All the Year 7 and 9 girls participated in their NAPLAN exams throughout the week. In addition to this the Year 10 girls recently participated in the Minimum Standards Test.

Why test? All schools around the country have invested enormous hours and resources into the NAPLAN exams and the Minimum Standards Tests these last few weeks.  Students and teachers have been impacted as they have prepared and sat though the hours of questions and problems in these assessments. They have taken time away from classes and learning and for some students have raised anxiety levels and apprehensions about succeeding and failing.

Our girls live in an era of greater testing. Data and evidence are increasingly an important component of their learning. Teachers are required to develop and implement their instruction based on the needs and requirements of the students who sit in front of them in the classrooms.

Once we receive the NAPLAN results, we are aware of the girls who need support and the girls who are not growing in their skills. We learn what areas in particular need greater emphasis and we learn what areas the students have performed particularly well in. We draw from this which programs and activities produced the anticipated improvements and which do not appear to be having the anticipated outcome. It is great material for educators who are focused on producing the best for their students.

With the Minimum Standards Test, we are alerted to the girls who are underperforming and the ones that will need greater support over the coming years to ensure they will be able to achieve their HSC. The data is very rich and a good measure of how successful our teaching has been.

At St Patrick’s College, we continually strive to provide the best for the girls. We use this data gathered from the tests to inform our teaching and in that way influence the learning for the girls. In the coming weeks, we will survey the girls on their engagement in their classes. We will gather their feedback on their lessons and how they feel they are succeeding in their classes. Once again, this data will generate conversations with staff about how to improve the learning in the class and be the catalyst for improvement. Assistant Principal, Dr Debra Bourne, will have some further information for you on this new strategy in the coming editions.

I will finish this edition with a transcript from Luke’s Gospel on the Ascension which we celebrated on Thursday 13 May.

Luke 24: 46-53

You see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this. And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city then, until you are clothed with power from on high. Then he took them out as far as the outskirts of Bethany and lifting up his hands he blessed them. Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven. They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy; and they were continually in the Temple praising God.”

Blessings

Sue Lennox - Principal