Welcome to Term 4

The weather has certainly sent us into a spin this week with soaring temps and strong winds to get the term underway.  We pray for rain this coming weekend to quench some of the thirst of our district and support our farmers with some moisture in the soil and water into tanks and dams.  With the increased heat of Term 4, the College staff will be more vigilant regarding students wearing hats so please ensure that your child packs their hat every day.

School Swimming

This term we are implementing further changes to the College swimming program.  It begins with a 2 week intensive for all Year 3 students, followed by a series of 4 weekly lessons for all students in Prep – Year 2.  The intent of the program is providing water safety and basic skills training for students in Prep - Year 2, whilst developing some basic swimming proficiency for students in Year 3.  It is important to note that the program is not designed to create the next team of Australian Swimmers, it is about teaching the basics for safety around water. All lessons will be taken by fully trained swimming coaches. Our local pool has some excellent coaches for students who wish to enhance their swimming capability beyond the basics.

A benefit of this adjustment is that swimming takes less time away from the curriculum, there are considerably better gains using professional coaches whilst maintaining a balance in costs without the need to pass on these costs to parents.

NAPLAN School Readiness Test

All of our school readiness testing went off without a hitch this week as we finalised the configuration and preparedness for our NAPLAN Online testing in 2020.  There are many challenges in this transition, especially regarding the writing task which will be completed digitally for all Year 5, 7 & 9 students from next year.  A huge thanks to all Year 2, 4, 6 and 8 students with their patience and efforts in this preparation, as well as Year 7, 8 & 9 students who went without their College laptops for 2 days while this took place.  Please note that this will not be the case next year as students in Year 7 & 9 will use their own devices while students in Year 3 & 5 will use the College trolley laptops.

2020 Year 7-12 Timetable

Our draft 2020 timetable is near and details regarding this will be released in Week 3, however it is inevitable that many changes will occur due to staffing and the impacts of a new enterprise bargaining agreement for our staff.  We have allocated roles and teaching loads, and student subject selections have been locked down according to the subject lines presented by Mr Hodge earlier in the year.  Due to significant increases in enrolments for Year 7, we will be making 3 Year 7 form classes rather than the traditional 2.

2020 Prep – Year 6 Structure

In 2020 we will run 15 classes for Prep to Year 6 and there will be no composite classes.  We will run 2 classes for every year level except for Year 6 which will have 3 classes.  A letter will be sent home before the end of the week explaining further details for parents.  Please note that teachers will be allocated to classes after the completion of class lists which will occur in the next fortnight.

College Awards

This year we will only have one Excellence Awards ceremony during Week 6 of this term.  This will include awards for Excellence across all important areas of our College, while participation and encouragement awards will be presented during sector assembly time on dates yet to be confirmed.  The Excellence Awards will now focus on what we do as a whole College, be more inclusive of all students from Prep – Year 12 and will target excellence is learning achievement, learning progress and living like Jesus.  A calendar with specific dates and times will be sent out on SchoolZine next week so you can organise your attendance for all of the critical events for the term.

I wish everyone a wonderful start to the term,

Pete Cuskelly

Principal