Senior School Report

by Director of the Senior School, Mr Hamish McCrum

Once again our Year 12 students and some of our Year 11s were onsite for two days completing Unit 3/4 SACs, submitting SATs and completing VCAL assessments. At our home, there have been a couple of oil paintings completed and we now have some bedroom carpet that is a lot more colourful than it was previously. The support my child had in completing this task from her father in terms of helpful suggestions or useful tips and advice was worth less than zero; it was well out of my area of usefulness. All I could do was encourage her to keep going and try to find a way forward when she was stuck, and I did not even do this well on every occasion. I suspect in all houses at all levels of schooling families have had some experiences similar to this. People have accepted that “it is what it is” and have tried to do their best under these circumstances, but it has been far from ideal.

Next term (at this stage) we still have one week of remote learning (except for the GAT) and will hopefully be onsite for the remainder of the term. A separate email will be sent over the break to Year 11 and Year 12 students and parents regarding the process for attending on the day of the GAT. In the last week of Term 3 we would usually gather our Year 12 Students together and talk to them about the importance of doing some work over this break and we would even have them back onsite to do practice exams. This year they have taken their practice exams home with them to complete for each subject. They also need to do some study for each subject, not just do the practice exams. This is a difficult two-week period to manage for Year 12s. They do need to freshen-up so that they ready for a challenging period of time through to late November. However, they cannot afford to treat the entire two weeks like a holiday or they will be under enormous pressure when school resumes. They need to make the most of their time; getting out of the house and getting some fresh air and exercise is strongly advised.

We look forward to seeing all students back onsite in Week Two of Term 4, ready to work and enjoy the benefits of socialisation and face-to-face teaching and learning.

Take care and kind regards,

Mr Hamish McCrum

Director of the Senior School