Medical Form:
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Teachers Professional Development
Recent Teacher Profession Development –
Creating Better Thinkers
Last week all of the St Luke’s teaching staff attended a workshop on Critical and Creative Thinking, presented by ITC Publications, a Queensland-based education consultancy.
The emphasis of the session was on establishing a common Thinking Skills Framework for our school and workshopping a wide range of thinking tools that we can use to develop the critical, creative and cooperative thinking capacities of our students.
The benefits of a common whole-school approach to thinking are that our students will have a common understanding of terms such as ‘analyse, ‘evaluate and ‘critical thinking’ and as a team, we can better track the thinking skills being taught throughout the school. The acquisition of these critical, creative and cooperative thinking tools will not only deliver better academic outcomes - it will also equip our students with an attitude towards life-long learning that will assist them in better decision making and problem solving.
We look forward to seeing these ideas reflected in your sons’ and daughters’ work during the year.
Week 1 - 24 to 28 January
Welcome Back to the Middle School.
There were lots of happy students and happy
teachers in classrooms during the first week
back. Thank you to all parents who have
endeavoured to get their children organised
regarding school supplies and of course,
haircuts.
Subject Selection
Every year, a couple of questions are raised at
this time regarding the Middle School timetable.
Please note in Year 8 we have an Arts rotation.
This means that every student studies the three
Arts subjects of Visual Arts, Drama and Music.
They also have two Technology electives.
Students have one Technology elective in each
semester. I endeavour to meet the student
requests regarding their subject selection
form but not all students will receive all of their
requests. This is simply due to class numbers.
In Year 9, students have both an Arts and a
Technology elective in each semester. Each
student has been given either their first or
second choice from the subject selection
information that was gathered either late last
year or early this year. The timetable has been
constructed with all student selections in mind.
Student Diary
Communication is a vital part of any school
community. I encourage all parents to take
the opportunity to use the student diary to
communicate information to your child’s
teachers. Students have the responsibility to
bring their diary to all lessons including Pastoral
Care and Roll Call.
Middle School Blog
A new Middle School communication tool has
been developed this year. As more parents and
students engage with the online teaching and
learning environment, we have decided to trial
a weekly blog. The blog will include a variety of
links useful for students and parents, as well
as an update of what is happening each week
in the Middle School. All letters sent home
will also be available electronically and will be
dated to match the student diary.
The blog will contain useful ICT sites aimed to
assist student learning in the Middle School.
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