Middle School

Message from Head of Middle School, Ms Spiteri

Dear Parents/Guardians,

We understand that the extended lockdown and remote learning period is starting to take its toll on many. Fulfilling all of life’s tasks at home is no easy undertaking. Then we add the social isolation which, for many, enhances our sense of loneliness, loss of self and frustration. 

We know that despite this pandemic our students continue to display growth and develop into mature young adults. They have taken time to build greater connections with their families, contribute more around the house, learn many new life skills, build on their ability to communicate and have become more independent learners. 

You have all expressed a need for students to take some time away from their screens and be given an opportunity to work on their health and wellbeing. We hear you! 

In response to this need, we have developed an exciting program called #DSCRecharge. This program is a whole day event where students are given the opportunity to identify a skill they wish to learn and/or develop that they focus on for the whole day. Students will be asked to sign into Compass first thing in the morning to complete a planning document, which outlines how they intend to use their day. Once this document has been submitted, students then log off their computer to put their plan into action, only returning to Compass at the end of the school day to submit some evidence of their learning. 

We hope that this program will engage students with lifelong learning skills, provide them an opportunity to put their newly developed sense of learning independence into practice and allow them to step away from their computers and focus on a task they enjoy. 

I personally am really looking forward to hearing all of the wonderful things our students get up to and achieve on this day. 

Kelly Spiteri

Head of Middle School

Year 7 Reading Groups: 

This term, Ms Chiuchiarelli's Year 7 English students have been participating in regular 'reading groups' which have been both fun and valuable for their social and emotional development. 

As part of the sessions, students read to each other and discuss themes and passages from their book. Some of the titles that students are reading include Born to Run, Chinese Cinderella, Don’t call me Ishamel, Once and Wonder.

Students have been really engaged with this activity and we are pleased to share some of their reflections below:

Vlad - 7H: 

"My group has been reading the book 'Born to Run' by Cathy Freeman. Now that we've finished it, we are doing a project. Before each English lesson, we made a prediction about what was going to happen next in the book. The book is about Cathy's life and what she went through as a child, all the way up to adulthood."

Anthony - 7H: 

"My group is reading 'Born to Run by Cathy Freeman'. We have finished the book and now we're doing a project. At the end of each session, our group made predictions about what would happen next. We always made sure we read at least one chapter and proceeded to read until we ran out of time."

Charlie - 7H: 

"We are reading 'Born to Run' by Cathy Freeman. We work together as a group to talk and discuss our task. We use a collaborative approach to reading, so we can read together as a team. Ms Chiuchiarelli calls it ‘Chime Reading’ because you chime in. To do it right, people must take turns to talk. They try to time it perfectly so that we get no interruptions and the reading flows smoothly. It’s good for making sure we are paying attention. It also encourages us to listen to others and work together."

Student Led Conferences - Thank you!

Congratulations to all Middle School students for making the student-led conferences a huge success. Students were prepared with their PowerPoint presentations and reflected on their learning beautifully. Students were able to identify things they were proud of in their subjects, as well as areas for improvement moving forward. 

I am sure parents were impressed with their child's ability to navigate the world of online learning. It was so wonderful to see how proud the students were when talking about their achievements. 

With only a few weeks of this term remaining, I would like to give students some tips:

• Communicate with your teachers if you are finding classwork too difficult. Reach out if you are not sure what to do, if you are having a bad day or if you are bored and would like some extension work.
• Try to only complete schoolwork within school hours. If you are completing too much homework after school please let your DiSCovery teacher know.
• Have breaks away from screens when you can (go for a walk, help with some cooking, tidy your room).

We can't wait to have students back in the physical classroom as soon as it is safe to do so. 

Ms Carly Sayer

Middle School Leader

Student Reflections: Student-Led Conferences

Evan (7G)

"On 26 August, Doncaster Secondary College had Student Led Conferences. I had eight lined up for the day. My first one was at 9:10am, with my Maths teacher Ms Luu. We discussed some of my strong points, some areas for improvement and set some goals for the coming weeks. I then had Conferences with DiSCovery, PE, English and Science. In those meetings, especially DiSCovery, my parents were really happy with the feedback they were getting, and about how well Doncaster had organised these conferences considering what they should've looked like if there were no Coronavirus! 

Leading up to the conferences, I was preparing like crazy, spending about 2 to 3 hours making the PowerPoint slides to go over with my teachers and parents. I rehearsed my presentations, making sure that the information I put into the slides would help me. 

Overall, I'm really happy with how my Student Led Conferences went, as they were really organised. I took heaps away from the day, it ran extremely smoothly, and my parents were also very impressed on top of all that! I obviously would've preferred it at school, as technology isn't always one's friend, but Doncaster Secondary College really surpassed my expectations with how the day went!

Bonjour: A Furry Friend Visits Year 7 French Class!

In Year 7 French class, students are learning how to describe animals, so to make things more fun, Ms Taylor recently introduced her dog Bear to the class via Microsoft Teams! 

Please see a reflection from Sarah P (7K) below:

"For the last few lessons of French, class 7J and 7K have been focusing on expanding our vocabulary by learning new nouns and adjectives. We have also been focusing on how to put them into a sentence, and how to turn singular nouns into plurals.

We have been learning how to translate the names of various colours and animals into French, and how to put them into a sentence. For example, we have been learning how to say a sentence like, “The black cat...”.

We have been using this knowledge to describe things about Ms Taylor’s dog, Bear. We have been practising with sentences like, “He is a brown and white dog". Bear comes into our classes regularly, keeping the students entertained and giving the teachers an example to use."

Ms Courtney Taylor

Year 9 Coordinator