It is with great pleasure to congratulate Mr Sean Picone on receiving the 2022 Percy Watson Excellence in Teaching Medal.
The Percy Watson Excellence in Teaching Scholarship has been set up in honour of Dr PJR Watson. Percy was a dedicated and passionate teacher at the College between 1957 and 1969. Percy taught English and Economics at the College for 11 years, from 1958 – 1969.
The force of Percy’s passion for teaching and learning had a profound impact on his students. The classes of 1965 and 1966 were so inspired by Percy that they established a scholarship fund to enhance teaching excellence at the College in his honour.
Peter Percy Watson in the Grange
At the end of last year, Mr Picone completed his Master of Educational Leadership through UNSW. Mr Picone’s study has already had a positive impact on the Waverley College community in both the academic arena and co-curricular.
Mr Picone is a talented teacher of HSIE and RE and passionate about the importance of a whole-school approach to Literacy. During his postgraduate study he undertook a major research project in formative assessment and best practice for building student writing capacity.
He used this research to implement essay writing scaffolds that teachers in the HSIE department could use across all subjects to model essay writing. These scaffolds allow students to follow a path of independent planning as they construct their draft essays. He also drew on his research to develop literacy strategies that complement the Writer’s Toolbox program.
In addition to his teaching role, Mr Picone is actively involved in a number of Wellbeing and Co-curricular positions where he works with a range of stakeholders. The leadership component of his study – operational skills and communication skills – enabled him to develop a Cricket Strategic Plan for coaches and parents/carers. The plan is aligned with the College Strategic priority “Building collaborative partnerships”. It sets out clear goals to foster greater participation and engagement and build the capacity of all the stakeholders in the cricket program.
Congratulations on this wonderful achievement!
We are excited and proud to resume the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award at the College in 2023. The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award is a global youth program which challenges young people to dream big, celebrate their achievements, and make a difference in their world. Doing the Award is a personal challenge, pushing participants to their limits, and recognising and celebrating achievements.
The Award is run in over 130 countries, with over 8 million young people participating worldwide. Our College currently offers this Award to students in Year 8 and above, and spans Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards.
Please note, that enrolments for boys currently in Year 8 are not yet open. Any Year 8 boys who are interested in the Award are cordially invited to attend lunchtime meetings for the time being.
For more information, please email Mr Alon Horry ahorry@waverley.nsw.edu
This is a message for all parents/carers from the Better Health Company about a free fitness program for teens.
Central and Eastern Sydney Primary Health Network (CESPHN) has supported Better Health Company to provide FREE healthy lifestyle programs to teenagers in Central and Eastern Sydney, who are either above a healthy weight, or are diagnosed with a chronic health condition.
It is a free program for teenagers to prevent chronic disease. At this stage they have 10 spaces left. The next online program starts Friday, 10 March 2023.
Together we can work to ensure more teenagers in Central and Eastern Sydney lead healthier, happier, active lives.
Please note that the book hire operating hours remain the same, except for a slight amendment to the days open, as listed below:
Webinar Session Topics
Webinar Zoom Sessions
Webinar Registration Essential - Click here
Sydney Trains advises that there will be planned lift replacement works at Bondi Junction for 9 weeks commencing from Monday, 27 February 2023 to early May 2023.
The station lift between the Concourse and Platforms 1 and 2 will be closed for a lift replacement project, with escalators being the only other alternative.
Information for customers on the impact of this project will be available through:
Alternately, please speak to the team at Bondi Junction Station, who are more than happy to answer any questions.
As we conclude the first week of a new school year, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support of the College. We have set high standards for the students as we enter 2023 and they have stepped up in an impressive manner.
I spoke at Assembly on Monday to ensure students are clear on College expectations, and I have included this information for you below.
In the Junior School, mobile phones are to be handed in to the class teacher at the beginning of the school day and collected at the conclusion.
In the Senior School, mobile phones are not permitted outside locker areas. If students have their phone outside these areas, in the first instance they will receive a one-hour detention. In the second instance, it will be a three-hour detention.
If students use their phone to film in class, it will be confiscated until an investigation has been completed. Taking photos or filming teachers/support staff is a massive breach of their privacy.
Students will need to use their student ID card when accessing the canteen. Please follow the links below to set up Flexischools:
How to Set up Your Flexischools Account
Getting started with Flexischools
We have seen an increase in students filming themselves, their peers and teachers on school grounds. If students upload images or videos onto social media – including Tik Tok – that brings the College into disrepute or involves a teacher, they will receive a two-day suspension. I have asked that students immediately delete any content from their account that would fall in this space.
All students are expected to adhere to our haircut policy. Horizontal meetings were held on Tuesday, in which students were given the opportunity to receive a haircut on site, or leave to rectify this. I thank you for your support on this day.
Shoes are to be black leather lace up, no brands including Nike, New Balance or ASIC are permissible.
