Cranbourne Campus News
A Stressful Time for Young People
If your house is anything like mine, then you won't have escaped the fact that your young person will have just finished a block of assessments in all subject areas. For the younger students, this will have been in the form of assignments and class tests. For students in Years 10-12, it will have been in the form of summative assessments (exams)-(Summative just means that the assessment is at the end of the Unit to establish what has been learned).
This can be a stressful time for our young people, especially if they have not yet formed the habits of weekly revision and practice assessments (maybe a small pearl of wisdom for the start of Term 3?!)
A pivotal part of assessment is the chance to reflect on the feedback, and for senior students this happened on Thursday on what has come to be known as "New Semester Eve." The better, and more aspirational, learners amongst us, will have realised that learning from feedback and from some honest self-reflection, does make the assessment period next time, easier, and therefore the senior students should have started to make notes on what it is of their preparation, study and work habits that they need to keep doing, what they need to stop doing and what they need to start doing. Of course, writing it down is the easy thing, it is the sticking to the new plan that requires a level of dedication and discipline. As your young person reflects upon Semester 1, make sure you have them share their learning goals with you. This way you can encourage the type of dedication and discipline they must employ, beginning from the position of 'just wanting to help you to achieve your goals' rather than for you to appear to be nagging them with what could be perceived as your adult goals for them. One of these paths encourages student autonomy and ownership while the other promotes the idea of imposing responsibilities and enforcing accountability to their performance ~ a subtle but powerful difference to effective intrinsic motivation.
While our senior students experienced Exam Feedback Day our Junior Students had something of a break to the normal course of classroom study. Year 7's had a day where they chilled out to "Movie with a moral" before the Senior VCAL Students took them through a series of fun and engaging activities to help build their connections. The Year 8 students partook in a Health and Safety Day where they attended a series of workshops on vaping, maintaining a respectful digital profile, bullying and healthy eating as stimulus to their own considerations as to what being 'safe' can look like today. And finally, the Year 9 's were engaged in their Try a VET Day, where they were exposed to 'tasters' of VET offerings at either Campus- a start to their all important subject selection process.
The Semester has come to an end and a new Semester dawns. With the new Semester comes a chance to take stock and plan ahead ; all the time guided by the aspiration that I might 'be better tomorrow than I was today.'
ST. PETER'S DAY 2022
For the first time since 2019 we are gearing up for a St. Peter's Day celebration at the College. Next Tuesday students will have the opportunity to wear free dress as we come together as a community to celebrate the Eucharist together, before a day of fun activities and rides. It promises to be a wonderful opportunity for the College to celebrate who we are and what we stand for as a Community.
Jeremy Wright
Deputy Principal - Head of Cranbourne Campus