BATEMANS BAY HIGH SCHOOL

PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

NAPLAN

In May each year, students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 across Australia take part in the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN). NAPLAN was first introduced in 2008 and has become a routine part of the school calendar. The tests will take place from Tuesday, 10 May to Thursday, 12 May this year, with Friday, 13 May set aside as a catch-up day for absent students. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is the body responsible for NAPLAN. ACARA has recently announced it is working towards moving NAPLAN online. NAPLAN will continue to be paper-based for 2016 but from 2017, students in some schools will complete NAPLAN tests using a computer or another electronic device, such as a tablet. It is expected that all students will participate in NAPLAN online by 2019. According to ACARA, moving NAPLAN online brings many new opportunities for students and teachers that are often limited or not possible with paper-based tests. Some of the main benefits of students taking part in NAPLAN online include:

Assessments will use a tailored test design. Students will answer an initial set of questions and then be directed to subsequent sets of questions based on the accuracy of their responses. Students with a high number of questions correct will be directed to more challenging questions. Students who have a lower level of accuracy in the initial set of questions will be directed to questions that are less challenging.

Use of a computer-based environment provides the opportunity to broaden the scope of the assessments. As technology develops, ACARA aims to further refine the delivery of the tests to best use the available technology to provide increasingly sophisticated assessments.

Tailored testing will provide teachers and schools with more targeted and detailed information on their students’ performance in the tests. Delivery of assessments online will significantly reduce the time it takes to provide feedback to schools, students and parents.

The school has also been selected by ACARA to participate in the NAPLAN Equating Study this year. One class in Year 7 and another in Year 9 will complete a 45 minute Language Conventions equating test on Friday, 29 April. The Equating Study enables comparison between tests in different years. The use of common scales across all years and domains allows for an individual student’s achievement to be mapped as he or she progresses through school. As no two tests will have exactly the same level of difficulty, a rigorous equating process is carried out so that the difficulty of the current year’s tests can be adjusted to the same level of difficulty as the previous year’s tests. The process involves a sample of students from each year, covering all States and Territories and school sectors, sitting the equating tests as well as the current year’s tests. Using a combination of methods, the equating tests and current year’s tests are placed on the same scales as previous years’ tests. Please make an appointment with me if you would like to discuss any aspect of your child’s participation in NAPLAN.

Mr Greg McDonald

Principal

Principal: Greg McDonald

Term 1, Edition 8 21 March 2016

Published

Every Monday

Beach Road BATEHAVEN NSW 2536 4478 3600 Fax 4472 8173

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What’s On Term 1 Week 8 Monday 21 Mar Zone Rugby 7s - Cooma Monday 21 Mar P & C Meeting 7pm Library Tuesday 24 Mar Harmony Day Tuesday 24 Mar General Assembly Friday 25 Mar Easter Good Friday Week 9 Monday 28 Mar Easter Monday Tuesday 29 Mar Tackling Domestic Violence session with Rugby League Players Wed 30 - April 1 Bournda Excursion Year 11 Thursday 31 Mar Open girls basketball - Bomaderry Thursday 31 Mar Cross Country 11-12:40

Student Achievement – Calister Draper Year 8 Calister has set an excellent standard in her Geography work, recently presenting a high quality assignment. Congratulations to Calister and Mrs Rooney’s class on their level of work.

INTERACT HELPS THE HOMELESS

With Winter soon to be here, the cold weather will come. In the Eurobodalla Shire we have in excess of three hundred homeless. Imagine what it would be like if you had to sleep out in the cold. With this in mind the Interact Club of Batemans Bay High have purchased twenty swags for the homeless of Eurobodalla.

Members of the Interact Club will meet with the Salvation Army to present the swags and they in turn will distribute to those in need.

There are two ways you can help, come along and join our Interact Club, or make a donation to the Interact Club to be put towards buying more swags.

Report by Byron Manning Year 8

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Make Online Payments

It is now possible for parents to make online payments to Batemans Bay High School for amounts owing for students, via a secure payment page hosted by Westpac. Payments can be made using either a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card. The payment page is accessed from the front page of our Batemans Bay High School website by selecting $ Make a payment. Items that can be paid include:

Voluntary school contributions Excursions Sales to students

These details are entered each time you make a payment as student information is not held within the payment system. This is a secure payment system hosted by Westpac to ensure that your credit/debit card details are captured in a secure manner. These details are not passed back to the school. You have the ability to check and change any details of the payment before the payment is processed. Receipts can be emailed and/or printed. Details of the payments are passed daily to the school where they will be receipted against your child’s account. As a receipt has been issued from the payment page a further receipt will not be issued by the school. For any enquiries regarding the Online Payment process please contact the school office on 4478 3600.

