NEWS

WELCOME TO THE SACC COMMUNITY -

Meet our new Staff members

As we begin the 2021 school year at St Andrews we extend a warm welcome to all new staff as well as new students. If you see these new faces around the College be sure extend a happy hello. We look forward to seeing God unfold their gifts and talents within our College community.

Lisa Wilks-Beasy - Head of English, Secondary School Teacher

I feel blessed to join St Andrews Christian College as Head of the English faculty. I have taught in Christian and Independent schools, most recently at Methodist Ladies’ College where I held a number of leadership roles. I am passionate about staff professional development, developing reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to inform teaching and learning. I have lived in a variety of places (overseas and regional Victoria) and I love to see live theatre and go to flea markets in my spare time.

Matt Adamek - Secondary School Teacher

My name is Matt Adamek and I am thrilled to be joining the St Andrews Christian College Community this year! I will be joining the P.E. team this year teaching a range of ages from Year 4 –  Year 10. As a teacher, the biggest fulfilment I can receive is seeing young people step into the calling God has placed upon their life. 

I feel extremely privileged that God has called me to St Andrews and look forward in anticipation to all that He is going to do in and through this school community this year. I look forward to continuing to meet more of this fantastic community as the school year progresses.

Doug Allison - Head of Learning and Teaching – Secondary, Secondary School Teacher

Hello! It has been great to meet the students of the College and I look forward to meeting you, parents, soon. I am stepping into the new role of Head of Learning and Teaching (Secondary) and Secondary School Teacher. 

I have a Year 11 Homeroom and Biblical Studies class, and teach Year 11 Business Management and Year 9 and 7 Humanities and am involved in the Sport program.  I have returned to Melbourne after five years teaching in the NT.  I love exploring God’s creation, bike riding, gardening and philosophy.  I usually have a few projects on the go around the house – a few more at the moment!  I have a passion for Christian education and to wrestle with what it looks like for our students to participate in God’s story.

Maria Wheelton - Secondary School Teacher

I am very excited to be teaching Year 6, 8 and 9 Art this year. God has blessed me with the privilege of sharing my love for art with students, in order to encourage them to use the talents God has placed within each of them. Students have already begun some fantastic projects and I cannot wait to display their work during the College's Arts show in Term 3.

I love creating and making and most recently taught myself how to make soap. I also enjoy spending time outdoors gardening and camping with my family.

Jess Rowe - Secondary School Teacher

Hello SACC community! My name is Jessica Rowe and I will be one of the new English teachers and the Year 10 Homeroom teacher. We have some very exciting books to study across all of the year levels – I can’t wait to share them with you! I have felt so welcomed by the school community in these first few weeks and look forward to sharing a biblical perspective of the English discipline.

I love reading books in the fantasy and historical genre, so please come and tell me what books you’re reading at the moment! 

2021 COLLEGE THEME POSTER DESIGN WINNER

Congratulations Sophia Tran!

As with every year, all St Andrews students are invited to submit a creative design, photograph or painting that visually displays our College theme. For 2021, our theme is “Trust in the Lord” from our Bible verse Jeremiah 17:7-8.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

There were many wonderful entries and we are happy to congratulate Year 11 student Sophia Tran as this year's poster design winner. What a magnificent expression of the beauty of trusting in our Lord. Well done Sophia! 

CANCER COUNCIL RELAY FOR LIFE - 

We need YOUR support! 

I recently joined Cancer Council’s Relay For Life event which will be held Saturday March 13th at Knox Athletics Track. 

Relay For Life is our opportunity to join together to make a difference in our community. Each year thousands of Australians participate in Relays across Australia and our St Andrews Christian College team is proud to be part of that. By joining or donating to our team, you will be helping Cancer Council save even more lives.

Come along and join in too as St Andrews Christian College is gathering a team of staff members and senior students (Years 10 -12) to help raise money to fight Cancer. 

So far we’ve got a team of more than 15 so let’s keep that team number growing! 

Relay For Life is a community fundraiser where teams take turns to walk around a track at relay-style event. We are planning to have our team members take shifts on the track of only 1 hour (or more if you’d like) between 12noon and 10pm. You can stay for the whole event, do a shift on the track or just visit and enjoy the entertainment, prizes and ceremonies that make Relay For Life so inspirational. You’ll never forget your Relay experience, and you can make a big difference in the fight against cancer. 

The entry fee is $30 per student, $40 per adult. Head to the St Andrews CC Relay For Life team page to register using this link St Andrews CC Team Page and then make sure you add your name to a time slot of walkers on this Google Doc here.

If you aren’t keen to join in the Relay you can still support our team and donate through our St Andrews CC Team Page. Thank you so much for all of your support, and I hope to see you at the Relay!

