Term 2, Week 2

Dear Parents and Carers

I would like to thank all our parents who attended parent teacher interviews with us this week. We provide regular updated feedback on student progress across the term (usually mid and end-term) that can be accessed on parent lounge. I have attached a ‘how to’ help sheet to this communication if you need a refresher on how to access this feedback.

How to access student progress

A thought on study and preparation

The following blurb has also been sent to Year 11 and 12 students.

By mid-term students in Year 11 and 12 will have major assessment due (normally Weeks 4-5) the next few weeks are essential for students as they prepare, draft, or study for their assessment pieces. There is lots of opportunity at Calvary for students to do well in their subjects, but the onus is on the student to take advantage of these opportunities.

How can students prepare and do well at prepared assignments in Senior?

• Read the task sheet and ask clarifying questions early.
• Read the provided QCAA high-level exemplar
  • Consider, why is this a high level?
  • Do I understand how the QCAA have applied the criteria to evidence from the exemplar?
  • What can I learn from the exemplar about creating high quality work?
• Meet drafting checkpoints and provide drafts to the teacher
• Use your class time effectively and don’t leave the majority of your work for outside of class!
• Attend a tutorial if one is available
• Leave yourself time to proofread and edit your work
  • Use the free Grammarly app to check your communication skills

How can students prepare and do well at examinations in Senior?

• Pay attention in class
• Write practice examination questions and share these with a study group
• Get a teacher to check your practice examination questions
• Ask clarifying questions early if you don’t understand the class content
• Attend a tutorial

Effective study skills are leant and don’t come naturally. People generally believe that writing out lots of study notes and reading over and over them makes them prepared for an examination. This is not true and leads to an illusion of mastery where students think they are well prepared but fall apart when trying to answer the examination questions. Why doesn’t this work? Simply – no examination ever starts like this: Q1: Rewrite out all your study notes.

The best way to study for an examination is to create your own examination, test your knowledge against versions of core and extension questions and get help early! If you don’t understand something in class, you won’t understand it in study and you certainly won’t be able to apply it in an exam. By the way, if you find studying hard it probably means you doing it right. It can take up to twenty minutes to get into an effective study flow and distractions can hinder us from entering flow. In your study space, try to avoid:

• Distracting music (if you forget it’s on, it’s not distracting – if you sing along, it is!)
• Interruptions from technology (leave your phone outside of your study space or put it on silent and leave it out of reach).
• Interruptions from your laptop – turn off unnecessary notifications

THE COMING WEEK:

Monday: Labour Day (pupil free)

Tuesday: Year 7 Adventure Day, Pacific Districts Cross Country

Wednesday: Year 8 Adventure Day

Thursday:  Year 9 Adventure Day

Friday: Year 10 Adventure Day

Weekend: Marburg Show

UPCOMING EVENTS:

NAPLAN 10-12 May (Year 7 and 9)

Please click on the link below for the letter from Mr Cameron Handley our Academic Coordinator.

NAPLAN  Letter

Year 11 Subject Selection Evening – Monday 16^th of May

We are hosting our Subject Selection evening for our Year 10 students (Year 11, 2023) this night, however anyone interested in senior subject options and pathways is more than welcome to attend.

Cultural Festival and Gala Night – Wednesday 8^th of June (starts at 3pm)

Please set this date aside to come and celebrate our vibrant co-curricular programs at Calvary. We will have workshops and activities until 5pm and then transition into a celebration of Arts with our Gala night.

MSS Athletics – Thursday 16^th of June – DATE CHANGE

Due to external officials being double booked, we needed to change the date of the MSS Athletics carnival.