its back! cluster news. - [email protected] 12 may 2015 its back!...

[email protected] 12 May 2015

Its Back! Cluster News. I was fortunate to be invited to the Victorian Catholic Primary Principals Conference in Bendigo last week. During one of our Cluster catch ups one of the Principals said that he really missed Cluster News. He said that there were things happening across the cluster that he would like to know more about and his staff would like to know more about…. So here we go again!.

The aim of Cluster news was to document what had been happening across our new cluster in 2014. It was an attempt to try to document our history , achievements and progress. I stopped producing Cluster news in 2015 but have been encouraged to fire it up again as a way to continue to share stories, ideas and progress across our Cluster.

But in 2015 I hope it isn't just my observations and stories of what I see and the amazing initiative in all of our cluster schools. So please adopt the Cluster news as your own. Think about what you are doing in your classroom, in your level and in your school that you think is worth sharing. I would appreciate articles, letters, photos or wonderings to include in the weekly offering. I will try to get it out each Friday….

So Here we go…. Where to start?

Parent Engagement In Action Resource - St Gerard’s.. A Case Study.

ST Gerard’s have hosted two Students in their final year studying Occupational Therapy from Monash University. These students were placed at the school for 2 semesters and were asked to investigate parent engagement using the Parent Engagement in Action Resource Developed by the CEOM.

The students administered the teacher and leadership surveys which are part of the resource, collated the survey results and reported the findings to the school leadership.Leadership then asked the students to collect data from 3 groups of parents from different cultural groups within the school regarding parental understanding of teaching and learning and what parents would

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Cluster Closure Day. St Mary’s School Auditorium. Tuesday June 9th.

SMAG PL

Maggie Farrar has worked in London and Birmingham in senior leadership positions in schools and local authorities. More recently she was the Director for leadership development, research and succession planning at the National College for School Leadership and interim Chief Executive. She is the co – author with John West Burnham and George Otero of ‘ School community partnerships - working together to transform children’s lives’. She has a particular interest in team leadership, community leadership and schools as organisations that work together to transform children’s life chances and close gaps in achievement. She was awarded the CBE for

CLUSTER NEWS St Mary’s | St Anthony’s | St Gerard’s

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like to learn more about in regards to their children's learning at school.

The students worked with other school staff to arrange a dialogue with parents and collected rich data which was again collated and presented to school leadership.

The use of the Parent Engagement in Action Resource at St Gerard’s has provided rich data and strong feedback to school leadership about parent engagement around learning.

The partnership between St Gerard’s and Monash University has added an important evidence base to the schools parent engagement strategies and provided Monash students with a positive experience of working in the North Dandenong Community and were invited to present at the Catholic Leadership Centre Professional Learning on the Parent Engagement In Action Resource. St Gerard’s will happily accept new students from Monash University to build on this work .

Monash University Occupational Therapy 4th Year Students:

Monash University students have done final year community placements in both St Anthony’s and St Gerard’s. Each project has

been different however each project has added great resources and expertise to the

schools.

OT students at ST Anthony's developed a user friendly kit for teachers and families focusing on the development of fine motor skills in children targeted p - 3.

On Thursday May 14t the students presented the kit to staff from our SMAG Cluster schools. The feedback from across the cluster was that the kit would be very useful in a variety of ways and that the students efforts were appreciated and the kits development as a stand alone resources ensure that the students’ legacy will

continue.





Healthy together - School Food Co-op project.

St Mary’s Dandenong successfully applied for funding to work across SMAG schools and Springvale Rise Primary School to work with parents in each of the schools to investigate opportunities to increase access to affordable healthy food.

There have been meetings of parents at each of the schools. The sessions have explained the range of Healthy food opportunities in the community including access to the food bank, visits to the Doveton College Healthy Little Rainbows food co-op and discussions with South East Food Hub.

Each of the schools has decided to investigate different ideas;

St Gerard’s will trial a co-op at the Dandenong Market.

St Mary’s families are interested in a ‘cooking together ‘project using the kitchen for a group of meals to share recipes and cook a family meal together.

St Anthony’s parents are interested to find out more about how to introduce more fruit and vegetables into children diets and will have a session with a dietician.

Springvale Rise have trialled a food co-op type purchasing one off event and will use feedback from this to set up a monthly food co-op at the school.

This project has been supported by Mary Fischer, a parent from St Mary’s and Jodie Clarke who is also employed by Cultivating Community and the South East Food Hub.

Rich school, poor school: battle for resources creates academic divide - New report from Mitchell institute

Timna Jacks, Education Reporter

Published: May 15, 2015 - 10:19AM The Age

Fierce competition between schools is causing a drop in the academic performance of Australian school students, a new report warns.

