2009 Newsletter No. 4

Welcome to another term – I hope you all had a restful and relaxing break. This year (and last term in particular) has been quite a busy one for all of us. First, congratulations to all of you on this year’s NAPLAN results. Numeracy was the only area of the testing in which WA improved it’s ranking against the other states in all year levels. While I realise that the rankings aren’t necessarily hugely meaningful when several of the states are closely positioned, it does show that we take student numeracy seriously and have effective strategies in place to address issues. While this didn’t actually make it into the media coverage when the results were released it is something of which we can all be justifiably proud.

During last term a great deal of activity occurred at the MAWA office, we have reorganised the office, relocated the library into the meeting room and hired several new people to join our office staff. First, I would like to welcome Gladys Bain who joins us as a very experienced financial admin officer and will be a great addition to the team. Gladys will be working for us two days a week. Our fantastic office staff are also joined by Rachael Anthony our new Office Junior who is also in the office two days a week. In addition to expanding our administration team, we have also appointed a part time Professional Officer, whose office is the room which was previously our library. Richard Korbosky is initially filling the role and we will advertise and appoint someone into the position during this term.

I also have some sad news, our wonderful Primary PD Convenor, Melissa Kuhlmann has had to resign from the committee due to her other commitments. She we will be greatly missed, but I am sure we will still see her around the traps. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Melissa for her hard work in the role, particularly in the lead up to and during the AAMT Conference this year.

Fortunately, we have been able to talk Di Rundus into stepping into the role and coopted her into the position shortly after Melissa’s resignation. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Di, who I am sure will do a fantastic job.

On top of all of the changes at the office, MAWA’s work continued as usual, with Have Sum Fun Online, MADay, Games Camp and our Maths Talent Quest Awards Night all taking place last term. All of these were very successful, as usual, and I would like to thank everyone involved, especially Jack Bana and his team of workers for organising MADay for our students, Jane Forte for her wonderful organisation of the Games Camp in Albany, all those involved in making all of our events happen, and all of you who supported your students to enter the Maths Talent Quest. Congratulations to all our entrants on their efforts – there were some truly outstanding examples of mathematical reasoning and extension. Despite everything else that is going on in Maths education at the moment, it is fantastic to see how many of you still place a priority on giving your students as many opportunities to enrich their learning as possible by involving them in the student activities that MAWA offers. We are also hosting the National Maths Talent Quest Awards this year and so I would like to wish good luck to all the students whose entries in our state competition have been nominated for the National Awards.

Lastly, through AAMT, MAWA has been involved in consulting on the first drafts of the National Curriculum for K–10 and senior school. Both documents are still at a very early stage and will be responding to the feedback received during the consultation. As such it would be premature to provide you with any detail at this stage, but rest assured we are monitoring the mathematics curricula closely and trying to ensure that change for our students and members will be minimal in its impact. Good teaching is still good teaching and changing curriculum documents does nothing to lessen the effect of a good teacher. It is to be hoped, however, that good curriculum documents will help to support less experienced teachers to find their feet quickly in a mathematics classroom and ensure the delivery of a rigorous learning pathway that will lead effectively to future destinations for all students. If you have any concerns about or comments to make regarding the materials that are publicly available on the ACARA website, please feel free to contact the MAWA office and pass that information on as I am sure we will have further opportunities to provide feedback.

And, for all our secondary members, don’t forget the Secondary Convention is coming up this term – I look forward to catching up with many of you there. Brad Krokosz is busily getting it all organised and it promises to be another highlight of our PD year. Have a wonderful Term 4!

Michelle

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2009 Newsletter No. 4 (178 kb)