DEPUTY PRINCIPAL - TEACHING & LEARNING REPORT 

Vision for Teaching and Learning at St Mary MacKillop College - a statement that drives the development of a high performance learning culture at SMMC

At St Mary MacKillop College we have high expectations of our students as we equip them with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for lifelong learning. We pursue excellence through a teaching and learning environment that is inclusive, engaging and encourages growth. We value collaboration, innovation and building strong relationships.

In the blink of an eye, we find ourselves already past the halfway mark for Term 3. As we know it has been a very unusual term thus far with another short return to remote learning however, in these uncertain times, we continue to meet the challenges presented to us and thrive and flourish as a learning community. Term 3 is an exciting time in our community as the subject selection process for 2022 continues and our Year 12 students focus on their final weeks of secondary school.

I would like to encourage all parents and guardians to take the time to log on to the Parent Access Module (PAM) and review their child’s progress and workload as communicated in their Teacher Advisor reports, class tasks, assessment task grades and teacher feedback. We encourage conversations at home around learning and the following questions may assist in these conversations:

• What progress have you made?
• What learning do you still need to do in order to improve your performance?

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact the relevant teacher directly.

2021 National Science Week

National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of Science and Technology and is held from 14 to 22 August. The following has been taken from the National Science Week website.

The school theme for National Science Week 2021 is Food: Different by Design. It honours the United Nations International Year of Fruits and Vegetables and the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development.

The Hon Christian Porter MP, Minister for Industry - Science and Technology has put together the media release here for this year’s event. 

2021 Book Week

We are committed to developing the literacy skills of each student. The following has been taken from the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) website.

Each year since 1945 the CBCA has brought children and books together across Australia through Book Week. During this time schools and public libraries spend one glorious week celebrating books and Australian children’s authors and illustrators. 

With increased screen time necessitated due to our recent online learning, it is important that students take time away from their computer screens and relax and unwind while reading a book. We encourage our students to read each day in order to develop their literacy skills. Book Week is a great opportunity to dust off some old favourite books and share these with your child, as well as encourage your child to borrow books of interest to them from the wide collection available in the LRC.

Unit 3/4 Practice Exam Timetable

All students studying a Unit 3/4 subject (Year 12 subject) are required to attend practice exams in the second week of the school holidays. The exams will be held from Monday 27 September to Wednesday 29 September. Any rescheduling of a practice exam due to timetable clashes must be requested in writing, with a parent signature, to Ms Haley, Senior School Coordinator, prior to the holidays.

As our Unit 3 and 4 students draw closer to the conclusion of their SACs and coursework tasks for this year and move into preparing for their exams, it is timely to remind students to create study and revision routines that enable going over content from both Unit 3 and 4. This has been the consistent message during the study sessions run by Ms Haley throughout the year. As well as preparing for SACs, building into the study routine opportunities for regular pockets of study for each subject will create a deeper understanding of the material. By doing this, students will head into the formal VCE end of exam period with confidence. The trial exams we hold in the September holiday break will help to determine what students know well and the areas they should focus on where refinement of understanding is required. We know students will benefit from completing these trial exams and we wish them well as they prepare for them.

My Experience as a Student

The VIA Institute on Character identifies 24 character strengths that make up what’s best about our personality. According to their website, ‘everyone possesses all 24 character strengths in different degrees, so each person has a truly unique character strengths profile.’ One of the 24 character strengths is a love of learning, and being ‘motivated to acquire new levels of knowledge, or deepen my existing knowledge or skills in a significant way.’ In the last edition of the newsletter I talked about how we are all life-long learners and I encourage our students to have a love of learning. 

In the last newsletter, I also mentioned one of my goals is to experience what it is like to be a student again. Recently I took part in a Year 7 Art and Design class taught by Mr Wood. The lesson focused on visual literacy and creativity. After a discussion about road signs, we were given the task of creating our own road signs for a range of places and activities including: an ant farm, fortune teller, recreational fishing, target range, kite flying and botanical gardens. The challenge was to think of different symbols that represented these places or activities. It was a challenge for me to think of different designs for the road signs and I did have to refer to Google Images for some inspiration! I was most impressed at the creativity of the students and the different symbols they came up with. Many thanks to Mr Wood for letting me be a student in his class. I look forward to the next class I will join.

For further information on the VIA Institute on Character go to: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths

Ms Haley recently invited me to her Year 10 English class. The class is currently studying Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and as a way to engage the class and have some fun with the language of Shakespeare, the students were introduced to various Shakespearean insults. They were given a worksheet where different Shakespearean insults were organised into three columns. The students had to select an insult from each column and weave them into a short role-play. The students came up with some very creative and humorous role-plays. I hope the class enjoys their study of Hamlet this term.