All students are expected to arrive at school, assemblies, meetings and class, on time. Any students out of class during normal school periods in Years 7 – 12 will need a written note from their teacher.
Vape detectors are now in the bathrooms. It is a two-day suspension if you are found vaping or in the possession of a vape.
As we move through the year, I will bring to your attention important topics you need to know, to best support your son. All students have now been given their own laptop, therefore it is timely that you are given information on how to best protect your son online.
Parents and carers may recently have learned via the Australian media that predators are taking advantage of chat functions on gaming platforms to exploit and groom school-aged children online. eSafety, which safeguards all Australians from online harms, has delivered new research showing that over the past year, almost half of children were victims of online nastiness.
At Waverley, we are following the advice of the Australian Federal Police (AFP), and encouraging parents and carers to be actively involved in their children’s activities online – particularly online gaming.
Communicate early and openly with your child and through each stage of their human development. This is essential in keeping them safe. The AFP considers the start of the school year, when children are frequently given an electronic device, a crucial time.
According to the AFP, predators might:
Some helpful resources for parents and carers include:
These free, live webinars will give parents and carers the tools to support their children to have online experiences that are safe.
Learn more and register now for Term 1 webinars
This essential child safety resource can help parents and carers, and contains content updates from: NSW Rural Fire, NSW Ministry of Health, NSW Police Force, Fire and Rescue NSW, Transport NSW, State Emergency Services, NSW Department of Family & Community Services, eSafety Commissioner and NSW Office of the Children’s Guardian.
Click here to view the digital Child Safety Handbook
Applications are open for Australians aged 16-24, to join one of five new Youth Advisory Groups to advise on Australian Government policies and programs across key issues facing young people.
Each of the five advisory groups will examine an issue of importance to young Australians. Focus topics and group membership will change each year.
In 2023 the topics are:
A dedicated First Nations Youth Advisory Group will also be set up to work with the National Indigenous Australians Agency.
The advisory groups will seek to represent young people from diverse backgrounds, and ensure all states, territories, and regional, rural, and remote Australia are represented.
The groups will work independently of the recently-established Youth Steering Committee. Their work, however, will complement each other in bringing the insights of young people to the Government.
Click here to apply through the Australian Youth Affairs Coalition website
Successful candidates will need to be available to travel to Canberra on 28-31 March 2023 for the first meeting of the Youth Advisory Groups. The Office for Youth will cover the cost of this travel.
Ms Gabby Smith
(Acting) Deputy Principal – Students
gsmith@waverley.nsw.edu.au
There has been a sense of enthusiasm and energy throughout Week 1, and I encourage boys to find an early rhythm to their study and revision habits. Consistent habits across the entire term is what we are seeking as teachers and parents/carers. 15 minutes of reading and mathematics revision every day, on top of homework requirements, is much more effective than a last-minute swotvac before a test, or thinking that your literacy and numeracy skills can be just switched on suddenly.
This consistent effort and practice needs to also occur across your son’s sleep patterns, diet, hydration and use of technology. And as a parent/carer, you can play an important role in assisting him to find and maintain these patterns, which will greatly influence his academic performance and also his moods and energy levels.
Author and inspirational speaker, Simon Sinek strongly supports the notion that you only win across your life ‘with consistency’. Help your son maintain/find a consistent approach to his studies, his health, his control of technology and good results will follow.
Year 11 student Maximilian Fischer has demonstrated what can happen when you follow this strategy. Maximilian has recently achieved the national golf ranking of No. 1 for under 18 years in 2023.
Maximilian just qualified for his first professional event, the TPS Sydney in February 2023 at Bonnie Doon Golf Club. He will be the youngest junior golfer to qualify for this professional event.
At the College Assembly this week, I encouraged our 1,500-strong community to play their part in welcoming our new students and staff. Across Year 5 (156), Year 7 (75), Years 8-11 (10) and new staff (19), we welcomed 256 new people to our community, who will each bring new ideas and perspectives. We have all been the ‘new person’ at some point in our lives. We encourage everyone to embrace the teachings of Christ, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12).
Our ongoing high expectations have contributed to an encouraging lift in our literacy and academic standards across the College. This year, our whole-school approach to increasing boys’ literacy continues, with an expanded ‘Writer’s Toolbox’ program to improve writing efficacy via tangible strategies. This week, we were also excited to launch our Years 7 and 8 ‘Reading Rules’ Program, which aims to engage our students in the pleasure of reading, with the longer-term aim of creating lifelong, habitual and passionate readers.
Read more in the Nurrunga article by Ms Elizabeth Watson (Deputy Principal – Teaching & Learning) and the Nurrunga article by Ms Mary Ryan (Literacy Coordinator and English Teacher).
