From the Assistant Principal

Teaching and Learning

We have a focus on improving outcomes for students in writing and reading this year at the college.

The Our English KLA leader, Justine Douglas, has been leading the focus on improving the writing skills of students across the school. A particular focus has been at Year 7. These students have been working on the Six Traits of Writing program, which helps develop different facets of student writing. The experience of other schools that have employed this program shows that it provides a strong foundation for writing in the later years of schooling. Our teachers often moderate student writing together to improve the quality of written work. We are hosting our network of schools to moderate writing later this term so as to develop greater consistency of teaching the skills of writing from primary to secondary level.

Michael Kelty, our literacy leader, has been working with our teachers on ensuring that our students’ reading skills are enhanced. We are using a reading strategy that enhances the ability of students to be discerning and intuitive readers. This is particularly important when reading exam questions. The reading program seeks to develop the following skills;

• Predicting
• Questioning
• Determining Importance
• Connecting
• Visualising
• Inferring and clarifying
• Summarising

Reporting

Our new model of reporting seeks to provide more regular information to parents about student progress. For Year 12 students we provide progress reports every three weeks. For Years 7-11 we send out provide progress reports every 6 weeks. Assessment task results in first semester are found under ‘Assignments and tasks’ on Xuno. You need to click on ‘More’ so that semester 1 subjects appear under the semester 2 subjects. The Victorian Curriculum levels for Years 7-10 appear under ‘Reports’ and is a one page document giving the curriculum level at which your child is operating.

In response to feedback from parents, this semester we will place Assessment Task results on the same page as the Victorian Curriculum levels so that parents do not have to navigate to somewhere else to obtain this.  Year 11 and 12 students will also find Assessment Tasks under the ‘Report’ tab in a PDF document on Xuno rather than in ‘Assignments and Tasks’.

Parent-Teacher Interviews

Parent-Teacher interviews will be on the following dates. You will be able to book appointments on Xuno a week prior to each date. We look forward to discussing your child’s progress.

Years 10-12 - Thursday 31st August 2.15pm – 6.30pm

Years 7-9 - Tuesday 19th September 2.30pm – 7.15pm

Uniform Sub Committee

The Uniform Sub Committee is continuing to meet regularly. Currently we are seeking to make a recommendation to school council that we include a waterproof jacket on the uniform list. We are also collecting photos to display on our website and promotional material to make the uniform requirements clearer to our community. Please contact me if you are interested in joining the sub-committee.

Nick Hamer-Smith

Assistant Principal