Atwell College

Principal's Pen

Term 2 for teaching staff started with 2 pupil free days at the beginning of the week starting 28 April. The Monday was designated the Cockburn Central Education Network (CCEN) day. In this network up to 20 schools from the Atwell College Zone and the Lakeland Zone combine resources and deliver professional learning to colleagues. Atwell College catered for in excess of 100 education assistants from the network as part of the ongoing training provided to this section of the education workforce.

Atwell College executive staff and middle management staff completed day 3 of the 'Growth Coaching Culture' professional learning program.

Day 2 started with all Atwell College staff together undergoing further training in new curriculum requirements and new WACE (Western Australian Certificate of Education) requirements due for implementation in 2015. I assure the community that Atwell College is committed to an extensive and relevant professional learning program the college staff. The college board is kept informed of the professional learning activities accessed and completed by the college staff.

NAPLAN Testing/OLNA Testing

NAPLAN testing was conducted over week 3 of the term starting Tuesday 13 May. Year 9 NAPLAN results have a direct link to the number of students required to sit OLNA (On Line Literacy and Numeracy) testing in Year 10, 11 and 12. In effect students in Year 9 whom achieve Band 8 or higher are said to have reached the minimum literacy requirements for WACE or graduation. Students not achieving the Band 8 level in either writing, reading or numeracy in Year 9 sit the OLNA online literacy and numeracy tests starting in Year 10. The students are given 2 opportunities in Y10, Y11 and Y12 to pass the minimum literacy and numeracy requirements as part of achieving a WACE graduation from secondary school. OLNA testing was conducted with Y10 students in March and will again be conducted in August of this year.

Report Afternoon / Evening July 2

Atwell College will close early at 12:30 pm on Wednesday 2 July to support interviews with parents and carers regarding student performance as described in the student semester 1 reports. The reports will be made available to families prior to the interview afternoon/evening at an advertised time. The appointments for the community are scheduled to start at 1:30pm will continue through to 7pm in the evening. The community will receive a series of notifications regarding the early close starting with this newsletter and follow up email(s). The college will use a similar system to last year with appointments with teachers being booked online to support organizational requirements of families. Special School Bus times cannot be altered for a 1 day event hence this form of transport will not be available to students. Normal public transport bus timetables are in place for those students still requiring bus transport. This early advice is to support families making transport arrangements for 2 July. Education support students and families will be contacted separately regarding report interviews and early school closure arrangements.

School Attendance Notification

The college makes every endeavour to notify parents promptly and accurately regarding student attendance through SMS and emails. The SMS notification system is not always accurate to every student in all situations every time due to software limitations. The most common error is when a student is present at the college and a message is received saying the student is not at school. Every effort is made to ensure that this does not happen. The college with 1230 students and over 70 staff contributing to student attendance is a complex site with hundreds of variations occurring to student attendance occurring each day. (sports carnivals, excursions, camps etc). The current software supplied to the college is inadequate to do the tasks expected. The college is exploring more sophisticated 3rd party software to support student attendance accuracy for 2015. The software is expensive but will achieve a better outcome. I will inform the community of any developments in this regard. As always if you have any queries regarding student attendance please contact the college directly.

Toshiba and Apple laptops.

Students who have the Toshiba Laptop or school issued Apple laptop (in Senior School) need to be aware of these issues and requirements.

  • The laptops are required to be brought to school and restarted on school premises regularly. Preferably each morning. This means turning the machine completely off and back on again whilst being in range of the school network. This process ensures student permissions, policies and licensing on the computer is up to date. Students requiring any assistance with updating need to contact the college ICT department. Staff are in attendance every day supporting student laptop issues.
  • Students that have purchased the Toshiba laptop need to bring the computers to college regularly as the machines are being used in class with more frequency each week. If storage of the laptop during the day please contact the college as there are methods to store the machines should the students not want to carry the laptop for the whole day.