Principals news

Semester One is complete, and we are heading into the June-July holidays.  It has been a bumper 6 months with some outstanding accomplishments for our students.  There are several feature articles in this double issue of the newsletter and I hope you take the time to read through the variety of activities in which our students have been engaged.  Our Year 11s have completed the first unit of the new ATAR system and our Year IB students are one semester closer to their Diploma.

Boree won the House Challenge in Junior School and our Junior Secondary students including Years 5 and 6 have had some great input into the shaping of our IB Middle Years Program.  Ms Emily Smith will join the team heading Years 6 to 9 English supporting Mrs Sivhola on IB and 10-12.  We will also be joined by a P-12 Languages Head of Department in the next semester.  Ms Cole will be the Mathematics 7-12 Head of Department for semester 2.

We welcome Mrs Welch back in Semester Two having had a few weeks leave, as will Mr Smith.  I want to give an enormous thank you to the Junior School Admin and Heads of Program who have managed the Junior School through Jackie’s absence, we have not skipped a beat; thank you Mr Loriaux as Principal and Mrs Kelly and Mrs Muller as Deputies as well as Ms Lewicki and Mrs Wilson who have been a great support.  Ms Lewicki will be leaving us for a semester to continue her work on the Highly Accomplished and Lead Teacher role and Mrs Mclean will be in the Maths Head of Department role.  We are welcoming Mrs Gallina, Ms Porter, Mr Dickson, Mr Steenberg into our teaching staff and look forward to working with them and our students will be excited to share their PYP learning.

 

UQ Speech Language Pathologists Farewell

We have just completed the first stage of a pilot of Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) students attending our College as part of their practicum. Supervised by our SLP, Ms Alex Gorrie, teams of UQ SLPs (recognizable by their purple UQ shirts) worked with our students to improve early literacy indicators and support students requiring further development of language and speech. This was a fantastic program and we were so lucky to the school that UQ chose to partner with. Many thanks to Ms Gorrie for your leadership and management of our ‘purple army’, the results for our students have been outstanding and our community is very grateful.

Survey My Class – Student Agency in the IB Program

As part of our IB initiative we are invested in expanding our students’ sense of involvement in their learning and providing opportunities for the students to participate in the way that the College runs. Steve Francis, ex-principal and educational influencer, has developed a set of surveys for schools use with their students and communities. You can find out more at stevefrancis.net.au or surveymyclass.com.au. Upper Junior and Junior Secondary students, are usually considered the most disempowered group, not just at our school but within the education system – it is a time of great change and often quite an emotional time as bodies, relationships and friendships change, but also learning styles change. Coincidently or perhaps not, the Junior Secondary Years is the last area of our College to take up the IB program. We very much want our Upper Junior and Junior Secondary students to be a part of the development of the last stage of our IB program. As the first step in this process of increasing student agency, we have rolled our “Survey My Class” surveys to Years 5 through 9 during weeks 7 to 9 in term 2.

I have included below the text that was distributed in an email to the students with the links to their surveys. We will survey the remaining classes in Years 7-9, next term. All this information collected is collated and returned to the teachers of those classes, so that they can have a greater understanding of what our students enjoy in their learning, what they want more of and what they want less of. It is an anonymous survey and the collated data, makes it impossible to locate any individual’s comments. It is my hope that as well as surveying the remaining Junior Secondary classes in term 3, I will also be able to survey the parents of these students, with a similar survey so that we can gain a greater understanding of your experience and expectations.

 

Text sent to students by email:

Today you got an amazing opportunity. As students at Calamvale you have been given the responsibility of sending some feedback to your teachers about your classroom environment and how you think that you learn best.
Only students in grades 4 to 9 have the chance to do this survey – so it really is a special opportunity. You will all answer the same questions and therefore be able to share with your teachers, your thoughts about class.
This is a chance to be really honest and think very carefully about what you would like to share with your teacher about your class and the learning that happens there. Your answers are collected up and shared with just your teacher, no-one else. Your teacher will not be able to see your names or what you said on the survey – so it’s anonymous, which is why you have to think carefully and answer honestly.
You will have received a link to a survey today in an email. I want you to do this survey as soon as you can, reading carefully and taking your time to give your thoughts and feelings in your answers.

If you are a Junior School student, we have reset your passwords today and your teachers will have told you what this is. You answer just one survey about your class.

If you are a Junior Secondary student, you should already have your password and will only need to go to your teacher for a reset if you have forgotten it. Students in years 7, 8 and 9 – you are completing 4 surveys for the classes that you are in, from the list below. You can only complete the surveys sent to you and you should complete them all on your own, with your own ideas.

Here’s the list:

  • ENG – English
  • SCI – Science
  • ENR – English Enrichment
  • DRA – Drama
  • FDS – Food Studies
  • MUS – Music
  • DIG – Digital Technologies
  • AFT – Film, Television and New Media
  • DAT – Design Technologies
  • FDS – Food Studies
  • ART – Art
  • STM091A – Steam

Please try to finish this survey this week, whilst you are thinking about it. Thank you for your feedback, we know that it will help us make school even better and more enjoyable.

Young Entrepreneurs – the Leaders of Tomorrow

Once a term, CCC holds Community and College Alliance breakfast meeting of businesses that support our College and are invested in developing closer links between school and work. On May 17th, our Alliance partners spent the morning with 40 of our young risk-taking entrepreneurs. The business leaders and students engaged in a ‘speed-mentoring’ process, which was structured to develop our students’ confidence and skills in leading a project. Three Monday afternoons of workshops then rolled into June 13th and a Peak Experience with the youth leadership organisation High Resolves. Sixty students participated in a culminating entrepreneurial activity with the intention of presenting to parents that evening. As it turned out we postponed the parent presentation evening due to student readiness and the numbers of parents who could attend. However this event will happen next term and we very much look forward to the presentations that students will share with us.

 

 

Thank you for your support of our team and your students, have a restful break and we are already looking forward to Semester Two, 2019 – happy holidays!