Around the College

2022 SRC Planning Day

In last fortnight's edition of the College newsletter, we introduced readers to our 2022 Student Representative Council.  This week, Mr Shirley chaired the SRC Planning Day, which is a half-day event that provides a dedicated forum for our SRC members to brainstorm their ideas and actions for the year ahead.  

The day started with introduction activities where the group got to know each other, followed by an extended ideas sharing session where every idea goes on the whiteboard to be discussed in more detail.  Using the ideas from the whiteboard, the group categorized them and then decided on 4 major goals and a few additional mini goals for the year. From this point, 4 working groups, one for each major goal are formed in order to begin writing the action plan for next year. To end the day the leaders celebrated over a lunch supplied by the wonderful people in the canteen. 

The day was a great success. 2022 looks to be a big year for our college leaders. 

Mr. Shirley

SRC coordinator.

The infographic below details the four major goals of the 2022 SRC, along with "mini goals". Over the course of 2022, we will keep you informed on how the SRC are working towards achieving these goals.

Peer Leader Training

Peer Leaders are elected Year 9 students that help our new Year 7 students adapt to and settle in to secondary school life by visiting classrooms & DiSCovery classes, attending the Year 7 Orientation camp, and generally touching base with our new students.  To carry out this important role, our Peer Leaders need to be trained and inducted!  Mr. Hanna and his team ran a half-day Peer Leader training session and we have some student feedback about the day.

I expected boring classwork about teaching tactics and taking care of children. We did games, challenges and socialising! I enjoyed the games and I’m looking forward to the year 7 camp.

Christabel O

It was difficult to know what to expect during Peer Leader training. The only thing we really knew was we were going to be there for the year 7’s to support them the way our peer leaders supported us, when we were in year 7. We learnt a lot throughout the family evening we built on our communication skills along with our listening skills. 

Getting to know the future year 7’s throughout orientation day was a great opportunity. The family evening was a great way for the future year 7’s to gain an understanding surrounding what to expect. Throughout the family evening we discovered more about the new year seven’s and how they’re feeling coming into high school. Going into high school, I didn’t have many friends and felt the exact same as the year 7’s of 2022. My peer leaders were very helpful in making me feel welcome. 

At the evening we taught the future year 7’s about how to open the locks and what the school offers in regard to clubs and electives. There were several stations to help the year 7’s like, lock station, IT station, music station and a sausage sizzle.

Joven R.

New Phonics Program in 2022

At DSC we monitor student data for individual educational growth to ensure that each student is challenged, but has the chance for success.  The broad diversity of student ability within the College has seen the implementation of various programs that further challenge and extend the high achiever while others support those who may be struggling to grasp the foundation building blocks of literacy or numeracy.

While working with small groups to develop literacy skills, it was noticed that the concepts and understanding of the explicit instruction in phonics, which generally occur in the early years of primary education was weak in a small percentage of students.  These skills are essential for success in Secondary schooling and in life.  By the time students reach the secondary school system they are far more aware of self, expectations of others and have mastered techniques to disguise the elements of their literacy deficiencies.

Phonic concepts, if not grasped, can significantly impact on rate of student progress across all year levels, subjects and even impinge on aspects of daily life.  This can impact our children’s ability to make and keep friends, manage conflict, and maintain employment as they enter adulthood.  To address the need, the College has researched a phonics program that is more tailored to the secondary student and evidences the mastering of the alphabetic code.  This is especially effective when coupled with reinforced reading.  The program includes instruction in the five pillars of reading instruction which is phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, with the main focus on learning and applying the alphabetic code. Accurate and fluent word recognition is taught along with reading practice in sentence and story reading. Most students will make good progress with such instruction providing they are prepared to engage in the program.

The College is excited to offer this new program to selected eligible students between years 8 to 11 in 2022.

Pamela Campbell

Differentiation Lead

School Photos

College photographs of all students and staff will be taken by Advanced Life on Monday 7th February 2022.  Package information and ordering instructions are provided in the attachment.

Family/sibling photo online orders close on the 6th February 2022.

If unable to order online, please see the General Office for an ordering envelope from the start of Term 1 (exact cash only).