Year 9/10

Message from Assistant Principal- Lisa Monaghan

Well done Year 9 and 10’s for getting through your first semester! For our Year 9’s, they’ve just completed their first ever English and Mathematics exams. Year 10’s have been getting more experience with the expectations around exams and how to prepare for them, participating in English, Mathematics, Science and Humanities exams. Students can now breathe a sigh of relief, with the stress of exam study behind them.

This week will see both year levels celebrating various successes of this semester just gone, in year level assemblies. Well done to students who have received RGAR (Respect, Growth, Achievement and Responsibility) awards for going above and beyond, it’s always quite pleasing to see students achieving in various ways, making a difference to themselves and/or those around them.

Year 10 is completing what has been a very term, with their formal on Wednesday night. The leaders have worked hard to make the evening engaging and themed, liaising with staff and communicating with the year level of their ideas. I’m sure the night will be a memorable occasion.

Wishing all students a safe and happy holiday break. Relax, recharge and be prepared and ready to go for Term 3!

Year 9 News

Well done to the Year 9's this Term for successfully completing NAPLAN and Exams, their next exams will be in Term 4. Congratulations, as well, to the Year 9 students who went to the Cranbourne Carlisle Primary School on the 21/6/19 to participate in their Indigenous Day Celebrations. They participated in their Indigenous dancing activities and sporting activities, as well as, reading Indigenous stories to the younger students. They really enjoyed themselves and helped the primary school students gain a better understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture as NAIDOC week is the second week of school holidays.

Year 9's also had their End of Term assembly on Tuesday 25/6/19 where the class captains created the presentation and presented on the day. Four Year 9 students were also invited to speak about their Performing Arts Showcase and two of those students performed beautifully. Teachers also chose Achievement and Effort awards, which were presented and given to students during the assembly. Students with the highest RGAR points in the Year Level and the most value cards given were also given awards and celebrated on the day. Finally, two students created a presentation on Climate Change and presented on the day. They are very passionate about educating others about global warming and the effects of it on our natural world and wanted to tell their fellow peers what they can do to make a difference and change their future.

Year 9's will now have Market Day to look forward to in Term 3 and their city experience at the Queen Victoria Market. A lot of organization and preparation has already been taking place for Market Day and students are excited to host a brilliant and fun day for the school community. More details and information will come in Term 3.

Have a safe school break and look forward to seeing everyone back in term 3, ready and energized for what’s to come!

Year 10 News

Our students have made it through their first semester of year 10 and are edging closer to becoming senior students.

They made it through the stressful time of exam week; where for the first time most students had an exam for the majority of their subjects giving them a taste of what it is like in VCE. Our students have worked hard all semester and we hope to see that reflected in their exam results and reports.

Work experience was a great opportunity for our students to taste what it is like in various fields of the workforce. We have had lots of positive responses from employers about how well our students have comported themselves with some students being offered part-time work or offered continued work experience to help further their chances of employment down the track.

Our students have been participating in a number of events this term across a range of areas including the following:

• GTAC Excursion – selected budding scientists got to explore renowned research centre Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and participate in workshops with students from other schools
• Production – a number of Year 10s are involved in the “We Will Rock You” production and they have been working hard in rehearsals and fundraising for the event which is happening next term!
• Refereeing primary school sporting events – helping out our feeder schools at their Lightening Round Competition
• Shakespeare Day – with amazing live performances form the Bell Shakespeare Company

Our term comes to end with a celebration of our successes at the Year 10 Formal with students getting the chance to dress to impress and let their hair down. Check out next month’s newsletter and Facebook for photos and news of the night.

Mathematics 

Dear parents,

Let’s say that you are using a recipe to make a cake. The first step of the recipe is to cream the sugar and the butter. You have never learnt how to do this or didn’t really understand how to do it when you first learnt it. So, you skip that step and move to the next step instead. When the cake comes out it doesn’t look right or taste right! OR you buy a do-it-yourself book shelf and when you get to a step you don’t know how to do, you skip it and move on to the next step. You put something heavy on the shelf and the shelf collapses because you missed an important step.  

In both examples you need to go back and learn how to do the missed steps, otherwise when you do it again you will get the same result – it won’t work out right.

Mathematics is a bit like making a cake or assembling a bookshelf.  If you don’t not know how to do a step and you leave it out, when you get to the end it won’t work.

At CESC we are trying to take your child back to the part they didn’t know so that the result works.  This will then improve their mathematical understandings, so that they can successfully solve problems in everyday life today and in the future.

For a variety of reasons, students come to our Mathematics classes with different levels of understanding; they are at different stages of learning. Even if they are all in the same year level!

We, the teachers, pre-test the students to see what they already know and what they need to learn.  Then we try to help each student to fill the gaps (or steps) in their learning, so they can use their understandings and follow the right steps towards getting the right end result.  This takes time.

We record the pre-test date on a document like the one in the picture below. We talk to the students about this document.  What do the colours mean? What level are you at right now? What do you already know? What do you need to learn? We let the students look at their results on the document so they understand what it is they need to learn…….to be able to follow the steps. We then plan tasks around these results; they help to inform the teacher of what to teach.

Student growth is what is important here at CESC.  Growth to fill the gaps, growth to improve understandings. Sometimes students show wonderful growth but because they had many gaps in their learning, they still aren’t quite “at standard’.  Despite this, their growth should be celebrated BECAUSE THEY ARE GROWING……..getting closer to greater understanding of the right steps towards the right end result.

If you would like to talk about Mathematics at CESC further, please call 59900200 and ask to talk to Mrs Amanda Werner.  She can even try to arrange a time to meet with you and discuss the colored document in detail.

EXAMPLE: