Vision for Learning
Senior Years Review
The Senior Years Review Team has been meeting now for over a year and some future directions are starting to become clearer. We have run a parent breakfast opportunity and several student workshops to further hone our thinking. These ideas in conjunction with staff feedback are currently key to Management Team discussions. Thank you to all who contributed so far – from our student, parent and staff bodies. Stay tuned for more opportunities to be involved!
Sandra Barry
Director of Learning
NAPLAN 2019
NAPLAN has now been completed for another year. This was the first time that such a large percentage of schools nationwide completed the sessions this way. While we did notice some minor connection issues and you may have heard about some issues from the media, our experience overall was overwhelmingly positive. The technology worked well with few glitches and when the glitches did occur we knew how to fix them.
Of particular note was the behaviours of the students in Years 7 and 9. Students were patient, respectful of others, prompt and tried their very best in each session.
As parents you might be aware of the places that that our NAPLAN information is shared such as the My Schools website. This information gives the public a snapshot idea of a school’s performance on one day. To us as a school the most useful information is the information that we can use to inform improved student learning. The data we receive allows us to analyse how individual students, year levels, classes, and cohorts achieved both this year and in comparison to previous years. While not all information is relevant to our practice, many elements give clear indications of where student strengths and challenges occur. We can for example check the progress of students in their ability to take key information from a text. This enables teachers to target particular areas to ensure well rounded literacy and numeracy students. At home, you might like to look at the fine data to see how much your student has improved in various areas over time. It is possible for a student to be in the same range as previously but to have improved in key areas quite significantly. This can be a cause for celebration! A big thank you to all Year 7 and 9 students for their exemplary behaviour and to their teachers who volunteered to be trained in the administering of the tests.
Share-a-Career
Last year, some very successful Share–a-Career Sessions were run with Year 10 students. Thank you to all those who have replied with offers of support. We are now at the stage of putting together the program and negotiating times. There are a few other occupations that our Year 10 students wanted to hear about and so if you fit into one of these occupations we would love to hear from you too. The occupations are: Nutritionist, Lawyer, Banking/Finance industry, Psychologist, Interior Designer. A volunteer would need to be willing to dedicate approximately one hour of their time during a school day at the start of August. Volunteers would be part of a group who could offer Year 10 students a real-world insight into the ways in which school subjects are applied in their careers and a summary of the pathway they took to this career.
If you are willing to offer your time or know someone who might, please can you contact me at the College and I will pass your details to the students involved (sandra.barry@endeavour.sa.edu.au or 83683311). Thank you in advance for your involvement!
Sandra Barry
Director of Learning