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With over a 15 years of experience, helping businesses to grow.

Network Secondary College was published In 2016 and Since our College was build 2 years ago Our College starts to Improving eventhough we are pretty a new college to the communities until this very day we are still trying achieve our goals and our relationship between Primary School. Our Main Goal is to Improve our student needs for their own future and as we moving toward the future we started as a school think to focus on our future as we try to developed Our College even way more better to get more positive feedback from our college families member. We have reach our point this year that we all should help other whether they're at Academic or other thing Issues also we are kind to starts a survey starting from 2019  until Mids of 2020 or End of 2021 This survey is all about to have a better support during a difficult teenagers life This survey is open to our college families only and It's open to our student and our parents

Secondly, Our College has so much to discover as all of our student are learning lots of things from our staff from different subject department as they are learning from their subject we are so pleased hearing lots of positive feedback from all of our staff and teachers And Currently Our Chairman Is out helping external support agencies for Our Senior Student ( Year 10- 12), Our Lower School student are doing a extremely well. As we look forward to the future we are pleased to look on the new senior student uniform (Year 12 shirt) and we are excited to work with another member that soon will be working with us at the college board, This all be in the Future (2021-2025)

Lastly, Our Principal are very proud from reviewing all of our students performance same with Our Associate Principal (Olivia Cassidy) she is very pleased with the result, We are thinking to keep that good habit up in the future for the Future Student
About Us image

Riley Johnson

College Executive Chairman

Peter Smith

Network College Principal

Olivia Cassidy

Associate Principal, HR and Curriculum Performance

Benjamin Carter

Associate Principal, College Development

James Adler

Associate Principal, Special Education

Jeff Johnson

Associate Principal , Financial Governance

Frederic Adhitama

Associate Principal - College Event Organiser

Jake Smith

Associate Principal, Student Engagement and Support

John Stewart

Associate Principal, Children Protection

Emma Campbell

Manager Corporate Services

Michelle Godlet

Operation Manager

Alex Brett

Year 7 Coordinator

Maria Sassoon

Year 8 Coordinator

Tony Selbert

Year 9 Coordinator

Rachael Harbourne

Marketing Officer

Liam Nelson

Year 10 Coordinator

Nick Anderson

Year 11 Coordinator

Adam Lee

Year 12 Coordinator

Will Dawson

Executive Corporate Officer

Jake Davison

Manager of Commonwealth and Community

Matt Stevenson

Administration Manager

Alison Doyle

VET and Career Coordinator

Jeffrey Anderson

Workplace Learning Coordinator

Alex Stewart

College Officer

Nate Johnson

School Chaplain

07Sep

We noticed that our Instagram page we created has been taken over by another company named "AEW Aus "on Instagram.

We suggest to not anyone followed that account that this may be caused a fraud or scam from following that page on Instagram.

We are no longer owned that page anymore, Our access into that Instagram page has been denied or changed their log in details.

We apologise for this inconvenience and As we try our best to regain our access back to our school Instagram page. For now, the Instagram banner will be removed on our School website.

Until further notice, We will let you know for any updates.

The first day of school can help set the tone for the whole year and it’s totally normal to feel some nervous jitters. But there’s plenty you can do to keep from stressing out and make your first day a killer one. Spend some time preparing, and you’ll thank yourself for it later. If your new year involves some remote learning, or if it’s entirely virtual, it’s okay to feel a little anxious about it. But even if you’re learning from home, there’s plenty you can do to help your first day go more smoothly.


Preparing the Night Before

Lay out your clothes and school supplies. Pick out your outfit, or gather your school uniform and lay it out beside your bed so you can quickly get dressed and don’t have to scramble to find clothes. Spend some time choosing clothes that will make you feel confident and make sure they’re clean and ready to go. Pack your school supplies into your backpack so you can grab it and go.

  • If you have to wear a school uniform, use accessories to add your own style to your look. Jewelry like necklaces or bracelets can really brighten up your uniform. Just make sure it’s not against the rules.
  • Be sure to follow your school's dress code, even if you don't have uniforms. You don't want to get in trouble on your first day!

Figure out how you’re getting to school tomorrow. Decide if you’re going to be taking the school bus, if a friend or their parent is going to pick you up, or if your parents are going to drop you off so you can organize. Don’t wait until the last minute to organize your ride. 

  • If you live close enough, you may be able to walk or ride a bicycle to school.
  • Riding the bus allows you to talk to other students and make some friends.
  • You could also join a carpool so you can ride to school with your friends.


Clean your room so it’s organized when you get home. It’s always nice to come back home to a clean and organized room, so spend some time tidying up the night before so you can relax and de-stress after your first day. Clear off your desk, put your clothes away, and run a vacuum over your carpet so your room is organized and clean. You’ll also have an organized space to help you study during the school year. 

  • You might be surprised by how much clutter and junk you’ve accumulated during your summer break.
  • Spray some air freshener so it smells nice as well.
  • If you’re stressed or nervous, cleaning your room can help release some of your anxiety.


Set 2 alarms 10 minutes apart so you’re sure to wake up. Give yourself plenty of time to get up and get yourself ready for your first day by setting an alarm for about an hour before you need to get to school. Set 2 alarms on your clock or phone so you don’t sleep through or snooze the first one and wake up late. 

  • Choose alarms that are loud and will definitely wake you up.
  • Try placing your alarm across the room so you have to get up to turn it off, which can help keep you from falling back asleep.

Get at least 8 hours of sleep so you’re well-rested. Go to bed early enough to give yourself a full night’s rest so you wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day. Avoid distractions like smartphones, TV, or video games at least 30 minutes before you go to bed to help yourself fall asleep faster. 

Getting enough sleep is even more important if you're 16 or younger! Your body needs more time to rest while it's still growing.

  • If you’ve been staying up late all summer, try going to bed earlier during the week before school starts to reset your sleep schedule.
  • Read a book if you’re having trouble falling asleep. You’ll start to naturally feel tired.



20Jul

Three new cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Western Australia, with one still active.

Health Minister Roger Cook says two are historical cases related to cruise ships while the third is a 43-year-old Romanian technical engineer who flew in on an Emirates flight as part of a maritime crew swap-over.

Cook says the man is the 20th case identified from a July 1 flight from Dubai.


“It does give you some cause for concern about what happened on that particular flight,” he told reporters.

“What I’m comforted by is the strong quarantining arrangements we have for people coming in on international flights, so I’m not worried about the public health risk.”


‘Hard’ border

He said the importance of the state’s “hard” border was highlighted by a 45-year-old West Australian man who flew in from Victoria and was one of Friday’s two confirmed cases, combined with a Victorian fly-in fly-out worker who allegedly flaunted quarantine rules and flew directly to a Pilbara mine site earlier this month.

WA is now immediately testing the few workers granted an exemption to travel to the state from NSW and Victoria, as soon as they land.

And from 11.59pm on Sunday, the criteria for exemptions for people from NSW is being tightened to match those for Victoria.

Only certain senior government officials, certain active military personnel, a federal MP or their staff, people carrying out functions under commonwealth laws, anyone requested by the chief health officer and transport, freight and logistics workers will be allowed to enter WA.

Cook said the state government understood the measures were inconvenient and distressing for some West Australians who wanted to return home but could not.

“We understand these are tough decisions and we don’t take them lightly,” he said.

“It is judged on a case-by-case basis.

“We understand that these tight arrangements will capture people who would otherwise, you would think, have a reasonable case to enter the state.”


Strict regime

On the FIFO worker, who reportedly tested negative after not honestly answering his employer’s questionnaire, Cook said the resources industry was doing a great job running a strict regime.

“We’ll obviously have to remonstrate and make sure that we don’t have that situation again, particularly with this worker,” he said.

“But obviously the fact that he was caught and we were able to intercept him before he became a danger to any of his colleagues is a testament to the systems that we have in place.”

Reiterating it was inevitable WA would experience a second wave, Cook said he was comfortable with 30,000 spectators attending the AFL western derby on Sunday as there was room for distancing.

18Jul

The Department of Health has reported one new case of COVID-19 overnight, and two historical cases, bringing the State’s total to 651.

The new case is an overseas traveller in hotel quarantine.

The two historical cases were based on serology testing and linked to cruise ship travel. Each of these cases spent 14 days in quarantine and were cleared in April.

There are now 25 active COVID-19 cases in Western Australia – all in hotel quarantine.

To date, 617 people have recovered from the virus in WA.

Yesterday 640 people presented to WA COVID-19 clinics – 617 were assessed and 611 were swabbed.

Visit WA Health’s HealthyWA website for the latest information on COVID-19.

Note: Updated testing numbers will be made available on Monday.

After months of absence and his release it's time to give him a new opportunity to be the best wrestler ever. This coming Thursday he will return to confront his longtime rival Kevin Samadhi and this may be the last time to be here.

Tuned in to this coming Thursday and Don't miss the fun. 

