Principals Report

Dear Parents and Friends,

It’s been a busy few weeks at McGuire – please keep reading to find out more about the great opportunities being provided for students across the school.

Next Wednesday the 21st of November we will celebrate our Year 12 Assembly at 9am in the Gymnasium. This important occasion gives us a formal opportunity to commend the great accomplishments of our Year 12 VCE and VCAL students as we gather as a College Community to farewell our graduating students for 2018 – Parents and friends are very welcome to join us. The celebrations continue into the night with our Year 12 Valedictory Dinner on the same evening.

Year 12 Wellbeing Day

The Year 12 Wellbeing day was held on Friday 26th October, which was the Year 12 students last official day of school. The Wellbeing day was designed to provide students with skills and motivation for both the exams/final outcomes and for their future lives as young adults. The itinerary for the day consisted of the following:

9.00am – Senior Team – outline of day and expectations
9.15am – Principal Team presentation – motivational video prepared by the Principal Team
9.30am – 10.30am – Tunya Jarvis (Triage Nurse) and Dean Lloyd (Victoria Police) – Staying Safe & Making Good Choices
10.30am – 11.00am – Morning tea break in presentation room
11.00 – 11.30am – A year in Review Activity run by Lynda Bruce & the Senior Team
11.30am – 1.00pm – Reach Workshop
1.00pm – 1.30pm – Lunch
1.30pm – 3.00pm – Guest Speaker – Tasneem Chopra- Motivational Talk and Workshop

Year 12 Exams

Congratulations to our VCE students who have fully committed to their Year 12 Exams.

We had a 100% attendance rate for each exam. Outlined below is the Year 12 exam timetable:

Year 12 Exam Timetable:

Wednesday 31st October – English and EAL English

Thursday 1st November – Psychology

Friday 2nd November – Biology & Further Maths 1

Monday 5th November – Further Maths 2 & Business Management

Wednesday 7th November – Maths Methods 1

Thursday 8th November – Health and Human Development and Maths Methods 2

Friday 9th November – Physical Education & Accounting

Monday 12th November - Studio Arts, VET Media, & Outdoor Education

Tuesday 13th November – Chemistry

Wednesday 14th November – Physics & Legal Studies

Friday 16th November – VET Sport & Recreation

Tuesday 20th November – VET Community Services

Year 11 Exams

Year 11 exams ran this week. Year 11 teachers were rostered to supervise the exam for the subject they teach. The exam time allowances replicated the time allowances for the same subjects in Year 12. Teachers were provided with extensive professional learning to ensure that the actual exam replicated the style and format that the students will experience in 2019 when they undertake their Year 12 exams. The pedagogy that underpins the Year 11 exams is to ensure that students will have the exact same conditions they experience in Year 12, hence providing greater exposure for our students and allowing for greater preparation.

Staff Team Curriculum Day

On Friday 19th October we had a whole school Curriculum Day at the Shepparton Golf Club that focused on Trauma Informed Practices. We received excellent feedback from all staff, with many commenting that it had been one of the most beneficial professional learning sessions they had attended.

The learning intentions on the day centred on the following:

Establishing a shared understanding of wellbeing (for both staff and students)
Exploring individual attitudes to personal wellbeing
Encouraging a sense of shared responsibility and enhanced collegiality
Encouraging staff to feel empowered and have a sense of collective efficacy

These objectives were supported through interactive workshops focusing on team-building alongside opportunities to deepen team members understanding of the diverse and complex needs of the kids in our care.

We have an Alliance Curriculum Day planned for Tuesday 27th November where all staff from each of the BTA schools will be working together to plan for the Shepparton Education Plan.

Year 7 Orientation Dates

Dates for your calendar!

SEAL Orientation Day – Friday 23rd November
Additional Orientation Day – Monday 26th November
Year 7 Information Night – Monday 10th December
Statewide Orientation Day – Tuesday 11th December

Engagement Programs

Year 7 Puberty Day

On Thursday 8th and Friday 9th November all students in Year 7 participated in a one day ‘Puberty Program’. The program was organised by the school nurse Mark Metcalf and had a variety of internal and external presenters. The sessions were targeted to female and male groups and were age appropriate following on from what the students had learnt in primary school. There were many question and answer type activities focussing on health, self-care, hygiene and exercise. The students were extremely engaged with the program and learnt a great deal.

Circus Oz

Year 7 and Year 8 students had the outstanding opportunity to travel to Melbourne to the Merlyn Theatre to attend ‘A Circus Rock Opera’. Rounding out their 40th year, Circus Oz has co-created an original hilarious rock’n’roll extravaganza—Rock Bang—with Otto & Astrid from the (self-proclaimed) best band in the world: Die Rotten Punkte. Part rock concert, part side-splitting comedy and smashed together with acrobatic punk anarchy, Rock Bang is a sensory feast of heart stopping stunts, physical ridiculousness, soaring guitars, thumping drums and contagious tunes.

Utterly dysfunctional siblings Otto & Astrid attempt to tell their fantastical life story of being orphaned as kids and growing up in artist filled squats to become the darlings of Berlin’s underground rock scene. Distracted and inspired by the extraordinary bendy feats of the Circus Oz acrobats, Otto & Astrid quickly descend into squabbling, throwing rehearsed circus routines and songs into spectacular chaos. Rock Bang is a riotous, hard-rocking Circus Oz explosion detonated by Otto & Astrid.

Term 4 Whole-Staff Professional Learning

Outlined below are the whole-staff professional learning sessions which will and have been delivered to our team in Term 4.

A huge thank you to Megan Michlaidis our Assistant Principal who leads up this important work to ensure we are responsive to supporting the continued learning needs of our staff team.

Week 1: Trauma Informed Practices
Week 2: Professional Learning Various (Getting to know our students, STEAM, Autism, eLearning, Cult