Heard on the Hill Term 1, Week 8

From the Principal

Bonjour à tous, and Wanju

It is a lovely time of year. Warm sunny days and cool nights. Perfect for sleeping. I spent the weekend camping in Ballingup and had to break out my beanie and gloves. The evening was cold. I hope that you took time to enjoy the many local activities across the weekend; Mandurah Crab Fest, The Irish festival, the long table lunch, along with the many events in the Donnybrook, Ballingup, Nannup region.

We are one week closer to the Easter holidays and have one week less to get things done before the holidays arrive. It is time to look at the Learning Area grade predictions for the school and compare them to the potential of the student. Reviewing and analysing the data means nothing if it doesn’t turn into action that produces a positive outcome for the students. This why student feedback is so important. Although NAPLAN is a one-off test it still provides a valid snapshot of a student's capability. The leadership team have been looking at data comparing NAPLAN data to current performance to look for areas where we can support students to reach their potential. They will be working with you on this.

Education is a partnership. Although sometimes it may feel more like a hostile takeover. Our job is to work with the students in; developing the aspiration to learn; creating relevance for the learning and seeking the best way to deliver the learning. Over the next couple of weeks as you are reviewing the term’s data please use the time to revisit our Best Teacher poster and the teaching and learning strategies it contains to look for ways to improve the outcomes for our students.

En Avant

Student Behaviour

Our belief is that student wellbeing is the foundation of creating an orderly learning environment that creates the environment for high quality teaching. In hand with our positive behaviour matrix approach is a tiered approach of behaviour management that at times requires consequences for students’ actions. Please make sure that you understand these well and follow up on student behaviour with the necessary consequences. You will have difficulty asking a student to behave if there has been no follow-up for a behaviour.

The standard that we walk past is the standard we accept.

HARMONY WEEK

For use in classes

The Cultural Inclusivity Committee has put together a range of activities, supported by many staff, for the week. Here is the schedule of activities (some of these are still to be finalised at time of HOTH publication).

Monday 20 March

• Face painting by Year 10 VASP students L2 outside Student Services
• Diablo and Patanque on the front lawn L2

Tuesday 21 March

• "Living Library" guest speaker L1 in Room 10 - Edana Minahan
• Music Performance - L2 at the Amphitheatre

Japanese Students' Visit 27-31 March

Please see the attached schedule and student list for students and staff involved in the Japanese visit in Week 9. Kelly is coordinating the visit, and Phil Ghasseb is the supervising teacher. Please note that there will be some students missing from your classes if they are acting as a host or buddy, at various times during the week. Please welcome their Japanese student visitor into your class - make sure you have seating ready for when they arrive.

Please note, some classes will have two extra students:

Workload Advisory Committee

Workload is often the main cause of staff stress or anxiety. Our school has a workload advisory committee, which was set up as part of our focus on Staff Wellbeing in our previous business plan, and which we continue to support through the new Staff Wellbeing Committee.

Staff Representatives for this year (continuing their 2 year tenure) are: Renee Chapple, Luke Marinoni and Adam McGill.

If you have workload issues, please discuss them first with your line manager, as many of these can be resolved quickly and easily.

If you have an issue that cannot be resolved, please submit it via either the survey link provided here, or on the document below (which can also be found in the School Templates folder on your desktop.

Parent Interview Afternoon in Week 10 (Tuesday 4 April)

Please see the attached information. Please note that a catered lunch will be provided in the Staff Room at 12.30pm. Interviews start promptly at 1.30pm in your designated area. Any queries should first be addressed to your line manager.

Classroom Observations

We know that teachers grow their professional practice and generate improved student outcomes when they teach in a school where there are clear expectations of the teachers in terms of the quality of their practice; where teachers receive feedback about their classroom performance based on evidence; and where there is professional support available in those areas of teacher need. As part of this support at the last SDD we saw Cathy Watson providing a wonderful and engaging refresher to teachers on the Shared Instructional Framework with some clear CMS on display as well.

