From the Deputy Headmaster

It is incredible to think that we are already past the halfway point of Term 1.

With many students juggling significant commitments and working their way through their first main suite of assessments for the year, it is an appropriate time to discuss some practical areas that will help to enrich and improve our learning experiences.

A culture of reading

Despite the hectic nature of our lives, it can be enormously rewarding to build some casual reading into our daily habits, preferably physical books instead of screen-based texts. Looking at their different subject areas, students will no doubt find opportunities for further reading and investigation to expand their understanding and enjoyment of different topics. With the school holidays five weeks away, now is also a good time to start sharing ideas about books to read during the Easter break. ‘Churchie Reads’ on The Centenary Library eLearning page has valuable reading suggestions for students.

The myriad benefits of reading are well-documented. A 2018 paper, ‘Scholarly culture: How books in adolescence enhance adult literacy, numeracy and technology skills in 31 societies’ encapsulates some of these benefits very neatly (Sikora et al, 2018, Social Science Research 77, 1-15). Reading improves mental health and develops resilience, broadens our empathetic capacity and enhances our writing skills. It also lengthens our attention spans and stimulates our imaginations. Role modelling is considered especially important for young people, where shared interactions around our reading interests help to develop intellectual capacity and engagement, both at home and at school.

The Centenary Library

Particularly as we approach significant assessments, The Centenary Library is open from 7 am to 8 pm Monday to Thursday, and until 5:30 pm on Fridays.

Study Hub is now a hive of activity in the Senior School, where Old Boys, senior students and staff offer advice and guidance to students across the whole Year 7 to 12 ability spectrum with regards to homework, classwork, or as students prepare for upcoming exams or assignments. This is a complimentary service. Our Study Hub schedule can be found on myChurchie – Study Hub and Tutoring.

As we near examinations, please note that The Centenary Library is also open from 1 to 4 pm on Sunday 10 March and Sunday 17 March.

Academic integrity

Academic integrity is an important area that requires consistent messaging and advice. There are some predictable areas of difficulty in all schools, and we should always be very upfront and explicit about avoiding these dangers. Common academic integrity issues include but are not limited to:

self-plagiarism (students using their own work from a previous context)
collusion (more than one student works to produce a response and that response is submitted as individual work by one or multiple students; a student giving or receiving a response to an assessment)
copying content from AI platforms without proper referencing or students using AI tools to completely reword or rephrase their own ideas
plagiarism (copying work, including ideas, examples, theories or opinions, from another source without proper attribution, even when students are summarising or paraphrasing this content.

I thank families for having constructive discussions at home on this topic, helping to raise awareness and understanding of proper conduct in different contexts, and always holding expectations high.

Reasons for misjudgements in this area can include students struggling with time management, being overcommitted and feeling stretched, falling behind, or just feeling worried about receiving a poor result. As with any disciplinary matter, it is always important to separate any isolated issue from a student’s general nature or character, the latter of which should always remain sacrosanct.

Nonetheless, all boys are expected to be familiar with our expectations at all times. There is information in the Student Diary, School Handbook, the Academic Policies and Procedures document on myChurchie – Senior Academic, and also our online Library pages available via myChurchie.

Curriculum feedback

I wrote to Years 10 to 12 parents yesterday regarding an external QCE survey that is currently taking place. The QCAA is seeking to review the new QCE system now that it has been in existence for several years. For any parents who may have some insights and experiences to share with the QCAA, please click here for a link to the survey. We are very pleased for our community to contribute to this important process of continual improvement regarding our different curriculum areas.

Richard Wheeldon
Deputy Headmaster