Waverley spirit was certainly alive and well when over 900 parents, Old Boys, staff and special guests came together last Friday evening, to celebrate the College’s 120 years of service, care and education. Waverley College has come a long way in 120 years, but most significantly, in 120 years, Waverley College values have never changed. The College was founded on Christian values and these were as important then as they are now.
We are proud to cater for students from diverse backgrounds and we are proud to be a school that is unique in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs for its authentic Catholic education and progressive approach to educating boys. This year we will graduate the 15-thousandth Waverlian. Each current student will receive a 120 badge that has been struck to celebrate this remarkable College milestone.
I would like to congratulate our Marketing & Development Manager, Ms Emma Laurence, and Mr Angus McPherson, who coordinated a wonderful evening to acknowledge this milestone. They were supported by Matt Laurence ( Emma’s husband), Sam Iremonger (Old Boy 2018 Duntroon Cadet), Simon Potter, Jon Phillips, Bishoy Wasef, Gerald Winch and the maintenance crew, Kylie Anderson, Tessa Holt, Darran Rawson, Vanessa Witton in their various roles.
We have already had a wonderful start to 2023. Ms Helen Barrie (Head of Academic Enrichment) and I, were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to present to staff on the application of metacognition skills and self-regulation strategies, to strengthen inferential reading skills. It was magnificent to collaborate with staff from both the Junior and Senior school, in order to target areas where students can be best supported to ensure reading achievement.
This week, Mr Roberts and I launched our reading program in Year 7 and Year 8. We are very excited to be welcoming all classes to the library once a cycle, to experience the luxury of reading a great book of their choice in this beautiful space.
We aim to engage students in the pleasure of reading, with the hope of creating lifelong habitual readers, who are passionate about reading. Everyone knows the positive knock-on effects; improved brain power, memory and creativity, building vocabulary, and developing empathy. Plus – reading makes us happier and live longer, according to the study ‘A Chapter a Day: Association of Book Reading with Longevity’ undertaken by Harvard University in 2021.
We encourage our parents/carers to take time to chat with their sons about the book they are reading (without passing judgment), while encouraging even 10 minutes of reading at home as part of a healthy reading diet.
NAPLAN is moving from May to March in 2023. Year 7 and Year 9 will be given lots of opportunities to prepare and work on improving their numeracy and literacy skills. Over the coming days, both Year groups will receive workbooks to complete independent learning at home.
The expectation is that students will come to class with the set work completed in a timely fashion.
Equally, through the integrated use of Writer’s Toolbox and other programs across faculties, students will continue to improve syntax, spelling, punctuation, fluency and precision.
Dear Parents and Carers
Please see important information on the dates for the 2023 School Vaccination Program for Year 7 and Year 10 students.
| Year 7 – HPV Dose 1 + dTpa | Year 10 – MenACWY | Year 7 – HPV Dose 2 |
| Wednesday, 1 March 2023 | Monday, 5 June 2023 | Tuesday, 19 September 2023 |
The following vaccines are offered free to students at school:
Vaccination will only be provided at school if consent has been received.
To provide online consent for vaccination, parents/carers will need:
Please get in contact with the Health Centre nurse if you have any questions about the vaccinations or clinic.
*As per the updated conditions of enrolment and as indicated on the College website, all Years 5 and 7 enrolments, Term 1 tuition fees are charged in Term 4, in the year prior. This includes continuing Year 6 (2023) students into Year 7 (2024). This replaces the “continuing confirmation deposit” usually charged in the 3rd Payment to Year 6. Year 5 and 7 will still receive an invoice in Term 1, 2024 for any applicable sundries, sibling discounts, excursion fees and camps. Please be advised that if this payment is not made by the due date, your son’s enrolment will be forfeited, and his place will be offered to a waitlisted candidate.
Fees paid before 4pm on the prompt payment date attract a $25.00 discount.
Any payment received after the due date will attract an administrative fee of $110.00.
Please be advised that some financial institutions need more than 48 hours to process their payments (e.g. Internet/BPay/BPoint).
Please see the last page of your account for payment method and contact details.
You are reminded that if you wish to withdraw your son from enrolment at Waverley College, you are required to give one term’s notice in writing to the Principal that your son’s enrolment will cease.
The last day you can give notice that your son’s enrolment is finishing at the end of a school term, is the first day of the same term. If not received by that date, a penalty equivalent to one term’s tuition fees will be payable. The relevant dates for 2022 are below:
There is clear evidence that purposeful professional learning for teachers is a key factor in improving student learning outcomes. A strategic priority for the school is to enhance teacher professional growth through quality professional learning and staff formation. Contemporary research suggests that effective professional learning needs to be ‘an ongoing process made up of epiphanic life moments that are professional and personal, formal and informal, in schools and out of schools, singular and collaborative.’ (Netolicky, 2016, p. 281).