Dear Students, Parents and Staff,

I am writing this letter to inform you about Term 3 Commencement this year during this Coronavirus pandemic crisis. We at school doing different and modified curriculum. Term 3 is going to be much different and that's including with our students with Special Needs. Students with Special Needs or in a Special Needs class at a Mainstream School can go ahead. We are following from what currently happening in Victoria where the Hotspots is at. I am not forcing my students to be the top students, I am just enforcing this rules of Term 3 will look like when we returns. Term 3 is a final term for our Year 12 Students they need to finish off their Exams and other courses they are currently attend. By the end of Term 3 they will finish their Secondary Schooling for 6 years. 


Secondly, All students are encourage to attend school have a Satisfactory Attendance records. I also want to discuss about earlier of Term 2 the behavior and attendance of the students has been excellent. Students needs support with their classwork we can also provide an Education Assistant from their parents approval. I understand that this COVID-19 crisis affect our students emotion to build up Anxiety and Anger. I suggest they seek support at school or see an Psychologist outside of school. 

Yesterday afternoon I made this reminder to let you know that there is going to be some changes when Term 3 is back on again. 

Lastly, since it's still the school holidays I would like to tell you all that the newer dates for Term 3 is going to be Tuesday, 22, July 2020. The reason I moved the dates 1 day earlier is because since we have Special Needs students at our school.


Thank you for your participation and hope this letter is helpful. 


Kind regards,

Peter Smith

College Principal

11Jul

The Department of Health has reported three new active cases of COVID-19 overnight, bringing the State’s total to 630.

The new cases are returned overseas travellers currently in hotel quarantine. Two are returning Western Australians and one is from interstate.

There are now 19 active COVID-19 cases in Western Australia – all in hotel quarantine.

To date, 602 people have recovered from the virus in WA.

Yesterday 488 people presented to WA COVID-19 clinics – 462 were assessed and 459 were swabbed.

To date there have been 204,929 COVID-19 tests performed in WA. Of those tested, 35,599 were from regional WA.

Visit WA Health’s HealthyWA for the latest information on COVID-19. 

11Jul

Fremantle faces a ticketing juggling act after it was announced the crowd for next week’s clash with West Coast at Optus Stadium will be restricted to 30,000.

The western derby was set to become a 60,000-seat sellout after the West Australian state government announced it would further ease coronavirus restrictions on July 18 - the day before the game.

But those plans have since been scrapped due to the worsening situation in Victoria.

It means WA will remain in phase four of restrictions - allowing only half the stadium to be full.

It’s believed about 40,000 tickets had already been sold before ticket sales were put on hold earlier this week.

It means about 10,000 people who already bought tickets will no longer be able to attend, given the capacity will now be capped at 30,000.

Fremantle, who are the home team, are yet to announce how they plan to allocate tickets for the match.

“As I said when we first announced phase five, we would only introduce it under the watchful eye of our health experts,” WA Premier Mark McGowan said.

“Today we were provided with the latest health advice and that health advice is clear.

“Given the number of people in hotel quarantine and the situation in Victoria worsening, there is an increased risk of the virus spreading (here in WA).

“I realise it won’t be popular with some people and I understand in particular with the Eagles/Dockers game there will be some problems.

“It will have to be managed by the football clubs and we will work with them to manage it as best as they can.

“This is a small price to pay to put in place precautions to protect our citizens.”

The McGowan government has announced strict new regulations preventing arrivals into the state from Victoria.

From midnight Thursday, no-one will be allowed into WA if they have been in Victoria in the past 14 days.

Exemptions will be reduced significantly, meaning only transport, freight, logistics and other essential services approved by the Chief Health Officer will be allowed to enter WA.


WA Police will perform border checks under the state of emergency declaration.

“People arriving from Victoria or who have travelled from Victoria … are under a much stricter regime even though 98 per cent of all arrivals (from the east) into WA have already stopped,” WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said on Thursday.

“Persons who have been allowed into WA including from Victoria have been very tight for quite some months, from midnight tonight it will be much tighter.”

All arrivals into WA from Victoria will have to undergo mandatory COVID-19 testing and could face fines of up to $5000 if they refuse.

“Everyone permitted to enter will be served with notice if they have been in Victoria within the last 14 days and will need to take a COVID test on day 11 while in WA or when symptoms develop,” Health Minister Roger Cook Cook said.

“Police will continue to perform checks on people in self-quarantine.”


Anyone arriving in WA from Victoria without a valid exemption will be turned away.

WA is also extending its state of emergency for another 14 days, until July 23.

Dawson said the date was likely to be extended further, given the situation in other parts of the country.

“We are not immune from this virus,” he said.

“It’s for the public safety of everyone.”


Three new cases

WA has recorded three new cases of COVID-19 overnight, Cook confirmed on Thursday.

All three are returning overseas travellers, two from Dubai and one from Sudan.

“We feel deeply for everyone in Victoria and what they are going through,” Cook said.

He said the spike in Victorian infections showed how “dangerous and unpredictable” the virus was.

“WA has been lucky to get back to living in a COVID-safe way,” he said.


Overseas travellers

There has been a gradual increase in returning overseas travellers as people see WA as a “desirable safe haven” from the virus, Cook said.

There are currently 1,507 people in hotel quarantine, but that number was expected to rise to 2,000 by the weekend.

Cook said a new advertising campaign would be launched to remind people of the measures they should undertake to prevent the spread of the virus.

“Now is not the time for complacency,” he said.

10Jul

The Department of Health has reported three new active cases of COVID-19 overnight, bringing the State’s total to 627.

The new cases are returned overseas travellers currently in hotel quarantine. Two are returning Western Australians and one is from interstate.

There are now 16 active COVID-19 cases in Western Australia, all in hotel quarantine.

To date, 602 people have recovered from the virus in WA.

Yesterday 586 people presented to WA COVID-19 clinics – 569 were assessed and 567 were swabbed.

To date there have been 203,091 COVID-19 tests performed in WA. Of those tested, 35,281 were from regional WA.

Visit WA Health’s HealthyWA for the latest information on COVID-19.

11Apr

Now that you have an interview, there are certain things you will want to do in advance to prepare for it. This article will provide practical tips on how to prepare for a job interview. Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, so you’ll want to do you best on preparing for your interview in advance.

Pick out what you are going to wear on your job interview.

What you wear on your interview is an absolutely crucial part of how to prepare for a job interview. After you choose your outfit, make sure it is cleaned and pressed and you have the appropriate accessories and shoes to go with it. It doesn’t hurt to try the outfit on ahead of time, just to make sure everything fits and you look great. Then put your outfit aside for day of your interview and have it ready to go. Now that you have this crucial step out of the way, you can concentrate on the rest.

Practice greeting your interviewer.

 
You should always greet your interview with friendly smile and firm handshake. If you do this right, you will set off the right energy and the chances of the interview going well will increase. This is a small and simple step that you should always to do to prepare for your interview.
 

Study your resume and know everything on it.

 
Any work experience or skills you have listed on your resume are fair game to talk about during the interview. Your resume is all the interviewer has to go by in order to get to know you. They may pick things out from it and ask you to elaborate. Even though you may have a previous job listed that was many years ago, the interviewer may ask you to explain what you did at that job and your are responsible for providing an answer. This is one step you absolutely won’t want to skip on how to prepare for a job interview.
 

Practice your answers to the most common interview questions.

 
If you don’t know what these are, do your research and find out or see one of my other articles. You’ll want to have your answers ready and practice them. You should always be able to answer “Tell me about yourself” and “Why do you think you would be great for this job?” The employer doesn’t know, so it’s up to you to sell it.

Don’t completely memorize your answers so they come out rehearsed, but have a clear idea of what you are going to say. When you are asked, you want your answer to come out intelligently and natural. Be open to other questions as well and really know what you can offer to the company.
 

Research the company and the job position you are applying for.

 
Write down any questions you may have about either so you can ask during the interview. If there any requirement of the job that you are unsure of, you should definitely ask during the interview. It always looks nice when you go into an interview with intelligent questions. It shows you put effort in preparing for the interview. However, never ask questions just to ask questions. The interviewer will see right through that. Your questions should be genuine and relevant.

  

Find out the type of interview you will be going on.

 
There are several common types of interviews such as one on one, group, and behavioral. You shouldn’t assume you will get a certain one. Don’t be afraid to ask your recruiter what kind of interview will have if you don’t know. The interview will be more beneficial to both parties if you are prepared.

  

Print out the directions to the interview and be on time.

 
Allow enough time to get there and anticipate traffic. It’s ok to be up to 10 minutes early, but no more than that. Otherwise, the interviewer may not be ready for you. Bring the phone number of your interviewer just in case you get lost or are going to be late. If you are going to be late, call to let the interviewer know.

Follow these tips and you will successfully know how to prepare for a job interview. Interviewers can tell whether or not a candidate has prepared for it or not and they will appreciate it if you did.

10Apr

The most recent Key Work Health and Safety Statistics done by Safe Work Australia showed that Australia is falling behind a number of countries in terms of work place fatality rates. 

This got us thinking! Might it be of the different industry structures across these countries? How many coal mines do other countries actually have as compared to Australia? Could it be something ‘cultural’?

