Term 2 is very much underway as we approach the end of the first semester. The Semester 1 assessment window will close on Friday 18th June (Week 8) when staff will begin writing their Term 2 reports. All tasks for Semester 1 must be submitted by this date. The Snapshot Reports for Term 2 will be posted home this week, so I encourage you to contact your child’s subject teacher(s) if they receive a snapshot. It is important we utilise the next three weeks to support every student to be successful for each of their subject areas by providing additional support via the Homework Club and Study Centres. For our Year 12 students, they are now approximately half way through their final academic year at Woodville High School.
In relation to our whole of school improvement planning, last year provided opportunity to review our whole school curriculum and teaching strategies via a combined ‘Council of International Schools (CIS) Review’ and the ‘Department for Education (DfE) External School Review’. The CIS Review occurs every five years and the ESR occurs every three years. As a school we have already started working towards the CIS recommendations and the ESR directives to guide our whole school improvement. We are tracking and monitoring our progress towards each recommendation and directive term by term, collecting evidence along the way for our next review.
In line with the department’s initiative to review the Australian Curriculum by releasing the ‘Department for Education Scope & Sequence’ and ‘Units of work’, Woodville High School has started its own curriculum review. The curriculum has been mapped for every subject area from Year 8 to Year 10, with Year 11 and Year 12 occurring later in the year. The aim is to review and improve all units of work and tasks across the school to provide consistency in how the curriculum is delivered, and to ensure the quality of the units and tasks to be engaging, accessible to students and provide opportunity to support and stretch every student to be successful. Learning Area teams will use the resources from the Australian Curriculum and from the Department for Education to inform their review.
The 2022 Course Handbook is currently in development with Learning Area teams developing the subject choices for next year. This includes the Year 7 curriculum, as we anticipate approximately 200 Year 7 enrolments to join our school community for the start of 2022. By following a newly established timeline for the Course Handbook, the aim is for the handbook to be published electronically on the website by Week 10, Term 2 to ensure students and families have plenty of time to look at the course outlines and programs prior to completing their subject selections next term. The Course Counselling process for 2022 will begin at the start of Term 3 during the Pathways lessons. The Year 11 Course Counselling day will occur on Tuesday 17th August (Week 5, Term 3) and the Year 10 Course Counselling day will occur on Thursday 19th August (Week 5, Term 3). The Year 8 and Year 9 Course Counselling process will occur with your child’s Home Group teacher in the first half of Term 3.
For any further information about whole school improvement, curriculum planning or the course counselling process, please contact me at the school via the front office.
Luke Smith
Deputy Principal
