Sholem Aleichem College School Performance Report 2017 nt.] Table of Contents The year in review ..................................................................................................... 3 Staff ........................................................................................................................... 6 Qualifications of teaching staff .................................................................................. 6 Attendance & Satisfaction rates................................................................................. 8 Staff .......................................................................................................................... 8 Students ..................................................................................................................... 8 Parents ...................................................................................................................... 9 Curriculum ................................................................................................................ 9 Professional Development Attended ...................................................................... 13 Reporting & Assessment .......................................................................................... 14 Jewish Studies .......................................................................................................... 14 Residential programs ............................................................................................... 18 Technology .............................................................................................................. 19 Clubs ........................................................................................................................ 21 Infrastructure ........................................................................................................... 22 Creative Arts ............................................................................................................ 22 Music ....................................................................................................................... 23 Health and Physical Education and Sport ................................................................. 24 Student Leadership Opportunities ........................................................................... 25 House system and house days ................................................................................. 26 School uniform ........................................................................................................ 26 Learning Support ..................................................................................................... 27 Naplan, Funding, General ........................................................................................ 28 NCCDSSD ................................................................................................................. 29 Naplan results .................................................................................................... 29-37 Summary ................................................................................................................. 37 Finance report ......................................................................................................... 39 Marketing and Development ................................................................................... 40 Fundraising .............................................................................................................. 43 Grounds and facilities .............................................................................................. 45 Foci for 2018 ............................................................................................................ 46 2 3 2017- The year in Review Looking Beyond Our 2017 theme of ‘Looking Beyond’ has set the tone for what has been a tremendous year for Sholem Aleichem College. The theme was deliberately chosen to be open-ended and challenging, encouraging our students to be the very best versions of themselves they can be – and they have certainly lived up to the challenge! Depending on the individual, you could choose to look beyond yourself, the horizon, your borders, the moment, the obvious or the surface, to discover something wondrous. Another interpretation could be looking beyond gender, religion, your current social group or friendship circle, race, nationality, your assumptions, your limitations or the limitations of others, to see a person or persons in a new and enlightening way. I hope the theme encouraged everyone in our community to move outside their comfort zones, embrace fresh challenges and extend themselves in countless ways they may never have previously imagined. One of the key ways that we looked beyond in 2017 was our shift to team teaching across our Primary Classes. The new structure was facilitated by the installation of doors between each of the two classrooms per year level. Year 5 and 6 students saw their rooms turned into learning hubs, with the doors remaining open for all generalist classes and both teachers serving as home room teachers for the entire year level. This innovating teaching model allowed greater flexibility in the delivery of curricula programs as well as an increased level of differentiation in material taught. A further benefit was teachers were better empowered to role model the essential collaborative and communication skills that students will need as they eventually move beyond school and university and into the workforce. One of our key goals is to develop the college as a place where creativity flourishes. As Einstein famously quoted, ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’. If these words were true in Einstein’s times, how much more relevant are they today, where knowledge is so easily accessible at the touch of a button, but where what we do with that knowledge becomes ever more important. Our artistic programs at Sholem are second to none, and give students exceptional opportunities to develop their creative skills. For the third time in the past five years our senior students have created their very own movie as a part of the internationally acclaimed Unmake a Bully series. The students worked with internationally acclaimed filmmaker Mike Feurstein from New York to write, co-produce and perform in a movie that will spread a vital anti bullying message to fellow students not just locally, but globally. Our movies are now on Nickelodeon and Youtube and are having an impact on children around the world. Our P-4 Concert, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy Vey! was an absolute delight. Our students sang and danced their way through a mash up of Australian, Yiddish and Hebrew classics as Click go the Shears, Eretz Eretz, Ani Nolad, Happy Little Vegemites and more. The concert celebrated the joy of being a Jewish Australian with a strong sense of Yiddishkeit, and further bore testament to the great importance that we place at Sholem in nurturing the creativity and imagination of our students. Our concerts - whether they be our junior or full school – give our students the opportunity to shine in a range of creative ways, and to do so not only on an individual basis, but in a manner that fosters teamwork and resilience. Indeed, you could say that our concerts are a perfect example of the ‘3 Cs’ of modern education – creativity, collaboration and communication. 4 Our commitment to fostering creativity is also evident in our uptake and age appropriate use of technology – ensuring that we at all times remain ahead of the curve in terms of not just the hardware and software that we choose, but in how we guide our children to use (and at times not use) technology. For example, we are in our second year of having an active, permanent MakerSpace in our school, resourced with an imaginative and challenging array of technical resources. Furthermore, students are encouraged to pursue their interests in digital technology, STEAM subjects through a variety of lunchtime opportunities, such as Lego clubs, coding club, craft club and chess club. Recently students requested Minecraft be accessible at school, so we are now looking in to getting a school account. We are committed to staying at the forefront of technical advancement and thus have built-in processes that mean we regularly review current practices. In an area that is constantly developing, such self-reflection is imperative. As part of our cyclic review, the college changed the 1:1 program from iPads to ChromeBooks. This meant a lot of extra work for the school in the areas of teacher and student training, but everyone is very happy with the change. Robotics is the next direction we have decided to move towards in the school, so we are now extending our robotics resources. We have received a substantial grant for these purposes and hopefully we will soon be posting videos of our students coding the actions of robots. If you are standing still in the area of Technology you are going backwards, so we constantly do our best to ensure Sholem is moving forward. Jewish life is at the centre of all we do at Sholem, and this year was no exception. At our Purim celebrations in March, the costumes were breathtaking as always in their imagination and creativity. The parade was once again a highlight. There were footballers, princesses, cowboys, ninjas and more. Peysekh is a time for family and friends to gather and celebrate with each other. For many of