 Whichever was the case, Australia has set itself targets to work towards a low number of fatality rate in the workplace. Whether you’re from a construction, mining, oil & gas, energy, utilities, transport, emergency services or other industry, it is everyone’s responsibility within the workplace to create and contribute to a psychologically safe working environment.

Untitled2

7 key tips to creating a psychologically safe & mentally healthy workplace

  • Pay attention. Keep an eye on your team members’ workload and signs of stress. Do they seem overburdened? Are you noticing a shift in their personality? Take some time to sit down with them, and try to adjust their workload if they seem unfairly burdened.
  • Be flexible. Work commitments and home life challenges can collide to create the perfect storm for employees. However, flexible hours, telecommuting policies and compressed work weeks can be effective ways to boost employee job satisfaction and productivity while reducing stress.
  • Empower and challenge. Give employees the appropriate authority to do their job and make decisions that are logically within their scope.
  • Recognise. Acknowledge a job well done whenever possible. When employees feel acknowledged and appreciated, it can make a big difference to their state of mind at work.
  • Be fair. Exercise fairness in all aspects of leadership.
  • Promote respect in the workplace. Every employee deserves the right to be respected in the workplace and should feel respected on the job.
  • Be supportive. Has an employee come to you with issues they’re experiencing on the job? Or are you aware of an employee who is experiencing a mental health concern? If so, be responsive and supportive.

HOW A CSR PILOT PROGRAM BECOME A KEY BUSINESS

How A CSR Pilot Program Became A Key Business Imperative At Tyson Foods

As the largest protein company in the U.S., Tyson Foods employs more than 122,000 people. Most of them are front-line workers in our plants and many are immigrants or new Americans. In fact, at some of our plant locations, up to 40 or 50 different countries may be represented under one roof.

Language and cultural barriers, along with varying levels of education and limited access to social resources, have created challenges at home and at work for some of our team members. Things many of us take for granted—like opening a bank account or filling out a form—can be daunting obstacles.

Launching a Workplace Education Pilot

To address some of these challenges, in 2016 Tyson partnered with adult education providers and nonprofits to launch a workplace education pilot in two plants near our corporate headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. This pilot offered our team members free access to classes in English, high school equivalency, U.S. citizenship, and training on other life skills. To increase accessibility, we offered the classes in our plants immediately before and after shifts, which minimized conflicts around transportation and childcare and provided a trusted, familiar atmosphere in which to learn.

Initially expecting a small percentage of workers to enroll, we were surprised when nearly half the workforce signed up for the program at one of the pilot locations.


Those who enrolled reported the classes allowed them to more fully participate at work, home and in the community. English classes enabled them to help their kids with homework and to better communicate with co-workers and supervisors. One student, who had relocated to the U.S. 20 years before but had never learned English, told us she was able to make a doctor’s appointment by herself for the very first time.

Measuring the ROI

After expanding the pilot and seeing similar degrees of success, we formalized it into a workplace education program called Upward Academy. Our mission is to reduce the impact of social challenges for frontline team members and their families.

We had a feeling that, in addition to marked social improvements, the program might also have other positive impacts on the business. And, as with any business initiative, we needed to prove the return on investment. So, we partnered with the University of Arkansas to conduct ongoing studies to measure Upward Academy’s social and business impacts.

The University performed a Workforce Education Data Analysis. Over a six-month period, they studied a sample of 517 team members enrolled across 16 Arkansas locations, compared to a general pool of similar team members at the same locations.

The results were overwhelmingly positive. From a soft-skills perspective, students reported they felt more independent and better equipped to carry out responsibilities at home and work. They reported increased confidence at work, higher job satisfaction, and increased connection and inclusion in the workplace.

And thanks to our participation in FSG's Talent Rewire Innovation Laband support of the ROI Institute, we were able to calculate the business ROI measuring employee retention. While we were expecting the ROI to be positive, we were pleasantly surprised when it came back at 123 percent. For every dollar invested in our team members, we see a $1.23 return to the company in saved expenses.

Expanding the Program Across Our Footprint

Although our sample study population was comparatively small, we’re encouraged by the results. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made since we launched that first pilot in 2016. Tyson is now offering Upward Academy in 35 locations across five states, and we continue to launch in a new plant every couple of weeks. Around 2,000 team members are currently enrolled in classes, and our adult education partners have logged over 130,000 instructional hours. Tyson’s executive leadership team has made a public commitment to make Upward Academy available to all U.S. team members within the next few years.

We encourage other companies to test similar workplace programs in their businesses. Regardless of the end goal, whether it be improving the quality of life for employees or increasing the bottom line for the business, the benefits are worth the investment.

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NOT JUST GO BACK TO SCHOOL - TEACHERS NEED HELP WITH GETTING THE SUPPLIES

Not Just For Back-To-School: Teachers Need Help Getting Supplies All Year Long

School has started again and students across the nation have brought in supplies. But it won’t be enough. It’s never enough. Parents could buy everything on a teacher’s wish list and it wouldn’t last a year. And those lists don’t always have everything a teacher needs, either. At some point in the year, the underpaid teacher will inevitably have to replace the supplies themselves.

According to the fifth Annual Teacher Shopping Survey from Agile Education Marketing and SheerID, in 2018 teachers spent an average of $652 of their own money on classroom supplies. This was up 39% from 2017 and was the highest amount since the survey started in 2013. The amount that individual teachers spend is, of course, a range, but at the highest end of this range, one teacher surveyed spent $7000 over the course of the year.

This is going to keep happening if school districts don’t provide the materials teachers really need. Some districts may provide textbooks and instructional materials, but those materials don’t always fit the needs of teachers’ diverse students. If a teacher wants to do a new instructional unit, take a field trip, or provide students with art instruction, they often have to fund the materials themselves.

Since adequately-funded public education sadly seems like a far-off dream, know that there are other ways to help. Certainly having parents continue to buy supplies for their children’s teachers is one way. But there are other ways for people to get supplies for teachers both inside and outside of their local communities.

Donors Choose, started in 2000 by a public high school teacher, gives everyone the opportunity to fund public school teachers’ projects. Thousands of teachers have posted projects on the site. Donors can choose from a variety of projects, from technology to musical instruments to basic school supplies, and ]also donate any amount they want.

AdoptAClassroom.org is another way to help teachers buy supplies. Instead of coming up with specific projects, this site has teacher register for donations. Donors can find specific teachers, give to teachers in their community, or contribute to a larger fund. When teachers receive the money, they have the freedom to decide which classroom supplies to purchase.

Yoobi founder Leffler gives students school supplies

Taking a different approach, Yoobi is a school supply company that is built on a “buy one, give one” model. For every Yoobi item purchased, they give a Yoobi item to a classroom in need. Yoobi was started in 2014 by Ido Leffler, the son of a school teacher, with a mission to give back to teachers. They have now donated free school supplies to over 3.5 million students across the country.

“There’s nothing more important than investing in the development of our students, and teachers shouldn’t have to bear undue responsibility when budget shortfalls or other factors get in the way of providing basic learning tools,” Leffler says.

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THE ROLE OF A STUDENTS AND TEACHERS RELATIONSHIP

The Role of the Student-Teacher Relationship in the Formation of Physicians

Abstract

Relationship-Centered Care acknowledges the central importance of relationships in medical care. In a similar fashion, relationships hold a central position in medical education, and are critical for achieving favorable learning outcomes. However, there is little empirical work in the medical literature that explores the development and meaning of relationships in medical education. In this essay, we explore the growing body of work on the culture of medical school, often termed the “hidden curriculum.” We suggest that relationships are a critical mediating factor in the hidden curriculum. We explore evidence from the educational literature with respect to the student-teacher relationship, and the relevance that these studies hold for medical education. We conclude with suggestions for future research on student-teacher relationships in medical education settings.

Keywords: education, medical, culture, professional role, students, medical, relationship-centered care

A growing body of research and long tradition of clinical practice demonstrate that relationships in medical care play a critical role in the healing process.19 The term “Relationship-Centered Care” acknowledges the importance of these relationships, and expands the sphere of relevant relationships beyond the practitioner-patient relationship to include those that occur among practitioners, other health care personnel, families, communities, and others.10 In Relationship-Centered Care, all participants ideally appreciate the importance and uniqueness of their relationship to one another. As defined by Beach and Inui,11 Relationship-Centered Care is founded upon several core principles: (a) relationships in health care ought to include the personhood of the participants, (b) affect and emotion are important components of relationships, and (c) all health care relationships occur in the context of reciprocal influence.

