Learning & Teaching
Josy Reeder
Premier's Reading Challenge
This year, we are participating in the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge. Each child received a username and password that they can use to log on and record books. This is a fun way to encourage children to read. Students can access the website via this link.
Please contact Christine Thredgold if you have any questions.
Christine Thredgold
Literacy Leader
Inform and Empower Term 3 Sessions
Throughout these initial weeks our Grade 1-6 students will participate in the Inform and Empower live streamed sessions with Marty McGauran and Laura Adcock.
This term the focus for each level will be:
1/2 - Usernames and passwords, keeping information private and our digital footprint
3-6 - Cyberbullying, the power of an upstander, navigating uncomfortable situations
For further information on how to support your children in a digital world families are encouraged to seek information from the eSafety Commissioner.
NAPLAN
In the coming days the 2023 NAPLAN results for our Year 3 and Year 5 students are due to arrive. This year, parents and carers will get simpler information about their child’s NAPLAN achievement based on new, more rigorous national standards.
The numerical NAPLAN bands and the national minimum standard will be replaced by the following 4 levels of achievement:
• Exceeding
• Strong
• Developing
• Needs additional support.
The descriptors for each category are designed to make it clear to parents what their child’s literacy and numeracy skills are at the time of NAPLAN testing, and support discussions with their school on their child’s progress.
Student reports will continue to show the national average and the range of achievement for the middle 60 percent of students in their year level, allowing comparison of a child’s achievement against these measures. Detailed information on the knowledge and skills being measured in each NAPLAN assessment will be made available on the NAPLAN website.
For national reporting, 2023 will mark the start of a new time series, now that all students are online and the tests are being held in March instead of May. The earlier timing of NAPLAN in March rather than May means students will have 2 months less learning time before NAPLAN testing than in previous years. This, in addition to the full transition of all schools nationally to the online assessment that delivers more precise information, makes this the right time to reset the NAPLAN measurement scale so that results no longer have to be equated to those from the paper era. This will mean beginning a new results time series from 2023.
Results from 2023 on will not be directly compared with results from 2008 to 2022. However, a continued focus on students at the lower end of the achievement scale will be maintained by taking historical results into account for baseline benchmarks in the new reporting.
Resetting the measurement scale and restarting the time series once all schools are online was a recommendation of the 2020 Independent Review of NAPLAN.
Josy Reeder
Learning and Teaching Leader
Australian Mathematics Competition
Preparation and planning for the 2023 Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC) is well under way. The AMC is an engaging 30-problem competition that demonstrates the importance and relevance of Mathematics in students’ everyday lives; it is open to students in Grades 3 to 12. The students are given 30 minutes to complete the mathematical assessment.
Students have been invited to participate by the classroom teacher, Mathematics Leader and Principal using assessment data to determine which students might benefit from the opportunity.
If you have not been contacted and would like your child to participate, please contact Caitlan Taig on 9584 9488 or ctaig@olacheltenham.catholic.edu.au for more information.
Caitlan Taig
Mathematics Leader