Curriculum

2021 National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN)

Parents would know that all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 from schools across Australia will sit the national tests in Literacy and Numeracy in May this year. The tests will ensure national consistency in benchmarking Literacy and Numeracy standards across all Australian educational jurisdictions.

Whilst many schools will be taking the online tests, this year’s NAPLAN will be carried out as pen and paper tests for all our boys on the following days:

With just over six school weeks to the tests, parents and boys of Years 5, 7 and 9 are encouraged to visit the NAPLAN site at: https://www.nap.edu.au/. Sample test items, marking criteria and marking guide are available as are past tests and marking guides. 

The NSW Education Standards Authority has advised that the genre for the 2021 writing test will not be disclosed prior to the test period. In 2021, as in previous years, the writing test will be a single common task for all students. Students will be required to respond to either a narrative or a persuasive prompt. Therefore, boys from Years 5, 7 and 9, ought to practice and familiarise themselves with both the persuasive and narrative styles of writing. To understand more about the writing test, visit the NAPLAN site at: https://www.nap.edu.au/naplan/writing.

The boys should begin now to prepare for NAPLAN and parents are encouraged to work with their sons at home. The more practice items the boys do the better prepared and more confident they will feel during the NAPLAN test days.

Year 12 Parent/Teacher Interviews and Student Academic Reports

By the end of the week after next week, the Semester 1 Reports on students of Year 12 will be available online to parents via the Sentral Parent Portal.

The Year 12 Parent/Teacher interviews will be scheduled for the evening of Wednesday 31 March from 3.40pm to 9.00pm. Parents/Carers may book interview time slots themselves. The College will not be allocating interview times. Parents/Carers need to ensure interviews are booked by no later than 12.00 noon, Friday 26 March.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions still in place, all interviews will be conducted via Microsoft Teams, either via a link emailed to the parent by the relevant teacher or by the teacher “calling” using the relevant student’s Teams account. Each Interview block is for 10 minutes. Interviews are for seven minutes only. There is a three-minute break between each interview to allow the interviews to run smoothly. 

There is an expectation that parents will book interviews with all of their sons’ teachers. There is also an expectation that students are present for the interviews.

Please check your junk mail in the first instance if you do not receive an email with your booking webcode on it. All booking instructions are on this email. If you do not receive your webcode or have any problems logging-in, please contact the Administration Coordinator, Mrs Colak on 8705 9209.

The Semester 1 Report is an opportunity for parents to discuss their sons’ progress but more importantly, to discuss strategies and recommendations for preparing for the HSC examinations.

I would like to encourage all Year 12 students to use their time wisely during the upcoming Easter break and not let the time pass without having done substantial preparation for the second term assessments, the Trial HSC and HSC examinations. This is a very important time for Year 12 students to constructively assess their progress thus far, and to make the necessary adjustments and effort in preparation for a very demanding year ahead. Perhaps time not only to get on top of the work but also to get ahead.

Michael Cutrupi

Director of Curriculum

Study Skills Workshops

Year 7 Study Skills

On Monday and Tuesday, Year 7 students participated in a series of study skills sessions here at school. The small group sessions were designed to support the boys’ successful transition to high school expectations and study. 

In Technology for Learning, they participated in practical activities to make them more comfortable working with our learning management system Canvas. In Study Notes and Exam Preparation, students learned about various forms of notetaking such as mind-mapping, point form notes and the Cornell approach which also supports retrieval of learning and revision. In this session, the boys added all Semester 1 assessment dates to their diaries and discussed some helpful approaches to preparing for exams. Mrs Azar worked with all eight groups over the two days to provide them with an orientation to our McGlade Library with physical and online research resources. And finally, a new session this year, titled “Year 7 Needs to Know…!” addressed concerns and questions raised by the boys themselves such as what our expectations of them are in high school, what it means to be responsible for their own behaviour and learning, how to write a good email to their teachers and healthy ways to manage stress. Our plenary session at the end of the day connected our Wellbeing and Learning frameworks as we explored expectations around examination conditions, finding balance, and thinking through issues of cyber-safety.

Study Skills Years 7 – 9 

On Thursday evening, Dr Prue Salter will present her engaging and interactive workshop for boys in Years 7 and 8 and their parents. Given the disruptions of COVID in 2020, Dr Salter has also extended a welcome to Year 9 students and parents to participate. 

Dr Salter’s interactive workshop is a fantastic complement to the study skills sessions completed by Year 7 students earlier this week. Her session is lively, practical, and informative. We have provided her workshops for boys and their parents in previous years and the feedback has always been excellent. The workshop will be held virtually Thursday 11 March from 7.00pm until 8.30pm via Microsoft Teams. Please see Tuesday’s email from Mrs Lombardo for additional details and the link to the Teams meeting.

In addition, parents and St Patrick’s students can access a range of supportive materials and resources designed for students from Years 7 – 12 in the Study Skills Handbook. Just enter our username (forspconly) and password (138results).

Denise Lombardo

Director of Learning and Innovation