EXTRA-ordinary

The first 4 weeks of this term have already been bustling with a variety of rich activities, guest speakers and events. To cover some of the key ones – it has been made EXTRA-ordinary with: the privilege of hearing from the band, Tasman Jude and speaker, Scott Darlow; the cross country, the Year 7s Museum Excursion; the Year 9s Study Skills presentations; the Dance troupe’s involvement in a competition; NAPLAN tests; a Year 8 Geography Excursion, the Legacy Cup, GCC’s Got Talent competition; and, a few students out on Duke of Edinburgh camp. Every day counts and each is packed with value-added opportunities and experiences.

Thanks

From all of the Middle School teachers – thank you to our parents for making an appointment to touch base with us in our last round of Student-Led and Parent-Teacher Conferences. These conversations contribute to making a monumental difference in a student’s belief in their ability and eventually outflows into their day to day class and assessment results. Conferences also give teachers valuable feedback in providing the best education for each individual child.

NAPLAN

There can be a lot of bad press about NAPLAN tests. However, the reality is that this data helps Glasshouse (and all schools) to remain accountable and to ensure that the school curriculum and the grades given are at a national year level standard. It’s also good information for parents and students to evaluate if their reported school results correspond with their capabilities (the data that NAPLAN provides). To add to this however, while the NAPLAN results reflect a student’s ability in numeracy and literacy, at Glasshouse, we are proud of the balanced and diverse curriculum that is delivered (such as the Arts, Technology, Design subjects, Health and Sport opportunities, critical thinking skills etc) which is built on a foundation of godly values.

Don’t Lose Your Teen in the In-between – Parent Seminar

This highly recommended session in helping parents navigate the role of raising a teenager, in these present times, will be presented next Wednesday, 17 May at 7.00pm in the College Theatre. No RSVP is required.

Whatever is Good

After seeing a lot of discussion on the Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why, I recently sent an email with a link to an insightful article with advice to parents. I then decided to watch a few of the episodes myself. I had to reflect on the verse our school has taken on as a motto for this year, ‘Whatever is pure, noble, honourable… think upon such things’. I would encourage parents of our Middle School students to be aware of what their child is viewing both on TV and other screens. In my humble opinion I would say that this particular series is not appropriate for Middle School student viewing and I would encourage you to be aware of its content and then to use discretion as a parent as to what you allow your children to watch as your permission can assist in them normalising behaviours that they have seen.

Congratulations

Students who have qualified will receive a Diligent or Academic Award for their first term grades at the next Assembly. I would especially like to commend the students who receive a Diligence Award. These awards recognise students who have worked consistently well in their subjects no matter what their overall grades are – this is otherwise known as ‘Grit’.  Well done to these students. I would love to see more than the 25% receive a Diligence award at the end of this semester.

Jacqualina Vreeling, Head of Middle School