All teachers are required to participate in classroom observations once per semester. This is indicated in our PM process and there is a mechanism in our PM booklet acknowledging that teachers have participated in classroom observations. Note there is no requirement to share what has been the agreed to focus of the classroom observation to any person other than the person observing you. On IKON, where you will find the agreed to PM template if you do not wish to use the school’s template, you will see the same message. There are two options for classroom observations:

• By a superordinate
• By a peer

Reference to ‘by a peer’ can be:

• Peer Teachers; within your LA or outside the LA
• Coffee Club Members
• Video Recordings; where teacher’s consent to the making of a classroom observation video they should specify the purpose for which the video is to be used. The video should be destroyed once it has served that purpose.
• EA’s
• Admin Team (unless as Line Manager).

The Coffee Club will still be an integral mechanism to encourage staff to participate in classroom observations through peer support. This is another supportive environment within this school for staff to be involved.

INTERNAL RELIEF ALLOCATION - PROCEDURE

Recently the school executive discussed the process for allocation of internal relief. Further discussions with Industrial Relations and the SSTUWA outlined that the school should follow the below process to allocate cover:

The relief coordinator will:

1. Allocate staff who have been contracted as relief staff & staff underload.
2. Identify potential external relief and allocate to classes
3. Offer internal relief to part-time staff during their off-site times
4. Allocate internal relief to full-time or part-time staff during their DOTT periods

In the coming days, I will email all part-time staff to see if they wish to be included in a daily relief availability distribution list (part 3 above).

Once we have exhausted steps 1,2,3 above, internal relief will be allocated to staff, and a group text will be sent each morning (approx. 8am) to these people to alert them to the internal relief.

As always, if you are experiencing workload issues, please discuss this directly with your Line Manager.

If you need further clarification on the above process, don’t hesitate to have a chat with Adam.

Reflections and Closures

It has been great to see some fabulous reflection and closure activities in action when I have been wondering around classes. If you find that you have a few minutes at the end of your class spare and the kids are hanging out by the door itching to leave, here are some great questions you can ask them before they go:

• How does what you learned today fit in with what you already know?
• How can you remember what you have learned?
• What would you do or say to teach this lesson to your friend/little sibling/parent?

Coffee Club

The last round of Coffee Club will be happening in Week 10. I will be starting it again next term for any staff that are interested or couldn't make the first round. There have been so many great observations and conversations - it is amazing how much we can learn from our colleagues.

Cooperative Learning

Have you fallen into "chalk and talk" because it can sometimes be easier? I know I have found myself doing it recently. It's time to change it up a bit - let the students do the work and watch the deeper learning start to happen. A way to do this is cooperative group work. That being said - if you are going to do it, do it well.

Research shows that ineffective group work is one if the least effective of all instructional processes, however, if it is structured properly, effective group work has one of the highest effect sizes at promoting complex levels of thinking (Bennet, 2018). I once had a chat with Barrie Bennett and he asked me, "If someone asked you to explain the difference between effective group work and less effective group work, what would you say?" I was stumped because I couldn't quite describe why my groups would just work sometimes and would not at other times. I have more of an idea now, but as with all teachers I am still learning.

I am going to put the question out there to you - If someone asked you to explain the difference between effective group work and less effective group work, what would you say? Please email me your responses, I would be really interested to hear your thoughts.

One of the first things we learned with Barrie is that effective group work can be broken into three main areas and that those areas need to be integrated. First, we need to create a safe learning environment - but how? Secondly, we need to include the critical components of effective group work - what are those? Third, we need to know which group structure to use for maximum impact - choosing your weapon!

My plan is to break these down over the next few weeks (it may take more than a few), to help build our collective knowledge base. I will focus on cooperative learning skills and then the different strategies. There are also a few examples up on the Instructional Leadership Connect page.

As usual - if you have any questions, need help or want to know more feel free to email me or chat.

Have a fantastic week and remember to breathe. Sometimes slowing down for a bit will give you the head-space to think clearly and plan some great lessons!

Social Media Content

Welcome back to all staff and I hope you have had a great start to the year.

We love seeing students in action, whether in a classroom setting, in an incursion or off-site for an excursion or camp.

If you are conducting any activities you think are suitable for our school's Facebook or Instagram pages, please submit your content through the link below.

Please contact me with prior warning if you would like me to attend a session, lesson, activity etc if you would like me to take photos/videos to accompany your story.

If you have taken photos on your phone/iPad and are unsure of how to transfer these to me, please send me an email or come and visit me and I can assist you.

Submit your Facebook post using the link below.

Schoolzine

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