Newsletter
ST GEORGE’S ANGLICAN GRAMMAR SCHOOL
Edition Seven 22 May 2020
Contents From the Principal ......................................................................................................... 1 From the Head of Curriculum ................................................................................... 3 From the Head of Pastoral ......................................................................................... 5 From the Head of Science and Mathematics .......................................................... 8 From the Head of Health and Physical Education .................................................. 9 From the Chaplain ....................................................................................................... 10 School News ................................................................................................................. 11
St George’s Anglican Grammar School; an exciting, innovative co-educational secondary school based in a high-rise building in the Perth CBD. The School caters for local and international students in Years 7-12, and is a proud member of the Anglican Schools Commission network of schools in Western Australia. We are committed to child safety and protection, and expect all staff, volunteers, visitors to the School and contractors to respect and abide by all policies, procedures and practices developed and put in place by the Anglican Schools Commission (ASC) and/or the School in this regard.
From the Principal Mr Gary Racey
How amazing it is to have nearly our entire population back onsite again. The spaces are again filled with joy, cheekiness and fun – just as it should be. We have all staff back on the premises and are well and truly engaged again in our normal teaching and learning routine. The recent weeks, and indeed months, have certainly caused many of us to reflect and consider the state of the world and the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had and is having on our own lives. In my mind it gives perspective on what is truly important and makes the more inconsequential day to day worries and concerns fade into insignificance. Oftentimes we find ourselves getting distressed, angry and frustrated over ‘little’ things and creating mountains out of a molehills. We see this every day in schools, business and society. It is my hope, that as we return to a more normal environment across our city, country and globe, that we as human beings can maintain perspective and show the grace and acceptance that has been front and centre in recent months as we have come together to deal with this health crisis. We all have a part to play in that I would suggest.
Due to this success, Sydnee will be a part of a Surf Lifesaving Australia National Inclusion campaign. We are proud of you, Sydnee! IDAHOBIT Day What is IDAHOBIT, I hear you ask? It’s International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Intersexism and Transphobia, and was held on Sunday 17 May. On this day, people all over the world stood in solidarity with their LGBTI+ friends, family, colleagues and neighbours to tell them that they are loved, and that they are not alone. St George’s AGS took the time to acknowledge this ‘day’ on Monday 18 May to join in the celebrations of IDAHOBIT by focusing on the inclusion and welcoming of LGBTIQA+ people made in the image of God by our parishes, schools and agencies. Please take the time to watch the short video message from our new Chaplain, the Reverend Sarah Stapleton. I am sure you will agree that we are indeed blessed to have found a Chaplain to help lead faith development in the School who is a genuine supporter of the School and Anglican Schools Commission philosophy regarding inclusiveness and acceptance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dubrRG8OMY
National Reconciliation Week – 27 May to June 3 Student Success Quite amazingly, the theme for National Congratulations to Sydnee Gould (Year 9) Reconciliation Week this year is – In this who was recently named the State U15 Together – which is resonating in ways that Lifesaver of the Year at the first ever Surf Life could not have been foreseen when it was Saving Western Australia Youth Awards of announced last year. Please see an excerpt Excellence. Sydnee completed over 132 hours below as taken from the Reconciliation of Lifesaving Patrol Service this season, which website. is an incredible service to our community. 1
St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter
Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and importantly as a nation. At the heart of this journey are relationships between the broader Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.We strive towards a more just, equitable nation by championing unity and mutual respect as we come together and connect with one another. On this journey, Australians are all In This Together; every one of us has a role to play when it comes to reconciliation, and in playing our part we collectively build relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, histories and cultures. In 2020 Reconciliation Australia marks twenty years of shaping Australia’s journey towards a more just, equitable and reconciled nation. Much has happened since the early days of the people’s movement for reconciliation, including greater acknowledgement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights to land and sea; understanding of the impact of government policies and frontier conflicts; and an embracing of stories of Indigenous success and contribution. 2020 also marks the twentieth anniversary of the reconciliation walks of 2000, when people came together to walk on bridges and roads across the nation and show their support for a more reconciled Australia. As always, we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, and Australians now benefit from the efforts and contributions of people committed to reconciliation in the past.Today we work together to further that national journey towards a fully reconciled country. COVID-19 Ongoing vigilance I would like to commend the staff and students for their support in actioning the health and hygiene strategies implemented since the beginning of Term 2. This level of care is greatly
appreciated. Please note that the School will be further extending our daily cleaning regime until Friday 5 June, after which it will again be reviewed. The School thanks the Anglican Schools Commission for their support in making this possible. As mentioned in the last School Newsletter, families are requested to maintain vigilance in helping to look after the ongoing health of our community. I am pleased to say we have not had any student arrive at school unwell and have to be sent home since the start of Term 2. Additionally, as the cold/flu season arrives, it will be fairly standard for families to be tested for COVID-19 as the government seeks to increase its testing regime. If any of your family members, regardless if they attend St George’s AGS or not, are tested for COVID-19, you are requested to keep your child/ren home until the results are known, even if they are not being tested themselves. A reminder again to please keep children home if they are unwell, have a cough, fever or display any of the symptoms of COVID-19. Financial support A brief reminder to families who may be experiencing financial difficulty as a direct result of COVID-19, including loss of employment/ business or reduction of work hours that the School is committed to support you. Contact the Business office to get a COVID-19 bursary application form, if required. Blessings
Gary Racey Principal
2 Edition 7 2020
From the Head of Curriculum Ms Victoria Kelleher
Research shows improving feedback practices can significantly improve student learning and the quality of teaching in classrooms. Effective feedback practices provide a connection between assessment and learning. There is a strong evidence base behind the impact of feedback. Teaching and learning activities, including formative and summative assessments, provide opportunities for teachers to gather evidence about students’ progress. This informs teacher feedback to students about their learning and what they need to do next to move forward. The evidence also provides feedback to teachers, allowing them to evaluate and, if necessary, adapt or change strategies to ensure they are meeting the learning needs of their students.
