In this issue

BUMPER ISSUE

Principal’s News
Junior School Principal News
Secondary School Principal News
IB University Experience Days
Easter Hat Celebrations
Our New Spanish Language Assistant
What is iTime
Secondary School Swimming Carnival
2020 Lantern Painting Competition
Positive Education @ Calamvale Community College

Easter Hat Celebrations

Enjoy our virtual Easter Hat parade from students in Prep to Year 2.

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Easter Hat Celebrations

Enjoy our virtual Easter Hat parade from students in Prep to Year 2.

Secondary School Online Behaviour

The e-Safety Commissioner has provided support with information so that parents continue to monitor and ensure the safety of their students in an online environment. …

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Secondary School Online Behaviour

The e-Safety Commissioner has provided support with information so that parents continue to monitor and ensure the safety of their students in an online environment. There is also additional information provided pertaining to some apps that might be accessed by students to make a social connection with their friends. You are strongly encouraged to take some time to explore the information on this site. Link

At this stage, we have no further information on what learning will look like for our students in Term 2. Please ensure you look for updates on our Facebook page prior to the commencement of Term 2 -20 April (Term 2 start date). As you would appreciate, this is new and unchartered territory for our College, however, I can assure you that our staff are committed to ensuring that our students continue with their learning in the event of a school closure after the break.

To all of you, we send our best wishes, we are strong community and ‘we are all in this together’.  CCC will be there to support your children and continue their education through this time.  Take care, stay well and stay home if you can.

Warm regards,

Sharyn Angel

Secondary School Principal

Secondary School Online Learning

    Here are some details, pertaining particularly to Secondary School.  Whilst the information mirrors that of Junior School, it is structured and delivered differently …

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Secondary School Online Learning

 

 

Here are some details, pertaining particularly to Secondary School.  Whilst the information mirrors that of Junior School, it is structured and delivered differently to account for adolescent ways of learning.

Attendance and Engagement

Attendance will not be recorded on students’ report cards for the coming semester, however it is vital that we monitor our students’ presence online and engagement with their studies.

  • Teachers will record their students’ online presence in their subject and each week will send a generic email home for that subject
  • If a student is not present online, for two weeks, you will receive a modified absence letter from our attendance officer, asking you to intervene to ensure that your students can and do engage in their learning. If there is illness at home or difficult circumstances – parents and carers will be able to communicate that to the attendance officer.  We intend to share this information but please be patient if we miss something or double up.  There will be no text messages.

Lesson Delivery:

  • Each teacher will be uploading the learning for a full week. Students will be able to manage the time they use to engage with their learning.
  • We will continue to use the Inquiry model to deliver learning, with provocations to stimulate curiosity, learning intentions and success criteria to enable students to self-check their learning.
  • We intend to include a range of ways of learning in each lesson package. There will be information delivery, activities to engage students in learning, opportunities for students to generate work and get teacher feedback, online tools and programs with variety being our tool for engagement.
  • There will be scheduled times when all teachers are present ‘live’ online so that students can virtually interact.
  • Do not expect ‘live video conferencing’ as you have seen on television, or in business. Whilst we have sought and achieved permission to use platforms such as Zoom, there are all sorts of protocols including parental supervision and 18+ limits as well as expertise.  We have investigated this and it is not our starting point for general classes.
  • IB classes in Year 10-12 may operate a little differently to the rest of the school to meet the needs of their curriculum. DP Mel Ellis will release information about this, in the coming days.
  • We are also considering Zoom as a learning tool for groups of secondary students studying instrumental music – if we intend to use this platform, there will be separate permissions sought from you.

 

Monitoring of Learning:

Teachers will engage with students across the week.

  • Student work that is submitted will be stamped indicating that it is received.
  • Drafts and formative pieces will be commented on with either written or recorded feedback with the usual turnaround times. Responses will not be immediate.
  • Parents who have concerns will contact the teacher directly, through existing channels and processes.
  • It is our hope that we can provide face to face opportunities for students to speak with teachers, complete experiments – all dependent upon the social distance and the restrictions that are in place next term.

Assessment:

How we collect evidence of student learning will be different when compared with a face to face class.  We will collect student samples over time, use Education Perfect quizzes, open book exams, written student responses.  There are many ways to assess a little differently to the usual format.

