Ms Lynsey Porter, Deputy Principal - Teaching & Learning
Academic Awards Years 7-9 Assembly
This week we continued our celebration of our high achieving students in our Academic Awards Assembly for students in Years 7-9 who have ranked highly in their courses. Congratulations to all award winners!
We were also privileged to be an audience for performances in Drama and Music. We were treated to a performance from some of our Year 7 Drama students who shared the excellent work that they are currently refining on James and the Giant Peach.
Performing his own arrangement of ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, composed by John Powell on the piano, we congratulate Aidan Murray in Year 12 for his amazing recital.
As students are settling into Term 3, over the next few weeks they will have opportunities across many of their subjects to engage in feedback from formative tasks in their Learning Checkpoints.
The reflection and goal-setting activities in these tasks are designed to assist our students to tighten their Term 3 SMART goals, be aware of their progress and understand where to adjust their approach in future tasks.
We challenge our students to reflect on this feedback and strive to walk across the stage at the end of Semester 2 for their academic growth, performance and effort.
Authentic Experiences
Throughout the year, our teachers work hard to organise and provide real-world excursions and activities to engage our students in authentic learning experiences.
Just in the last two weeks our Year 10 Visual Arts students have had a session on mixed media with Jody Graham, Year 11 Drama students have been to the Roslyn Packer Theatre to watch a production of Dracula, our Year 8 Spanish students had an authentic Spanish food experience, and some of our Year 9 students competed at the Stretch and Challenge competition at Ascham School to name but a few.
Next week sees the launch of Science Week. Please read Ms Emily Pace’s article HERE for further details.
Year 11 Atomi Presentation
For students in Year 11 who are building up their study notes leading up to their Yearly Examinations at the end of this Term, a representative from Atomi – a valuable online resource to support the HSC across a range of subjects – offered training this week to help our students use the platform well.
Whilst many courses embed Atomi modules in their online content on CANVAS, the platform also offers resources to assist students in building effective study notes, managing work overload and preparing for assessment periods.
For example, the presentation this week drew our students’ attention to an online lesson on how to build effective Cornell Study notes.
As I mentioned in our assembly last week, getting an early start on note-taking as students go, rather than waiting until the last minute, is an effective way to ensure the effective repetition and retrieval of key course material.
Click HERE for Atomi Parent and Carer Support Materials.
For additional study advice, please head to Dr Prue Salter’s Study Skills website, which is constantly updated with relevant resources to support students and parents.
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Sidgwick Prize
Waverley College students have been invited to submit an entry to The Sidgwick Prize.
The Sidgwick Prize, Cambridge is an annual essay competition for high-school aged students from around the world. Each year students can choose to respond to an essay question from a list of three questions in eight disciplines: Philosophy, Politics, Economics, History, Law, Theology, Psychology, and Art History.
Every submission receives substantive feedback from academic specialists, including Faculty at the University of Cambridge.
A prize is awarded for the best essay in each discipline and The Sidgwick Prize is awarded to the best essay in all disciplines.
The Sidgwick Prize supports the work of The Sidgwick Trust, a campaign to expand access to the humanities and social sciences.
For more information, click HERE.
Ms Lynsey Porter
Deputy Principal – Teaching & Learning
lporter@waverley.nsw.edu.au
NAPLAN 2024
Last week we posted the Year 5, Year 7 and Year 9 students’ NAPLAN results to parents and carers.
These results provide great information about areas in which the students performed well and those items where additional work is needed.
Feedback to parents and students is an opportunity to reflect on student success.
During this Term, Heads of Department and key staff from the Curriculum Team will be analysing these results in detail to further develop our programming in the areas of Literacy and Numeracy.
Some highlights this year include a trend upwards in Year 5 students’ average scores in Reading, Grammar and Numeracy. The Waverley College Year 9 Inferential Reading Program, focusing on metacognition and self-regulation to strengthen inferential reading, is showing pleasing student growth indicated in the highest average Reading scores in a number of years. Average Reading Scores are sitting above State average: 35 – 36 score points above average in Year 5 and Year 7 and 18 score points above average in Year 9.
Since 2019, Writing scores at Waverley have increased and the move to the Writer’s Toolbox program has shown students’ writing develop exceptionally well. With the benefit of AI real-time feedback, students’ sentence and paragraph writing is more sophisticated as they have the ability to progress at their own pace. Writing is trending upwards and, this year, each Waverley cohort has performed at 16 score points or more above State average across Years 5, 7 and 9.
Spelling has been identified as an area for development. Students are entering Year 5 with weaker spelling ability than in prior years; a trend that is consistent across the State. To start turning this trend around, streamed spelling lessons and tailored programs, including Spelling Mastery, are timetabled for all Year 7 students to instil a more sophisticated knowledge of word morphology.
Grammar and Punctuation scores are trending upwards in Year 7 and are steady in Year 9, with a healthy 20 score points above average.
Numeracy Scores are 31 score points above average in Year 7 and Year 9. Programs, such as Strength in Numbers and Learning Support in-class assistance help to continue sound results in Numeracy.
Mr David Parnell
Head of Learning Support
dparnell@waverley.nsw.edu.au
