Time flies, and in some ways it doesn’t seem 10 minutes since my last Coracle article, when in fact it has been 10 weeks.
What a busy time Term 2 has been, with the College filled with excellent opportunities for discovery and growth. Learning, of course, is our core business.
A great source of pride this term has been our NAPLAN results, which we received in Week 8. At this stage, only high-level indicative results are released to schools with individual student results to be released at a later stage.
However, the information we have received is highly encouraging. With 20 testing domains across Years 3, 5, 7 and 9, in 2024 we have received 70% in the Strong category. By way of comparison, in 2023 that figure was 25%.
These results are our first real indicator that our new approach at school – new routines and rules which lead to increased learning time – are working.
There is an old adage understood by school leaders, that ‘a school cannot rise above the quality of its staffroom’, – meaning that the quality of the staff, the teachers and the ESOs, is the key factor in success. There is some science behind this too, with world-renowned educationalist, John Hattie, proving this from his research.
Hattie’s ‘Table of Effects’, a list of the factors most impactful on student learning and which has been calculated after studies of hundreds of thousands of students across the world, has proven that 11 of the top 15 impacts on student learning are influenced directly by the quality of the teacher.
We have the best teachers at St Columba College, and the best staff. I thank them all for their hard work this term.
As we draw Term 2 to a close, it is important to recognise those staff members who will not be with us in Term 3:
- Ms Jennifer Spiniello, Middle and Senior School Maths and Science teacher, goes on maternity leave.
- Ms Jess Murray, Junior School teacher, also goes on maternity leave.
- Ms Natalin Peros, Senior School English teacher, takes 12 months’ leave to return to Canada to spend time with family.
- Mr Sam Upton and Ms Jessica Stirling, Middle and Senior School Diverse Learning ESOs, both conclude their time with us. Now qualified teachers, Sam and Jessica are eager to commence their teaching careers.
We thank these staff for all their hard work and the expertise they have brought to the lives of our students, and we wish them well for the next chapter of their lives.
A friendly reminder that all students return to school on Tuesday 23 July.
Enjoy your holidays.
Mr Darren Pitt
Principal
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