Peter Corkill - Principal
Dear Parents and Students
We are now entering into the full swing of Term Two with much happening at JMSS. I would like to congratulate and thank our students and staff for their help at our recent annual Information Night. A special thanks to our School Captains Nalana Merannage and Liora Goode who hosted the night so ably, and to Year 10 students Caterina Wiltshire and Jonathan Rogic who spoke so honestly and passionately about their new school. It was another extremely well-attended event, which augurs well for student enrolments here next year and in the years to come. The presence of so many of our Monash colleagues sent a powerful message about the strength and productivity of our unique partnership. The performances of our music students, the Stage Band and Choirs, were also most impressive. Our Music program gathers strength by the day, and after successive weekends away on camp and then at the Mt Gambier Jazz festival, our students are shining. My sincere thanks to Damon Key, Ben Delves, other music staff and parent helpers who have made these opportunities available to our students, and given up much of their own time to make them possible.
Tours of the school for prospective students and parents will take place at 3:30pm on each of May 14th, 19th, 21st and 26th. I am sure our student group leaders will do another impressive job of sharing their knowledge and experience of JMSS with our eager visitors.
Science Exhibition Evening
I am looking forward to seeing the impressive standard of work, and enthusiastic presentation of projects by our Year 10 scientists at the Science Exhibition evening next week. The many visitors to JMSS look forward to sharing conversations with our students about their work and are always captivated by their passion for it. To think these students have been here for only 12 weeks is remarkable, and my sincere congratulations to them all, as well as their teachers, for putting this event together. Many prospective students and their parents also attend this event, and I would encourage all members of our community with an interest in science to come along and support our students.
JMSS Peer Review - Update
The School Self Evaluation of the previous four years is now complete, thanks to the excellent work of ten staff teams throughout late 2014 and Term One this year. The Curriculum Day on Monday April 13th at ACMI in Federation Square saw each staff team report on their findings regarding the research questions which were set against the 2011 Strategic Plan goals. The session was most informative and painted a strong picture of significant progress through the last four years. Each team reported against four domains: What did we plan to do? What did we not do? What did we do that we didn’t plan to do? Where to from here? Easily the most populated domain was the third: What did we do that we didn’t plan to do? Surely this is indicative of the fact that JMSS was a start-up school, one for which predictions about what opportunities might arise are very hard to nail down in a strategic plan. The teams gathered extra information from parent surveys and student forums, and their reflections have greatly informed the final evaluation.
Our reviewer Anita Forsyth attended JMSS on May 4th in order to gather information prior to the actual review. She spoke to groups of students and staff during the day, and worked with me to put together the terms of reference for the actual review. The peers selected by the school to be part of the actual review day on May 22nd have all confirmed their attendance: Dr Hang Kim Hoo, Principal, NUS Singapore; Ms Judy Crowe, President Victorian Secondary Principals Association (VASSP), Mr David Howes, Head of Curriculum, Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), and Professor Darrell Evans, Vice Provost Learning and Teaching, Monash University. We are confident these colleagues will provide us with great insight and wisdom as we look at our progress since 2011, and cast a light on the next five years of our development.
Photo Permission
Celebrating the achievements of our students is very important to us at JMSS. We record awards ceremonies and assemblies, post news and photos on the internal TV screens, we place items of interest on the JMSS website and in our newsletter, and we would like to be able to give all of our students the recognition they deserve.
We have a number of students within the school for whom we do not have permission to publish photos, and this results in many team photos being unusable, particularly in sporting teams and music ensembles. On further reflection if you are happy to give permission for your student's image to be used, please sign the form and return to the office.
A Strategic Approach to Study – Maintaining a Balance between Work, Rest and Recreation
Whist acknowledging that the commitment of our students to their studies and ongoing improvement is nothing short of outstanding, I feel there is a need to realign some of the thinking among some students and parents that ‘more work produces better outcomes’. While there cases of this being true, for example when students are doing little work and expecting great results, eventually we get to a stage where too much work, late at night and without sufficient rest, becomes counter-productive.
Read more on our website at http://www.jmss.vic.edu.au/jmss/7379/study-strategy/?frm_id=63
You can download the document here: