schools and early learning services, community organisations and groups, and by individuals Australia-wide. 

Photos

School photos have been delivered to the school and handed out to students. This process took a little longer than we would have liked mostly due to Covid. Any students who were absent will be given their photos when we return to face to face learning. If there are any problems, please contact the photo company directly. 

Buildings Grounds and OHS

• Work is continuing on the new car park behind EPAC. This was started late last year. This will create valuable spaces for our Year 12 students to use.
• A ramp is being created to access the lower basketball courts, this will make a big difference to the current slope of the hill being used to get to the court.
• The front garden near the admin carpark has been cleaned up. We will be planting Emerald Star Bush in this area along with some native grasses for protection.
• New furniture is being ordered for 4 classrooms to remove old and damaged tables and to upgrade seating.

Jonathon Rogers - Assistant Principal