we need to re-think the feedback providing process. At St. George’s we understand that providing quality feedback is an important skill for teachers and has a major influence on the quality of our students’ learning process. Feedback is commentary on the student work, individualized to best accommodate for the needs of each student. Our focus is to provide some key principles of good feedback practice that include corrective feedback, developmental feedback, and student reflection. In the classroom, this system will be implemented by our teachers by shifting the focus of our students from their final grades to mastery of the material itself. In every respect, it is easier for the teacher to award the student a simple grade on their assessment. A grade is clear. It tells the student whether they have met the expectations of the assessment, and it creates a simple way for a teacher to assess work without having to be caught in nuance and subjective criteria. However, once the grade is on the paper, it pretty much becomes the only thing that matters. Students are rarely interested in hearing what they did well when they see a low grade. Similarly, a student may be able to entirely overlook a fundamental issue with their work because they received a high grade. As a result, valuable learning experiences are often overlooked.
By continuing with traditional forms of feedback, students are not able to improve their learning experience. As educators,
Along with the introduction of continuous feedback and student reflections at the start of this year, St. George’s has now begun to implement MyEd Online, a technology-based way of proving feedback which can eventually help students improve their
3
St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter
learning experience. Continuous feedback from teachers, MyEd Online, and student reflections will go toward improving the feedback process in our school as it shifts the focus firmly away from the old delivery models of feedback to modern, effective and more valuables ones. Assessment Schedules Assessment Schedules for all year groups have been sent out via SEQTA. As a guide, these schedules may help you support your child’s progress during this term. As you can see from these schedules, our students are very busy and especially so during peak assessment times. To support our students, we have tried to limit the number of assessments held or due in any day, hopefully this action will further support them as they navigate the end of Semester One.
Year 11 and 12 Semester One Exams Our Year 12 and Year 11 students will sit their Semester One exams in Week 6 and 7 of this term. Without careful planning the next few weeks might become stressful and exhausting. Even though the pressure might feel overwhelming, our students know that they have plenty of people to turn to for help. The support our teachers give their students is outstanding and I would
encourage all our Year 11 and 12 students to seek advice and listen to feedback‌our staff have plenty of wise words to share.
Victoria Kelleher Curriculum Coordinator
From the Head of Pastoral Mr Hilton Hardman
St George’s Day 2020 The Feast of St George, or St George’s Day, is celebrated by various Christian Churches and by several nations, countries and cities of which Saint George is the patron saint. St George’s Day is traditionally celebrated on 23 April, the anniversary of his death. As this date always falls within school holidays, the school celebrated our St George’s Day on Monday, week three during Term 2.