Despite the recent interest in Relationship-Centered Care, medicine in our society has suffered from an erosion of public trust.12 An increasing number of voices have decried the “dehumanization” of medical practice in the U.S. health care system.1315 In the past 2 decades, medical schools have responded by developing formal education programs that address aspects of Relationship-Centered Care.16 Courses at schools around the country now focus on a variety of content areas that include communications skills, ethics, arts and literature, and the history of medicine. In addition to such courses, many schools have also begun to incorporate formal rituals, such as the administration of the Hippocratic Oath or the “White Coat Ceremony,” into their slate of student activities.17,18 With the presence of such course content and ritual, one might assume that the formal training of students would lead to graduates that are compassionate, humanistic, and that develop high-quality relationships with patients, the health care team, and the community. However, available research suggests that this is not the case. A number of studies document an erosion of skills and attitudes during the medical school years.1923 This “disconnect” between formal curricula and activities and graduates' demonstrated attitudes and skills has been reported to be the effect of another, “hidden” curriculum that exists in medical schools.24 In this essay, we will discuss research and observations to date about the hidden curriculum and the culture of medical education. We will then apply Relationship-Centered Care principles to the student-teacher relationship. We conclude by making suggestions for future research on the hidden curriculum and the significance of relationships in the formation of doctors.

Culture of Medicine: Content

From a narrative point of view, culture has been described as a group of individuals all enacting a shared story.25 The story itself can have many, even contradictory, layers, and is based on a set of premises that are taken for granted by all who tell and enact it.26 For example, North American culture defines specific parameters of conversational engagement that are based on the premise of the inviolability of personal space. When someone enters into a conversation and stands too close to his or her partner, the partner will often automatically and unconsciously back away until a comfortable distance exists between the conversants. In this way, the premise of inviolability of personal space has been maintained and enacted, even though no conscious thought was given to it by either conversant.27 In similar fashion, much of allopathic medical care is informed and directed by a set of premises that go undetected in professional oaths, mission statements, course syllabi and other artifacts of the explicit medical curriculum. This set of implicit premises has been called a number of names in the medical literature, including the “informal curriculum,” the “meta-curriculum,” and the “hidden curriculum.”24,28,29

The culture of medicine has a profound influence on the behaviors of practicing physicians, because it shapes basic assumptions about what are “acceptable” and what are “unacceptable” medical practices.24 In the table, we present some content examples, in the form of assumptions, from the culture of medicine. The particular assumptions and their wordings were generated by medical school faculty members during a recent seminar by one of the authors (P.H.); these assumptions and others have been described in the body of sociological and anthropological work on the hidden curriculum.24,3035Table 1also presents some of the cultural premises that underlie these assumptions. Understanding these premises is important, because they are the foundation of the story that is being enacted by faculty, residents, administration, hospital personnel, and students in medical schools across the country. While the assumptions such as those in Table 1 are often apparent to the individuals in a medical school, the premises often are not as easily recognized.36 Rather, they exist as a kind of “white noise” in the background, shaping behavior without being noticed. It is the premises that lead individuals to adopt the assumptions, because the premises frame the assumptions as “nothing to worry about; this is just how things are in the real world,” and suggest that it is folly to question or contradict the assumptions.25 Understanding and changing the premises, then, becomes a key task for those attempting to change medical school culture, because modification of premises represents a modification of the fundamental story being enacted by the individuals in the medical school. Recent work to reform the culture at several schools represents an attempt to understand and explicitly define the premises of the story being enacted.16,37

Culture of Medical Education: Process

Many of the hidden curriculum's premises about patient care are also translated to the processes of teaching and learning in medical school. Thus, in a medical school environment, one often encounters a demand for “right” answers (avoidance of uncertainty); intimidation, public shaming, and humiliation (doctors must be perfect); the treatment of students as objects to be “filled up” with knowledge and facts (outcome is more important than process); unhealthy competition (medicine takes priority over everything else), and deference to experts, regardless of their teaching abilities (hierarchy is necessary).34,38,39Consider the following scenario described by a former medical student:

Pimping is teaching by intimidation. I had my first personal introduction to it my very first day of my very first rotation during my third year as a medical student … We all solemnly entered the conference room and sat down around the table. In came the chief of the medicine service. He put a CAT scan of the head up on the viewing box and turned on the light. The only CAT scan I'd ever seen before was on “Ben Casey” on TV! It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. His first words were, “Give me a differential diagnosis for what you see.” He looked around the table, then his eyes zeroed in on me: “You, give me a differential diagnosis.” My mouth went dry. What was I supposed to be able to say? I'd never before even seen one of those things up close. I said, “Brain tumor.” He snapped back, “No shit!” Then he persisted: “That's not a differential. Give me a list of all the possible diagnoses you should think of when you see a CAT scan of the head that looks like this.” I sat there dazed. How was I supposed to be able to do this on the first day? I didn't even know where the bathroom was on the medicine service, let alone know what pathologies of the head could present like that picture. I finally said, “I don't know.” I knew he thought he won a victory because the goal of pimping is to keep somebody under the gun long enough that they break under the strain, to find a vulnerable spot where they're deficient, and to make a show of it to everyone at the conference.29

In a study of intimidation in medical education, Mary Seabrook40 observed both emotional and learning effects among students who had been in similar scenarios. As we discuss below, emotions play an important role in students' retention of knowledge, conceptualization of phenomena, and future behaviors. In her study, Seabrook noted that the embarrassment, shame, and self-blame that students felt in response to being intimidated by their teachers led to their hiding what they did not know and fostered an environment where students were afraid to ask questions and clarify issues that they did not understand. Seabrook's findings are echoed by a long line of research that suggests historical depth and continuity in the culture of American medical education.2835,38,39,4146

Traditionally, medical education practices often place teachers and students into adversarial relationships.47The sum total of numerous relationships in which the student does not have a voice, is positioned as unimportant in the care of the patient, and is at best emotionally disconnected and at worst emotionally attacked by the teacher fosters the adoption of a professional stance that is emotionally distant from patients and from anyone who is beneath the student in the hierarchy of medical education. As Hafferty48has shown, this distancing, in the name of “professionalism,” occurs already in the preclinical years as well as in the later clinical years. Often, the result is a fragile student physician who has the seemingly impossible task of relating compassionately to fellow human beings called patients. The relational processes of the hidden curriculum assure the perpetuation of its content.

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Importance of Relationships in Adult Education

Educators around the country have begun to engage in activities to modify the hidden curriculum by changing institutional culture with respect to medical practice.16,37,49 The core principles of Relationship-Centered Care suggest that such efforts will only succeed in as much as they foster improvement in relationships between teachers and students. Empirical and theoretical work on adult education underscores the importance of these core principles. Below, we discuss each of the core principles as they relate to the student-teacher relationship.

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Relationships Ought to Include the Personhood of the Participants

A commonly held assumption is that a central task of teaching is to deliver (or, as in a computer, to download) content to students, who then store that content in their minds for future retrieval and use.50 The personhood of the teacher and student in such a paradigm is lost, because the major focus of the educational activity becomes content delivery rather than creating an interpersonal context that fosters learning. A number of theorists have challenged the “downloading” assumption, arguing that learning is constructed, rather than merely delivered.50,51 In this alternate paradigm, students who are exposed to content and ideas delivered by the teacher will construct meaning from those ideas, connecting them to previous experience and knowledge, evaluating them, and making judgments about them.52 In such a paradigm, relationships become important, because they provide the context that shapes the construction of meaning, and thus, the construction of learning. Richard Tiberius describes the importance of relationship in this process:

The relationship between teachers and learners can be viewed as a set of filters, interpretive screens, or expectations that determine the effectiveness of interaction between teacher and student … within [effective] relationships, learners are willing to disclose their lack of understanding rather than hide it from their teachers; learners are more attentive, ask more questions, are more actively engaged … learning is contextual, and one of the most important contexts for human beings is other people who said it and what is the relationship of the learner to the teacher.53

A number of theorists and researchers in the education literature have observed that high-quality student-teacher relationships are associated with students' intrinsic motivation to learn.5458 Such relationships have important effects both on learning and on students' sense of social identification.59,60 This “identity forming” aspect of the student-teacher relationship can have powerful effects on students' professional choices and behaviors, and can be harnessed by the teacher who attends to the personhood of themselves and the student.15,61,62

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Affect and Emotion Are Important Components of Relationships

Research on learning and neurobiology suggests that the human brain's centers that process emotions are intimately connected with those that process and store incoming information.63 In other words, lessons learned in the context of strong emotions are altered by those emotions. Negative emotions such as anger or anxiety may interfere with the process of learning, because they alter the student's ability to efficiently process information.64 Similarly, positive emotions may lessen anxiety and lead the student to take more risks and pursue positive learning behaviors such as asking questions, challenging assumptions, and testing hypotheses.65 As emotional bonding is a fundamental aspect of human relationships,66 the emotional landscape of the student-teacher relationship provides a critically important context for the messages that the teacher is implicitly or explicitly communicating.

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Relationships Occur in the Context of Reciprocal Influence

A number of authors have suggested that ideal student-teacher relationships are characterized by qualities such as flexibility, collaboration, mutuality, emotional investment, interdependence, and support for one's own identity.54,6769 A central thread to these ideals is the concept of reciprocal influence, meaning that the learning interaction can lead to growth for both learner and teacher. In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer70 describes an ideal educational setting as the “community of truth,” asserting that such settings challenge the traditional roles of teacher as “expert” and student as “tabula rasa.” Rather, in the community of truth, all members present take on the role of “knower” as they gather around the subject of learning and interact with it and each other. The community of truth embodies reciprocal influence by acknowledging that students bring their own experiences to the learning interaction, and, in the process of engaging directly with the subject, the teacher, and each other, they may generate new insights not only among themselves, but in the teacher as well.

