Assistant Principals' Report

Term 3 Student-Led Conferences

Student-led conferences (SLCs) will be conducted online on Thursday 26th August.

In the coming weeks, your child will be preparing for their upcoming student-led conferences. Your child has been collecting information about their learning and preparing to present to you these efforts and achievements. The purpose of these conferences is for your child to lead the conversations, reflecting on their progress and identifying areas for improvement.

There will be no classes on August 26th. Students from Year 7 to 12 are expected to attend online conferences with their parents/carers. Teachers will contact your child through MS Teams at the time you book on Compass.

You can expect the following things to happen during your child’s conference:

1. Your child will start and lead the conversation with the subject teacher.
2. Your child will discuss their successes and challenges with the subject teacher and parents/carers.
3. They should have their version of the ‘2021 My Learning Portfolio’ Powerpoint saved to their desktop AND uploaded to the Compass learning task with the same name.
4. The teacher will provide some feedback or strategies to help assist their learning.
5. Your child is advised to make a note of these comments.
6. In their first DiSCovery lesson after the conferences, students will be finalising and summarising their learning goal(s) for each subject and discussing their personal and social capabilities with their DiSCovery teacher.

You can book appointments for August 26th, 7.30am to 8pm:

Bookings open at 9am on August 18th and close at 9pm on August 23rd.

Families are encouraged to book appointments via Compass (see image below). It is recommended that you do this with your child, so they are aware of the schedule. Once all bookings have been made, please provide the schedule to your child. 

How can I support this process?

• Look at grades and comments on flagged Compass Learning Tasks.
• Ask questions of your child if you do not understand something.
• Review your child’s ‘2021 My Learning Portfolio’ Powerpoint and ‘My Personal Learning Goals’ worksheet
• Let your child discuss their improvement strategies with you. Encourage them to reach their goal(s) for each subject.
• After your child has led you through the conference, the teacher will answer any questions you might have.

Do you need an interpreter?

Information about the Student-led conferences is provided in Mandarin in the following attachment.

Information about the SLC process and Compass booking instructions have been provided in Persian in the attachments following.

Persian families can view the following video which covers the process for parents of booking a Parent Teacher Conference:

Booking Parent Teacher Conference

You can book Chinese and Persian interpreters when you make teacher bookings on Compass. If other interpreters are required, please contact the college. Please make booking as early as possible to allow us time to organise interpreter. Teachers have the power to make bookings for students; however, students need to let teachers know their request.

Thank you for all the cooperation in this matter, and we look forward to seeing families on August 26th.

Gary Rule

Assistant Principal

School Improvement Team

Please find a report from our student representatives, Sarah C. and Abbey M.

The School Improvement Team is made up of students, leading staff and teacher representatives from the school. The team meets 3 times a term to monitor school programs and what we can do to improve. 

Doncaster Secondary College’s School Strategic Plan is in its review year, and we are evaluating the progress towards our goals over the last four years. At our School Improvement Team meeting on Wednesday 28th July, we focused on student voice; what the students are enjoying around the school and what things we could add to create a better learning environment. 

The student representatives on the School Improvement Team presented information that they collected, via a survey on Compass, that was completed by 450 students across years 7 -12. 

We presented a summary of the highlights to the SIT team and discussed what we could consider as opportunities for improvement from all the student’s opinions. Our highlights were split between Student Voice and Leadership, and Co-curricular activities. Some of the highlights that were mentioned at our meeting included: Camps, Sporting Opportunities, Student Voice, and extra opportunities. While these were the main standouts, there were many more highlights from the students.

After discussing the highlights and achievements as indicated by the survey results, we moved onto where we would like to go in the next 4 years, with a focus on the student perspective. It was interesting to see what students want changed in the school and think about ways to implement these changes. It was really good to hear from the student body about their outlook on how the school is run, and how we can improve the school over the next four years.

More to come.

Belinda McGee

Assistant Principal