Learning @MFG

PARENT TEACHER STUDENT LEARNING CONFERENCES

Thanks to all parents and carers who attended the Parent-Teacher-Student Learning Conferences on Tuesday 22nd August. We had more than 1000 bookings and the event was characterised by lots of positive conversations focused on learning, improvement and progress. Thanks also to Kylie Howarth, her VCAL Team and all of our VCAL students who ran their amazing Pop-Market on the same day. My family were very happy with the interesting and clever gifts I brought home that evening!

THIRD ‘MAKER FAIRE’ FOR PRIMARY SCHOOLS AT MFG

In 2015 we hosted our first student-led ‘Maker Faire’ for 100 local primary school students. This year we are hosting our third ‘Maker Faire’ for about the same number of students from five of our ‘feeder’ Primary Schools. The day’s purpose is to give these primary school students a taste of making – a morning of tinkering, engineering, science projects, problem solving and exploring digital technologies. We have a developing relationship with Deakin University – a number of their Ambassadors will run workshops for the primary school students.

This day also gives our students, including our VCAL students, a chance to design and run the activities for the primary school students which will extend to our Living Garden this year. This is one of successful features of this kind of day – it’s a day designed by students for students.

Our third ‘Maker Faire’ (not an official Maker Faire event - http://makerfaire.com/ ) will take place on October 12th.

PINEAPPLE CHART: TEACHERS OBSERVING TEACHERS

Our teachers are learners too – watching other teachers teach is a powerful form of professional learning. This is especially so when it’s done informally. Last Term Jo Toone, our Leader of STEAM Initiatives, initiated ‘The Pineapple Chart’. It’s simple – the pineapple has long been a symbol of hospitality and welcoming in different cultures. When a teacher makes a note on the chart they welcome their colleagues into their classroom to watch them use a technique or put on display a particular activity.

EDROLO

We are trialling an online resource called ‘Edrolo’ with our Year 11 and 12 students in Chemistry and Biology. For a small cost, our students have access to a range of online curriculum, resources, video lessons, exam practice and study planning tools. We’ll be trialling the use of this resource this year and then consider its usefulness with other classes at the end of the year.

https://edrolo.com.au/

NAPLAN 2017

If you’re the parent or carer of a student in Year 7 or 9, you will have recently received your child’s NAPLAN report. If you would like to discuss this report or if you have any questions about how to read the report, please don’t hesitate to contact me or your child’s classroom teachers.

At a glance, our school’s NAPLAN results are very pleasing, especially in terms of the relative gain made by our students. Based on the relative gain made by students relative to their academic peers across all sectors, students are categorised as having made either low, middle or high relative gain. Simply, our relative gain NAPLAN data shows that many of our Year 9 students made middle to high relative gain between Years 7 and 9 and a smaller percentage of our students are making low relative gain, compared to the State. This is a reflection of the wonderful job our teachers and staff do and of the considerable impact they have on our students’ learning.

2017 ATTITUDES TO SCHOOLS SURVEY

We will be working with 25 randomly selected Year 9 and 10 students to unpack some of their responses in relation to this year’s Attitudes to Schools Survey. We’ll be working with this group of students to discuss the following questions:

FEEDBACK

What kind of feedback is useful for your learning? What makes you say that?
What kind of feedback is not useful for your learning? What makes you say that?

PRIDE and POSITIVE CLIMATE/SENSE OF BELONGING

At MFG, what are you proud of? What makes you say that?
At MFG, what are not proud of? What makes you say that?
What do you look forward to about coming to at school at MFG?
What don’t you look forward to about coming to school at MFG?
What makes you feel like you belong at MFG?
What would help you to feel more connected to MFG?
What could belonging at MFG look like and feel like for you?
What do you do in Home Group? How could HG be improved so that you feel more connected to your teacher, your peers and your school?

RESPECT

What does respect mean to you?
How do you show respect to others and how do they show respect to you?
What helps you to develop respect for a teacher?
Think about the teachers you really respect – what does that teacher do?
How do your teachers go about building respect and respectful climates in your classrooms? What do they do?

We’ll be sharing their responses with our teachers at a future staff meeting and will share the results through a future Newsletter.

Damien Toussaint, Assistant Principal, Learning and Teaching