As the academic year commences, we continue our commitment to providing quality professional learning for our staff, to ensure they are kept up-to-date with contemporary high-impact teaching strategies, emerging technologies and student wellbeing research. All professional learning is tailored to enhance teacher capacity and efficacy. Our teachers are encouraged to be reflective in their practice and each staff member has an annual Professional Learning Plan to set targets and goals. We dedicated time across our three Staff Days this week to address some strategic priority areas, with a particular focus on High Expectations, Lesson Routines, Data Analytics, Literacy, Deep Learning and Curriculum Reforms.
Below is a snapshot of some of the Professional Learning sessions delivered this week.
Cognisant that school-wide analysis and discussion of systematically collected data on student outcomes, including academic, attendance and behavioural outcomes, and student wellbeing are crucial to a school’s improvement agenda, throughout 2022 a team of teachers explored a number of Learning Analytics Platforms. Learning Analytics is the process of using educational data, statistical analysis, and modelling to gain insights into student and school performance.
TrackOne is our analytics platform of choice, and we are excited to upskill our staff in data literacy throughout 2023. TrackOne allows us to collate and analyse our academic and pastoral data more efficiently and effectively, and in turn enables us to better monitor and track student progress, growth and performance across Years 5-12. Additionally, we have engaged with Robert Allwell’s Academic Assessment Services to look at forecasting and predictive data. This will be invaluable in subject selection and monitoring student expected performance relative to achieved outcomes.
Thank you to Ms Helen Barrie, Ms Kaitlyn Downey, Ms Lynsey Porter and Ms Jenna Turnbull for facilitating these sessions.
Extensive analysis of our 2022 NAPLAN data, combined with insights from the 2022 Australian Council for Educational Research Conference, prompted our strategic design of an inferential reading focus across all faculties. The NAPLAN Reading test is designed with a knowledge gap between the question and answer, encouraging the student to connect prior knowledge with a strategic approach to reading text, in order to formulate an answer.
To prepare students for comprehension assessments such as NAPLAN, we have been examining the reading expectations for Stage 4 and 5 students across all subjects, and utilising current research to identify the cognitive and environmental elements that inform and strengthen the acquisition of higher-order reading skills. Staff will continue to curate a repertoire of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational strategies that seek to support our students to ultimately achieve self-regulated learning and high achievement in the reading domain. Thank you to Ms Helen Barrie and Ms Mary Ryan for facilitating this terrific session.
Deep Learning sessions were facilitated by lead AIS educational consultant Jorga Marrum with Religious Education and PDHPE design teams. To date, Jorga has worked with Stage 3 teachers and senior staff in Science, English, Visual Arts and Drama to deepen units of work. Deep learning is the process of students acquiring the six Global Competencies: Character, Citizenship, Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, and Critical Thinking. These skills and attributes are essential for learners to flourish as citizens, and to engage and innovate successfully in our increasingly complex and connected world.
Deep Learning moves students beyond surface knowledge by creating learning experiences where students go deeper in knowledge, standards and assessment. Students are actively involved in the learning process as co-designers and co-learners. Deepening units of work enlivens our Teaching & Learning Framework. We look forward to continuing our work with Deep Learning and expanding this across all subject and year levels.
After the success of our whole-school approach to improving boys’ Literacy through Writers’ Toolbox in 2022, we are pleased to expand this program in 2023. Mr Rob Tall, Writer’s Toolbox consultant and Ms Mary Ryan, Head of Literacy, will continue to facilitate staff and student sessions across faculties and year levels this year. This comprehensive writing program, developed by Dr Ian Hunter, is designed to improve syntax, punctuation and paragraphing.
A range of tangible strategies have been shared with staff to improve writing efficacy, and the interactive software component of the program has been well received by our students. We look forward to strengthening this program with expansion and precision in 2023.
Of utmost importance is responding to and planning for the NSW curriculum reforms across each subject area. NESA has a staggered approach to implementation across a seven year time period (2021-2028) with a varied start and end point for respective subjects. This timeline includes syllabus consultation > syllabus release > syllabus planning and preparation > syllabus taught in schools > syllabus examined in HSC.
I commend our staff who are working assiduously to ensure that our curriculum programs accurately reflect these reforms, while continuing to embed high-impact teaching strategies, differentiated learning tasks, student adjustments and rich formative and summative assessments.
Below is an example of the K-12 Mathematics timeline.
Click here for further details
I would like to thank all staff for their active engagement with our sessions, and their collaborative programming across the three days. I look forward to regularly communicating the Professional Learning of our staff, as well as the ongoing developments and achievements in our key strategic priority areas. Next week, my article will explore the importance of High Expectations and outline our updated Lesson Routine for Years 7-10.
We would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation who are the traditional Custodians of the land on which Waverley College is located. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. We are committed to honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique cultural and spiritual connections to the land, waters, seas and sky and their rich contribution to society.
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