while there is no one-size-fits-all solution for anxiety, there are a plethora of great research-based techniques that can help manage it, many of which are simple to learn. Renee created an anxiety relief program for kids called GoZen. Here are seven ideas straight from GoZen that parents of anxious children can try right away:
1. Stop Reassuring Your Child During periods of anxiety, there is a rapid dump of chemicals and mental transitions executed in your body for survival. One by-product is that the prefrontal cortex or more logical part of the brain gets put on hold while the more automated emotional St George’s Day gives us an opportunity to brain takes over. In other words, it is really gather as a school in worship and to reaffirm hard for your child to think clearly, use logic our faith and Christian values. Last week on or even remember how to complete basic Monday the school celebrated St George’s tasks. What should you do instead of trying to Day. This year St George’s day took on a rationalise the worry away? Try Something I different look with our service being run call the FEEL method: online followed by a Kahoot developed by • Freeze -- pause and take some deep breaths the Student Guild on the school’s history. with your child. Deep breathing can help The online service was well received by both reverse the nervous system response. students and staff. Credit must be given to the • Empathise -- anxiety is scary.Your child Student Guild who played a significant role in wants to know that you get it. helping develop this service. Below is a link • Evaluate -- once your child is calm, it’s time of the online service, and I encourage the St to figure out possible solutions. George’s community to watch. • Let Go - Let go of your guilt; you are an https://youtu.be/0uQPq-FPHXA amazing parent giving your child the tools to manage their worry. 7 Things Every Parent with an Anxious Child Should Try 2. Highlight Why Worrying is Good Anxiety in schools is nothing new, but in Remember, anxiety is tough enough without recent years it has been on the rise, a child believing that something is wrong with impacting many students. While reading up on me. Many kids even develop anxiety about anxiety, I found an article by Renee Jain, who having anxiety. Teach your kids that worrying designs Anxiety Relief Programs for students. does have a purpose. What I took away from this article was that 5 Edition 7 2020
Worry is a protection mechanism. Concern rings an alarm in our system and helps us survive danger. Teach your kids that worrying is perfectly normal, it can help protect us, and everyone experiences it from time to time. Sometimes our system sets off false alarms, but this type of worry (anxiety) can be put in check with some simple techniques. 3. Teach Your Child to Be a Thought Detective The best remedy for distorted thinking is not positive thinking; it’s accurate thinking. Try a method we call the 3Cs: • Catch your thoughts: Imagine every thought you have floats above your head in a bubble (like what you see in comic strips). Now, catch one of the worried thoughts like “No one at school likes me.” • Collect evidence: Next, collect evidence to support or negate this thought. Teach your child not to make judgments about what to worry about based only on feelings. Feelings are not facts. (Supporting evidence: “I had a hard time finding someone to sit with at lunch yesterday.” Negating evidence: “Sherry and I do homework together - she’s a friend of mine.” • Challenge your thoughts: The best (and most entertaining) way to do this is to teach your children to have a debate within themselves. 4. Allow Them to Worry As you know, telling your children not to worry won’t prevent them from doing so. If your children could shove their feelings away, they would. But allowing your children to worry openly, in limited doses, can be helpful. Create a daily ritual called “Worry 6
Time” that lasts 10 to 15 minutes. During this ritual, encourage your children to release all their worries in writing.You can make the activity fun by decorating a worry box. During worry time there are no rules on what constitutes a valid worry anything goes. When the time is up, close the box and say good-bye to the concerns for the day. 5. Help Them Go from What If to What Is You may not know this, but humans are capable of time travel. Mentally we spend a lot of time in the future. For someone experiencing anxiety, this type of mental time travel can exacerbate the worry. A typical time traveller asks what-if questions: “What if I can’t open my locker and I miss a class?” “What if Suzy doesn’t talk to me today?” Research shows that coming back to the present can help alleviate this tendency. One effective method of doing this is to practice mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness brings a child from what if to what is. To do this, help your child focus on their breath for a few minutes. 6. Avoid Avoiding Everything that Causes Anxiety Do your children want to avoid social events, dogs, school, planes or any situation that causes anxiety? As a parent, do you help them do so? Of course! This is natural. The flight part of the flight fight response urges your children to escape the threatening situation. Unfortunately, in the long run, avoidance makes anxiety worse.Try a method called laddering. Kids who can manage their worry break it down into manageable chunks. Laddering uses this chunking concept and gradual exposure to reach a goal. St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter
Let’s say your child is afraid of sitting on the swings in the park. Instead of avoiding this activity, create mini-goals to get closer to the bigger goal (e.g., go to the edge of the park, then walk into the park, go to the swings, and, finally, get on a swing).You can use each step until the exposure becomes too easy; that’s when you know it’s time to move to the next rung on the ladder. 7. Help Them Work Through a Checklist Why not create a checklist, so they have a step-by-step method to calm down? What do you want them to do when they first feel anxiety coming on? If breathing helps them, then the first step is to pause and breathe. Next, they can evaluate the situation. In the end, you can create a hard copy checklist for your child to refer to when they feel anxious. Anglicare This year because of the Covid-19 restrictions some of the traditional Anglicare WA fundraising activities have been cancelled but that hasn’t stopped the Anglicare WA schools officer or our Anglicare Ambassadors from engaging with the issue of homelessness. The Ambassadors have been having weekly online sessions with different Anglicare WA employees to learn about their role in servicing the community and what homelessness looks like through their lens. Our ambassadors will also be using their creativity to share the message amongst our community and find innovative ways of supporting the vulnerable in our community so watch this space for announcements of up coming activities and events!
Hilton Hardman Head of Pastoral
From the Head of Science and Mathematics Ms Charlotte Donovan
We’re back! The labs are full of excited students, who were just so keen to get their hands-on Science learning happening again.
have had students using make models out of playdough, pipe cleaners and beads, one student made a model out of lego, one student crocheted their organelles, some students creating 3D models using glass jars and styrofoam balls, we even had a student write the code to 3D print their model!
