Illalong Newsletter 2 September 2021

Goal Setting for Future Success

With many of our students across the College completing assessment in the final weeks of this term, they will be considering their results and setting goals for their future learning outcomes, post Year 12 pathways and what they want to achieve as they progress into the next phase of their lives. In the newsletter last week, Head of Junior School Mr Edgar wrote of how setting goals can help us to meet deadlines and how a goal is simply a dream with a deadline. When developing our goals from our aspirations it is important to ensure we employ SMART goal setting.

SMART goal setting explores identifying goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

Specific

When setting a goal, be specific about what you want to accomplish.

Who needs to be involved to achieve the goal?
What are you trying to accomplish?

Measurable

What information are you going to use to determine if you meet the goal? This makes a goal more tangible because it provides a way to measure progress.

What will success look like?
What will be your source of information to determine whether a goal has been achieved; what data do you need?

Achievable

Consider how important this goal is to you and remember that this goal is meant to inspire motivation.

What can you do to make it attainable?
What skills do you need to accomplish this goal and if you do not have these skills, how can you attain them?

Realistic

The goals you set should feel as though they are within reach and are relevant to your life’s purpose.

Is the goal reachable within the given time frame?
Are you able to commit to achieving this goal?

Timely

If a goal does not have a deadline, then most likely there will be no sense of urgency and as a result, less motivation to achieve the goal.

What is the deadline to achieve this goal?
Do you need to consider check points to ensure you are on track to achieve this goal?

As we move towards the end of Term 3, our Year 12 students will be looking ahead to their futures and settings goals for their final academic outcomes. Our Year 8 cohort will shortly be selecting their elective subjects for Year 9, Year 5 students may be setting goals for their Leadership Camp next week and Year 6 students are perhaps considering what they want to achieve as they progress into high school in 2022. For all of our students, when it comes to writing SMART goals, it is important to ask yourself, your teachers and your mentor, lot of questions. The answers will help to fine-tune your goals and as a result the strategy you will employ to achieve them, ensuring the goals are something that are actually attainable, motivating and inspirational.

Charlotte Brook
Head of Senior School

Academic & Work Habits Awards, Semester 1 2021

Twice each year, A.B. Paterson College celebrates its highest academic achievers and most diligent workers at an Academic and Work Habits Awards Assembly.

As a formal assembly was not possible, Semester 1 award recipients from Years 4-6 and Years 7-9 were recognised in a video presentation, able to be viewed by students and parents on D2L. Also celebrated in that video presentation were Colours recipients from Year 12.

You can find more information on the criteria for Academic Awards at A.B. Paterson College | Academic Awards (abpat.qld.edu.au).

Outstanding and Commendable Awards are presented when a student demonstrates diligent work habits. These habits include responsibility, organisation, focus, perseverance and self-regulation. Work habits enable students to set goals and work towards their personal best.

It is so wonderful to see such a large number of awards being presented and we congratulate every award recipient on their hard work and perseverance.

Year 1 Minibeasts!

This term, Year 1 students have been introduced to many small and fascinating creatures within the magical world of minibeasts!

In order to support their learning of minibeasts, the Year 1 students have engaged in exciting and informative scientific activities about the classification, features, habitat and diet of insects and have learnt how to design a habitat to meet the needs of a living thing. Students had the opportunity to display their knowledge of this within their wonderful and creative diorama designs of a minibeast’s habitat. Amanda Chen, 1F, explained, “My diorama has flowers so the ladybug can drink the nectar and pollen,” and Abraham Saif, 1F, shared, “My diorama has some leaves so the centipede has shelter and so it doesn’t get killed by birds.”

Year 1 received a visit from Bugs Education where they learnt many interesting facts about minibeasts. Within this experience, they were also educated on how to interact with different minibeasts and were taught that yellow, orange and red are warning colours that mean to stay away. Ms Megan, the Bugs Ed. Teacher, brought along her many unusual and intriguing stick insects, which all the children had the opportunity to gently hold. At the end, the Year 1 students were given their very own minibeast pets – a mealworm, to take home and care for.

Within Science, the Year 1 classes have participated in numerous enjoyable activities that have included gummy worms, insect labelling and a minibeast scavenger hunt. This enabled students to continue developing their knowledge of minibeasts, whilst also encouraging them to recognise that these small creatures are everyday creatures whose habitats can be almost anywhere. This allowed for a link to our HaSS unit about caring for environments, as it facilitated students’ understanding of the importance of caring for places within our community.

Such engaging learning experiences have helped the children with their factual sentence writing about minibeasts in English. In Year 1, we use our Jolly Grammar learning and VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers, Punctation) characters to help us uplevel our written work. The Year 1 students would like to share some examples of their factual sentences with you:

Spiders all have eight legs and some of them have dangerous venom so don’t touch them! Nicholas Liew, 1H

Stick insects live in very warm places except they don’t live in Antarctica because it does not have any food and it is too cold for them. Lauren Richardson, 1P

An ant has six skinny, short, flexible legs and it has sharp and powerful claws for gripping. Alfie Yan, 1L

Some spiders can be as big as a ruler and some spiders can be as tiny as your eye. Kayla Rutherford, 1H

A Fire Ant is a dark red, small and nasty insect and they are cold-blooded like a reptile. Calliope Kriketos, 1L

There are some species of stick insects that have bright colours under their skin to scare away predators. Laela Perry, 1P

Bees are classified as flying insects because they have six legs and three main body parts, a head, fuzzy thorax and striped abdomen. Amanda Chen, 1F

Spiders are very poisonous arachnids like scorpions but they have no small stinger or long tail instead they have two very sharp fangs on their small head. Abraham Saif, 1F

It has been fantastic to see the impact that this newly gained knowledge over the term has had on the students’ enthusiasm and interest for these small creatures. During online learning, Fynn Watkins, 1L, excitedly introduced his pet snail to his class and shared the snail habitat he created in a jar and Vanessa Ko, 1L, eagerly researched facts about a Hercules Beetle she discovered in her garden and presented it to her class for STAR Time. Sarah Jolly, 1F, also showed her enthusiasm for minibeasts through her thorough investigations in her garden that led her to discovering a collection of worms.

Year 1 have enjoyed exploring the marvellous world of minibeasts using curiosity and a love of learning and we look forward to future learning opportunities to gain insightful knowledge on the world around us.

Year 1 Team
Angie Hall, Steve Farmer, Natalie Pierron, Jade Lucy and Kim Kemp