message from the principal

Welcome  to the first edition of the ‘Brunswick Star’.

Karen Harris

Principal

Much has happened over the four weeks of school that we can celebrate. 

It has been a pleasure welcoming our Year 7 students and families to the school and seeing the new students develop new friendships and good relationships with their teachers. 

Our Peer Support students are to be commended for the role they have played in making new students and their families feel welcome.   Year 7 students should now be well immersed in the co-curricular activity of their choice -  or co-curricular activities as they are welcome to be involved in more than one!    It has been wonderful to meet so many Year 7 parents through the transition events such as the Welcome Night and the Year 7 Performing Arts Day.  

Students in Years 8 to 11 have also started the year in  a very productive way and are making the most of opportunities to receive some extra tuition after school in Co-Curricular Programs which support  English, English as an Additional Language and Mathematics. 

VYLC

Events are well underway with Year 9 students preparing for their departure to China in March, as delegates representing Brunswick Secondary College in the Victorian Young Leaders to China Program.  I had the pleasure of attending their Pre-departure Camp where they were presented with their VYLC blazers.  I would like to congratulate Tayler Roberts (Teacher - HPE) on his appointment as one of the VYLC tour leaders.  This will be the second year Tayler has accompanied BSC students on this six-week immersion trip in China.

We Go Together!

Congratulations to all students who will play a part in our school production ‘Grease’.  Following on from the success of previous productions it is sure to be something to look forward to.

Continuous Improvement

Our teachers all participated in a two day professional learning program prior to students starting classes this year and we continued to look at the use of the SOLO Taxonomy.   Our upcoming student free day on Thursday 9 March will continue our work using SOLO. 

SOLO is an acronym for the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes -  a model that describes levels of increasing complexity in student's understanding of subjects.    The model consists of five levels of understanding:

• Pre-structural – the student has difficulty starting the task
• Uni-structural – the student's response focuses on one relevant aspect
• Multi-structural – the student's response focuses on several relevant aspects but they are treated independently and additively
• Relational – the different aspects have become integrated into a coherent whole
• Extended abstract – the previous integrated whole may be conceptualised at a higher level of abstraction and generalised to a new topic or area

On Thursday 9 March,  Pam Hook, a renowned expert on SOLO, will spend the day with Brunswick Secondary College staff as we continue to look at the benefits of applying the SOLO taxonomy to planning and assessment.   I thank School Council for supporting this student free day.

Countdown to Construction 

2017 is an exciting year in terms of our building works.  FIMMA Constructions have been assigned the building contract and are due to commence work on March 14, 2017.  

Students have been briefed on the immediate building works and the need to observe building zone boundaries and not accessing the building zones for any reason.

I look forward to providing updates and photographs of the construction throughout the year.  The first areas to be worked on will be the existing A Block and B Block rooms which will receive refurbishment and the new building which will be home to our new canteen and Food Studies classrooms.