24/40 = 60%  

We are almost two-thirds through our academic year and I am very pleased with our progress so far. This is the first year of our strategic plan, “Inspiring Education”, and an important one for developing new knowledge and skills to enable the intent of the strategic plan. In addition to this, our implementation of the new V9.0 Australian Curriculum continues, as does our implementation of new general and applied subject syllabuses in Years 11 and 12. I would like to thank our staff for the commitment to our students and their profession by continuing their learning and growing in these spaces. In the education space, we constantly face change as we strive to inspire our students to grow, learn and develop in such a wonderful environment. I am very proud of the staff, students and supportive families we have in our College that makes it such a special place for our community.

Staff Welcome

Since the last newsletter a few new faces have been gracing our grounds. We are very excited to welcome the following staff to our team:

• Mr Jon Stam – Mr Stam will head up our work in INTAD supporting learners throughout Semester 2 while also creating a vision for the future in INTAD, STEM and Design. He comes with a wealth of experience and commendation from various programs he has designed, developed and implemented, and also has dual trades underpinning his educational knowledge.
• Miss Becky Gillan – Miss Gillan completed her final preservice placement with Mrs Workman in 3W earlier in the year and has taken on the role of Primary Relief for the rest of this term. Her work across primary will support the continuity of quality teaching in classrooms while staff are on leave, in cases of sickness, and also while teachers are supported with their work in the new curriculum.
• Mr Col Anderton – Mr Anderton is a highly experienced teacher who comes to us from Toowoomba. He has been Head of Sport and Head of Department in various roles in the past and has a broad capability in his teaching, his coaching, his leadership and management skills, as well as his own personal skills based through a commitment to learning. Mr Anderton has taken on the role of Secondary Relief Teacher until the back end of Term 4.
• Mrs Barb Andrews – Mrs Andrews makes the final puzzle piece of our Administration team. Mrs Andrews will be looking after Student Services, Enrolments, our Newsletter and Socials. When next in the College Office make sure you say hi to all the ladies. 
• Ms Ellie Widgell – Ms Widgell comes to us from Cunnamulla as an experienced Student Services Teaching Assistant. Ellie will be seen mainly working in our Senior Classrooms.
• Mrs Toni Campbell  - Mrs Campbell has started as our new Tuckshop Convenor this term and has some wonderful ideas for the future. Her experience in tuckshops as well as in the retail sector stand her in good stead to continue providing great food options for our students and staff.

NAPLAN

Last week we sent home NAPLAN reports for our students in Years 3, 5, 7 & 9, along with a very helpful information sheet on how to interpret these results. I am very well aware of the opinion of NAPLAN in the media, however, I find great value in NAPLAN testing. Firstly, it is the comparable data in education in Australia where schools and students can determine how they are progressing and achieving compared to schools & colleges across the entire country. There is nothing else that even comes close to allowing schools and communities to understand their comparable performance in the teaching of the curriculum at these year level junctures.

Secondly, it prepares students for life. We don’t place high pressure on our students for NAPLAN testing intentionally. We use the testing process as way to develop the capability of our students to perform in an examination environment. There are times when everyone in placed in a situation where they experience feeling such as anxiety and NAPLAN is one way of preparing our students for future examinations and high pressure situations. 

Thirdly, some students thrive in these conditions. The day to day function of the classroom is not always the best way for students to show capable they really are.  There are many students across our College who perform significantly better in NAPLAN conditions than they do in assignments or general classwork. This mode of assessment allows many, including our highest performing students, to show just how capable they are.

And finally, the information it gives us is imperative to our overall planning, teaching, planning for personalised learning and our insight into the specific needs of our work in general. On Tuesday night, our teaching staff took the time to delve into some of the NAPLAN data that we can access to inform our practice. We can clearly see our excellence, progress and areas for future work, and as one teacher commented, how pleasing the results were over the last few years and how the progress is consistent.

Our results continue to improve. We have set very aspirational targets for our general NAPLAN Data, and are already well on our way to achieving them. In fact, in 7 out of 20 areas, we are already achieving over 70% of all students are achieving either “Strong” or “Exceeding”. Remarkably, in Year 3 writing this year, 89.4% of students were “Strong” or “Exceeding, and 0% “Needs Additional Support”. What’s even better is that the result last year was remarkably similar.  In addition, our target of less than 5% “Needs Additional Support” is also being met 9 out of 20 areas, with an overall average of 7%.  Comparably, the State average for all schools is 13.3%. 

Well done to all our learners who participate in NAPLAN annually and of course, our staff who guide our learners every day.  

QCIS Athletics Monday

At OLSCC we focus on a wholistic education for all our students. We do so by providing a wide array of opportunities for them to engage in with students from other settings.  On Monday, 53 students and 5 staff squeezed onto a coach, and hit the road to Concordia Lutheran College, one of our proud QCIS schools. I would love to say that the air was warm and the breeze gentle, though that simply wasn’t to be.  It was cold – bone-chilling cold – and the wind was smearing ice across the cheeks of runners all the way to lunch.  Despite this, our students were excellent. We only took limited numbers to compete, so the students that went were required to compete in many events each – some even filled the whole card by competing in every single event. Some even did so in the year above their age bracket. We had runners throwing and throwers running as well as a great support team full of cheers and blankets. Even in the 400m races at the end of the day, Lane 3, our lane,  was always full. While we didn’t get a trophy (we did get second on average points though, and fourth on aggregate points against much larger schools with double the athletes on the day), it was a truly beautiful day for our students to cherish and remember. A huge congratulations to all our students who braved the conditions and gave their all on Monday – we couldn’t be more proud of you! Thanks also to Mr Lincoln who is secretary for QCIS for the next two years and manages and oversees all events and the running of the organisation.

Go for Gold Grant Application

Late yesterday we were informed that we were unsuccessful in our application for Go for Gold funding. We had applied for a $5M sports centre to be built on top of the old bitumen basketball courts which would have met the intent of the grant and created a great facility for both our College and the Western Downs. A huge thanks to our Business Manager, Mrs Sarah Hall and the staff at TCS for their support in developing the application. 

Peter Cuskelly

Principal