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Future Directions for Research in Relationship-centered Medical Education

The literature on hidden curricula is increasingly illuminating the premises and processes of the culture of medical education.71 The literature on relationships in medical and adult education similarly illuminates the effects of relationships on learning of explicit curricular content.50,54 We conclude this essay with a call for research that integrates the lessons learned from these 2 lines of inquiry. By investigating the processes of the culture of medical education through the “lens” of student-teacher relationships, medical educators may be able to harness the power of relationships to modify students' adoption of the prevailing premises of the medical culture. In other words, educators need data that fosters an understanding of the relational processes that will help students to gain control over the story that they are enacting. We offer several initial questions for research along these lines: to what extent do positive or negative student teacher relationships mediate students' adoption of the implicit premises of the medical culture? What common themes characterize students' networks of relationships during medical school, and how do these themes impact the professional choices and behaviors of those students? To what extent do the relational behaviors of influential role models shape the relational behaviors of students with current or future patients? What characterizes the inner, unconscious elaborations of students' interactions with their teachers? How are current teacher-student relationships modified by students' internalized relationships with parents or other early emotionally crucial persons? What fundamental differences exist in relationships during the preclinical years as compared with the clinical years, and how do such differences affect the educational approaches used by teachers in these settings?

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Conclusion

Most medical students, at some time in their training, will be told about the parallel meanings of the words “teacher” and “physician.” Most medical students will also be told that “patient education” is a core function of the medical interview. In a sense, we teachers are participating in the formation of not only diagnosticians or problem-solvers, but educators as well. The relationships we form with our students will be key sources of experience that those students will draw upon when they find themselves in the role of teacher with their patients.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge members of the Baylor College of Medicine Academy of Distinguished Educators for their participation in the brainstorming session that provided the examples of assumptions/messages of the hidden curriculum.

This work was supported by the Relationship-Centered Care Research Initiative, an initiative of the Fetzer Institute, Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dr. Haidet was supported by a career development award from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The opinions expressed herein reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine, or the University of Oklahoma.

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SUPPORTING STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

Supporting Students with Disabilities

Welcome to the Supporting Students with Disabilities course and resource site. This site has been designed as a resource for postsecondary education faculty and Accessibility Centre/Disability Services Office support staff, tutors, and mentors, particularly in New Brunswick, Canada, but is offered free of charge to anyone, anywhere who has an interest in the subject area.

The site has been developed by the Anglophone postsecondary institutions of New Brunswick, Canada, indicated in the title bar above. It is an English version of a similar online course developed in French by the Université de Moncton.

You can consider this a course made up of 11 modules including an introduction, up-to-date content, case studies, videos of students and instructors talking about their accommodation experiences, and reference material.


Modules

Introduction

The intent of this website is to provide helpful information for instructors in understanding how a wide range of disabilities impact students' learning and assessment environments. The goal of this website is to better equip instructors to support students with disabilities and to identify the institution support entities that provide accommodation assistance to both students and instructors.

This course should provide answers to such questions as:

  • What kinds of disabilities may require accommodation? Why?
  • What are typical accommodations for disabilities?
  • What is the process for setting up accommodation for a student?
  • How will accommodating students impact my work as an instructor?

The information contained in this course has been vetted and verified for accuracy. Some students may have coexisting disabilities. Many disabilities are invisible, and not all students with disabilities will ask for support or accommodation. Accommodation for many types of disabilities takes much less instructor time and effort than is often thought.

Click About This Course for additional background information on the course features and creators.

Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning/Universal Instructional Design (UDL/UID)1 aims to provide an ideal learning environment for all students. UDL/UID is a curriculum design and delivery model focused on providing accessible and inclusive education; however, it is not meant to address only the needs of students with disabilities.

The theory of UDL/UID is based on the premise that each student is a unique learner with a different set of needs, preferences, interests, motivations, prior knowledge, strengths, and limitations. It also assumes that each of these traits has a significant impact on how an individual responds to the learning environment. According to UDL/UID, by considering the variability of diverse learners at the level of curriculum design, it is possible to deliver flexible and responsive learning experiences that simultaneously minimizes barriers and enhances opportunities amongst all learners.

In order to accomplish this goal, UDL/UID relies on a set of core principles that place value on providing options for how information is presented, how students can express what they know (e.g. assessment), and how interest and motivation may be fostered. In addition to these principles, UDL/UID prescribes a welcoming, interactive, and open learning environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged to participate.

In recent years, UDL/UID has been incorporated to varying degrees by many large postsecondary institutions within Canada.

For more information about UDL/UID, please visit www.cast.org or http://accessproject.colostate.edu/udl/.

What is Assistive Technology?

Assistive technology includes hardware or software that assists a person with a disability in using the computer to access print and other electronic material.

Types of assistive technologies include:

  • Screen reader software, which provides an oral translation of the information on the screen
  • Voice recognition software that allows people to navigate with their voice
  • Input devices such as large keyboards, mouse pedals, and ergonomic furniture

Kurzweil 3000

Kurzweil is a comprehensive reading, writing, and learning software product designed for any struggling reader, including individuals with learning difficulties, such as dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or those who are English Language Learners. It is available on both Mac and Windows platforms.

It is designed to do the following:

Provide access to any curriculum: The software can access virtually any information, whether it is printed, electronic, or on the Web.

Increase reading fluency: It provides the tools students need to improve their reading speed and comprehension.

Help develop study skills: With the aid of visual and auditory feedback, the software helps students keep up with assigned readings, learn critical study skills, and successfully complete writing projects and tests.

Provide decoding support: It reads the words aloud to the student in clear, human-like, synthetic speech, while a dual highlighting feature adds visual reinforcement.

Inspiration Mind Mapping Software

Inspiration is a visual thinking and learning tool those with a learning disability rely on in order to plan, research and complete projects successfully. With integrated Diagram and Outline Views, learners create graphic organizers and expand topics into writing. It is available on both Mac and Windows platforms.

Inspiration is designed to do the following:

Visualize Ideas, Concepts and Relationships: In Diagram View, you can create graphic organizers including concept maps, webs, and idea maps to analyze, compare, and evaluate information. With symbols, links, and a text and multimedia file, Inspiration makes it easy to express ideas, discover relationships, and develop new thoughts and perspectives.

Improve Writing Proficiency: With a mouse click, you can transform your diagram into a hierarchical outline to further organize and develop your thoughts into written reports. Powerful outlining capabilities help refine the writing structure and expand on ideas and notes. Additional tools support more polished written project and streamlined revisions.

Plan, Organize and Complete Projects: You can use Inspiration to successfully plan and organize projects, assignments, and more. Available tools and options support a variety of learning styles and help complete projects, develop thinking skills, and demonstrate knowledge, making Inspiration the essential tool to visualize, think, organize, and learn.

Dictation Software

Speech recognition (also known as automatic speech recognition or computer speech recognition): Converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker, as is the case for most desktop recognition software. Recognizing the speaker can simplify the task of translating speech.

Speed and accuracy: With speech recognition software you can turn your voice into text three times faster than most people type. Just start talking, and the software will recognize your voice instantly, with up to 99% accuracy. It takes only minutes of training to get started, and accuracy will continually improve the more you use the software.

Accessibility: Using speech recognition takes away the mechanical aspects of typing. As speech recognition has improved over the years, more and more people with articulation and pronunciation difficulties can use the software to complete daily tasks.

Other Assistive Technology

In addition to Kurzweil 3000, Inspiration, and dictation software, other very useful assistive software also includes:

  • JAWS (Windows screen reader)
  • ZoomText (Windows screen magnifier)
  • Kurzweil 1000 (Windows text-to-speech for the visually impaired)
  • PCs and Macs with large screen monitors
  • Scanners for capturing text, USB headphones for listening, portable and stationary electronic video magnifiers (CCTV)

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TSUNAMI OF UP TO THREE METRES HITS INDONESIA AFTER EARTHQUAKE

A tsunami of up to three metres has hit a small city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, collapsing buildings and washing a vessel onto land, after a magnitude-7.5 quake struck offshore, but there has been no word on casualties, officials say.

Authorities received information that Palu had been hit amid a rapid series of aftershocks, Dwikorita Karnawati, who heads Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency, BMKG, said.

"The situation is chaotic, people are running on the streets and buildings collapsed. There is a ship washed ashore," Ms Karnawati said.

Videos circulating on social media show a powerful wave hitting the provincial capital, Palu, with people screaming and running in fear.

Indonesian disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said houses were swept away by the tsunami and families had been reported missing.

He said communications with central Sulawesi were down, and the search and rescue effort was being hampered by darkness.

BMKG had earlier issued a tsunami warning, but lifted it within the hour.

