September Curriculum Matters
Term 3 is ending in a similar vein to which it started, in terms of our learning environments. Our staff members have worked hard to continue to bring engaging and meaningful experiences into their virtual classrooms, as they have pivoted to and from onsite to online platforms during the past 2 months. Staff and students alike will be looking forward to a break from their screens at the end of this week. Senior students, of course, will not be resting too much, as they knuckle down to the all-important pre-examination revision stage of their studies for 2021. We wish the Year 12s, in particular, all the best for this final phase of their life at Tintern, the last 18 months of which have been unlike any VCE/IB journey in living memory!
The annual GAT exam will be taking place on site on Tuesday 5 October and we look forward thereafter, hopefully, to welcoming our senior students back into the classroom. It would be icing on the cake if our Middle School students also were able to join our seniors. We will see what the future holds. A return to the energy and excitement of seeing our students’ faces and sharing our learning experiences in the same place, rather than in our virtual classrooms would be just the shot in the arm the staff need (no pun intended). It is a credit to all that patience and resilience have led us through these past 10 weeks (and many months before), and it is what will keep us journeying on together.
It was gratifying to see so many parents taking advantage of the recent opportunity to participate in our all-important Years 7 to 12 Student Progress Meetings, including the last minute ‘pivot’ to online meetings to replace the planned onsite meetings. These sessions provided an excellent opportunity for teachers to connect with families and celebrate the success and growth of our students in the once again challenging circumstances of recent months. It was especially fruitful to have so many students actively participating in these three-way conversations alongside their parents, which allowed for more meaningful discourse around the best way for our students to continue to achieve the most productive outcomes in the remote classroom and beyond.
We recently have received our NAPLAN results for our current Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 cohorts and individual results have been mailed out to all families of these students. We have seen some excellent upward trends and more detailed analysis of our results will be forthcoming early in Term 4. The government, for the first time this year, has issued Certificates of Achievement to selected Year 9 students who have clearly demonstrated outstanding learning growth or general excellence in any one or some test domains. I would remind all families that your child’s NAPLAN results are a snapshot of your child’s progress at a given point in time and all individual NAPLAN test results should be considered alongside broader school-based assessments, which provide a more detailed picture of the whole child and their progress across many streams.
Thank you for continuing to put your trust in us as we work together to ensure that your children are doing their best in these uncertain times. We aim to ensure that they retain confidence and curiosity on their learning journey under the expert guidance of our wonderful staff. Spring is in the air and our whole community is, no doubt, looking forward to some well-deserved ‘time out’ during the upcoming holidays. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday break.
