Teaching and Learning in the Senior School
Our young people are indeed learning in interesting times. I would like to take the opportunity of this newsletter to reassure our parents and students that our dedicated band of teachers are planning to continue great teaching and learning over the challenging weeks and months ahead. At the teacher end of the equation, we have been building our online presence and have been preparing our classes to be ready to ‘go digital’ if the need arises. At the home end of the equation, parents have obviously got some great planning to do as well.
To aid your own planning, I encourage every parent to read our ‘Education Continuity Plan’ - College Principal, Mr Lee MacMaster, emailed all families on Tuesday night to outline the information needed to prepare our young people for learning at home. This plan includes some immediate preparations that families should make, including:
- Students to take their laptops home every afternoon
- Students to ensure laptops are in good working order – contact the IT department if not
- Students to ensure their email inbox and outbox have plenty of room to enable the sending and receiving of messages
Something that won’t get a lot of airtime, but that I think could be quite important for supporting the ongoing learning of our young men, is really quite simple; make sure you’ve got a few good books at home. We should never forget the advice of Dr Seuss:
The more that you read,
The more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
The more places you’ll go.
If we do end up being stuck at home for a while, how wonderful if a good book ends up being just the thing for engaging a young mind!
Mrs Louise Millar
Director of Teaching and Learning
Maths Enrichment and Competitions Group
At the start of this year, all boys in Years 7-10 were given the opportunity to express their interest in being involved in our newly formed Mathematics Enrichment and Competitions Group. A number of problems were made available to all boys, and those who submitted well thought-out responses were invited to join the group.
The group of twenty students has been meeting after school to learn different problem-solving strategies such as making lists, looking for patterns, drawing diagrams and making models. Each session they work together on whiteboards, sharing their ideas and refining their strategies, then they have a number of problems to complete individually to demonstrate their new skills.
The group will compete in their first major competition this Friday when they undertake the International “Kangourou sans Frontieres” challenge administered through the Australian Mathematics Trust (AMT).
As the year progresses, the boys will complete the AMT Maths Challenge for Young Australians, which includes the Challenge and Enrichment Stages, and which culminates in the four-hour Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad, which some boys may be invited to enter.
Here are examples of some of the problems the boys have solved in the last few weeks:
- What is the digit in the ONES column of 3100?
- How many times does the digit 7 occur in the first 1000 counting numbers?
- Jane was 30 in 1972. John is 12 years older than Jane. When was John born?
- How many fence posts would you need to fence a rectangular area that was 10 metres by 5 metres if the posts were 1 metre apart?
The boys have enjoyed these first few weeks of enrichment and we look forward to much more mathematically-inspired fun!
Mrs Sandra Hackett