Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching and Learning

Steve Sirrals

Assistant Principal: Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching and Learning

Welcome to the start of the 2022 school year. It’s an exciting time, spurred on by the fact that we are a continuingly growing school. With a host of new students and staff starting this year, there is already excitement in the air about what the school year can bring.

This year, I am fortunate to be stepping into the role as an Assistant Principal at Woodmans Hill. The focus of my role is on Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching and Learning. I have a 3 year plan that outlines my vision for our school improvement in the area of Teaching and Learning. I am looking forward to working with our teaching staff, in particular, our dedicated Key Learning Area Leaders, to achieve these goals.

Teaching Staff focus in 2022

In 2022, our staff will be spending significant collaboration time focused on assessment, moderation and using data to influence our curriculum design and monitoring of student learning.

At Woodmans Hill, we are using our co-developed Expertise Pathways to hone our focus to practice that matters. Expertise Pathways ‘are precise specifications of practice that are defined in a sequential manner as your expertise develops within an area. They provide a map of how teachers can become increasingly adept within specific areas of practice’ Dunn 2021. In essence, they are a co-developed steps that guide us to focus on key impacts that continually respond to, and improve, student learning.

Each Key Learning Area has identified their current location on the pathway and has developed plans to work their way along it throughout the year, monitoring and checking for impact with a variety of methods.

Learning Walks

One of the actions that we will be implementing at the beginning of this year is Learning Walks. Learning Walks involve teams of staff visiting a range of classes to understand the learning trends and patterns within a school. This process offers a suite of benefits, chiefly on staff gaining understanding of the learning practices across the school. Observing the range of learning needs in different classes, sharing best teaching practices and asking students to reflect on their learning. It allows us to review the impact of our work established with our Expertise Pathways, as mentioned above.

Students will notice teams of staff visiting classes more regularly and asking individual students these 5 questions:

What are you

Learning

How are you

going with

your learning?

How do you know

how you are

going with your

learning

How do you

improve?

Where do you go

for help when you

need it?

These five questions, allow us to gain a clear understanding of students awareness of their learning. It also encourages reflection of current learning among our student cohort.

Student Voice

Hearing regularly from our students and using it to inform our practice is a significant focus of ours. We will be implementing Pulse surveys throughout the school year to gather feedback data from our students. This feedback data will be used in a variety of ways to continue to improve the learning at Woodmans Hill SC.

Continuous Reporting

During week 2 of Term 1, (7th – 11th February), the Year Level Assessment Feedback Calendars will be published on Compass. These calendars inform each family when a student’s results throughout the Semester will be published on Compass.

We have invested significant time and focus to ensure that feedback is published to our families in a timely and ongoing manner in 2022, ensuring there is greater opportunity for parents, staff and students to communicate about learning throughout the Semester, instead of the traditional end of Semester report only.

Learning during COVID

As our community continues to face the evolving challenges of COVID, we continue to adapt as a school. For students who need to isolate as a close contact for COVID, we have created Year Level Google Classroom pages for students who are able to access online resources. Essential learning materials will be provided weekly for students in Year 7-10 who access these Google Classrooms, with slight adjustments made to support our senior students also. These are listed in the table below.

Learning Guidance and materials for students in isolation due to COVID
Year 7-10	Year 11 - 12
Directed weekly Learning Intention and Success Criteria. Learning activity/s related to the covered topic available (including relevant learning materials e.g. PowerPoints).	All Learning Intentions and Success Criteria displayed. Learning materials (e.g. PowerPoints) available. Links to Edrolo lessons for covered content (if available) Feedback provided when requested (within allotted teaching hours) Formative assessments assessable SACs to be rescheduled

The codes for students to access these Google Classrooms will be published on the 7th Feb on Compass.

Canteen news

Maree