Schools battling to outdo each other in teacher quality and resources had created a two-class school system, said Tom Bentley, lead author of the Mitchell Institute and the Centre for Strategic Education report.

Superior opportunities were reserved for the elite, leaving disadvantaged students trailing behind.

"If you want academic results to improve in the whole school system, you have to have a comprehensive approach that is improving learning for all students . . . not those who are already doing well," Mr Bentley said.

The yawning gap between rich and poor students was reflected in the students' grades and was contributing to the overall decline in Australian students' academic performance on international testing, Mr Bentley warned.





"The gaps between high and low-achieving students and between well-off and disadvantaged students

are too wide," Mr Bentley said. "Emerging socio-economic inequality is putting high-status schools further out of reach from kids with less advantaged schools."

Mr Bentley said regular state schools risked their student performance by continuing to compete with each other.

They need to find ways to share student data, educational resources and teacher expertise.

"In some disadvantaged community settings, where families are grappling with numerous other challenges, collaboration is integral to the way that schools, and their partners, pursue student achievement."

An eight-year relationship between low SES schools in Melbourne, Dandenong West Primary School and St Anthony's Catholic Primary School Noble Park, was proof the model had merit, the report stated. In an initiative supported by Mission Australia, and tracked on a website called It's Just a Postcode, the schools shared the services of 40 different local agencies, including health and dental services and the local library. They offered joint reading groups and safety programs, while the teachers from the schools collaborated regularly.

St Anthony's Catholic Primary School Noble Park principal Margaret Batt said the initiative had boosted the students' academic results and improved their confidence with their peers.

"All the research shows us that collaborative work across and between schools lifts student outcomes," Ms Batt said. "That's been mirrored in our school in a social context; in their confidence interacting with people, and their academic attainment."

The most recent figures show Australian students' reading and numeracy results dropped by 20 points in the global Programme for International Student Assessment between 2003 and 2012, while NAPLAN data shows literacy and numeracy results remained stagnant between 2008 and 2013. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rich-school-poor-school-battle-for-resources-creates-academic-divide-20150514-gh1p5n.html

http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/reports/the-shared-work-of-learning/


http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rich-school-poor-school-battle-for-resources-creates-academic-divide-20150514-gh1p5n.html

http://www.mitchellinstitute.org.au/reports/the-shared-work-of-learning/




100 Years of the Anzac Story

By Gregory White, Principal at St Mary’s School, Dandenong From directors Enews April 17th

At St Mary’s School, Dandenong, we are constantly striving to be an outward-facing school making meaningful links with our wider community, even the village communityof Dandenong in 1915 as we celebrate the Centenary of Anzac.

Connecting with Anzac in a multicultural community

As our school has a large migrant and refugee population, few of our families had their own Anzac stories which would enable them to link with the commemoration ofthe 100-Year Anniversary of Anzac Day. So we focused on our common link: the community of Dandenong. What was Dandenong like in 1915? What was happening at St Mary’s at this time? What were the children doing in their everyday lives and how did they support the war effort? How did the Great War affect the people in the community and what were the stories of the soldiers who enlisted and their families?

An historian-in-residence

We celebrated our school centenary in 2012 and we developed a relationship with the consulting historians of Way Back When, who assisted us in commemorating our centenary with a dedicated website and a Centenary Book. We approached Way Back When

� so we could re- engage with historian Sarah Rood to support us as we tried to develop in our students a sense of the story of Anzac.

We applied for and were successful in receiving a grant through the federal Government’s Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program (now closed). This enabled us to cover





the cost of contracting Way Back When and gave us access to Sarah to assist us in planning with our leadership team and learning and teaching leaders during Term

4, 2014. The grant enabled us to have Sarah work in our school for a day a week during Term 1 this year. She was our historian-in-residence and helped to organise our own school commemoration and learning display of ‘100 Years of the Anzac Story’, which will take place next Friday on 24 April. We also had Sarah work with us during our planning days for Term 1, so we could maximise the opportunity to use her vast historical knowledge and research skills to truly immerse the children in their integrated inquiry units.

Inquiring into Dandenong during WWI

‘100 Years of the Anzac Story’ became the broad concept for Term 1 in our whole-school two-year inquiry cycle. The integrated inquiry unit was not just a history unit. It had a strong historical focus, but the planned content also covered outcomes in other AusVELS curriculum areas – geography, science, economics, design & technology, health, civics & citizenship – and of course made links with our whole-school focus on social and emotional learning.

