Assistant Principals
Attendance Matters
Education is a three way partnership between the College, parents and students. Regular attendance is the glue that cements learning. In the competitive world in which we live it is essential that we give our children the best possible education. This can only occur if children are consistently at school. We want all of our students to have options when they leave and to be able to follow their preferred pathway.
Students develop good habits by going to school every day - habits that are necessary to succeed after school, whether in the workplace or in further study. Missing school can have a big impact on students academically and socially. If a student misses just 7 days a term then that is almost a month of learning they have missed.
The College has introduced Compass to allow parents to monitor students' attendance. Please utilise Compass and if you have any concerns please contact your child's Year Level Leader.
Bruce Churchward
Assistant Principal
Student Services
Compass and Ongoing Reporting
We hope you are as excited about the capacity for Compass to provide students and parents with ongoing feedback about learning progress at the time of assessment as we are.
Each teacher has committed to ensuring parents and students are able to access assessment data and feedback comments on between 2 and 5 pieces of student work per term. These comments should have an improvement focus highlighting what the student needs to do differently or improve on to move to the next stage of learning. We trust that having this data close to the time of the task will encourage ongoing conversations between parents and children related to learning throughout the semester rather than at the end of semester in relation to a report.
As a result of the introduction of Compass and its capacity to provide timely feedback for students and parents we have been reviewing our semester reports.
We strongly believe it is important that students get the ongoing feedback throughout the term in addition to a summary of their results at the end of the semester. As a result our new reports will include the following sections:
- Victorian Curriculum (old AusVELs) progression
- Learning Behaviours
- Performance on each topic or Learning Outcome
- Grades on Common Assessment Items and School Assessed Learning Tasks
- Attendance
As comments are being provided at the time of assessment through Compass they will not be included on the report.
Students will also receive a Home Group Report which will include a analysis of their overall performance by their Home Group teacher.
NAPLAN
The weather starts getting colder and the days start getting shorter and before you know it we are into May and its time for our Year 7 and 9 students to complete their NAPLAN tests.
Students in Years 7 and 9 will complete their Language Conventions (spelling, punctuation and grammar) and Writing Tests on Tuesday May 9th, their Reading test on May 10th and their Numeracy Test on May 11th.
The skills assessed in NAPLAN are the skills every student needs in order to progress at school and succeed with future work and study. These are skills that are developed over time and throughout the whole school curriculum. They are not a test that students are able to 'prepare' for.
It is important that students try their hardest on the tests so we can get accurate measures of their capacity and growth in each of the areas. However, it is also important that they keep them in perspective as it is only one of the many assessments they undertake each year.
As teachers we are interested in the data provided by NAPLAN so we can determine the best strategies to support each individual in their learning.
Catherine Ford
Assistant Principal
Teaching and Learning