Principal’s Report
Mooroolbark College has made a commitment to improving literacy outcomes for all students from Year 7 through to Year 12. Literacy, the ability to read, view, write, design, speak and listen, is vital to ensuring your child has the best chance to succeed in their schooling and everyday life.
People with good literacy skills are more likely to have:
- higher self-esteem
- better health
- better jobs
- higher wages
At Mooroolbark College every teacher is a teacher of literacy. The ability to read, write, comprehend, speak and listen occurs in every classroom, every classroom not just in the English classrooms. Staff members from a range of different teaching areas, have been attending an intensive program in order to lead literacy development at Mooroolbark College. Yesterday our focus was on the importance of improving vocabulary. Young people who have a wide vocabulary, are able to comprehend and articulate the world around them effectively. One of the most powerful ways to improve vocabulary is through reading.
The College’s Independent Reading program has been successfully initiated. If your son or daughter is in Year 7 or 8 they are reading 20 minutes a day; 1 hour and 40 minutes a week. Every Year 7 is reading at the start of period 1 every day and every Year 8 student is reading at the start of period 2 every day. To support their learning, they are also writing in their reflection journal at the end of each reading session. The reflection journal is an opportunity to develop strategies to improve their comprehension of text. It is also structured to encourage students to think about their reading, draw conclusions, predict and evaluate the text.
You can support the Independent Reading Program by:
- Talking with your child about what they are reading
- Discussing new words or phrases they may have come across
- Exploring the Digital Library, OverDrive. This is available through Compass to all students at Mooroolbark College. This means students can borrow books any time, day or night.
- Talking about things that you have read or viewed that were amusing, interesting or useful.
If your son or daughter is in Years 9 to 12, Mooroolbark College staff are implementing literacy strategies in all their classes as a result of our ongoing professional learning. These strategies include reading out aloud in class, using various comprehension strategies, using complex sentences and directly teaching subject specific vocabulary. This promotes a culture for improving literacy across the curriculum in all year levels; which is certainly a priority for Mooroolbark College.
Numeracy is also an important skill and the Mathematics staff have been working with Mr Peter Sullivan from Monash University, to enhance our students’ ability to problem solve. To put it simply, we want Mooroolbark College students to be mathematical thinkers. This can be challenging for many students as it requires them to be prepared to ‘have a go’ and not wait to be told ‘how to’ solve a problem. It requires students to experiment with many different strategies to solve problems and collaborate with other students. This approach, coupled with quality direct instructions, has already made a positive impact on how students approach mathematics.
I would like to thank Mr Todd Zaresbski and Mr David Innes for running the Year 7 Parent Maths Night last week. At Mooroolbark College, we value the opportunity to include parents and guardians in their child’s learning. Outcomes for students are always improved when teachers, students and parents work together. One of the key messages from the night was centred around ‘making mistakes in maths’. Often in mathematics, students give up when they make mistakes. Our staff are working with students to challenge that thinking by showing them that they can learn through making mistakes.
Literacy and numeracy remain a priority for Mooroolbark College. This year is a review year for Mooroolbark College and in Term 4, the College will be setting the next Strategic Plan. We encourage parents and guardians to complete the survey, which will be posted on Compass early next week. We are interested in your feedback on how we communicate, listen and respond. We value our parents and guardians at Mooroolbark College.