From the Learning Team

Literacy and Numeracy Week 

Week 7 of Term 3 was set down as our 2023 Literacy and Numeracy Week. The week included a range of activities that encouraged students to engage in activities that stretched their literacy and numeracy skills, and highlighted the importance of these skills in everyday life. The daily homeroom activities included Boggle, Number puzzles and other literacy games. Waterford Wednesday involved Year 7 holding the finals for the spelling bee, Year 8 participating in the Maths Olympiad, Year 9 playing a literacy-based Action Bound scavenger hunt, Year 10 completed an Auslan competition and Year 11 played the literacy-based game Connection. Prizes included chocolates and gift vouchers. Congratulations to the many winners of these events. 

The ERLC also had their usual guess the number of jellybeans, and a new design a St Dominic’s bookmark competition. The English department also ran their annual simile and metaphor competition. Finally, Ms Quinlivan ran the Write a book in a Day with over 40 students from year 7 – 12. This day was a fantastic example of boys being involved in literature. As usual, the week was jampacked with lots of activity to promote literacy and numeracy. 

A big thank you must go to all the teachers involved in making this such as successful week where we encourage our boys to see the importance of literacy and numeracy in their daily life. In particular, I would like to personally thank Ms Wampfler, Ms Quinlivan, Ms Lister, Mr Meek, Mr Ahern, Mrs Liepa and the ERLC staff, and Ms McSweeney. 

EREA National Learning and Wellbeing Conference 

This month, Mr Rafferty and Mr Gerlach attended the annual national conference regarding learning and wellbeing for EREA schools. The year the event was held at St Laurence’s College, Brisbane. It was a great opportunity to meet with other senior leaders from EREA schools all over the country. We had an opportunity to hear from experts in their fields of education, and also share great initiatives happening in our brother schools. Some of the highlights include: 

• getting some great ideas to add to our St Dominic’s College Learning Framework that is currently in development and will be released in 2024. 
• Hearing from Dr Stephanie Macmahon on the Science of Learning and how schools can implement practices that support this. 
• Hearing from Dr Judy Smeed on how schools can use Data effectively to drive school improvement. 
• Finding ways that EREA schools engage boys in their education. 

Mr Rafferty and Mr Gerlach will be sharing their learnings with the College as we work to improve the learning of your sons. 

CogAT Testing 

Ms Lister has been working with another group of students who have been identified as having higher levels of achievement across our range of testing and assessment that we do. Like 2022, the results of this testing will provide a profile on the learning strengths in the domains of: Verbal, Non-verbal and Quantitative learning. This profile is shared with their teachers as we strive to extend our brighter students to achieve to their full academic potential. If your son has been tested, you will receive a copy of their results also. 

Preliminary Examinations 

Year 11 are well underway in their end of Preliminary examinations. It has been pleasing to see the boys arrive on time, with equipment and ready to tackle the final exams for Year 11 before they start their HSC courses for next term. Over the coming weeks, our teaching staff will be marking and giving feedback on these tests, with a  view to assist in preparing them for the HSC. Your son’s end of year 11 academic report will arrive via email early next term. 

Farewell Year 12 

Finally, Year 12 are about to finish their 13-year schooling journey. We wish them the best of luck as they approach the HSC examinations. We hope they enjoy the last few days of celebration and remembering the many great times they have had here at the College. We also hope that they stay focused as they prepare for their final HSC exams in October. Best of luck men as you embark on the final days of school.