Here is our October Edition of our newsletter. We are looking forward to producing a monthly newsletter with guest appearance writers from each of our centres.

Happy Reading!

Newsletter Term 4.pdf (250.75 kb)

As many of you would be aware I have my own daughter, Emily, in Year 11 this year and about to face the adventure of the HSC. Going through the ups and downs of senior school from the perspective of a parent as opposed to a teacher has been a very stressful but interesting experience. It has reconfirmed to me the importance of students achieving success at school (not that I was ever in doubt about this) but it has demonstrated to me the competitiveness between the students. The students are under a lot of pressure to perform well, whether as parents we “care” of not.

I use this term “care” but let me explain. Obviously we want our children to do the best that they can and we know what our children are capable of but the daunting thing about the HSC is that your child also relies on the other children in their class to also do well. As a teacher I know that all children have their strengths and not all children are academically gifted but I also know that there is a lot more pressure than when I was at school.

As parents, we need to be prepared for the emotional rollercoaster that our children will ride on but I also strongly believe that we need to provide our children with the tools that they need to achieve this success. I also strongly believe that the education of child is not just the responsibility of the school. It is a partnership between the parents, child and the school community. I also see our role at Kip McGrath as part of this partnership not just from the perspective that we can provide additional assistance to students that need it but also that we can work be there to assist parents understand reports, NAPLAN data and to help provide support and assistance when making decisions about the education of children.

Naplan data and school reports are two of the most common things that parents come into the centre and want to talk to me about. The problem with school reports is that every school does their reports differently and parents are quite often left feeling like they really do not know where there child is at. Unfortunately not all schools provide comments for each of the subject areas that is able to give parents more information. Some schools provide the ranking of the students which can be valuable, especially as this is very important moving into the senior years, but the grades do not always equate this position.

Reports can be valuable tools to review your child’s progress but they also can be very difficult to read and understand. Parent teacher interviews will sometimes fill in the gaps but I often found (as a parent and a teacher) that they were so rushed that I really felt that information was still not being provided.

I was excited when the decision was made that there would be standardised testing across the whole of Australia as I believed this would help parents gain a better understanding of where their child was placed and that as a teacher it would give me more comprehensive information to assist students and to inform the areas of my teaching that I needed to improve. Unfortunately, the reports that the parents receive is not as comprehensive as I thought they would be and many parents have difficulty understanding how to read the reports.

With the Naplan results due to be released in the near future we have decided to run a session in each of the centres where I will talk about students grades, school reports, parent teacher interviews and how to understand the NAPLAN reports.

Look out for more information for your centre session times. I really hope that you will be able to attend.

I look forward to catching up with you all.

Till next time

Karen xo

It is that time of year again when the NAPLAN results have been released. Everyone has their own opinion about the worth of such testing and this blog is again my opinion, many will argue against me BUT I am ok with that J

I personally think that NAPLAN is a great tool, one of many tools that should be used by parents, teachers and students to determine the strengths and weaknesses of both students and teachers. When the NAPLAN results arrived at school, I would closely examine the results of students that I had previously taught. Were there any similarities in the skills the students hadn’t obtained and is there something that I could improve in my teacher to assist this.

I also feel from a student’s and parent’s perspective, it allows them to review the ability level in comparison to a much bigger sample size.  This can only be a good thing! I speak with so many parents who tell me that they believed their child was having difficulties but compared with their class they were doing really well. The NAPLAN data then showed what the parent had believed was actually correct.

In the Australian newspaper recently, there was a discussion stating that the Literacy Levels had declined and that ACARA had taken responsibility as the writing assessment was more difficult and that the schools were not given the direction that they have been in previous years. I am going to controversially step out and say that I don’t agree! This should be an assessment that is determining where the student’s individual ability level is and how they respond to variety of questions that they have not been trained to complete. It shouldn’t matter what text type is in the test as the students should have been taught all text types in the years leading up to the NAPLAN.

As far as the question being too difficult… well again that is open to interpretation. My own children were taught about rules from the time they were little “It’s not ok to hit other children” “You must share your toys”. From Kindergarten, students are taught the school rules and are expected to follow them… this is not a new concept. Most of the students that I spoke with after the NAPLAN really embraced the topic and it lead to some interesting conversations that week at Kip.

We cannot accurately compare data from one year to the next because as a teacher I can tell you every year is different. The comparison should be made looking at the improvement the individual student in making throughout the years of completing the NAPLAN. And how did these students compare with the other students that sat the same test in the same conditions.

My concern with the NAPLAN is the fact that schools are preparing students for them by giving practise papers, sending home NAPLAN style questions for the homework the Term before NAPLAN is on. OR when I have parents telling me that they have been asked to keep their children home on the days of the NAPLAN. ALL students should sit NAPLAN!

I think people should look at NAPLAN for what it is… it is another tool to determine if your child is where they need to be in comparison to their peers. To get the help and support for those students who have fallen behind and to look at how we can engage those students who are in the average bands to the next level.  In the press release from the Australian Tutoring Association (ATA) they state “The ATA takes the view that the results from the NAPLAN tests should be used to make informed decisions about the use of supplementary accredited tutors who can fill skills and knowledge gaps.”

If you are confused about how to read your child’s NAPLAN results I will be holding some information sessions over the coming weeks. I will also have days where you can bring siblings in for an assessment to see how they are going. More information to come ….

Any of our existing students who sat NAPLAN can you please make sure you give us a copy of the report when you get them as I really like to review the strengths and weaknesses of all our students.

Till next week

Karen xo

Hello Kip McGrath Eastwood and welcome to the first blog post on the official blog for the Eastwood Centre. Last year, I was writing a weekly blog for one of our other centres but when we took over the management of Eastwood it lost my attention. Well now we are back and it is going to be bigger and better than ever.

So I thought I would make the first blog a bit of a catch up on what has been happening during the past 6 months. Mark and I have officially taken over the ownership of the Eastwood Centre. What does this mean for you? Nothing except know ing that the centre is not going anywhere! We would really like to thank all of our parents that helped us through the very difficult take over period. Having supportive parents is essential to the success of our centre and the success of the students.

We have introduced a facebook page for Eastwood, so if you haven’t liked it yet please get on and like it https://www.facebook.com/kmeceastwood. It is a way to keep track of what is happening in the centre and see how well our students are progressing. We really want our families to engage with the centre so don’t be afraid of posting comments, sending out words of encouragement to our students and sharing other posts that you come across that you think would be relevant for our centre. It was once said that it take a community to raise a child and I still think that this is relevant, especially when it comes to the education of our kids.

Some of you would have noticed that my sister Emma has returned to us from her adventures in Queensland. She still owns the centre in Sherwood but she missed me so much that she has decided to run the centre from a distance J She will be at the Eastwood centre each night that it is open so don’t forget to drop in and say hello.

 This blog will be a weekly post about whatever it is that comes into my head for the week. I am usually spark by something I see or read but if you have something that you would like to see me write about then send me a message on facebook or by email. The blogs are a conversation piece, I really love to hear what other people think about the topic that I am talking about each week. I also try to work in themes. Our Term 3 theme for Eastwood is about SUCCESS. We thought this was really important as we have implemented goals for each of your children and we are working hard to achieve these goals.  Remember SUCCESS is different for everyone, which is why we have created individual goals for your child (If you are not sure about this goal then please come in and talk to us). Even though SUCCESS is different for everyone it can be achieved by all who want it!

Until next week!

Karen