Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching and Learning 

Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching and Learning

Student Forums

Student forums are currently taking place, with Year 7 and 8 forums now complete. Student forums offer an opportunity for students to provide feedback to staff about their learning.  Two of our student leaders are running these forums, Tilly and Orlando, with Year’s 9-12 to take place later this week.  Increasing student voice and agency is a key improvement strategy in our schools Annual Implementation Plan.

Student agency refers to the level of autonomy and power that a student experiences in the learning environment.  Student voice and agency are intrinsically linked.  Agency gives students the power to direct and take responsibility for their learning, creating independent and self-regulating learners. (education.vic.gov.au)

Some of the key questions asked, were:

1.   What has been the best thing about the start to 2022 for you?
2.   How has the change to period structure affected your day/learning? 
3.   What are the benefits to home groups in 2022? 
4.   How does your teacher introduce their learning intention and success criteria?
5.   How does the Learning intention and success criteria support your learning? 

Once these forums are complete, we will be reflecting on the feedback as a staff, as it gives a profound insight into the effectiveness of our some of our current focuses.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN is an annual assessment for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It tests the types of skills that are essential for every child to progress through school and life. The tests cover skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy. The assessments are undertaken every year in the second full week in May.

NAPLAN Online

All NAPLAN test are online this year, replacing the traditional hand written tests. NAPLAN Online provides a better assessment, more precise results and is more engaging for students. 

NAPLAN Online is a tailored test that adapts to student responses, presenting students with questions that may be more or less difficult – resulting in better assessment and more precise results. (nap.edu.au)

To ensure the smooth implementation of online tests for such a significant number of students at once, there is a test day for NAPLAN tests on Thursday 24th March.

Woodmans Hill classes selected for testing are:

By going through this process in advance, it ensures that the NAPLAN testing day later in the year is efficient and offers the best opportunity for our students to do their best and have authentic assessment.

For further guidance on NAPLAN, please visit https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/faqs

Steve Sirrals