SACE Board Of SA Merit Ceremony
Congratulations to our students from the class of 2022 who were recognised at the SACE Merit Ceremony at Government House last week. This significant annual event is always a proud occasion for our staff, students, families, and indeed the whole community at Our Woodville. We are so proud of the outstanding academic achievements finishing their SACE in such a dynamic and extraordinary year.
National Reconciliation Week – Friday 27 May to Friday 3 June 2022
National Reconciliation Week is observed annually from 27 May to 3 June each year. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey— the successful 1967 referendum, and the High Court Mabo decision respectively. The National Reconciliation Week 2022 theme, “Be Brave. Make Change.” is a challenge to all Australians— individuals, families, communities, organisations and government—to Be Brave and tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation so we can Make Change for the benefit of all Australians. As illustrated by our newly elected Prime Minister in his acceptance speech on election night, Reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all Australians as we move forward, creating a nation strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider Australian community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Friday marked the start of National Reconciliation Week; a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia. This year’s call to action ‘Be Brave. Make Change’ is a challenge issued to our student community in Reconciliation Week and every other week of the school year. This year we are asking everyone to make change beginning with brave actions in their daily lives – where they live, work, play and socialise. Students are challenged to be brave enough to call out any racist or divisive language or behaviour. Woodville high School is committed to working bravely together to close the gaps and achieve a shared sense of justice and fairness in our school and in our world.
We celebrate how lucky we are to live in a country that belongs to one of the oldest civilisations on earth and we find ways to walk together.
Reconciliation must live in the hearts, minds and actions of all of us as we move forward, creating a community strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider community, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
As Harry Ford once said, “Coming together is a beginning; staying together is progress and working together is success”.
Parent/Teacher Interviews and Year 11 and 12 Academic Reviews
In Term 2 Week 1, staff and parents met to discuss the academic growth of the students at our Woodville. The education of our students is a partnership between families and school and this is strengthened through participation in the evening. As research indicates, young people’s wellbeing and capacity to achieve their potential are increased when families, schools and communities work together in productive partnerships. A special thank you goes to Brett Hains and all the staff who have supported a structure where the evening provided an opportunity for meaningful student and parent engagement in learning conversations and in establishing high expectations in regards to academic achievement and wellbeing.
Thank you to the many parents and caregivers who made time for a Parent/Student/Teacher Learning Interviews in Week 1 and Year 11 and 12 Academic Reviews in Week 3 Tuesday 17 May 2022. These conversations are an important part of developing shared understandings of the achievement and growth of each learner and together identifying our next steps. One of the reasons we seek to keep the student at the centre of these reviews is that we respect and value the sense of agency that our young people have over their own learning and wellbeing. In a recent publication, Hannon and Peterson define agency as:
- Developing goals (personal and social)
- Initiating action towards those goals
- Reflecting on and regulating progress towards those goals
- Belief in self-efficacy
Student agency is critical to thriving in a transforming world. When students, parents and teachers come together to discuss learning, there is a strong capacity to increase a student’s motivation, achievement and sense of self-efficacy as learners.
Restorative Justice
For young people to thrive, they need to form friendships, feel a sense of connection and belonging to our Woodville High School community, and be in a respectful relationship with their teachers. As human beings, we seek warm and respectful relationship with others.
Restorative Practices (RP) is a whole school philosophy that works to improve the quality of relationships with others, where everyone is valued and have agency. Having processes in place to work through conflict or problems, with a restorative lens is a focus on the training that our students will be provided at each year level.
Woodville High Schools values cultural diversity amongst our students as a richness, to support parents from different cultural groups to have a voice in the strategic directions of the school. We have a number of specific cultural groups who meet and discuss learning, wellbeing and co-curricular opportunities at Woodville High School. Parents at these meetings make recommendations for improvement to their parent representatives at Governing Council.
On Monday 16 May 2022, we had Deb Black from the Centre for Restorative Justice address our multicultural parent groups and introduce the philosophy of Restorative Practices. Deb Black met with the Vietnamese, African, Indian and European parent groups. We outlined our journey so far with the Centre for Restorative Justice and parents were impressed with the schools commitment to nurture the philosophy of inclusion not exclusion using restorative practices as a lens to strengthen positive relationships within our community based around our graduate habit of respect.
FROG – Learner Management System
As a school, we are continuing to work on developing our new learner management system called Frog that will go live to our community in 2023.
The majority of our Curriculum Leaders were involved in a whole day of professional development in week 4 and 5. They were upskilled in the FROG program and developed skills in creating sites, embedding images, websites and other media and creating templates to support their learning area transition across this whole school change. Training will continue throughout the remainder of Term 2 for the leaders with Jane Logan on site each Thursday for bespoke advice. Whole school training will commence in mid Term 3 with a Student Free Day dedicated professional development time dedicated to build the capacity of our teaching staff and develop a world-class learner management system.
