As we approach mid-term, we have seen a number of exciting events and activities at the college.

Year 11 Ski Camp

The ski camp was a great success, and we are very fortunate to be able to offer such wonderful opportunities to our students. The group of 40 were first time skiers and snowboarders but by the end of day 3, I saw many displaying terrific skills and attempting black runs on the slopes of Buller. A big thank you to Ms Wilson for organising such a well-run camp and to Mr Wallace, Mr Lawrence, and Ms Kennedy for volunteering their time to make this camp feasible.

Kogakkan High School Visit

Over the past 10 days we have been privileged to have our sister school – Kogakkan High join us for the first time since 2019. The cultural immersion and exchange program has been highly beneficial for both schools. I take this opportunity to thank our wonderful host families who have embraced their students and have provided them with lifelong memories and friendships. Mr Connors and I attended Puffing Billy last week and we cooked up a storm with a great Aussie barbeque and some traditional lamingtons for dessert.

The visit commenced with an official welcome assembly on Thursday, 27^th July attended by our Year 7 and 8 students. I must say, I was very proud and extremely impressed by the proceedings and the understanding by all involved of the importance of the relationship we have with Kogakkan High school, which now spans well over 20 years, and was first developed and introduced by Ms Sandra Smart, who was a long-standing assistant principal at the college.

We now look forward to offering the opportunity for our students to visit Japan next year. The exchange program is very comprehensive with wonderful activities and experiences, including Disneyland Tokyo, that will last a lifetime. Please contact Mr Hayakawa or Ms Snow if interested in the program which will run for approximately 14 days during Term 3 in 2024.

Elvis Reimagined

The Elvis production concluded yesterday, and I must say was absolutely terrific. The amount of work involved in running a performing arts show is significant and I would like to acknowledge the entire music department who are exceptionally well led by Ms Bonett for their commitment, dedication, and work. A big thank you to all other staff who assisted throughout the process. The student performances were absolutely brilliant and I’m sure parents are very proud of their children. After the show on Wednesday night, I had a sudden need to dust off my old Elvis Vinyl LPs. We eagerly await the opportunity to run our next production in our new auditorium in 2024.

Literacy & Numeracy

The college continues to have a strong focus on literacy and numeracy improvement with our expert literacy and numeracy consultants, Terri Campbell and Rob Park attending on site regularly to work with our staff, and students, to help further enhance our wonderful work in this space. The scaffolded numeracy program trialled last year, and now running at Year 7, has been exceptionally successful as we look to imbed this program into our work, similar to how we have embraced a whole school literacy approach.

VCE Parent, Student Teacher Interviews

All VCE students were provided with the opportunity to discuss their progress with the recent VCE parent, teacher, student interviews. Our Year 12s have the remainder of this term and only the first few weeks of Term 4 before their crucial exams, with Year 11s having a few extra weeks of school during next term. The purpose of these interviews is to provide timely intervention, advice, and support prior to the end of Unit 4 or Unit 2. VCE is a marathon not a sprint, so it is vitally important students continue to keep up and on top of their work each day.

Parent Opinion Survey

A random sample of parents will receive notification to complete the Online Parent Opinion Survey this year. Please refer to the newsletter item in this edition for more information. We very much value your feedback and use it to help make decisions to provide the maximum benefit for our student cohort.

Arthur Soumalias

PRINCIPAL

School Policies have been updated in line with Department of Education and Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority requirements. Parents may review these on the school websitehttps://www.rosehillsc.vic.edu.au/under Our School > Policies > Minimum Standards Compliance – June 2022.

Students must report to the Sick Bay when feeling unwell.

Parents are reminded not to collect their child from the sick bay or from school unless contacted by the Administration staff.

Correct sign out procedures must be followed.

Maree Kelly

First Aid Officer

To start off this term, the Year 11 Legal Studies students visited the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, followed by Parliament House. After some usual delays on the Craigieburn line and a lengthy 20-minute walk from North Melbourne station to the CBD, students finally reached their first destination. Following a security check, students were left to enter the many courtrooms and listen to some interesting case studies including those of assault, theft and traffic offences.

Once we finished up at court, it was onto Parliament House. Another security check occurred, and students were not allowed to carry their bags within Parliament walls – fun fact, due to the Gold Rush in Australia, the golden walls, as well as the golden ornaments within Parliament House are in fact real gold! We could understand why bags were not allowed within this vicinity!

Students were taken around Parliament House, where they sat and participated in a role play of law making in both the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council, sitting in the very spots our MPs sit in to create laws!

