Principal's Report

From the Principal

It is an extremely busy time for staff and students, Year 12, 10 and 11 students have completed their exams.  Year 9 students will sit exams in English and Mathematics on the 8th of December.  Orientation Week for 2018 VCE students will begin on Monday 20th of November. It is an expectation that all students in years 9, 10 and 11 for 2017 attend this program every day. Students who are in VCAL for 2018 will have classes on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and will be going to TAFE on Friday, but on Wednesday they will not have any classes. Our Valedictory night for our Year 12 students will be held Tuesday the 21st of November.

Preparations are well underway for many other end of year events. Secondary Awards Night will be held on Wednesday December 13th at the Drum Theatre in Dandenong. Letters will be sent home to parents of students who will be receiving awards or performing, in the next few weeks, so that they can book tickets. Primary students are also busy preparing for their concerts, which will be held on the 7th  of December.

The College will farewell a number of long serving staff members at the end of the year. Kevin Fahey, Daniela Szlawski, Korenya Friend and Glenys Hetherton will be retiring. Sally Ross, Wendy Parkinson and Catherine Dunn have accepted positions in other schools. The school has appointed 3 Leading Teachers for 2018, Bree Andrews who has been in an acting position this year has now been successful in applying for a substantive position for the next 3 years. Scott Antony has been appointed as Junior School Leader and Bree Hudson has been appointed as Senior School leader.

This week I was fortunate enough to attend our secondary music performance evening, it was a great night showcasing the talent of our students. A special thanks to our Instrumental music teachers, Damien Maughan and Marina Novelli for preparing the students and for Kate Whitaker for organizing the night.

Carwatha College P-12: Excellence in Literacy and Numeracy Learning

Please read a report created by leading teacher Breanna Andrew on how well our students are performing.

In May of this year, all students in Years 7 and 9 sat for the National Assessment Plan - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). There are four tests covering numeracy, reading, writing, spelling, punctuation and grammar.

If you are a parent of a student in one of these year levels, you would have already received a written report of your child's achievement in the tests. These results tell you how your child is progressing in these areas compared to students in the same year across Victoria, but more importantly, about how much growth they have made in their learning between NAPLAN tests. Students in Year 7 would have completed similar tests in Grade 5 and students in Year 9 at Year 7.

Our 2017 results indicate that our students are making considerable learning growth across all test areas. In fact, in comparison to the average growth achieved by students across Victoria, students at Carwatha College P-12 make greater learning growth over the same period. This same trend occurs when comparing our student’s learning growth to students of other government schools in the area.

These remarkable results include our Year 9 students achieving 52% more growth in their writing skill level and 41% more growth in their reading skill level than other Year 9 students across the state.  This means that our students are experiencing on average 3 years of growth in the two years between NAPLAN testing periods. Put simply, our students consistently grow much more than the average student.

The Mathematics program for Years 7, 8 and 9, designed to identify each student’s strengths and weakness’ and catered for by flexible groupings for topics, also continues to produce strong individual achievement and above state growth in the numeracy NAPLAN tests.             

Our college community is extremely proud of these achievements as they are a direct result of the innovative teaching and learning program from P-12, which focusses on meeting every student’s individual literacy and numeracy needs. We are currently making plans to add to our programs in 2018, so that we can continue to strengthen these already outstanding outcomes.

If you would like more information about our programs or the NAPLAN tests, please feel free to contact the college.

The school received from further exciting news last week, we have received a grant from the Department of Education, to upgrade our facilities, the grant of over $170,000 will be used ensure our buildings are in the best condition they can be.

To assist us with our planning, we would appreciate parents letting us know as soon as possible if their children will not be attending Carwatha next year. Also, if you wish to enrol new students, including Preps, this needs to be done as soon as possible.

Pat Mulcahy