Year 7 Fortnightly Newsletter Week 1

Dear Year 7 Parents,

Welcome to Rose Bay Secondary College! We are thrilled to have your child join our school community and become a part of our Rose Bay family. 

 At Rose Bay, we are dedicated to providing a supportive and engaging learning environment for all our students. Our passionate staff work tirelessly to ensure that each student has the opportunity to achieve their full potential. 

 We encourage all our students to take advantage of the numerous opportunities that Rose Bay has to offer. Whether it be through participating in one of our many extra-curricular activities, taking on a leadership role, or simply engaging in class and striving for academic excellence, we believe that every student has the ability to succeed. 

Our school motto, ‘Opportunity, Achievement, Community’ speaks to our commitment to providing our students with the resources and support they need to reach their goals, while also fostering a sense of belonging and connectedness. We believe that a strong community is key to a student's success, and we are proud of the close-knit, inclusive atmosphere that exists at Rose Bay. 

This term we will be trialling a new form of communication to parents. The Deputy Principal of each year group will send a brief fortnightly email communicating College events that are specific to the year group, as well as celebrating student achievements within the College and the community. Parents and caregivers are encouraged to inform us of their child’s achievements, and with your permission, we can share these in future emails. 

 The start of high school for Year 7 students can be daunting. There are several strategies and programs that the College utilises in order to ensure that students in Year 7 are engaged within the classroom, playground and wider school community. This week, Year 7 worked through an RBSC-specific booklet on their first day, designed to assist them in knowing all they need to know about the school and how to access support. All Year 7 students were taught how to access their devices at school and reminded of their DoE email address that they need to use for all school-related activity.  

We look forward to working with you to support your child in their journey at Rose Bay Secondary College. If you have any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. 

From the Year Advisers’ Desk

Highschool is finally here, and we are really excited to start the year with your child. This week has been a big one – full of new faces, friendships, teachers and learning to navigate a new school. This is a reminder that while beginning high school is a mixture of emotions: nerves, excitement and apprehension; this is all completely normal, as students begin to settle in to somewhere new.  

Overall, high school is a journey – a wonderful playground of new adventures and we encourage your child to involved in as many fantastic opportunities that Rose Bay has to offer. Remind your child that they can stay up to date through Sentral and the daily notices for any new clubs, sporting teams or co-curriculars and to get involved in anything that interests them! 
 
Congratulations to you and your child for navigating your first week at Rose Bay so successfully! We are excited for many more to come. 😊  

The word from the playground – quote of the week. 

This week, students were asked for three words to describe their first impression of RBSC.   

Johnny – Fun, friendly and big. 

Rose – Massive, hectic and big.  

Aidan – Big, diverse and caring. 

Matai – Community; “I sneeze in class and thirty people say ‘bless you’”. 

Lauren – Sunny, friendly, happy.  

Hugh – Fun, exciting, crazy.  

Debating and Public Speaking

I would encourage you and your child to consider enrolling in the Debating Program at RBSC.  

Rose Bay Secondary College has a strong debating program. We were thrilled to see our Stage 6 team reach the grand final of the Premier’s Debating Challenge last year and other teams enjoyed considerable success in competitions held throughout the year.  As per the information in the email sent to you by Mrs Godby and published in the eNews, please register interest on behalf of your child using this form and they will receive a permission note next week. Coaching will begin next Friday afternoon, February 10th, from 3:30pm-4:45pm at RBSC.  If you have any questions about the program please contact Christy Godby at christine.godby@det.nsw.edu.au . 

Building a culture of reading

The Literacy Team, Library and English Faculty are joining forces this year to focus on building a culture of reading in Year 7. We know there are many benefits of reading, and research has shown that reading for pleasure is a strong and powerful predictor of academic, social and emotional skills. The Reading Agency’s literature review, ‘The impact of reading for pleasure and empowerment’ (2015) found that reading for pleasure “increases empathy, enriches social relationships, reduces symptoms of depression and instils an overall sense of wellbeing”. You can read more about this research in this article in The Sydney Morning Herald.  

‘Reading for challenge, interest and enjoyment’ is a Stage 4 outcome in the new 7-10 English syllabus, due for implementation in 2024.  With this outcome in mind, we will support students to: 

• read texts selected to challenge thinking, develop interest and promote enjoyment, to prompt a personal response 
• read a variety of texts that present a range of perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 
• read texts of interest for sustained periods of time and respond to this reading in a variety of ways 
• use strategies to enhance interest and overcome challenges experienced when reading 
• communicate purposefully with peers in response to texts. 

Building a reading culture within our Year 7 cohort will be a tangible and visible expression of how all members of the school community value reading and engage with reading (Reading First, 2007). A positive reading culture provides support, encouragement, modelling, resources and opportunities to read for pleasure (Merga & Mason, 2019).  We are excited to introduce a new reading program, Renaissance Reading. A computerised reading management program with more than 27,000 books, Renaissance Reading is designed to strengthen the reading skills essential for learning in any subject and provides real time data for teachers and parents to measure student improvement.  

In building a reading culture, it is counterproductive to demonise screen culture. Because we primarily engage with multimodal texts in our work and leisure, we explicitly aim to support students to be bi-literate in print, screen and digital literacies. 

As a community of readers, we would like to hear from you, our parents and carers. If you are interested in going on our contact list for a booktalk*, please complete this form. If you are a writer, journalist, involved in digital media or film we would also be excited to have you on our contact list and hopefully share your expertise with students and teachers at some stage during your child’s journey at RBSC. 

* A book talk is a short (2 minute) speech designed to encourage someone to read a book, giving an idea of plot, characters, or themes of the book. Unlike a book report, it does not summarise the whole plot or give away the ending or major plot points. In other words, no spoilers! 

Key Term One dates for your calendar.

Tuesday 31st January – start of High School for Year 7.  

Friday 3rd February – School Photos for Year 7.  

Tuesday 7th February – P&C Meeting 7 pm in B Block Common Room.  

Friday 3rd March - School Swimming Carnival.  

Monday 13th March – Regional Swimming Carnival (select students only) 

Wednesday 15th March – Monday 27th March – NAPLAN testing period. 

Wednesday 29th March– Year 7 Sport Gala Day. 

Thursday 6th April – RBSC Cross Country. 

From,