Assistant Principals 

The resilience of our school community is again on show as we Victorians quickly pivot back into lockdown, back into remote learning and back into our study nooks at home.  The pain of cancelling much anticipated events is something that also must be acknowledged and with the Central Australia trip, work experience, sport and other activities all being cancelled, rescheduled or questioned, it’s really challenging to be able to retain a sense of hope that we can plan with confidence and anticipation. The students and staff have felt both the frustration and pain, and compassion and consideration for the impact of these changes on others not only in our school community, but for those whose livelihoods depend on school activities. We would like to acknowledge the resilience of our whole community and the care and concern our students and staff show for each other.  

This fortnight has also had the publishing of the first unaltered reporting cycle since 2019. Parents and students are encouraged to view semester one reports as a diagnostic observation of what they have done and to plan for what they can do. With a type of planning no COVID lockdown can touch, students are encouraged to plan how they can build their curiosity so that their school work is not seen as a chore but as an exciting opportunity to build toward their future.  As with all goals, students are encouraged to reach out to their friends, family and teachers to be allies in their goal setting actions and the smaller the action the better. As with all goals sometimes when we try to do something that is hard, we can initially feel like we are going backwards but when we use our allies to persevere and forget about judgement, we can enjoy the challenge and eventually see improvement.  

The second phase of our Tutor Learning Initiative continues with the PAT testing of year 7s occurring just before the lockdown(!) and tutors are currently being allocated to classes so that they can aid the students in accessing their work and completing work more successfully.  

More broadly, Ringwood Secondary College is continuing its exciting work with the University of Melbourne and the New Metrics project of schools across the country. We are currently defining a new grammar for schooling and trying to capture more authentic but verifiable assessment tools. At our latest workshop we are creating criteria for quality thinking and connectedness. If we can’t describe it, we won’t see it and we will struggle to reward it. For further details on this project see Monivae’s blog description in this link. 

If lockdown shows us anything, it is the importance of being in the moment, connecting with others when we can and to find joy in the unexpected and spontaneous.   

Agatha Fedrizzi on behalf of the Assistant Principals Maria Allison, James Barut and Matt Tucker