Assistant Principals

Exams

There has been a couple of interesting articles in the Melbourne papers in the last two weeks about preparing for the Year 12 exams.  Although written for Year 12 students the information is equally valuable for Year 10 and 11 students, whose exams are coming up shortly.

Effective Revision Strategies

Year 10 and 11 students who have limited experience with exams are often not sure what they should be doing when they are revising for their exams.

The best advice we can give is that for revision to be effective you need to do more than re read your notes or your textbook.  I have included an attachment below that lists a range of different strategies students could be using to revise and why they work.

The common factors behind all great revision strategies are:

• Taking information in one form and being able to present it in a different form
• Expanding and contracting information and concepts
• Making links with other knowledge

Day before Cup Day

As mentioned in our newsletter the day before Cup Day is a day that our families often choose to make a four day weekend.  

This is just a reminder that we do things slightly differently on that day.  We are still here and running, but we combine classes and release some teachers to work on curriculum development or other important development work.  

Students who attend school on that day will be welcomed, and will need to ensure they have class work with them to continue with under the supervision of a teacher other than their own.  The Orchard will not be selling food that day, so students should be lunch and drinks with them

Year 9 Camps

The Year 9 camps are fast approaching.  Students had their main information session with their camp leaders in Learning Mentor group in the first week of term.  There was a sense of trepidation as students sussed out who they would be travelling with and heard about the comforts, and discomforts,  of each camp.  Murray River students were delighted to hear about their toilet called Dug.

On Monday night before the Year 9 Computer Presentation each camp leader ran an information session for parents about the ins and outs of each camp.  Common key information for parents who missed these sessions included:

• Ensure your child has a quality sleeping  bag
• Prepare for all weather conditions
• Sunscreen, sun hat and insect repellent are essential

Grade 6 Testing

As per Wantirna College tradition it was raining on Saturday morning as we welcomed 230 of our 2018 Year 7 students for the Grade 6 testing day.  The students undertakes literacy, spelling and numeracy tests to provide us with information regarding where they are in terms of their learning.  We give this data to the teachers they will have next year so they can plan effectively for each individual student's learning based on where they are.  This allows us to hit the ground running at the beginning of next year.

The day was also a great opportunity to get to know some of our new families.  Ms Bell and Mr Lewis ran a workshop on how to access Compass and all new families were provided with their Compass Codes.

A special thank you to Mandy Phillips, Dina Mingos for the organisation and administration of the day and to all the staff who woke up bright and early on a Saturday morning to come in and run the day.

Activities Week

Teachers are in the last stages of finalizing the program for Activities week at the end of the year.  For those who are new to the College we run an alternative program for students in the last day of school.  This program is designed to give students a range of opportunities to explore new places and new skills with their friends.

Each day is run by a learning area.  They plan an excursion based activity and a school based activity and students are able to select which they prefer.  All activities have an educational aspect based either around the Victorian Curriculum Discipline based learning or the Interdisciplinary learning.   Excursion based activities vary in cost although with transport and entry costs to venues they are generally around the $30 mark.

The last day of the activities program is a trip to the movies.  We work with Knox cinemas to ensure students are able to see a new release that has opened that week.  Films are rated G or PG.

Further information about this program will be coming via Compass shortly.

Catherine Ford

Assistant Principal