Wantirna College Newsletter

Learning and Teaching

Maestro Access Now Available

Wantirna College has been working with the software developers Analytics for Schools to build an assessment application known as Maestro. Maestro is a powerful learning and teaching tool that better connects students to their learning and given them agency to take greater control over skills and knowledge acquisition. We are very pleased that an email invitation to access the Maestro Platform was sent to parents this week  

 

The Maestro platform represents the culmination of many years of work by staff in the creation of high-quality Developmental Rubrics and developmental assessment. These rubrics have come alive on Maestro and they allow better conversations about the evidence of learning between the teacher and students, student and student, and now- parents and students and three way conversations between parents teachers and students.

 

There is a lot of information to explore and discover and we encourage parents of Year 7 and 8 students to log on and take a look. Ask your child to explain how they can use Maestro in and out of class. Increased functionality over time will enable parents access to learning data and visualisations of learning growth.

 

Online Term 3 Student Conferences 

During Semester Two we will be conducting our Student Conferences online on Teams to provide more flexibility for parents and student to access the meeting from work or different locations. Teachers will create one meeting that they will leave open for the day and admit parents/students from the lobby at the scheduled time of the interview.

 

Date:  Tuesday 13 September

Time: 11am to 7.30pm

Normal classes will not take place on this day

Timeslots: 10 mins (approx. 7-minute interviews with 3 minutes buffer)

 

How online conferences will work this semester:

 

Thu 8 September - 3pm

- Reports Published to Compass

- Conference Bookings Open on Compass

Parents/Guardians will be notified on Compass that conferences are open for booking and, once booked, they will receive an email with a link to the TEAMS meeting.

 

Mon 12 September - 5pm

- Conference Bookings CLOSED

 

Tue 13 September - 11am to 7:30pm

Conferences take place via TEAMS/Calendar Meeting

RRRR

The Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships program at the college is built around the Personal & Social Capabilities, Victorian Curriculum strands:

  • Self-awareness and management - students learning to recognise and regulate emotions
  • Social-awareness and management - develop empathy for others and understand the importance of positive relationships, work effectively in teams, and develop leadership skills, and handle challenging situations constructively.

The RRRR also supports our central school values of:

  • Our college values centre around respect 
  • Respect for self and 
  • Respect for others and Respect for community 

The value of RESPECT was a central theme of the Mancave and Seed Program year 8 last week. 

 

These gender specific programs shone a light on the different experiences of many of our young people in the community and at school. Struggles with identity, self-esteem, emotional regulation, peer pressure and managing relationships are common themes that emerged from the workshops. The school works hard to supports our young people through these challenges with programs such as these and in many other ways:

  • A RRRR curriculum embedded into the health curriculum - more on this in 
  • Extensive program of camps and excursion.
  • Many performing arts programs and performances and sporting programs   
  • Support groups 
  • Our wellbeing centre and support networks
  • Social emotional restorative focuses process and approaches within the sub school leaders and programs 
  • The student leadership program

It can be difficult to watch your child grapple with these issues and the challenges that they face. Support is available to support parents navigate the turbulent times for families:

 

Natalie Manser 

Assistant Principal

mar@wantirnacollege.vic.gov.au