Feedback to Parents: Key Dates

At DSC we provide detailed feedback about specific tasks to parents and students on key dates. These dates for 2020 are:

Comments in Learning Tasks: March 12, May 14, June 25, Aug 20, Oct 15 and Dec 10
Student-Led Conferences: March 24 and August 26
Semester Reports: July 17 and December 15

These tasks will be flagged to show there is an indication of the grade and effort as well as a comment.

The end of semester reports are a summary of each subject with Victorian Curriculum levels and grades for key tasks, and will be published on Compass by July 17 and December 15. There will be no comments on end of semester reports. You will see comments in Learning Tasks on March 12, May 14, June 25, Aug 20, Oct 15 and Dec 10 by following the instructions below.

Bookings for Student-Led Conferences (SLCs) will open in Compass on March 12 and close on March 22. Students should currently be reflecting on their learning in all subjects and planning for the SLCs. Discovery lessons will give students more time to think about how they can plan to benefit from the conferences.

Parent Help Finding Feedback on Learning Tasks

Would you like to see more information about the tasks your child is completing?

Log into Compass and click on something referring to Learning tasks. There are two examples below.

At the end of each semester you will receive a summary report of grades for key tasks. The learning Tasks with “Report: Yes” under the title are the tasks which will appear on the Semester Report.

- Gary Rule, Assistant Principal

Coronavirus Update

Thank you to parents and guardians for your ongoing cooperation regarding Coronavirus. Victoria’s Chief Health Officer released an update on Thursday, 5 March regarding overseas school excursions. Based on this advice, any overseas school excursions should not proceed until further notice, except to New Zealand and Canada.

The Commonwealth Government also updated travel restrictions this week. The extension to existing travel restrictions now applies to visitors from South Korea, Iran and mainland China. Visitors who are not Australian citizens or permanent residents, or their dependents will not be allowed entry into Australia. The Commonwealth Government has also advised that visitors from Italy will be subject to enhanced health screening and temperature testing arrangements.

Please refer to the Department’s Coronavirus web page for more information. Factsheets in English and Mandarin are below:

School Improvement Team -

Shaping our School For Success!

On Tuesday, 25 February we held our first School Improvement Team (SIT) meeting for the year. This year the team includes representatives from across the whole school including Education Support, teachers, learning specialists, students and the Principal team to fully capture all aspects of our school.

We look forward to updating you with progress throughout the year. In the meantime, some of our committee members share their thoughts:

Student Representative Charlize F (7J):

How do you feel about being a committee member?

I feel happy that I can provide a voice for the Year 7 students and to share my opinion.

Do you have any special areas of interest within the school that you’d like to focus on?

I would mainly like to focus on the wellbeing of students.

What makes you proud to be part of the DSC community?

Knowing that students' opinions matter.

Principal Éva McMaster:

What are the benefits in having this committee at DSC?

This team is unique as it is made up of students, teachers of varying levels of classification as well as non-teaching staff. This makes it a team where the perspectives, ideas and questions come from a broad range of stakeholders. This team brings our school’s Annual Implementation Plan to “life”. The common purpose of the improvement team members is the relentless pursuit of improving student outcomes.

What’s something we can be proud of as a school community?

We can be proud of the fact that we are working hard to build a culture where teachers and students work together, and where student voice, agency and leadership contribute to student empowerment. It's wonderful that we can create authentic opportunities for students to influence what happens in their school.

What is your personal vision for DSC?

To be a school where the entire school community embraces the work towards a common vision where every student, without exception, experiences 21st century learning and achieves to the best of their ability.

Morgan Gardiner (Student Voice and Agency Representative)

What are the benefits in having this committee at DSC?

The benefit of the new look SIT should be profound. By having representatives from a range of groups in our school community, including students, we should be able to set and work towards our goals much better. By consulting with a broader section of the community, it will allow more people to have a sense of ownership over where the school is heading, hopefully meaning we can deliver better outcomes across the board.

What’s something we can be proud of as a school community?

We should be really proud that we value the input of our whole school community in the running of our school. We should (all) also be very proud on a daily basis of what we are able to achieve.

What is your personal vision for DSC?

To empower students to take some real ownership of their learning. This would help them feel engaged with what they are learning and - at the same time - lead to improved learning outcomes.

College Newsletter

Working Together, Learning Together

Issue 43 · 06 Mar 2020

In this issue