AROUND THE COLLEGE

Learning Walks - Snapshots of Learning at the School Level

To increase teachers’ awareness of practices occurring within their school and build a whole-school sense of accountability for the quality of teaching and learning, learning walks are being conducted at Doncaster Secondary College.  A group of teachers (Learning Specialists) visit multiple classrooms during a designated period.  The group has a focus in mind, e.g. learning intentions, mobile phone policy or capturing a sense of student engagement.  Each term the focus may be something different.  The focus aligns with the school priorities, for example, consistent classroom practice across the school. 

The aim is to foster conversation about teaching and learning to develop a shared vision of high-quality teaching that impacts on student learning and to encourage improvement through openness and sharing of practice.  Learning Specialists supports teachers to implement effective practices observed in other classrooms which may help address differences between classes within a school.

LEARNING SPECIALISTS

VCAL student raffle raises funds for NSW Farmers Drought Relief

The Intermediate VCAL students held a raffle and raised over 320 dollars, that will be donated to the NSW Farmers’ Relief Fund. Winners were announced on the last evening of the College's production "Grease is the Word" on Friday, 14 September.  The students would like to thank the donations received from - Kingspan, Community Pets, Amanda Fisher, Simon Cross, Zabecca Living and Ladelle.

Donna McKinlay

Education Support Staff

French Exchange Program

Our students have just arrived in Bordeaux and have been reunited with their exchange students and host families. They will be off to school and living a typical French lifestyle for the next two weeks before moving on to Paris site-seeing.

Courtney Taylor

French Teacher

HMP Dharma donates a copy of his first novel to College Library

Hans is a pre-service teacher writing under the name HMP Dharma who has recently published his first novel No Name Online a sci-fi, fantasy romance set in virtual reality. Currently, he is at the University of Melbourne’s Masters of Teaching and teaching maths under the supervision of his mentor Ms Hayton (the two pictured). A copy of the book has been signed and donated to the library by Mr Dharma and will be available to be borrowed by students and teachers.

I have really enjoyed my time here at Doncaster Secondary College and was happy to hear that the library was willing to take a copy of my novel,” says Mr Dharma. “The students at the school have a strong drive to learn and I hope that they will enjoy the read, especially those who are interested in progressing towards STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) subjects. The novel was inspired by a bit of everything and really shows that science, engineering and the like can be melded into stories usually found in the arts field. I think it’s important to keep an open mind to all fields of learning.

Hans Dharma 

Pre-Service Teacher, Melbourne University

Teacher versus Student Volleyball & Dodgeball