Secondary News

Richard Clark

Yesterday we celebrated the beginning of a new school year and we honour our Captains for 2017, Alliyah Davison and Damien McMillan.  Alliyah and Damien have already made a wonderful start to their new roles, demonstrating confidence and maturity in all they have been asked to do.  I look forward to working with them over the year.

Writing is an important skill for students to develop and we are doing a lot of work to help students improve their abilities in this area.  Mrs Anna Seccombe has introduced the Secondary school to the Seven Steps of Writing Success strategies by beginning with ‘Sizzling Starts’.  We will be focussing on this skill in all Key Learning Areas over the coming weeks.  These skills will benefit all students, however, they will be particularly important for students in Years 7 and 9 as they work towards this year's NAPLAN tests.

The 2017 NAPLAN has particular significance for Year 9 students as it is the first opportunity to meet the new minimum standards of literacy and numeracy for the HSC (in 2020).  This minimum standard has been set by NESA (formerly BOSTES) as a band 8 in NAPLAN.  Students that do not meet the standard this year will have further opportunities during Year 10, 11 and 12.

PAT testing has been completed over the past week for numeracy and comprehension.  Teachers use this data to assist them in preparing work that targets the needs of each student.  At the end of the academic year students will be tested again to measure their learning growth over the year.