Academic Excellence
Greatness
At the recent Senior School assembly, I spoke to our students about striving for greatness. Greatness is often hard to define but you know it when you see it. Despite only winning one Olympic Gold, Cathy Freeman has achieved greatness. Ian Thorpe has achieved greatness not only, I believe, for the number of Gold Medals that he has won but also the way he has handled his inability to make the 2012 Olympic team. In this world of mediocrity where our children are challenged to aim as low they can by the media, by their peers and the advertisers of this world surely greatness is what we should be challenging our students to strive for.
This is why we as a staff have made a concerted effort to lift the standard of student behaviour and dress and work completion. If your children are coming home and complaining that we have gotten stricter they may well be right. We want our students, your children and mine to be the very best they can be.
The adage of be who you want to be is not enough some times.
It should be that with God's guidance, we strive to be all we can be.
Craig Mansour
How can I help my child with Naplan?
Naplan takes place during next term, 15 -17 May. One of the things we as parents can do, with a child in Year 3 and one in Year 5 I am talking to myself here as well. One of the things we can do to assist is to engage our children in real life problem solving. Much of the Naplan numeracy test takes the form of problem solving so it would be beneficial for parents to discuss with their children such things. When you are out shopping take through the cost of things, change that might be received. Perhaps a discussion about the cost of fuel and the cost of running a car or running a household budget. The opportunity to engage students in real life mathematical discussion can be very powerful.
Similarly, we encourage students to be reading each and every night across all grades K-12. It can be very beneficial to engage in a conversation about the piece they had been reading. Questions about what are good but also questions which ask the students to engage in why are particularly helpful and then if they can prove their answer from what they have read even better.
Our staff across all Key Learning Areas have begun working with students to assist them in preparing for the upcoming exams with focus questions in class and specific questions applied to their normal weekly homework. We will, early in Term 2, have a Naplan practice day where students in Years 3,5,7 and 9 all sit a numeracy and a literacy paper from previous years. We do not believe in teaching directly to the test, we do however, believe it is important for students to have practiced the style of questions that are regularly asked in Naplan.
Craig Mansour
Uniform Shop - 4454 1015
The Uniform Shop Holiday Trading Times
Friday 20th, Monday 23rd, Tuesday 24th & Thursday 26th April
Between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Normal term times opening days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays
8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