Thank you to Mr Connors for his participation during this excursion also. Great day out for us all!

Lina Liousas

HUMANITIES TEACHER

Ten students and two teachers from Kogakkan High School, our sister school in Japan, visited our VCE Japanese class on 1^st August. The Year 12 students interviewed the Japanese students about their oral exam discussion topics such as Japanism, electric vehicles and Christmas in Japan. They also casually conversed in both English and Japanese. The Year 12 students who participated in this class were Ranush DE SILVA, Flynn MORAN, Jaidyn Dinh NGUYEN, Jason TEOH, and Anthony VO.

Takanori Hayakawa

LANGUAGES KLA LEADER

STUDENT AGENCY & VOICE

As teachers and educators, part of our role is to help students not only to achieve their best academic outcomes, but to also develop skills and capabilities that prepare them for life beyond the classroom. We aim to listen to student voice, and to build their sense of agency.

But what is agency? Agency can be many things, but to start with, agency is about encouraging students to ‘own’ their learning, and to be responsible for their learning. Young people who find their own voice in supportive school environments are more likely to develop a confident voice, a capacity to act in the world, and a willingness to lead others.

At Rosehill, we help students to ‘own’ their learning and development, and create a positive climate for learning.

The Department of Education and Training has a shared vison for all government schools which informs all aspects of our teaching:

All students are empowered to learn and achieve, experiencing high quality teaching practice and the best conditions for learning which equip them with the knowledge, skills and dispositions for lifelong learning and shaping the world around them.

So with this vision in mind, and Rosehill’s commitment to developing student agency and voice, we regularly encourage student voice and feedback to improve our teaching, and to build stronger connections with our students.

We are particularly proud of our Year 8 students who have shown agency in asserting their voices, and advocating for change to their homegroup program – these students meet weekly, create and set agendas, chair the meetings, drive discussion, advocate for themselves and their peers, create curriculum and policy – they have literally written the Year Homegroup Program.

These students are amazing, and we are extremely proud of them, and the incredible skills, confidence, agency and leadership they have shown – they deserve a huge congratulations on their outstanding achievements.

As active agents in their lives and learning, these students have shown our community how powerful student voice can be to create change.

Congratulations and well done Year 8 leaders!!!

A big shout out to the equally amazing Sub School Leader, Ms Riquelme, and Assistant Year 8 coordinator, Mr Rose, who have guided and supported their students on their leadership journey.

Ms Riquleme and Mr Rose have given up their time, energy and commitment to ensure that student voice at Rosehill is heard, celebrated, and that student agency has been given a meaningful forum for authentic student leadership.

Ms Hart

Leading Teacher Student Agency & Voice

Student Leadership Update

One of the key goals of the Department’s Amplify document is to empower students and student voice. Amplifying student voice, student agency and student leadership contributes to improved student health, wellbeing and learning outcomes.

So we wanted to share how we amplified our student voice to create change.

Presentation to Junior School Staff

Pivot Survey:

In Week 7 of Term 2, 4 all students completed a survey to provide feedback on their teachers’ practice and their engagement of students. Four Year 8 student leaders (Sofia, Skye, Romy and Talia) presented to the junior school staff at the staff meeting to report on their evaluation of the pivot survey with the results from an anonymous teacher. Student leaders presented the results of the survey, and in addition, analyzed the results of three of the questions for the teachers:

• This teacher connects their teaching to students’ lives.

• This teacher makes learning interesting.

• This teacher helps me set goals for my learning.

After the presentation, student leaders recognised that the teachers were looking tired, and to reset and re-energise, they decided a brain break was necessary, and they also played a fun brain break: rock/paper/scissors. Including the brain break was a way for student leaders to show teachers some activities that can help students become more engaged in the classroom - we call this “teaching the teacher”.

Homegroup Planning:

Student leaders have been actively involved in the planning, documentation and implementation of the new curriculum for our homegroup program.

The idea of homegroup began with the idea of sitting in a circle with a talking teddy doing the activities the teachers created, however, students gave feedback to the teachers that they would like different activities and tasks to suit different learning styles. So, teachers encouraged student leaders to use their voice and agency to plan homegroup sessions - these leaders include: Athens, Sofia, Gorja, Skye, Audrey, Isabella, Adriana, Frankie, Matthew, Locy, Romy, Emily, Gyavire, Seth, Angelina, Leanne and Arusaan.

Student leaders designed a homegroup program designed for students, by students.