"We advise people to remain in safe area, stay away from damaged buildings," Mr Nugroho said in a televised interview.


The national search and rescue agency will deploy a large ship and helicopters to aid with the operation, agency chief Muhammad Syaugi said, adding he had not been able to contact his team in Palu.

Palu, hit by a magnitude-6.2 quake in 2005 which killed one person, is a tourist resort at the end of a narrow bay famous for its beaches and water sports.

In 2004, an earthquake off the northern Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered a tsunami across the Indian Ocean, killing 226,000 people in 13 countries, including more than 120,000 in Indonesia.

Earlier on Friday, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said it was having difficulty reaching some authorities in Palu and the fishing town of Donggala, closest to the epicentre of the quake 80 kilometres away at a shallow 10 kilometres underground.

Palu airport was closed.

The area was hit by a lighter quake earlier in the day, which destroyed some houses, killing one person and injuring at least 10 in Donggala, authorities said.

Some people took to Twitter saying they could not contact loved ones. "My family in Palu is unreachable," Twitter user @noyvionella said.

More than 600,000 people live in Donggala and Palu.


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SCHOOL SAFETY AND SECURITY

Emergency and Critical Incident Management

1 Policy Statement

The Department of Education (the Department) principals or site managers are responsible for management of on-site and off-site school related emergencies and critical incidents. The intention is to minimise trauma and distress to students and staff and damage to property and to ensure the teaching and learning program is maintained or resumed

For more Information please visit Department of Education website http://det.wa.edu.au/policies/detcms/policy-planning-and-accountability/policies-framework/policies/emergency-and-critical-incident-management.en?cat-id=3458013

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STARTING SECONDARY SCHOOL

Starting secondary school

Moving from primary to secondary school, or high school, is a big transition. It can be a time full of fun, excitement and new experiences, but it can also be challenging or worrying for many children. You can help by making sure your child is prepared and feels supported.

Going to secondary school: what to expect

Children often have mixed feelings about starting secondary school. They might be:

  • excited about new friends, subjects and teachers
  • nervous about learning new routines, making new friends or wearing a new uniform
  • worried about handling the workload or not fitting in.

You might also worry about these issues, and about whether your child will have the confidence and skills to handle them.

These worries are all normal. Secondary school also means a move from the familiar to the unknown, and a whole new way of doing things.

Relationships
Your child will need to meet new peers and make new friends, and establish or re-establish her position within a peer group.

Schoolwork
Your child will need to adapt to new teaching and assessment styles, cope with a wide range of subjects, adjust to having different teachers in different classrooms, become more responsible for his own learning, manage a heavier and more complicated study and homework load, and learn a new and more complex timetable.

Getting around
Your child will have to adjust to a new school campus, find her way around, get to class on time with the right books and materials, and possibly cope with new transport arrangements.

All these issues might be particularly challenging for some young people living in rural or remote communities. For example, they might need to manage lengthy travel times or move away from their families, friends and local communities to go to boarding school.

When children are making the move to secondary school, you have the biggest influence on how smooth the transition is. Your child’s friends do influence how your child feels about the move, but your support has stronger and longer-lasting effects.


Preparing to start secondary school

You can help to ease any worries your child has about starting secondary school by preparing your child in the months and weeks before term begins.

Practical issues
Here are some ideas for dealing with practical issues:

  • Make sure your child goes to any secondary school transition and orientation programs in the last term of primary school.
  • If your primary school doesn’t run a transition program, find out what transition services and supports your child’s new high school offers.
  • Involve your child in decision-making where possible. For example, you could try talking together about transport options to and from school, and subject electives.

Feelings
Here are some ideas to deal with mixed feelings and worries:

  • Talk with your child about what he’s most looking forward to and what he’s worried about. Really listen when your child shares his feelings and worries about secondary school. Reassure him that it’s normal to worry about going to secondary school.
  • Encourage your child to look at the positive side of the move to secondary school. For example, you could highlight the new opportunities your child will have by talking about extracurricular activities your child could choose at the new school.
  • Talk with your child about friendships. For example, you could ask what your child’s friends are saying about secondary school. You could also talk about how your child might keep in touch with old friends and make new friends at high school.

During the transition to secondary school

Practical issues
Here are some ideas to help with the practical side of the transition to high school:

  • Try to arrange for a parent, grandparent or other close adult to be home before and after school for the first few weeks after your child starts secondary school.
  • Find out the name of the teacher responsible for your child’s overall care, attendance and social and academic progress. This person might be called a home-room teacher, year advisor or pastoral care teacher. Try to introduce yourself as early as possible.
  • Try to make your home as comfortable for study time as possible. For example, make sure your child has a quiet place to study, away from distractions like the TV or a mobile phone.

Friends
These ideas might help with worries about getting to know people and making new friends at high school:

  • Reassure your child that it’s normal to worry about making new friends.
  • Find out whether there’s a buddy system at your child’s new school and encourage your child to be involved in it.
  • Let your child know that new friends are welcome in your home. Encourage your child to invite new friends over, or be ready to transport your child to their houses.
  • Help your child explore new opportunities. Learning a musical instrument, trying a new sport or joining a drama class are great ways for your child to meet new people and get involved in school activities.

Feelings
You could try these suggestions for handling emotional ups and downs:

  • Be prepared for ups and downs. Adjusting to change takes time, but if things don’t stabilise after the first term, talk to your child’s home-room teacher in the first instance.
  • Remind your child that it’s normal to feel nervous about starting something new – for example, you could share how nervous and excited you feel when starting a new job.
  • Talk to other parents to check whether your child’s experiences and feelings are similar to those of others. Sporting and school events are good opportunities to meet other parents.
  • Try to make sure your child eats well, gets plenty of physical activity and gets plenty of sleep. The change to secondary school is likely to make your child more tired at first.
  • Stay calm. If you’re calm and reassuring you’ll give your child more confidence that she can get through the tough parts of starting high school.

Keep talking with your child about school. If you’re having trouble getting your child to open up, try our tips on talking about school.

Signs your child might be having difficulty at secondary school

If your child is struggling with the transition to secondary school, you might notice that he:

  • doesn’t want to go to school, or refuses to go
  • says he feels sick on Sunday nights
  • doesn’t seem interested in schoolwork or new activities at the new school
  • doesn’t talk with you about school or friends
  • seems low on confidence or self-esteem – your child might say he’s dumb or nobody likes him
  • is getting lower marks than he used to.

If your child is having trouble, don’t wait for things to improve on their own. Try to get your child talking about how she’s feeling, let her know that feeling worried is normal, and see whether you can work out some strategies together.

If things don’t improve within 2-3 weeks, consider speaking with your child’s teacher, year level co-ordinator, welfare co-ordinator or GP.

Children with additional needs starting secondary school

The transition to secondary school is sometimes more challenging for children with additional needs. It’s important to ensure that your child – and your family – are adequately prepared for the change and can get the information you need.

You might need extra time to plan your child’s transition to secondary school, even starting up to a year ahead. Student welfare services at your child’s primary and secondary schools will play an important role in ensuring your child’s needs are supported.

If you’d like extra support or have concerns, you can talk with your child’s teacher, school principal or learning support team. Also contact disability services in your state or territory.

Your feelings about your child starting secondary school

Your child’s transition to secondary school is a big change for you too. Your relationship with your child’s primary school might be ending, and you’re likely to have a different sort of relationship with your child’s secondary school.

It’s normal to have mixed feelings about these changes.

Talking to other parents, particularly those who have gone through high school transition, often helps. It might ease your mind to know that most children find things a little hard at first but settle in during the year.

Also, other parents who are experienced at the school can often answer small questions and give you helpful tips about how things work at your child’s new school.

And don’t be surprised to find that your child doesn’t want you to be as visible at his secondary school as you might have been during the primary years. Remember that he’ll still need your support outside of school, and that it’s all part of the way he develops greater independence.


Your Sincerely

Benjamin Carter

Associate Principal, College Development

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FIVE STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Five Strategies to improve Academic Performance

Is your child struggling to improve their academic performance? Are you looking for some manageable, simple learning strategies to help them improve their academic performance?

Top tutor Scott D has figured out the most effective strategies and techniques, based on his own experiences at university.

He discovered that while some aspects of a student’s academic performance are very unique to them (i.e. their learning styles and natural aptitudes), there are several key strategies which can be applied to accelerate anyone’s performance.

In this post Scott outlines five strategies to improve academic performance. Most of them are simple, but if implemented (and this is the key) they are extremely effective.

  1. Set Goals and Work Backwards

The first step with any new student is to construct a set of goals. Goals enable a student to continuously track their progress and adjust accordingly. It is considerably easier to make small adjustments throughout the year, than to make a huge pivot come exam time (or after mock examination results, as is common). This helps students feel more in control, reducing anxiety during exams.


The process of setting goals also enables students to plan their time more effectively and quantify their progress. This enables students to re-evaluate their performance and determine what they can achieve throughout the year. In the words of Bruce Lee, “Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity”.


