As the end of Term 3 draws near, staff and students alike are looking forward to a break and the resumption of school in warmer, Spring temperatures in October. Our Year 12s, of course, will not be resting too much during the break, as they knuckle down to the all-important pre-examination revision stage of their studies for 2022 and undertake practice examinations during the second week of the holidays. We wish them well with their final few weeks at school.
The annual GAT (General Achievement Test) exam took place on site last Wednesday 7 September for all students undertaking one or more Unit 3-4 course sequence(s) this year. For the first time this year, the GAT was divided into two sessions, running over four hours, and will be used to assess students’ literacy, numeracy and general knowledge. GAT results do not affect ATAR scores nor VCE results but, for the first time this year, the literacy and numeracy scores from the GAT will be recorded on VCE certificates.
Many parents and guardians took advantage of the recent opportunity to participate in our all-important Years 7-12 Student Progress Meetings (SPMs). These sessions provided an excellent opportunity for teachers to connect with families and celebrate the success and growth of our students and it was, again, gratifying to have so many students actively participating in these three-way conversations alongside their parents. Students were able to meet with parents and teachers over two evenings and also on our full day of meetings on 23 August, whilst also continuing their schoolwork for the day. Teachers who would have had classes that day had left tasks and activities on the portal for students to complete. This is one of the advantages of our adoption of new online practices during the lockdown periods of the past two years, allowing families to meet whilst not adversely affecting the learning of our students. Many thanks to well over 100 families who have provided feedback regarding the recent Secondary SPMs via our online survey, which closes this Wednesday 14 September. If you have not yet done this and wish to do so, we do value your opinion as we start to plan for 2023. Complete the Secondary SPM Survey
We recently received our NAPLAN results for current Years3, 5, 7 and 9 cohorts and individual results have been mailed out to all families of these students. NAPLAN was completed in schools across the country this year, with a record 4.3 million tests successfully submitted by more than 1.2 million students in 9,315 campuses and schools across Australia. This year marks the final year of transition to online testing, with all schools across Australia now participating in NAPLAN online.
We have seen some excellent ongoing trends in these results and a more detailed analysis of our results will be forthcoming early in Term 4. The Government has issued Certificates of Achievement to selected Year 9 students who have demonstrated general excellence by achieving a result in the top band (Band 10) for Reading or Numeracy clearly. We are celebrating the fact that a third of our Year 9 students will receive at least one of these VCAA Certificates of Achievement, acknowledging their outstanding achievement, and half of those students will receive certificates for both Reading and Numeracy.
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 your ongoing support during what has been a far more stable year of learning for most students than the previous two years. Our students continue to gain in confidence on their learning journey under the caring and expert guidance of our wonderful staff. I wish you all a happy and safe holiday break and look forward to seeing your children back on campus for our final term of 2022 at Tintern.
Alison Bezaire | Director of Studies