Throughout Term 1, Sarah came to St Mary’s each Tuesday and spent time in each classroom, feeding the content of that level’s chosen focus. She shared photos and artefacts that had been gathered from local sources, always focusing on the telling of the story of Dandenong during World War I. During the rest of the week, this learning was developed and deepened through classroom activities using the resources that Sarah provided.

A different focus at each level

For the Preps, the focus was investigating what it was like at St Mary’s School 100 years ago. They dressed up in clothes from the Dandenong Historical Society, played marbles, skipped in the playground and used our school kitchen to sample food such as ‘Frog-in-a-Hole’.





The Year 1/2 students developed an understanding of telling their own story through Sarah sharing the story of some of the local residents of Dandenong in 1915. Her research enabled us to focus on the stories and photos of some prominent families from Dandenong, some of whom we had on our 1915 school register as attending St Mary’s. The children were fascinated by the clothes and the look of the buildings. They were then able to use their developing historical

investigative skills to look at their own family’s story.

Year 3/4 students focused on what the children ofSt Mary’s and Dandenong were doing to support the war effort. They made replica Red Cross packages to send off to the front, they filled out an enlistment form, they looked at the family stories of the Couves, who owned the local pharmacy, and the Carroll family, who owned the local paper and published the letters that their boys were sending home.

Our Year 5/6 students investigated the ‘100 Years of the Anzac Story’ through the stories of families and people in Dandenong. They looked at what actually happened when you enlisted and how the wider community was affected by so many young men leaving. Sarah was a great story teller, sharing people’s stories in depth, through historical photos and documents. The learning at this level was about community and how the actions of every person affect the entire community.

The middle and senior students were able to hear World War I stories as told by 78-year-old Ken Masters through the eyes of his father Charles Henry Masters, who was an early resident of Dandenong and also served in the First World War, including Gallipoli. Ken also showed the children the diaries, relics and medals of that time, including a DCM

medal his father received for his role in a WWI battle on the western front.

Our specialist teachers have also focused on ways to tell the ‘100 Years of the Anzac Story’. In visual arts the children made poppies in a variety of ways to be used as a central focus for our learning display. In physical education they played games of 100 years ago. In performing arts the children sang songs about the AnzacStory. In our Stephanie Alexander Garden-to-Kitchen Program, poppies have been planted that will flower for Remembrance Day in November and of course we have made Anzac biscuits! The biscuits have been sold to raise money for Caritas to use in countries currently affected by war.

We began our planning with Sarah last year declaring that this was our opportunity to focus on more than poppies and Simpson and his donkey. It was an opportunity to make links with our local community and our own history as a school. It was an opportunity to develop in our students a deeper understanding of Australia’s story and how our stories are a part of the greater whole.

The Learning Display was open from 6.00 pm in the Auditorium at St Mary’s School, Dandenong, on 24 April 2015.

SMAG Cluster Staff meetings: On April 15th teaching staff from across the SMAG Cluster met in their level or specialist areas following the initial Cluster progressive dinner at the end of 2014. All staff groups were asked to focus on sharing what they currently do in regards to engaging families in learning and identify 2 or 3 things that teachers





were going to experiment with over the coming term to report back to the next get together. On the whole teacher feedback on the SMAG staff meeting was very positive:

I enjoyed this learning experience

��Agree strongly 8 25.8% Agree 21 67.7% Unsure 1 3.2% Disagree 0 0% Disagree strongly 0 0% Other 0 0%

I learned something interesting

��Agree strongly 7 22.6%

Agree 23 74.2% Unsure 1 3.2% Disagree 0 0% Disagree strongly 0 0%

Agree strongly 1 3.2% Agree 17 54.8% Unsure 10 32.3% Disagree 2 6.5% Disagree strongly 0 0%

The Next SMAG staff meetings for teachers will be on July 21st.

October 13th





� Road Safe South East have generously funded the Community Car Connec9on program which supports women who are newly arrived to Australia to obtain their drivers licence. The comprehensive program will assist par9cipants to successfully obtain their Learner Permit. Those par9cipants who complete the 11 week course and are successful in obtaining their Learner Permit will have the opportunity to receive some free driving lessons. At this stage numbers are strictly limited to 15 par9cipants however we are also interested in gauging the level of interest in this program as we may be able to secure further funding. I will be mee9ng with Road Safe South East next week to find out more about this exci9ng program across the SMAG cluster. I will keep you posted!!!

Other Hot Issues and future possibilities : • Discussions with ACER to support schools capacity to engage with corporate and Philanthropic

partners

• SMAG staff participating in Santa Fe study Tour in July.

Whats your news, what do you want to share. What should others know?

[email protected]




its back! cluster news. - [email protected] 12 may 2015 its back!...

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