We are nearly halfway through Term 4 and we have already farewelled our 2022 Year 12 students as they now prepare for their end of year exams. We wish them well for their examinations and look forward to celebrating their achievements at the Year 12 Graduation Ceremony on Thursday 24 November at the Adelaide Town Hall. This year we have decided to introduce a Middle Year Graduation Ceremony to celebrate our Year 9 students graduating to the senior years. This has meant that our Year 12 graduation ceremony will be more focused on our senior students and will also mean the evening will run in a more timely manner. The Middle Years Graduation Ceremony is on Thursday 8 December (Week 8) at the Woodville Town Hall.
As the term progresses, Year 11 students will commence their exams in Week 6 and will have their final day on Friday 25 November (Week 6). The Year 10 cohort will have their exams during Week 7 and have their final day on Friday 2 December (Week 7). All middle year’s students (Yr7-9) will finish on Friday 16 December (Week 9).
Our Term 4 Snapshot Reports were posted home in Week 3. Snapshot reports are to indicate to families if their child is not on track to achieve a ‘C’ grade or higher for the term. We moved the snapshot report timeline forward in Term 4 due to Year 10 and 11 students finishing earlier in the term because of their exam preparation time. This term we have introduced a ‘Snapshot Recovery Period’ to encourage students to access extra tutoring support to complete their learning goals and tasks. All students who received a snapshot report in Term 4 are required to attend our Homework Centres throughout Week 4 and 5 until they are up to date with their learning. A letter was sent home to families with the snapshot reports to make them aware of this change and to remind families where the Homework Centres are and when students can access them. I therefore encourage families to contact the subject teacher to see how they can work together to support each child to be successful and also encourage their child to attend the Homework Centres during Week 4 and 5 if required. We have skilled teachers, leaders and SSO’s scheduled for all of our Homework Centres who will work with each student one-to-one.
The 2022 Course Counselling Process is now complete, and the timetable is in development for 2023. This week we will begin looking at our staffing to see if we need to employ additional teachers due to others winning roles in other schools, or if we need skilled teachers for newly introduced subjects. Once the timetable is ready and our staffing is confirmed, students will be able to access their 2023 Semester 1 timetable via Daymap towards the end of this term. An email will be sent to families once the timetables are ready.
This year we have continued our whole school curriculum review following the release of the department’s curriculum scope and sequences in 2021. The curriculum is being mapped for every subject area from Year 7-12. 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 to develop tasks to be more engaging, accessible to students and provide opportunity to support and stretch every student to be successful. In Term 4, we have been able to offer more curriculum review days to our Learning Area teams as there have been fewer staff impacted by COVID-19 and other sickness. This has meant we have access to more TRT’s which can instead free up staff for their planning rather than to cover staff who are away ill. By the end of this year, all of the curriculum will be mapped from Year 7-12 in preparation for 2023. This mapping will be accessible to students and families in our new course handbook that will be developed next year and on the new Frog system.
This year we have had a focus on Assessment and Reporting across the school, with an Assessment Committee and a Reporting Committee being constructed to review, improve and innovate how we assess
and report at Our Woodville. Both committees will finalise their recommendations this term and present them to the Governing Council in Week 7 for feedback and approval. For more curriculum matters, please contact me via email luke.smith563@schools.sa.edu.au