  • An assessment planner in week 2 will provide some information about timing throughout the term. We cannot provide definitive answers until we have a better idea of how school will be experienced and for how long we are online.
  • As usual, weeks 6 and 7 will be formative assessment weeks
  • There will be assignments given and collected with drafts due
  • IB students will continue their Internal Assessment items

Junior School Online Behaviour

Students in the Junior School will be accessing their learning through Seesaw. This is a closed platform which allows the teacher to allocate lessons to …

Junior School Online Behaviour
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Junior School Online Behaviour

Students in the Junior School will be accessing their learning through Seesaw. This is a closed platform which allows the teacher to allocate lessons to the whole class, small group of individual students. Students will not be able to see or comment on each other’s work or see the individual feedback the teacher gives to a student.

It is important however, that parents continue to monitor their child’s use of technology, as we predict that students will miss the social connection they have with their friends on a daily basis and will look for other opportunities and platforms to meet these needs.

The e-Safety Commissioner has provided support with information so that parents continue to monitor and ensure the safety of their students in an online environment. There is also additional information provided pertaining to some apps children may try to access to make a social connection with their friends. I strongly encourage you to take some time to explore the information
on this site.  Link

As we enter a two week holiday period, at this stage, we have no further information on what learning will look like for our students in Term 2. Please ensure you look for updates on our Facebook page prior to the commencement of Term 2 – Monday 20 April 2020 (Term 2 start date). As you would appreciate, this is new and unchartered territory for all of us, including
for you as parents and caregivers. I can assure you however, that our staff are committed to ensuring that our students continue with their learning in the event of a school closure after the break.

To all of you, we send our best wishes, we are a strong community and ‘we are all in this together’. CCC will be there to support your children and continue their education through this time. Take care, stay well and stay home if you can.

Yours Sincerely
Jackie Welch
Junior School Principal

Junior School Online Learning

  In the event of a school closure in Term 2, it is important that families have some further information regarding online learning. Lesson Delivery: …

Junior School Online Learning
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Junior School Online Learning

 

In the event of a school closure in Term 2, it is important that families have some further information regarding online learning.

Lesson Delivery:

 Teachers will be uploading lessons for the day every morning. This allows families to plan for access to learning if students are sharing devices across the household.
 Attached to lessons there will be teacher instruction (voice, video, written).
 As well as scheduled lessons, we also encourage families to find opportunities that do not involve a device, including the sharing of a story, enjoying a game together and spending time in the garden engaging with nature.

Monitoring of Learning:

 Teachers will be routinely checking throughout the day. Please take into account that teachers will also be preparing for subsequent online lessons throughout the day, so feedback will not be instantaneous and will range from an acknowledgement of receiving work, whole class feedback to the class or individualised feedback depending on the assigned task.

 If there is a specific question pertaining to a task or an issue with accessibility, we aim to address these within a 24 hour period.

Assessment:

 Teachers will be monitoring students’ responses to learning activities on a daily basis and will adjust subsequent lessons/activities in response to this. This mirrors what happens in the classroom on a regular basis.

 During your child’s online learning they will have formative learning tasks in Mathematics, English and Unit of Inquiry. These tasks are designed to provide information for your child’s teacher on their current understanding of what they know and can do. This is not a test and will not be used to give your child an A-E rating. This will help your child’s teacher plan for their next step in learning. Your child will need to complete these tasks independently as much as possible.

 Teachers will make an announcement with the learning activity so that parents are clear that it is a formative learning task.

Student Engagement:

 Just like regular school, every day counts as the College and parents work together to support students with their
continuation of learning.

 Teachers will be monitoring of task engagement during the day.

 Teachers and/or Deputy Principals will be making contact with families after a period of non-engagement with the
online learning platform.

Online Behaviours

It is always important that parents monitor students’ use of technology, taking care to check that the use is appropriate.  CCC will not take responsibility …

Online Behaviours
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Online Behaviours

It is always important that parents monitor students’ use of technology, taking care to check that the use is appropriate.  CCC will not take responsibility for student behaviour on any platform other than those supervised environment that we are sharing.  We have teachers, Heads of Programs and Deputy Principals scrutinizing the spaces that we have authored. Each of the sub-school letters has information for parents on how to monitor students’ online behaviours.  It should be stated, that any inappropriate or defaming use of our staff’s online persona, voices or videos, or indeed the placement of CCC activities, photo or video onto a public platform will be dealt with in the most serious manner, with consequences which could, among other things, disconnect students from the online learning environment.