They started by splitting up all of the ideas from students into three main ideas for each term which they believed are the most important for the Year 7 and 8 cohort which were Respect for Self, Respect for Others and Our future.

Then the student leaders started to dig deeper into each little idea. Some of the topics students will see in homegroup include mindfulness, peer pressure, social media, kindness amongst their peers and so much more. The leaders then started to plan the lessons for each topic, coming up with fun and engaging ways that everyone and the Year 7s can learn about in the topics in which they showed interest.

Overall, the productive day for Term 2 and 3 allowed the leaders to gather all of the students' amazing ideas and put them into action.

By having this opportunity, the homegroup program is being driven by our voice! The student leaders can’t wait for everyone to see what we have created.

AtoS Survey:

In Week 5 of Term 2, five student leaders (Talia, Sofia, Emily, Leanne and Skye) ran the Year 8 assembly and AtoS survey. Sofia and Talia also facilitated the same assembly for the Year 7s.

The AtoS survey helps give the school feedback on what they need to improve on. An example was more student agency; hearing your voice, and being heard.

Involvement in IDAHOBIT Day:

In Week 4 of Term 2, all year levels of student leaders helped out with IDAHOBIT day. There was face painting, a sausage sizzle, cupcakes and badges for sale plus it was also a casual clothes day with a gold coin donation.

Whole School Student Leadership Training Day:

In Week 2 of Term 2, student leaders across years 7 and 12 got together in the library all day and participated in a leadership training day. That day was designed so the student leaders could all work together as a group and come up with future ideas like fundraising.

Playground Proposal:

In Weeks 5-6 of Term 2, the playground or outdoor equipment proposal was written by four student leaders (Seth, Matthew, Gyavire and Arusaan), some students came up to a teacher and asked for a playground or outdoor equipment area, and so those student leaders showed initiative and decided to take the issue into their own hands. The leaders conducted a survey for both Years 7 and 8 asking their feedback on what they thought about it. 71.2% of students said yes it would overall enhance their school experience.

There has been a written letter to Mr Soumalias about this proposal and the leaders are waiting for a response.

On Tuesday 15^th August, the school Athletics Carnival will be held at Moonee Valley Athletics track.

Students will compete in their houses, and winners from each event will have the opportunity to represent the College at the Moonee Valley Division meet later this term.

Buses will transport students between Rosehill and the venue. Students can arrive at the venue or leave straight from there once dismissed; but will need written permission to do so.

Payment and consent via Compass are required for students to attend.

Please remember to bring coins for the VM BBQ.

See the Compass event for further details.

Tim Cole

SPORT COORDINATOR

Would you like your child to experience the beauty of the Japanese culture? How about joining us on the 2024 Trip to Japan? All students are welcome regardless of the language they are studying at school.

Highlights of the trip will include -

• a visit to Tokyo Disneyland
• beautiful historical places in Kyoto
• the peace park museum in Hiroshima.

We will also visit Kogakkan High School, our sister school in Mie prefecture, and stay with their families. The last trip was extremely successful and those students who have taken part in this program have found it to be one of their most rewarding experiences.

The trip to Japan will take place from 14^th to 27^th of September 2024. We intend to depart a week before the Term 3 break and return during the break.

The cost of the trip is approximately $5,567.50 (with 15 students), however this may change due to the exchange rate and the number of participants.

The tour cost includes -

• return economy airfares
• 6 night hotel accommodation and meals
• a 7 day rail pass
• entrance to Tokyo Disneyland
• entrance Ghibli Museum
• insurances and homestay fees.

https://forms.gle/rhs1UkihaF3Pod77A

If you would like additional information, please do not hesitate to contact Ms Snow or Mr Hayakawa.

WE WANT OUR PARENTS/CAREGIVERS/GUARDIANS TO TELL US WHAT THEY THINK!

Our school is conducting a survey to find out what parents/caregivers/guardians think of our school. The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement.

The survey is optional, but we encourage families to participate. Our school will use the survey results to help inform and direct future school planning and improvement strategies.

A random sample of approximately 30 per cent of parents/caregivers/guardians has been selected to participate in this year’s survey.

The Parent/Caregiver/Guardian Opinion Survey will be open from Monday 7 August to Friday 8 September 2023.

The survey will be conducted online, only takes 20 minutes to complete, and can be accessed at any convenient time within the survey period on desktop computers, laptops, tablets, or smartphones. The online survey will be available in English and 10 other languages including Arabic, Greek, Hakha Chin, Hindi, Japanese, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese, Somali, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Last year we used the survey results to plan some of our new strategic goals.