From the Principal

Launching “My Learning Growth Tool”

This term we are very excited to launch the “My Learning Growth Tool” with our Year 10 students.  The purpose of the tool is for students to look at their performance data and to reflect and set goals for their next stage of learning.  This tool allows students to input data themselves from recent assessments and reports and the visual graphics created makes it easier to set short, specific goals for their next stage of learning.  Their Tutor Group Teacher and E4L teacher can then access the reports and have discussions with students. Students have been encouraged to share this tool with their parents.

The creation of this tool is meeting our Strategic Plan goal of “empowering our students to become autonomous learners” and the work we are doing is trailblazing.  Later this year we will obtain feedback from our Year 10s on the useability and effectiveness of the tool and introduce it to other year levels as well in 2023. 

I would like to thank Samantha Francis – Leading Teacher Data Driven Practice, who has created the tool, for her outstanding work.  To find out more information about the tool, read the section Samantha has written further in this newsletter.

AHS Working bee

A very big thank you to the parents and teachers who took part in our school’s working bee on Sunday 24 July.  The transformation of the canteen courtyard has been phenomenal, with around 30 helpers turn up on a sunny Sunday morning.  At the start of term, there was still building debris and it was not such an inviting place.  On the day, our volunteers cleared the gardens and grounds around the canteen, weeded garden beds and planted new seedlings and laid tan bark.  

Our students are loving the covered area with the bench seating, the use of the basketball courts and using the seated area to the north of the canteen.

Thank you to the parents, students, and staff who contributed.  A very big thank you to Craig Ots-Maher (Friends of AHS), Alex Goldhagen (AHS School Council) and Kristie Satilmis for organising the event.

Professional Learning Day

On Tuesday we held our third Professional Learning Day for teachers.  The focus was on “Developing collective efficacy through teaching collaboration”.  We invited Jonathan Heard, Research Fellow – Education Policy and Practice from the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER), to deliver the morning session on developing effective collaboration with students and amongst staff. 

Jonathan shared a Collaboration Framework, where teachers could see the ‘Strands’ and relevant ‘Aspects’ identified for effective collaboration and how they can explicitly teach these by adapting their practices.  We are progressing our work on collective efficacy and authentic collaboration with our teams, as when we work together and have a collective belief in and responsibility for our students, this has a positive impact on our student achievement and wellbeing. It also has a positive impact on staff learning where exemplary practices are shared, and teachers can problem solve solutions together.  It was a very productive day as teachers worked with various teams focusing on aspects of their planning, teaching, and assessment.

Thank you to our Learning Area Leaders and fabulous staff who maximise these learning opportunities in our school for the benefit of our students.  I would like to especially thank the Leading Teachers, Ella Price, Louisa Philipson, Cassie Mahony, Samantha Francis and Peter Ryan for all their work in preparing for the day and running sessions.