Director of Pedagogy and Innovative Programs

Director of Pedagogy and Innovative Programs Years 7-10 (including SEAL Coordinator)

Semester 1 has certainly been a busy time of the year across our teaching and learning programs at Mordialloc College.  There have been plenty of opportunities for students to participate in curricular and extracurricular activities to consolidate and build upon their learning.

Thinking About Thinking – Learning Trackers

At Mordialloc College we pride ourselves on integrated learning programs and the use of thinking tools. Our integrated learning programs are designed to foster meaningful links between subjects to enable students to apply skills from a range of core subject areas (English, Humanities and Science). We use thinking tools such as Learning Trackers in the Year 7, Year 8 and Year 9 to encourage students to reflect and think about their learning progress.

Some benefits of Learning Trackers are:

• Monitoring of learning progress – students reflect and compare their knowledge at the beginning and end of each unit to monitor their learning progress
• Developing independence skills – Learning Trackers are a student friendly overview of the skills and knowledge that will be learned in each unit of study.
• Clear skills progression continuum – All rubrics are aligned to the new Victorian Curriculum. These rubrics enable students to clearly see the progression of skills and what they need to be able to do to get to the next step in their learning journey.
• Learning evidence – This section is designed for students to explain how they have learned a specific skill or piece of knowledge.

I would strongly encourage all parents and guardians to speak to your child about their current learning as this will provide them with another opportunity to articulate and explain their learning.

Year 7 Ancient China Studies

In the second last week of Term 2 our Year 7 students participated in the Chinese Museum Incursion, which was a fantastic day to explore Chinese culture and history. A big thank you to Ashleigh for writing a wonderful recap of the day. See Student Recount page of newletter for Ashleigh's recap.

In the final week of term the Year 7 students had their first expo of the year. This was a great opportunity for students to showcase their learning to the staff, students and the wider college community. It was really pleasing to see so many community members coming along to this event. The positive feedback from the afternoon has been overwhelming and all students should be extremely proud of their creative and engaging stalls.

SEAL Reading Matters Excursion

On Thursday 1 June I travelled to the State Library with a group of 26 SEAL students from Years 7-10. This opportunity was offered to all students in our SEAL Program and those who were interested in participating expressed their interest through a 30 words or less competition.

On the day, students were immersed in talks from a wide variety of inspirational young adult authors. The sessions ranged from author presentations, live illustrations and panel 

discussions. On the day, one of our students, Toby Kristiansson (7H) correctly answered one of the quiz questions and he was lucky enough to win a book prize.

At the conclusion of the day, lots of students eagerly purchased novels and had them signed by the various authors. We finished the day with a tour of the State Library of Victoria and lunch at Melbourne Central. I hope this day provided lots of inspiration for our young writers at Mordialloc College. Thank you to the five Year 8 SEAL students who have written recounts about this great day. Read their reflections on the 'Student Reflections' page of this newsletter.

SEAL Students Excel in Australian Geography Competition

Our Year 7-9 SEAL students tested their geographical skills and knowledge against students from around Australia in the 2017 Australian Geography Competition.

We have a number of student geographers at our school who performed to a very high level in the Competition this year, with students receiving 11 high distinction results (top 10% of their year level), 19 distinctions (top 25%) and 20 credits (top 40%). All students will receive their certificates in the coming week.

Over 70,000 students from 743 schools across Australia entered the Australian Geography Competition so the results give us an external benchmark as to how students are progressing in certain aspects of Geography.

Congratulations to the following SEAL students who received high distinction results:

Alice Leppin