When you access the $ Make a payment you must enter: Student’s name, DOB Year of student Name of excursion or contribution and sub dissection number on the

‘Reference’ space provided

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On the weekend Year 10 and 11 Visual Arts students participated in the annual SAGE South East Harvest Festival in Moruya. The students put their creative minds together to design and make a recycled plastic garden sculpture to fit this year’s theme of Nature’s Super Heroes. They also used their knowledge of the impact of plastic on the environment to inspire their design and to make a comment on the damage plastic is doing to our world and the food chain. The artwork was made from all things plastic including bottles, plastic bags and various other plastic materials. All of the plastic was collected from the trash and transformed into different parts of the garden. The students created bees, butterflies, birds, vegetables and plants to form their sculpture. The final product was a colourful fun contemporary artwork. They all did a fantastic job. The sculpture was transported to Moruya and installed for the festival. Ashley Evans and Amanda Mohr attended the festival to represent Batemans Bay High

School and received a gift voucher, presented to them by Costa Georgiadis (best known for

his role as the host on ABC’s Gardening Australia) for their contribution to the festival.

(Bradley Jones, Fie Sorensen Wilson, Nicholas Humphries, Chelsi-Lee Dorn and Kate Berryman with the plastic sculpture)

(Amanda Mohr and Ashley Evans receiving an award from Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia)

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The regional swimming carnival was held at the Dapto Swimming Pool on Wednesday, 9 March. Kai Canham, Clare Meacham and Nathan Meacham represented Batemans Bay High School in numerous events. It was an early 7am start, followed by a very hot, long day. Kai competed in the 12 year boys, in a staggering seven events, seeing him in and out of the pool all day. Kai finished many events in 4

th place and two in 6

th place. He achieved some

pleasing improvements in his times from the previous zone qualifying carnival. Clare competed in the 16 year girls in seven events on the day, finishing a comfortable 1

st in

five events, 2nd

in another and a 6th place. Clare has qualified for six events at NSW Combined High Schools State Swimming Championships, to be held at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre starting Sunday, 3 April to Tuesday, 5 April (week 11). Nathan competed in five events in the 17-18yrs boys, also finishing comfortably 1

st in four

events and 3rd

in another. Nathan has also qualified to compete in five events at the NSW Combined High Schools State Swimming Championships. All three swimmers had a great day although they where physically and mentally exhausted at the end of competition. Good luck to Clare and Nathan Meacham at Combined High Schools State Swimming Championships.

(Nathan, Clare and Kai)

P&C Meeting

School Library 21 March

7pm

All parents are most welcome to attend

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Congratulations to the nine students who took part in this year’s three day event held in Thredbo. The annual event featured three MTB disciplines including downhill, dual compressor and cross country racing, of which our students featured within the downhill and cross country events.

In his last year of competing, Dante Figg tackled the downhill course in perfect conditions, to ride away with a very respectable ninth position. Dante cleared the final table top feature to impress the amassed crowd at the finish line. Our remaining students competed strongly on the Sunday in the cross country team’s event, narrowly missing podium positions.

The highlight of the weekend for these students apart from competing, would be our Friday morning adventure. Hiking our bikes an hour and a half to the top of the mountain to experience the newly built ‘All Mountain’ trail which gives riders an epic 6.5kms of decent through the best of what Thredbo’s alpine area has to offer. Apart from a few safely negotiated crashes, our students had grins from ear to ear winding their way down through the stunning eucalypt forest, negotiating berms, rock gardens and steep descents.

A huge thankyou to the students who represented their school in such a positive way. I’m looking forward to next year already!

Thank you,

Mr Guy Smith

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Killalea State Park

From Wednesday to Friday, 9-11 March, HSC Geography went to Killalea State Park to conduct a fieldtrip to work on the skills required for Senior Geography and its study of Ecosystems at risk. Our seven students gained valuable knowledge in conducting transect investigations and looking at threats, management of rainforests and sand dune systems. The photo shows the groups standing on Mystics Beach which adjoins Killalea State Park where the students are waiting to head into the sand dune system to finish off their transect work. To finish the week we visited Jamberoo Action Park to speak to the parks ‘manager of marketing’ James Cook. We spoke to James about how the business came about and how it conducts it’s business now and plans for the future. This was then followed by a tour and road test of the parks facilities.

By Paul Carriage HSIE Teacher

Year 12 Geography Excursion

(Photo above left to right, Mel Bramston, Hollee Bruce, Callan Lee, Shane Ison and Rory McDonald. Missing from the picture Claudia Alves and Ashleigh Burnett)

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Sydney’s largest school holiday program returns this autumn school holidays! There are 60+ fun filled activities to keep kids active, outdoors and entertained. A range of activities are free or under $25.

· Archery · Science, cooking, writing workshops · Gymnastics · Circus skills and flying trapeze · ARTEXPRESS at the Armory · Giants AFL Clinic For full details go to: www.kidsinthepark.com.au

YOUTH EXCHANGE STUDENT OFF ON SAFARI

Rotary’s Youth Exchange Student Magnus Zarling Year 11, has an exciting three weeks ahead of him. All of the exchange students are to complete a Safari. Leaving from Canberra to Melbourne, then to the outback sites of Uluru and Alice Springs, will show Australia to the students.

After their time in the outback, two students will head to the coast with time in the Whitsundays before returning to Sydney. The trip is similar to experiences our students have while on exchange in Europe.

Bay High Students - An Opportunity Or Two The Rotary Club of Batemans Bay is seeking applications from students interested in a year in Europe from January 2017. They are also keen to find host family groups for next years Rotary Exchange student.

Please see Mr McDonald if you are interested