Senior School – Term 3 Update

Mr Tristan Bevan, Head of Senior School

Welcome back to Term 3. I hope families all enjoyed the break and I am fully aware of the number of students (particularly in Year 12) who spent time consolidating their schoolwork over the holidays.

A former College Captain once spoke about the importance of students using holidays productively. Rest and recuperation are needed but he spoke of taking opportunities to develop as a person, be it through paid work (especially in a different environment), work experience, trying something new or using time without the regular routine of school to review what has been learned over the last term or semester and to identify gaps in knowledge and skills that require further attention.

As mentioned by Mr Bedingfield, the staff had a wonderful professional learning day with Dr Judith Locke. One of the things that resonated with me was the importance to develop young people with 5 essential skills:

• Resilience
• Self-Regulation
• Resourcefulness
• Respect
• Responsibility

I am going to focus on resilience in this newsletter, but more in terms of academic resilience. Oxley students demonstrate significant resilience through their involvement in sport (including the early mornings associated with travel), OLE/Trips/Outback and the Duke of Edinburgh program. However, several of our students struggle in terms of the academic resilience required when receiving feedback.

On a recent interview on Adam Grant’s podcast ‘Re-thinking’ Mellody Hobson talks about the importance of feedback and how we take it. They discuss how to find the grains of truth in feedback. These ideas are not new to my Year 11 Chemistry class and, whilst all feedback can be useful, it depends on how we receive it. I encourage students to take a more open approach to their feedback to look for areas of strength and areas for improvement.

I will discuss at a later date the importance of understanding what marks mean, particularly in relation to Year 12 and the HSC, where the shortage of information available means that the overall results and performance of students and a cohort may be misunderstood. Students need to understand that no mark earned throughout school-based assessment in Year 12 is fixed at NESA until students have sat the HSC examinations themselves and the marks have been moderated based on their performance there. This process accounts for schools that set easy or hard assessments or have high or low standards in the marking of assessments.

Students in Year 7-11 should be taking on and acting upon all feedback given and, with the help of their teachers if needed, focusing on what they need to do to improve. Regular improvements over Year 7-11 will allow students to maximise their performance in the HSC in Year 12.

We encourage students to develop strong learning habits over Years 7-10. In any goal setting  conversations that I have with students, I mainly focus on the five descriptors in the report, a number of which align with the essential skills mentioned above:

• Respecting the culture of learning
• Using a growth mindset and feedback to improve
• Demonstrating self-directed learning qualities
• Collaborating effectively with peers
• Meeting academic prep expectations

Staff will continue to encourage students to improve in these areas and, whilst we are committed to increasing expectations in all areas of school life, we need the support of parents to work in partnership with the College to reach our common goal.

Mobile Phones

I wrote in the bulletin about our policy regarding mobile phones. All students should be aware of the ‘See it, Hear it, Lose it’ policy for Year 7-10 that is clearly explained the College Diary. Students in Year 7-10 with their phone on at any time in the school day will have it confiscated and handed in to Student Services. We are working on tightening our policy moving forwards and to start with we will be complementing our policy with a two-strike procedure. Parents will need to collect their child’s phone from Student Services on the second confiscation. As a reminder, please use Student Services to contact students during the school day rather than via their mobile phones, which should be turned off, during the school day.

Year 11-12 are allowed their phones at school, but their use should be minimised and phones should not be used in public areas such as the Oval or Canteen. Senior students should only be using phones to make phone calls and not accessing social media during the school day.

Uniform

It is always good to start a semester as we mean to go on. I appreciate your support to ensure our students have the correct uniform, wear it well when they are with you and as they arrive at school and that they have not outgrown it.  As in Semester 1, I will be asking staff to issue uniform violations for students who do not wear their uniform correctly and to confiscate items of jewellery that are not permitted according to the uniform policy.

Students & parents should also take note of the policy with regard to changes to hairstyle or colour. It makes for unnecessary conflict with students who often seem surprised when they are asked to adjust an inappropriate hairstyle.

We are looking forward to a busy and productive Term 3 including, but not limited to, the following events:

• HSC Trial Examinations
• Submission of remaining HSC Major Works
• Stage 6 Subject Consults for Year 10 students
• Year 7-9 Student Parent Teacher Nights via MS Teams
• Mamma Mia auditions & rehearsals
• Continuation of ISA winter sports
• Year 11 End of Preliminary Examinations
• Year 12 Graduation Assembly & Evening
• Oxley Equestrian Day
• Round Square International & regional conferences
• Year 12 Study Camp
• Year 10 Service-Learning trips
• Year 11 Outback

Warm regards

Mr Tristan Bevan
Head of Senior School