Continuity of Learning and VCE students during the school closure period

[avatar user=”Mark” size=”thumbnail” align=”right” /]

Dear Staff, Parents and VCE Students

The College acknowledges that the current situation will inevitably impact students undertaking VCE subjects. For the foreseeable future, we will need to take a more agile and flexible approach to learning and assessments for all students undertaking one or more Unit 1 or VCE Unit 3 subject(s).

Remote Learning

Remote learning commenced Wednesday and will continue for the coming days. We are currently slated for resumption of school on Tuesday 21 April – ie the first day of Term 2 for students – pending Government announcements about the re-opening of schools in Victoria.

If still at home, all students in all year levels will be expected to ‘attend’ lessons remotely and be working through tasks set by teachers during allocated class time. Teachers will be online to facilitate these lessons at the appropriate lesson time, and at the moment we are working on posting materials for lessons on Google Classroom.

Important Google Meeting of Year 11 and 12 students

On Monday 30th March 2020 I will be holding our first ever Google Meeting with our VCE students. On Thursday, I gave students an illustration of how to do this and gave them instructions. I have attached a copy of these instructions with this email. The purpose of this ‘meeting’ is to have a chance to address the students and to help them understand how this tool could be used in the future to teach them remotely. The session times will be as follows:

  • Monday 30th March 9:00AM – Year 12s
  • Monday 30th March 10:00AM – Year 11s


School-assessed Coursework (SACs)

Due to the current situation, the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) has advised that schools may need to deliver assessments remotely. As such, the VCAA is permitting students to undertake SACs at home, so long as the work that is submitted is able to be authenticated as the students’ own.

This will mean that when appropriate, SACs may be posted on the LMS during class time for immediate completion and submission by all students in the class, before the end of the class. The advice from the VCAA is that where multiple classes study a subject, the SAC must be run concurrently for all classes, and this will be communicated to students in due course in relevant subjects.

Students will continue to receive feedback on their assessments as would normally be College procedure, after SACs have been marked.

As always, the grade that is achieved in the SAC is conditional and may change as a result of statistical moderation and authentication. Students whose work cannot be authenticated and who achieve suspected anomalous grades may be asked to demonstrate knowledge in an alternate format at a later date.

For any ongoing SACs completed at home, regular sightings must be made by the class teacher and the Authentication Record for School-based Assessment form must be filled in by the student. These forms are available through the relevant subject teachers.

Uploading Files and Photos of Work

To expedite the sharing of VCE work, we will need to get students or their parents to scan work or take photos of work and attach files that we can access through our systems. We are in the process of putting together a Google Classroom structure for the eventuality of a school closure period (or a period of large scale absences at least). We have already provided students with some notes on how to access Google Classroom. More information will follow for parents.

Thanks – as always – for your continued support. God bless and keep safe.

Mark Stanton
Deputy Principal