Community Engagement and Wellbeing

To support parent engagement, we have put in place a number of processes which will assist us and you in tracking our students’ engagement, reporting …

Community Engagement and Wellbeing
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Community Engagement and Wellbeing

To support parent engagement, we have put in place a number of processes which will assist us and you in tracking our students’ engagement, reporting their participation to parents/carers, monitor student welfare and provide us with feedback as to the quality of our lessons.

Following this email will be emails from both Sub-School Principals providing details specific to their school.  There will also be an IB email, tailoring this information to that course’s format and expectations. Our newsletter will provide all of this information in an easy to access format and will be sent out on Friday afternoon this week and again at the beginning of the school term.

In addition to the curriculum-based learning, it is our intention to provide separate information and activities that will support students’ mental health and wellbeing, engagement with others and in maintaining a positive attitude.  There will be Global Competence sessions available in Week 1 for secondary students and some wellbeing activities:  mindfulness, brainbreaks and positive education sessions for all students across the College.  We will build on these as the term progresses.  Year 11 and 12 will have access to QTAC preparation and career planning.

Positive Education at Calamvale Community College

Calamvale Community College’s wellbeing framework is based on positive psychology. Positive Education is the application of positive psychology in an educational setting. It is a …

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Positive Education at Calamvale Community College

Calamvale Community College’s wellbeing framework is based on positive psychology. Positive Education is the application of positive psychology in an educational setting. It is a framework that is based on the science of wellbeing and the strategies people can apply in their lives to experience a flourishing existence.

Character Strengths

It has probably been a while since you completed the VIA character strengths survey. Maybe some significant events have happened in your life since you last completed it. Please go to the following website to re-do the VIA Character Strengths survey. If you have not completed the survey previously sign-up to complete the free version.

https://www.viacharacter.org/Survey/Account/Register (use the live link above or type this URL into your browser)

 

Keep your eye out for more about Positive Education at CCC in upcoming newsletters.

Nerieda Anderson
Calamvale Community College
Developmental Guidance Officer, Psychologist

IB University Experience Days

The IB cohorts in Year 11 and 12 plus the Year 10 Prep class have begun the year networking and learning from various faculties, professors …

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IB University Experience Days

The IB cohorts in Year 11 and 12 plus the Year 10 Prep class have begun the year networking and learning from various faculties, professors and experts at Universities across SEQ.  In coordination with other IB World Schools; Benowa SHS and Cleveland DSHS, IB students were able to visit a campus, sit in on lectures, participate in workshops, hear from past IB students and network with like-minded IB students.

The Year 10s visited Griffith University on the Gold Coast where the focus was on leadership and how everyone can be a leader and this is the year to develop the skills and build confidence in self, so that there is automaticity in the years to come.

Year 11 visited QUT, Kelvin Grove with a thematic approach to Extended Essay preparation and workshops targeted to academic research and writing as well as collecting and analysing data.  There was also a Q&A session with graduated IB students who spoke at length about how the skills they learned from the Diploma Programme prepared them for university.

Year 12 visited UQ, St Lucia with an interesting keynote presentation from Professor Ellerton on how to think and the importance of thinking and how AI technology will never be able to replicate the level of thinking that humans have.  Students also worked collaboratively on various science challenges as well as examining science data that will assist them with their upcoming Science IAs.

This was a great opportunity for our tertiary-bound students to be able to explore campus and sit in on lectures and workshops that developed their IB specific skills.

What is iTime?

We are living in a time of change and our children and young people are more and more exposed to the debates around climate and …

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What is iTime?

We are living in a time of change and our children and young people are more and more exposed to the debates around climate and are witnessing through the news, on social media, and first-hand the environmental catastrophes locally and around the world.

Now more than ever, we have a responsibility to alleviate any fears that those in our care may be experiencing and flip this situation so they can see not only the natural beauty of the world and value what is and what it can be in the future, but what they have to contribute and to know their voices and their actions are important.

We ask that you explore these issues with your children, perhaps around the dinner table in the evenings, and encourage them to recognise themselves as conscious risk takers and inquirers who have the capacity to make a difference.

In the Secondary School, we are now running ‘iTime’, an 80 minute session held every Wednesday as the last class of the day.