Andrew Farmer

Head of P.E. and Health

For further details email Mr Farmer directly on afarmer@standrews.vic.edu.au 

You can find out more about Relay & the fun to be had helping your community by watching this video:

OUTSTANDING 2020 VCE RESULTS

Congratulations to our 2020 VCE cohort for their outstanding VCE results. They have produced the best ever VCE results our College has ever seen and their results are even more impressive when considering the difficulties and hardship of Victoria’s lock-down and Covid restrictions.

Additional congratulations goes to our 2020 College Dux Holly Bligh who received a score of 98.8. Well Done Holly!

For more in-depth detail on our outstanding VCE results see below.

ICAS WINNERS

Students finally received their ICAS medals from last year! Congratulations to Joshua Chen – Digital Technologies, Junru Teng – English and Zoe Almodiel (not pictured) – Spelling Bee 

Paige Cheung 

Year 4 Teacher

LEARNING SUPPORT AT ST ANDREWS

Welcome to the new school year! Learning Support is here to help! 

We all need a helping hand at times - this is normal and healthy. Asking for help can be hard; admitting that we need support can be challenging.

In Learning Support, we want to strengthen students’ metacognition; to teach them to think about their thinking.  John Hattie, a highly respected Australian education expert analysed and then ranked 252 teaching strategies.  Metacognition is one of the teaching strategies which is ranked highly, meaning it has a high positive impact on learning.  Hattie says, 

“The key for understanding the process of learning is that it is taught.... the student learns to monitor, control or regulate their own learning.... It involves learning when to apply a strategy, how to apply that strategy and evaluating how effective the strategy has been for improving learning.  It requires self-observation, self-judgement, and self-reaction.”

What does this mean and what might it look like in practice? Imagine a teacher and student working on reading when the student makes an error in decoding a word but continues reading.  The temptation is to say, “You made a mistake”, then point to the word where the error was made and ask the student to reread it.  The teacher has identified an error and decided on the course of action for correction.  Metacognition puts the thinking onto the student.  The teacher starts by asking the student if what was read makes sense. If the student indicates that it doesn’t make sense, then the teacher asks the student what the next step might be and the student then determines the next course of action.  The student makes a decision by thinking about his or her thinking – metacognition.

This means we are actively teaching students to think about their thinking. We ask students open-ended questions about their learning, which helps students learn to gauge their progress and identify areas for improvement. Encouraging all students to reflect and to explain their thinking, to set goals and grow is part of developing valuable life skills.

We aim to create an atmosphere where it is okay to ask questions, to have a go, to make mistakes. “Psychologist Jason Moser studied the neural mechanisms that operate in people’s brains when they make mistakes (Moser et al., 2011). Moser and his group found something fascinating. When we make a mistake, synapses fire. A synapse is an electrical signal that moves between parts of the brain when learning occurs.” We need to remind students that when they make a mistake, their brain grows.  Literally. We remind students that they are wonderfully made, and that God has a purpose for their lives. We encourage them to have a ‘Growth’ mindset, with positive self-talk that says ‘I’m on the RIGHT track, but can STILL learn more,’ ‘Making mistakes HELPS me IMPROVE,’ and ‘I can’t do it YET…with EFFORT I can!’ We want to normalise the need for support; we all need help at some point, and that is okay!

Further information about this can be found here:

Microsoft Word - Mistakes-Grow-Your-Brain-Revised.docx (youcubed.org)

If you have concerns about your child, please feel free to make an appointment or send an email. We are always willing to partner with you.

The Learning Support Teachers:

• Shirley Gillie – Head of Learning Support   sgillie@standrews.vic.edu.au
• Wendy Punay – Learning Support Teacher – Primary   wpunay@standrews.vic.edu.au
• Kerryn Terrington – Learning Support Teacher – Secondary kterrington@standrews.vic.edu.au

We now have a Learning Support Parent Information Page on the Hub. Please feel free to have a look at the information; there are homework and study tips, articles and resources as well as information about a number of specific conditions.

Student Support Group (SSGs) meetings will be held for some students. Primary SSGs will mostly be held on Parent Teacher Interview day on 25th February. These meetings replace the regular Parent Teacher meeting. Secondary SSGs will be held after school throughout the term to enable the relevant teachers to attend. We encourage your child to attend these meetings with you.

Please do not hesitate to contact the team if you have any questions or concerns.

Blessings

The Learning Support Teachers 

FUN AT THE LIGHT FM RECORDING STUDIO

The St Andrews Open Day for 2021 will be held on Friday 5th March between 9.00am to 11.00am. As part of our advertising and promotion of this wonderful morning showcasing our beautiful College we had a radio commercial recorded for airing on Light FM.  

Our Open Day radio commercial was performed by School Captain Hannah Collis. After a nervous start, a little voice coaching and the support of Katie Brown and mum, Hannah did a brilliant job for her first gig. There are four versions that will start airing next week Tuesday 23rd and run through until March 5th.

Peter Friend

Communications & Community Relations Manager

OUTSIDE SCHOOL HOURS CARE NEWSLETTER