The Year 11 Human Biologists were able to complete a dissection of a kidney.
Year 9 students have been building circuits. While Distance Learning allowed us all to continue to deliver content, and challenge the students with unfamiliar concepts, nothing can really replace the hands-on learning and shared experiences to be had in a Science lab.
The Year 12 Chemistry students have been working on their titrations.
This term the Year 8s have been learning about cells. As part of their program they have researched the parts of a cell. Once they had a good idea of the organelles that make up a cell they had to made a model of a cell that represented the parts they had researched. The Year 8’s have shown incredible creativity and ingenuity when making their cell models, we
Our Mathematics Department has been fastidiously working away and checking in with students with their understandings. We are all focused on returning things to normal and preparing students for upcoming assessments and examinations. Students are always encouraged to seek out their teachers to ensure they fully understand the work presented.
Charlotte Donovan Head of Science and Mathematics
From the Health and Physical Education Department Ms Jodie Scheele
Term 2 has been a busy time with great weather and students happy to burn off energy.
We are always happy to hear of your child’s participation or recognition of sporting achievements. Please continue to let us know so that we can share and congratulate your child. We were thrilled to hear the news that Sydnee Gould (Year 9) was recently awarded the State U15 Lifesaver of the Year at the recent Surf Life Saving Western Australia Youth Awards of Excellence. Incredibly Sydnee has completed over 132 hours of lifesaving patrol service this season alone. Sydney now qualifies to be a part of a Surf Lifesaving Australia National Inclusion campaign. Sydnee, we congratulate you!
Jodie Scheele Head of Health and Physical Education
From the Chaplain Ms Sarah Stapleton
Chaplain’s Message Did I mention last newsletter how good it is to have the students and staff back? I am constantly reminded as I renew and make relationship with the community of St George’s that this is what we are here to do: gather, connect, learn and grow. This week we considered the benefits of diversity and difference, whilst enjoying a rainbow roc candy (or two) on IDAHOBIT day.
Often I find myself contemplating our natural instincts to fit in, not stand out, to be found acceptable by the majority, and to never rock the boat! This is exactly the opposite of what Jesus asked his disciples to do before he ascended to heaven - (which is coincidentally where we are in the liturgical year). When Jesus asked his disciples to share the Gospel with the world, he asked them to stand out, to go against the majority and the social structures of 10
their time. He asked them to preach peace in a time when the nation with the strongest army was the victor. He asked them to traverse the boundaries of society, to reach out and make community with people who they were taught to stay separate from. He asked them to make community with people they were taught to think of as ‘wrong’, ‘unclean’ and unworthy. Jesus asked them to embrace difference, to be welcoming of strangers, and to minister to the ‘other.’ Just like the disciples, God asks us to stay open and alert to the plight of the ‘other,’ not just to minister to the need and suffering of those on the outskirts of society, but also to make community with people who do not immediately ‘fit in.’ As Christians, we should always know what it feels like to be on the outskirts, demonstrating, as Jesus Christ did, a completely different way to live. When we walk the walk of the disciples, and Jesus, we abide in the love-in-action of the Holy Trinity, the community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This community is in our midst, on the outskirts, and at the head of our churches, calling us in and sending us out, pushing us ever onward to include the whole world in the same community, where no one is left unwanted or unloved. My prayers this week are for those who stand out, who are not always accepted, but nevertheless reflect the beauty of God’s divine creation in their ‘otherness.’
Sarah Stapleton Chaplain St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter
School News Student Term Dates - 2020 Term 1 30 January - 9 April New Student Orientation 29 January Students Mid Term Break, Friday 28 February Term 2 30 April - 3 July Students Mid Term Break, Friday 29 May Term 3 27 July - 25 September New Student Orientation 24 July Students Mid Term Break, Friday 21 August Term 4 13 October - 9 December
If the account has been paid in full and a refund is due, payment will be processed for the full refund due within seven days of exit. SEQTA The St George’s Anglican Grammar School SEQTA account is not a monitored platform. Please contact the staff member directly to ensure prompt action to your message. Science Department Request
The Science Department is still after any plastic icecream containers that they could use in the laboratory. Any donations greatly appreciated.
Enrolments The School Enrolment Policy requires one full term’s notice in writing prior to the withdrawal of a student from the School. Where such notice is not received, the School will charge an amount equal to the tuition fees for that current term. To avoid fees in lieu being charged, notice of a student’s withdrawal must be received by the School before the first day of the School Term preceding the Term of the student’s departure. If this does not occur, families will be charged the remainder of the current Term, plus an additional Terms fee in lieu. Upon withdrawal of a student from the School, all fees and charges incurred for that student are payable to the School in full within seven days of exit. 11
St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter