Director of Learning & Innovation
Mr Rohan Mitchell
Welcome back to the new academic year. Our Year 11 students have hit the ground running and it has been reinvigorating to see these classes in full swing. The immense amount of work in 2022 to develop scopes and sequences for TASC has paid off in full. The air of something new and exciting is palpable.
I want to take this time to reinforce the importance of a couple of things we are working to tighten up in 2023.
Homework
According to Hattie (2009), authentic, meaningful homework is associated with advancing student learning by approximately one year, improving the rate of learning by 15%. Homework and study time is also associated with good routines and decreases in anxiety around school. As such, SVC students will be continuing to get increasing amounts of homework in 2023. Homework is generally broken into three types: preparatory, revision, and extension. Homework might also be catching up or getting ahead on assessments. Homework will never be busy work.
The suggested guidelines for amounts of time for our boys is shown below:
Year | Time Allocation | Per Week/Night |
Year 7 | 2 - 2.5 hours |
Hours Per Week |
Year 8 | 3 - 3.5 hours | |
Year 9 | 4 - 4.5 hours | |
Year 10 | 5-6 hours | |
Years 11 & 12 | As required - approximately 2 hours | Per Night |
Academic Integrity
We are using a plagiarism tool across all grades and all assessment tasks in 2023. The tool is called Ouriginal and assesses work for plagiarism when a piece of work is submitted. Good academic integrity is something we are helping the boys develop across the College, staring in Literacy in Years 7 and 8. Boys who choose not to follow the expectations around academic integrity, such as submitting work that is copied or contains the work of others, will receive consequences in line with the flow chart presented in the Student Handbook.
Extension on Assessment
As mentioned in the Student Handbook, our expectations around applying for an extension on assessment is that it is done at least 24 hours before the due date of the assessment. We are working on a quick and simple electronic form for these extensions but for the time being I have provided the following link to a standard document you may like to print and use.
Boys asking for extra time on the day an assessment is due will have their work treated as a late submission. This results in an academic detention, which is held after school on the following Wednesday.
Parents and guardians are informed of any upcoming academic detentions on the Thursday prior and are asked to support us in making sure our boys adhere to these consequences. A teacher is always present during these detentions and is available to help each student to catch up on their required work. If your son is unable to make a detention please make contact with his PC Teacher of Head of House to arrange an alternate time.
Wishing you all a fantastic start to the academic year!