Assistant Principals

Attendance

It's getting towards the end of a long cold term and students are getting tired.  We are aware that some students may be placing pressure on their parents to take some days off school at this time of year.  "All our assessment is done, and its nearly the end of term," or "We aren't really learning anything in class," are common comments that student's make to their parents at this time of year.  Please be assured that although all common assessment items should be completed by this stage that teachers are planning great learning for their classes and undertaking formative assessment every day.

The leadership team and teachers have been thinking and talking about how to improve student attendance a lot throughout this term.  Most people would think that an attendance rate of 90% sounds fairly reasonable.  However that would in fact mean that a student would be missing one full day every timetable cycle.  The impact on the continuity and consolidation of learning for a student with an attendance rate of 90% would be significant.  As adults we also know that there are few workplaces that would tolerate their employees being absent from their workplace one day in every ten so regular attendance is also great preparation for students for the real world.

Please discourage your children from missing school for anything other than illness.

Reports

Assessment and Reporting Day was a huge benefit for our teachers who have been beavering away finalising assessments for students.  We'd like to take the time to thank them for their efforts and diligence as we know the enormous amount of work outside the College day that goes into final assessments.

On the last day of this term you will be able  to access your child's semester results.  These will appear as a transcript of results without any commentary.  As mentioned in the last newsletter the report will give you an overview of your child's progress in relation to the key learning behaviors that contribute to successful learning, an indication of whether or not they could demonstrate the required learning for each topic and their grade on a range of common assessment items to give an indication of the level at which they have achieved.  The year 7-10 reports will also have the Victorian Curriculum Assessment which will give you an indication as to their progress against their year level.

Please assist your child to reflect on their progress by discussing their results with them.  For further information about how the teacher came to give the grade they gave refer to the task on Compass for their feedback.

It is important that students reflect on and celebrate their achievements whilst making plans for what they will do to continue their progress in the next semester.

Catherine Ford, Andrew Lewis, Shane Kruger

Assistant Principals