In iTime, students explore their own place in the world, value the skills they have and how they connect with others, and design projects that support the Sustainable Development Goals. This time allows them to make connections with their learning, discover their passions, and seek ways to contribute to the larger community through Creativity, Activity, and Service. It is a valued and valuable part of their education and will enable them to thrive as local and global citizens and in their future career paths.  It is a space where students can contribute in the following ways:

 

  • Term 1: Recognise the importance of community and be able to connect with others while their own strengths and discovering their own interests
  • Term 2: Creating a product to give to others
  • Term 3: Designing and participating in a physical activity that they can teach others
  • Term 4: Producing a product or service to improve well-being in the community or for the environment.

Soon, students will be launching their e-folios (digital learning portfolios) which they will be able to share with you, demonstrating how they identify themselves as changemakers, and the skillset they have that enables them to contribute and to improve their own lives, those of others, and to  the environment. This program leads towards an assessment that is included in student term report cards under Global Competence and we value your support encouraging and checking in with your child so they realise that you are also invested in this goal.

To participate actively in this class, students need a laptop or ipad to be able to conduct their own research and document their learning through the portfolio process.  Students who do not have a device will need an exercise book and will need to undertake research online at home.

If you have any queries about this new program, please feel free to contact the school.

Best wishes and thank you for your support.

 

Pamela Curtin

Head of Global Competence

pcurt28@eq.edu.au

Introducing Ruben Bornez Fernandez – our Spanish Language Assistant

Rubén comes from Ciudad Real, in central Spain, where he recently obtained a degree in English Studies and Literature. Rubén hopes to become a language …

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Introducing Ruben Bornez Fernandez – our Spanish Language Assistant

Rubén comes from Ciudad Real, in central Spain, where he recently obtained a degree in English Studies and Literature. Rubén hopes to become a language teacher in the future and will start a Masters Degree in Teaching after his stay in Australia. Over the past few years, Rubén acquired valuable teaching experience thanks to internships in the USA and Ireland, where he worked as a Spanish Assistant in universities. Rubén also has some experience with younger children and teenagers, as he worked as an au pair in England and as an English Tutor and football coach in summer camps. Rubén has recently completed a 150-hour course in teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language, including a brief internship, and is excited to put himself to the test with Australian students.  It is a dream of his to teach English to students as education and languages is a passion of his.

He is currently working with our Year 9 APEX students studying Spanish for the first time, as well as the IB Diploma Spanish students.  He can also been seen out on the football pitch as Assistant coach for our interschool football (soccer) teams.

 

We look forward to welcoming Ruben to our College for the semester and using his expertise in our language classrooms.

2020 Lantern Painting Competition

Congratulations and good luck to all the CCC students who entered the 2020 Lantern Painting Festival as part of the 2020 Brisbane International Arts Festival. …

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2020 Lantern Painting Competition

Congratulations and good luck to all the CCC students who entered the 2020 Lantern Painting Festival as part of the 2020 Brisbane International Arts Festival. Winners will be announced on Saturday 14 March.

Secondary School Swimming Carnival

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Secondary School Swimming Carnival

Principals News – Learning Across the College

      The Junior School is using a platform familiar to parents and students, Seesaw.  This platform has versatility and the opportunity to include …

Learning Across the College
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Principals News – Learning Across the College

 

 

 

The Junior School is using a platform familiar to parents and students, Seesaw.  This platform has versatility and the opportunity to include a wide range of learning styles as well as built-in parent interaction.

Secondary School will predominantly use OneNote, with which our students and many of you are familiar.  A number of faculties and the IB program will branch out into Collaborate and EdStudios to meet particular needs.

All students have the necessary logins and access and if there are problems, then our teachers have a line of support directly to our Tech Team available to them. This support is not directly open to the students; they gain access via their teachers.  The College has endeavoured to make contact with all families to gather information regarding devices at home and Wi-Fi or connectivity in order to provide some paper learning resources which will be posted out to families in the event of a school closure next term.  These resources will not match online learning but will provide links to curriculum and valuable learning opportunities.  The frequency of mail outs will depend on access to the College and the length of time we are online.

Learning online is not a replication of face to face learning; it is a new and different way of engaging.  Whatever we might hope for, students are not going to follow the timetable of school, not least because they might not have access to a device at the ‘regular’ time of the lesson.  When students choose to do their learning and the availability of devices in the household, will be impacted by sleep patterns, household routines, the presence of siblings and parents/carers.  We may find that students develop independence, expand their agency (their voice in their learning) and learn to use tools and strategies that they otherwise might not have learned; that will be a welcome outcome from a difficult period in their lives.