Deputy Principal - Learning and Teaching 

HOMEWORK

Feedback on student approaches to learning have been provided via interim reports in SEQTA.

To help students with time management, we encourage students to create a study timetable outlining to be able to manage their homework expectations and any additional revision that may be needed. If a student doesn’t have any homework, we encourage them to review the work they have done during the day and week or to spend time reading and revising work.

We encourage your child to talk about what they have learned at school; articulating what they have learned that day and week helps students to synthesise what they have learned. If they can teach the concepts, they have been learning then it shows an excellent understanding of these concepts. Teaching someone else is a good revision strategy for students leading into an assessment or revising their work. 

A famous quote by Ralph Nader is “Your best teacher is your last mistake”. This is great advice and at St John’s we realise that mistakes are a good thing, as long as we learn from them. We encourage all students to read the feedback they have been given and act upon it. Some examples include refining sentence structure, adding more detail, proofreading, and checking grammar, adding more emphasis to a performance or redoing questions they have got wrong. It is also a good idea to discuss the feedback with a peer or the teacher who has provided the feedback. An additional piece of advice is when they have made these improvements, they retry it again in a week and again in a few weeks.

E-SAFETY

I thought it was timely to remind parents and guardians of the E-Safety Commissioner website. It is a wonderful resource for parents, students and teachers focusing on how to keep teenagers safe online. Unfortunately, statistics indicate that one in five young Australians aged 8 to 17 years have been socially excluded, threatened, or abused online. I do encourage all members of the St John’s community to regularly visit this website for valuable information, resources and webinars. 

https://www.esafety.gov.au/parents/webinars

YEAR 7 FAMILY SURVEY

Attention: Parents and Carers of Year 7 Students

Having been part of the St John’s community for a term now, we would like to take this opportunity over the next week and holiday break to ask for your valuable feedback on your child’s time at the College. A short survey can be accessed below.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Z6YTS96

If you would like a member of the Year 7 Transition Team to contact you, please include your contact details.

Thank you for taking the time to provide your insights and for all the support you have given to your child this year.

We look forward to continuing to work with you in partnership.

NAPLAN

NAPLAN tests have now concluded for all Year 7 and Year 9 students. Reports will be made available to parents/carers later in the year. It is important to remember that whilst NAPLAN results can give an indication of how a child is progressing in different areas of the curriculum, it does not give a complete picture or represent the worth of any one individual.

PARENT TEACHER INTERVIEWS

We are looking forward to meeting with parents/carers and students during interviews which are scheduled for:

• Wednesday 5 April 3:30 PM to 8:30 PM (onsite)
• Thursday 6 April 10.00 AM to 2:30 PM (online)

Letters have been emailed to families with instructions on how to make a booking. Please keep a look out in your email inbox for this information. If you have not received an email please check your junk box. If you cannot locate the email, please call the College.

Interviews bookings will close Monday 3 April at 3:00 PM

We encourage your child to be present for the duration of the interviews, as the teacher’s comments are intended to provide an opportunity for parents, teachers and students to discuss learning progress, thereby maximising the improvements for your child’s learning.