From the Leadership Team

Unpacking NAPLAN

Davina McClure, Deputy Principal

Students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 recently received their NAPLAN results for 2019. Once again, these results were consistently high across the year levels.  We certainly appreciate each student’s hard work and effort in delivering their best on the day under these test conditions.  The tests provide parents and schools with an understanding of how individual students are performing at the time of the tests. They are just one aspect of a school’s assessment process and by no means replace the ongoing formative and summative feedback and assessment cycle made by teachers within the classroom for student learning growth and progress.

Each year, the NAPLAN program remains a topic of vigorous debate and a review is currently being delivered jointly by the state governments of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.  Considering the introduction of online tailored testing within the ever-evolving educational landscape setting, it is timely for the government to once again determine how NAPLAN can support an effective and contemporary national assessment environment. 

Applying a Growth Mindset

At Kilvington, we are centered on a growth approach to learning where students focus on their own personal learning progress to optimise their academic potential.  Rather than focusing on outperforming others, we encourage students to focus on outperforming their own previous efforts and achievement.  Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset research points to the positive impact that this has on student accomplishment.  Teachers at Kilvington embrace and deliver strategies that align with a growth approach to learning.  We are committed to using consistent Growth Mindset language and formative instruction that focuses students to apply effort and persistence to achieve their personal best. 

Climbing Growth Ladders

Underpinning this approach is our recent introduction of Growth Ladders in a number of subject or skill areas across the Junior School and Senior School curriculum.  A Growth Ladder consists of a ‘move me on’ matrix.  At each learning milestone, the teacher and/or student determines how they will move to the next level of understanding or complexity.  This process helps students to be metacognitive as they think carefully about their learning.  It promotes an understanding that learning is a journey, where the process is valued and the learning opportunities are limitless.  The ability to be self-aware and reflective is also heightened, as students are more conscious of knowing and owning their learning journey.  It takes much more than sitting a test.  It takes time, hard work, dedication and reflection.

A Personal Best Focus

Our priority is to provide students with a holistic approach to education, focusing our efforts on supporting each and every individual student to concentrate on ‘personal best’ and ‘personal excellence’ irrespective of comparisons that might be drawn.  The following table reflects Kilvington’s summary report at Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 for each of the areas tested for NAPLAN 2019: Reading, Writing, Language Conventions – Spelling, Language Conventions – Grammar and Punctuation, and Numeracy.  We reiterate that while NAPLAN is an important measure, it is one of many and should be considered in the context of each student’s overall experience at school.  Such testing assesses students on how they compare with other students at one point in time, which does not support a personal growth approach to learning. 

2020 School Leaders

We congratulate the recently appointed 2020 School Leaders who start their role next term.  Thank you to all the students who participated in the process. 

School Co-Captains are Sam Clark and Kaitlyn Truong. 

School Co-Vice Captains are William Douglas and Bridie Linehan.     

Staffing

We wish Mrs Lucie Dickens, Academic Dean of Languages, all the very best as she takes a well-deserved period of long service leave in Term 4. I congratulate Mr Nicholas Troitzky Pelletier who will take on the role of Acting Dean of Languages and welcome Ms Beatrice Vanderstichele who will take on Lucie’s French classes.

Many thanks to Nicholas for his work as Acting House Dean of Barrett this term in Pat Lehman’s long service leave absence.

We also welcome Mrs Emma White who has been appointed to the Accounts Receivable Officer role replacing Mr Campbell Fraser.

Apology Received over Report about our Advertising Budget

Jon Charlton, Principal

You may have read in The Age recently an article that published a number of independent Schools’ advertising spend. It was alleged that Kilvington was in the top three of spenders.

The information published was incorrect and wildly overestimates our advertising spend by hundreds of thousands of dollars to August. However, we are thankful to Nine Publishing  (owner of Fairfax Media) which has since apologised.

I can assure you that our approach to marketing is, and will continue to be, responsible and aligns with our business objectives for the ongoing success of the School.