When I first went to university, my initial goal was to get a 2:1. However, when I achieved a high first-class average for my second year, my long-term goal immediately changed. I adjusted what I believed was possible for me and set a new higher goal.


This is how I have seen students jump several grade bounds during a single year. They set a goal, hit it early (which often surprises them, but fills them full of belief) and raise their expectations (and usually their performance). However, without setting a goal in the first place, the student cannot effectively measure, track or adjust their performance as they go. Their education becomes a shot in the dark.

  1. Use A Wider Variety of Learning Resources

Using different resources is significantly more effective than using a single resource. Here are a few reasons why:


You can gain different contexts and/or perspectives


Overall, anything that gives you a different perspective on a theory, idea or problem will act to enhance learning. A good example of this is to look at the earth from a single image. It does give you a perspective of what earth looks like, but you never get the whole picture until you look at it from several different angles (and get several different perspectives).


They can provide different associations and analogies


The same is true of using different associations and analogies. Everyone has had that experience where they haven’t understood something properly, and then suddenly it clicked with an analogy that resonated with them. In my opinion, it is certainly one of the most effective ways to learn more abstract subjects, such as the sciences or maths.


Different learning styles i.e. visual, auditory and/or kinaesthetic are stimulated


In my experience, using resources that engage visualauditory and kinaesthetic have the best results for students.


As a private tutor I will often start with a syllabus textbook and then gradually introduce other subject specific reading materials.


I may also introduce videos, images, varied questioning and testing resources. This I find to be the most effective way for students to learn.


 It can help make learning more enjoyable.


There are two effective ways to memorise information: repetition and variation. While the former is very effective it is also quite tedious, particularly if it is from the same resource. Variation, on the other hand, is not only very effective but it can also make learning more enjoyable. Studies have also found that students learn better through active engagement.


  1. Get Through the ‘Frustration’ Period

There is no doubt about it; trying to learn a new skill or material can be frustrating at first. However, this is a natural process and the friction caused by a lack of understanding will always disappear given enough exposure.


A great analogy for thinking about these stages is learning to drive (or if you haven’t reached that stage, riding a bike).


The ‘learning cycle’ suggests that we all go through four stages of learning. Here are the four stages using this analogy.


Unconscious incompetence (this is when you are grossly incompetent at something because you haven’t been exposed to it before).


When you start learning to drive, you don’t know how anything works. This stage can be very frustrating and you feel completely incompetent for the first couple of lessons.


Conscious incompetence (this is when you know you are not good at something despite having had some exposure to it)


After a few driving lessons you begin to improve but you still cannot not drive independently.


Conscious competence (this is when you become knowingly competent in some area of skill)


You have taken your test and are able to drive on your own. This stage, however, still requires a lot of conscious effort to drive on your own.

Unconscious competence (this is when you can do it on autopilot. It becomes natural and subconscious)


Finally, after a few months, driving becomes subconscious.


One of the key challenges of secondary and higher education is getting a student to the last two stages in the learning cycle. The challenge being that many students are exposed only to new information for a few lessons at most.


The problem arises when students are stuck in the ‘incompetence’ stages of learning. Frustration can lead them to avoid the subject altogether; or worse still, they start to believe they are not smart enough and develop a dislike (or even anxiety) towards that subject. We know, however, if students are able to through this ‘frustration’ phase they will grow in confidence and self belief.

  1. Sharpen Your Examination Techniques

It might sound obvious, but you don’t get good at driving a car by taking the theory test (using my car analogy, again). You have to physically get in the car and start to drive. Likewise, you don’t get good at exams just by learning the content tested in the exams.


Mastering examinations is a skill all of its own, much like essay writing and giving oral presentations. Yet, surprisingly, I have found many students fail to practice the techniques required to do well.

These techniques do depend on the individual’s level of education but typical questioning generally progresses from description to explanation to discussion. At GCSE level, you are focusing much more on the former.


The typical prefix to questions will be:


  • Describe
  • Explain
  • Suggest

These are usually combined with the open-ended questions: what, where, when, why and how. At this level, the examiner is typically looking for keywords.


At higher levels, the questions start to incorporate discussions. These require more thought and structure, typically combined with your own research, opinions and case studies.


Exam technique requires an article of its own. Nevertheless, one useful tip is to always put yourself into the mind of the examiner when answering questions; and when practicing, always have the mark scheme to see exactly what keywords the examiner is looking for.


 5. Practice Exams


In his TED Talk “What do top students do differently?”, Douglas Barton of Elevate Education discussed how top students don’t necessarily get the top grades because they have the highest IQ’s or even because they work the hardest (although there is usually some correlation with the latter). It was because they do more practice exams.


Their study, based on a 13-year process looking into the learning habits of tens of thousands of students, found that they could almost perfectly estimate a student’s results based upon the number of practice exam papers they had done.


I cannot disagree with this. Here are a few of the many benefits associated with practicing exams:


  • Recognisable patterns will begin to form in the questioning and content
  • Applying knowledge to different types of questioning will become easier.
  • Using additional resources supplied with the exam will become more familiar.
  • The structure of the exam will make more sense.
  • You will become faster and less prone to silly mistakes

Ultimately you will sharpen the techniques I discussed in the section above and become more aware of what the examiner (or mark scheme) is looking for.


One of the most common problems I see is when a student is knowledgeable in the subject area but cannot connect that with answering a question. This is simply a symptom of lack of practice.


So there you have it. These are my top  five strategies to improve academic performance. I guarantee that if you apply these strategies from the beginning of the year you will be shocked at how far you progress by the time you have to sit an exam.


If you would like to contact Scott D to arrange private tutoring please contact him through his Tutorfair profile. Scott is a Maths and Science specialist as well as a learning coach with many years experience in tutoring.


ALSO REMEMBER: Congrats to our Year 9 and Year 8 students that has compete their annual maths, science and english Competition that held last week and the week before. Congrats to those that Involved in the events!

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YEAR 7 MOVE TO SECONDARY SCHOOL - STEPPING UP

Ros Thomas talks with families to see how their children have adjusted to life as Year 7s in secondary school.

Starting secondary school can be daunting. Who doesn't remember their first few weeks? I was the girl desperate to fit in but afraid of standing out. I missed my friends from primary school. I worried about whether I was likeable enough to make new friends. I was terrified of getting lost in the corridors, of failing to find my class, or worse - having to ask for directions. I panicked about missing the bus home. Or not getting to school on time. And I thought I might not cope with my increased workload, or the demands of so many new teachers. My worries were endless.

Now, 11 and 12-year-olds are starting secondary school in Year 7 instead of Year 8. For the first time, they're the youngest at school rather than the oldest.

Year 7s now need to adjust to life in the secondary school with new classmates and different teachers for different subjects.

Many will be travelling further from home. Some will be catching the bus or the train alone for the first time.

The Year 7 move to secondary school was implemented in public schools across Western Australia in 2015.

Year 7 students, on average, are now six months older than in the years before the school starting age was raised. Nearly half were turning 13 while still in primary school and were considered more than ready for secondary school where they could study a broader range of specialist subjects in the Western Australian Curriculum. Their teachers would be specialists too. They'd have access to facilities and equipment few primary schools could provide.

But starting secondary school a year early meant leaving childhood

"We knew parents were anxious and we understood why," says Nigel Wakefield, principal of Australind Senior High in WA's southwest.

"We had 238 Year 7s coming from 23 different primary schools. That's a lot of kids to settle in."

Nigel says parents' chief concern was what would happen when 11 and 12-year-olds began mixing with 17 and 18-year-olds? Would they be picked on? Would the Year 12s be a bad influence? How would an 11-year-old cope in a sea of 1300 hormonal teenagers?

"Mums, in particular, felt protective," he says. "But we knew our Year 7s needed to be stretched. And you know what? They showed us they were ready for secondary school by flourishing when they got here."

Nigel says planning for the Year 7 move was rigorous.

"Two years out we were holding information nights at primary schools. We offered tours of our school and more than 400 people turned up. We worked closely with the architect on the new Year 7 building. We designed it with a huge communal space in the middle filled with sofas and chairs. We wanted to give Year 7s a place they could hang out."

"By the time they started," Nigel says, "they felt at home. At first, we limited their classroom movements so they wouldn't worry about getting lost. We didn't overwhelm them with too many teachers. We gave mums and dads constant feedback about how each child was settling in. Within a few weeks, we knew things were going well."

For Australind mum Tania Murphy, sending her first child to secondary school in Year 7 was unsettling.

"I was very apprehensive about the transition. I just couldn't see why it was necessary or how it was going to work. Kieren is one of the youngest kids in his year. I knew he'd have to grow up quickly and I didn't think he should have to do that. I wanted him to have a chance at being one of the big kids in primary school - someone to look up to. Instead, he'd end up being a small fish in a big pond all over again."

"I shouldn't have worried," Tania tells me. "He's doing so well. The specialist classes opened so many doors for him - suddenly he was being offered classes like woodwork, metalwork and home economics - he wouldn't have had those opportunities in primary school. We couldn't be happier."

