Whilst we received our NAPLAN results for our current Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 cohorts in August, the government is only this week releasing the State and National results, which allow us to compare our students’ rankings with their peers across the state and country. We have seen some excellent early indicators from the individual data already provided and more detailed analysis of our results will be forthcoming, once we have had a chance to do some analysis and comparison.
VCE examinations are well underway and will conclude later this month. It has been a blessing not to have experienced the disruptions which impacted examination preparations over the past two years and we are proud of the manner in which our current students are handling this final phase of their schooling. We wish all of them continued good health and focussed study time.
This also is a busy time for our Years 10 to 11 students, as they prepare for the upcoming brief examination period, from 21-24 November and our Year 9s, who will be having common assessments reviewing their semester’s learning in the week prior to attending their Summer Expeditions from 21-25 November. We trust all students will do their best and take away as much learning as possible from the outcomes of this period.
Final projects are being submitted and assessments undertaken to allow our teachers across Prep to Year 8 to commence their end-of-semester reporting on the progress made by each student in their various classes. Our ongoing portal-based progressive reporting regime covers class results in Years 7 to 9 and in 2023, we will expand Progressive Reporting system across the whole Secondary School. This will allow parents to be able to access current data on the progress of their children in all of their academic studies at any time. Through the School’s Portal interface our staff are able to provide gradings for tasks, and also include formative comments, giving feedback on the level of achievement, areas for improvement and strategies to achieve those improvements. These regular updates and more expansive feedback on individual assessments have kept parents of our Middle School students better informed of their child’s progress throughout 2022 and provided occasions for more timely and useful reflections, regular conversations and opportunities for goal setting between parents, students and staff. The Middle School end-of-semester reports will be a composite of these Progressive Reporting Assessment Tasks (PRATs), with the aforementioned gradings and comments, and an overall grade for each subject alongside gradings for behavioural indicators, as currently appear on all reports.
Friday 25 November is a non-school day for Years 7 to 11 students, allowing staff time to correct exams and tests and to write reports. Our current Years 10 and 11 students will be involved in their 2023 Conferences from Monday 28 November to Wednesday 30 November. Thursday 1 December is Exam Handback Day for Years 10 and 11. Year 9s will have 4 days of training and Senior College Preparation from 28 November to 1 December and Years 7 and 8 will continue regular classes until Thursday 1 December.
Our Transition period into the 2023 timetable for students currently in Years 7 to 11 will commence on Friday 2 December.
Some subjects (particularly VCE) will commence a unit of 2023 work during the Transition period whilst others will consolidate units of work and prepare for next level studies. It is, therefore, imperative that students attend and continue to maintain their focus for this period immediately after the examination/testing sessions. All students in Years 7 to 11 will continue with their transition classes through to the last day of term, Thursday 8 December.
I wish you all a happy and safe holiday break.
Alison Bezaire | Director of Studies
