Koonung Secondary College Newsletter

Principals' Report

Assistant Principals' Report

Our Year 12 students celebrated the end of their secondary schooling with their Valedictory Dinner, final assembly and barbeque breakfast, and this week began their VCE final examinations. We wish them all the best at this time, and know that their hard work over the past 6 years will assist them over the next three weeks. Thank you to Senior School for their tireless organisation at this time of the year, the industrious Year 12 teachers, as well as to all subject teachers who have made contributions to our students’ learning from Year 7 onwards.

 

We would like to congratulate Mr Mark Quinlan on his secondment into an Acting Principal’s role at Sherbrooke Community School during Term 4. During this time, I will be acting in the Assistant Principal role, and Ms Sue Holmes, Principal of Sherbrooke, will be with us in a reciprocal capacity.

 

 

Changes to 2018 Koonung Timetable and Curriculum

 

Each year, the school reviews the structure of the day, curriculum and co-curricular programs. Our brief this year was to investigate and implement the optimal allocation of resources to provide the best learning, engagement and wellbeing outcomes for the students and school community. Thus, an exhaustive review into our current timetable structure and curriculum offerings was launched, focusing on key data sets and our strategic direction as informed by the Key Improvement Strategies in our Strategic and Annual Implementation Plans.

 

With excellence in teaching and learning at our very core, feedback was sought from students in both Middle Years and Senior School, Staff and members of PFA and College Council, in a thorough and sequential consultative process. Research was also conducted by reviewing structures at a variety of high performing schools by members of the Curriculum Committee.

In order to accommodate many of these changes, the initial process aimed to provide the best and most flexible timetable model available to reach our educational goals.

To this end, from 2018, Koonung will run:

  • A 10 period X 30 minute timetable, in which all subjects (except Pastoral Care) will be allocated 60 or 90 minute periods.
  • Students in the Middle Years will have mostly 60 minute periods.
  • Students in Senior School will have a combination of 60 and 90 minute periods.
  • The academic day will now begin at 8.50 for all students, Years 7-12.

The positive impact of this is:

  • At the Senior end, every student in Years 10, 11 and 12 will now have 480 minutes per subject, per cycle, of face-to-face instruction, a significant increase of 1 hour per cycle.
  • Most subjects at Middle Years will also have an increased time allocation for face-to-face classroom instruction, particularly the core areas of Maths, English, Science and Humanities.
  • Consequently, the Wednesday flipped timetable will no longer be operating in 2018. Each day of the week will be scheduled the same way with common period time slots.

Student Voice is a critical element in all of our curriculum planning. Student-led forums informed us that students were keen to extend their interest at Year 9 in electives which stimulated and addressed their own individual interests.

  • The Year 9 elective program has been broadened to offer subjects in English (Creative Writing), Science (Investigations), Humanities (Civics and Economics) and Health PE (Sports Performance), as well as the traditional Arts/Technology subjects.
  • Year 9 students have the ability to select from two other Domain areas, which will empower students to direct their own learning program through authentic and rich learning tasks in their own areas of interest.

Koonung is also embedding complex, real life problem-solving with the exciting origination of a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Leader, a major Education State initiative, whose role it is to embed a culture of risk-taking and innovation throughout the curriculum, via interdisciplinary curriculum planning, particularly at Year 8 in Project Based Learning.

  • Real world projects will be carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practise 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication and critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations in the rapidly burgeoning area of STEAM.
  • Pastoral care at Koonung will now become more targeted and holistic, with the introduction of the mandated Respectful Relationships delivered throughout the curriculum.  More information is available at:  http://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/health/Pages/respectfulrelationships.aspx
  • The curriculum review found that running three languages was not viable, so Chinese Second Language (and Advanced) will be transitioned out from 2018. All students currently studying Chinese will continue through the middle years. In the senior school, Chinese pathways will be offered.

Bell times for 2018:

Start of the school day      8.50am 

Recess                                      10.55am -11.20am

Lunch                                        12.50pm  - 1.45pm 

End of the school day         3.15pm

 

Please find below a sample student timetable for a Senior and a Middle Years student in 2018.

NB - Teachers have been allocated at random for illustrative purposes and do not necessarily reflect who will be teaching these subjects in 2018.

 

Sample Student Timetable Year 12:

Sample Student Timetable Year 9:

 

Mary Eade

Acting Assistant Principal