Principal's Message

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the Term 2 Week 5 edition of the Bay Bulletin. There are so many great things happening at WBHS. Please see our website here or the WBHS Facebook page for some highlights.

New Staff

I am very pleased to let you know about the following permanent staff appointments to WBHS. Each person brings tremendous experience, skills and passion to the WBHS team:

• Mr Toby Husband - Deputy Principal. Mr Bruce will be our relieving HT Admin whilst the recruitment process takes place.
• Dr Kate Mason - Head Teacher English. Ms Farrugia will continue as relieving HT until Dr Mason takes up her appointment in Term 3.
• Mr David McLennan - Mathematics teacher
• Mr Oliver Steel - PDHPE teacher
• Ms Emma Mercieca - School Learning and Support Officer

I also wanted to thank our hardworking and supportive P&C for the work it does all year, and particularly for providing representatives for numerous merit selection panels this year.

Year 7-12 Assessment Policy Strengthened

In the Term 1 Week 5 Bay Bulletin, I mentioned that our assessment policies now include a paragraph about the use of Artificial Intelligence with assessment tasks. The policies have been further strengthened with the following text (the full polices are available here): Please be aware that if a student submits work generated by artificial intelligence (ChatGPT and similar) as their own work, this is considered malpractice and may result in a mark of zero being awarded for the task in question. To appeal this decision, the onus is on the student to prove that they have composed/created the assessment task. The student will be required to present this evidence to an appeals panel. In the case of suspected plagiarism, students will be required to provide evidence that all unacknowledged work is entirely their own. Such evidence might include but is not limited to the student: providing evidence of and explaining the process of their work, which might include diaries, journals or notes, working plans or sketches, and progressive drafts to show the development of their ideas answering questions regarding the assessment task, examination or submitted work under investigation, to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and skills.

Every Day Counts

WBHS has a strong culture and history around excellent student attendance. Our school is very committed to maximising our students’ learning and wellbeing outcomes, and a key to this is regular school attendance.  95%+ is the Department's expected attendance rate for every student. Research shows:

• a clear correlation between attendance and academic outcomes, building friendships, developing life skills, and long term mental health and social outcomes 
• that students with an attendance rate below 90% may be educationally at risk.
• that regular lateness to school can also have a serious impact.

We also acknowledge that sometimes ‘life happens’. Illness, medical appointments, unforeseen events, family holidays and other reasons mean that students sometimes miss school. Our school has a range of strategies to monitor and support strong attendance rates. Later this term, we will also trial sending an email to families regarding their child’s attendance rate for the term. You may already be aware of your child’s attendance rate, but we want to communicate this to you as part of our regular review of attendance rates patterns across the school.

How can you help your child with attendance at school?

• Regularly check your Sentral Parent Portal to monitor your child’s attendance rate and pattern. 
• Have regular conversations with your child about their attendance and how every day counts.
• Remind your child that is their responsibility to speak with their teachers about work or tasks missed whilst absent from school and then catch up on the work. 
• Following an absence from school (including lateness), please ensure that you provide the school with a verbal or written explanation for the absence within 7 days.
• Contact the school and/or see here if you need support in getting your child to school.

Thank you for partnering with the school to help maximise your child’s learning and wellbeing outcomes. For more information, please see our Attendance page on the school’s website.

Change to NAPLAN Reports

The way that NAPLAN results will be reported has changed. Results will be reported against four proficiency standards rather than numerical bands as in previous years. The proficiency standards are: Exceeding, Strong, Developing, Needs additional support. The new reporting standards will provide parents, carers and teachers with simpler and clearer information about how students are performing and identify where children may need additional support. Parents will receive two reports showing their child’s achievements in NAPLAN:

• Individual student report (ISR). This report shows a student’s results in the key areas of writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation), numeracy. For schools with more than 5 participating students, the school average is also shown.
• Additional student report (ASR). This report provides additional information about the skills assessed. This includes: tables providing a description of the questions, how the student responded, an indication of the relative difficulty of each question. For the writing test, the ASR provides information about the skills assessed in their written response and the skill level the student demonstrated in their writing.

Parent reports should be available early in Term 3. More information is available here.

Hoodies and Chewing Gum

And finally, your support is sought in reminding your son/daughter that chewing gum and hoodies are not allowed at school. Thank you in anticipation.

Regards, 

Marcus Neale 

Principal