Mother-of-four Jo Campbell speaks for many parents when she says she took some convincing that son Travis would be better off doing Year 7 at secondary school.

"To be honest," she says, "I would've liked him to have completed Year 7 in primary school - and so would he. But Australind Senior High has bent over backwards to accommodate us. There's a great student services team with youth workers available to offer extra support when needed. Travis has managed a lot better than I was expecting. He's doing well. I'd have to say we've been welcomed and supported in the secondary school."


For Jo Daniel, however, the idea of her son moving to secondary school was traumatic.

"Thomas has Aspergers," she explains. "He was freaking out. We all were. He wasn't doing well at primary school so we were very nervous."

But Jo says Australind Senior High was ready for Thomas.

"Half way through Year 6 they introduced him to his new teachers. They walked him through a typical day and showed him where his classes would be.

"The special needs kids had their own safe zone within the Year 7 building - somewhere they could go and chill out and feel like they belonged.

"On the first day of Year 7, Thomas didn't even want me to go into school with him," Jo laughs. "He knew exactly where he needed to be. Now he's a different child. He's thriving and doing far better in secondary school than he ever did in primary school. He feels like one of the big kids and he's matured. For the first time, he's out playing soccer at lunchtime and joining in."

At Wanneroo Secondary College, principal Pauline White says she knew the first intake of parents was always going to be hard to win over.

But after nine years as principal, she says she knew her school community well and understood what the Year 7s would need to feel secure.

"The kids were saying their biggest worry was how to make friends," Pauline tells me. "We knew the faster we could make that happen, the quicker they'd feel secure. So at lunchtimes, we had staff on the lookout for solitary kids. We organised clubs and competitions so they could meet other new students and find common interests.

"In the end, our first year was highly successful," she says.

"The Year 7s settled far better than we expected. There were no big blips. In some areas, teachers had to adjust the curriculum - they were either going too fast or two slow - and they had to keep tabs on whether the kids were coping with the workload.

"But when we did our first surveys at the end of last year, 98 percent of our parents said the changeover was a positive experience."

Pauline says her favourite response was from a parent who wrote: 'A smiling child came home from school and couldn't wait to return.' "That makes our effort all worthwhile, doesn't it?"


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SAFE ENTRY AND EXIT OF STUDENTS TO SCHOOL GROUNDS

Parents and carers are responsible for their child's safety when travelling to and from school

School's responsibility

Under the Department's Code of Conduct, section 21. Duty of Care, schools have an obligation to provide reasonable care to:

  • provide adequate supervision
  • ensure grounds, premises and equipment are safe for employees, students and the general public. This extends to the entry and exit of students to school grounds. School risk assessments need to factor in the age, ability and maturity level of the students as well as any individual characteristics. These will influence the standard of care required.

Safety of students as road users

Schools need to work with and educate students and the school community about using current traffic infrastructure to ensure students are kept as safe as practically possible.

  1. Curriculum: road safety is a mandatory part of K-10 PDHPE syllabuses and the Stage 6 Crossroads course. Teachers should localise teaching and learning activities to reflect the environmental conditions in which students travel/live.
  2. School community: schools should regularly inform and communicate how they expect parents/carers to act in the school zone traffic environment. This can be done via social media, school newsletters, school website, school brochures, kindergarten orientations.
  3. Working with external agencies: schools should notify others e.g. police, local Council parking rangers/road safety officer/traffic engineer, local businesses if changes to the school zone traffic environment will make it safer for students.

Advice for safe walking

Road safety education, driver education and training policy

Under the Department's policy school staff, parents/carers and students all have a responsibility to take reasonable measures to protect students against risk of injury or harm. This extends to the entry and exit of students to school grounds.

Further information

Centre for Road Safety

Your local council Road Safety Officer

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MY FEELINGS IN FIRST DAYS AT UNIVERSITY

Our Former Year 12 student that graduated last year she has made an Incredible stories about being a uni student on the fist day of University and That this she had to say

My feelings in first days at university

Changes can make people overwhelm with the newness of the situation. Moving from a high school to a university is one of the largest changes of my life. In this page, I will tell you about some obstacles and negative feelings in my first days at university and how I managed to overcome these things and settled in the university life.

At first, I was very excited, since I finally made it to the university that I had always dreamed about. Also, I had heard many rumors that life in university was very fun and full of freedom, so I was looking forward to my first university class. However, everything was not like what I had heard, and things started to get worse after my first class.

Studying in a university was full of pressure. In class, the professors talked quite fast, and I had to note down necessary things by my own. If I did not read the text books at home, so it would be very hard for me to follow the lectures and understand the lessons. Moreover, I was so overwhelmed by the workload that I had with many individual assignments, group works and research. Also, besides the academic requirement, I had to meet the requirement of extra activities. All these things made me felt so stress and depressed.

Friendship was another important issue in my university life. In university, students usually took various courses in one semester, so it was normal that they studied with different classmates in different courses. Although I met new people every day, almost none of them actually became my friend because we did not spend much time talking to each other besides the introduction about ourselves. Sometimes, I met some nice people, and we had pleasant conversations. However, after that, we could not meet for a week because of our very different schedule.­ Also, I could not keep track with my high school friends anymore, and they already move on and had fun with their university friends. I was so lonely and frustrated. Luckily, I lived with my parents, so I did not have to deal with the homesickness. If I did not have my family by my side, I could have fallen into the abyss of loneliness.

Fortunately, I finally made things better. First, I tried to calm myself down and asked for advices from some of my professors. Thank to their help, I could manage my time better and got all the works finished smoothly. Also, I participated in some clubs that suited my personal interests such as Manga club and handmade club. By participating in club activities, I could make friends with other students that shared the same interests with me and got some credit on my extra activities report. Moreover, I joined in my university social network on the internet. This network was very helpful, since we could make friends and shared our knowledge and experiences.

When I eventually managed to settle myself in university life, I found that it is enjoyable. There is a quote that “No one makes a lock withoutkey; that's why God won't give you problems without solutions.” Negative feeling in first days at university is not a serious problem without solutions. Keep calm and try to deal with it, and then the problem can soon be solved. 

Featured image source: http://www.unialliance.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Caerleon-Lawn-21.jpg


Your Sincerely

Hope Speak

Former Year 12 Student

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Year 7

All students are timetabled into the compulsory core Learning Areas: English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Education, Language (Italian or Indonesian) and Health Education.  

In addition, students will also be enrolled in four semester long courses from the areas below (they will study 2 in Semester 1 and 2 in Semester 2). These subjects will be rotated over Years 7 and 8 to achieve the correct subject balance to meet SCSA (School Curriculum and Standards Authority) requirements, and to give exposure to as many subjects and contexts as possible. Subjects include:

The Arts: Visual Arts , Design Art , Drama – Theatre Experience , Circus , Dance , Media Studies, Music

Technology and Enterprise: Food Specialisations, Materials & Technologies, Digital Technologies


Year 8

All students are timetabled into the compulsory core Learning Areas: English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical Education, Language (Italian or Indonesian) and Health Education.

In addition, students will also be enrolled in four semester long courses from the areas below (they will study 2 in Semester 1 and 2 in Semester 2). These subjects will be rotated over Years 7 and 8 to achieve the correct subject balance to meet SCSA (School Curriculum and Standards Authority) requirements, and to give exposure to as many subjects and contexts as possible. Subjects include:

 The Arts: Visual Arts , Design Art , Drama – Theatre Experience , Circus , Dance , Media Studies, Music

Technology and Enterprise: Food Specialisations, Materials & Technologies, Digital Technologies 

Click here to view the 2019 Year 8 Course Information Handbook


Year 9

The Year 9 Curriculum continues to develop broad educational knowledge and skills.

All students are timetabled for the majority of the academic week into the compulsory core Learning Areas: Mathematics, Science, English, Humanities and Social Sciences, Physical & Health Education

In addition, students have the opportunity of selecting three electives from a range of subjects:

Technology & Enterprise: Body Shop, Food Specialisations, Materials & Technologies Specialisations, ICT, Webpage Design and Animation & Electronic Game Design.

Humanities & Social Sciences: Exploring Business

The Arts: Visual Art, Wearable Art & Fashion, Media Studies, Drama, Dance & Circus.

Physical Education: Recreation Sports, Court Sports, Soccer

Languages: Italian, Indonesian


Click here to view the 2019 Year 9 Course Information Handbook

Year 10

Year 10 Curriculum continues to develop broad educational knowledge and skills. Your child's learning will be focused on the core Learning Areas of Mathematics, Science, English, Humanities & Social Sciences and Physical & Health Education.

In addition, they will be given the opportunity of selecting from a range of Curriculum Extension Programs from the Learning Areas of Technology & Enterprise, HASS, The Arts, Languages (LOTE) and Physical Education, in order to complete their learning program.

Some of the options offered are:

Technology & Enterprise: Food, Materials & Technologies, Electronic Game Design, Webpage Design & Animations, ICT, Early Childhood Development.

The Arts: Visual Arts, Visual Arts Extension Program (VAEP), Wearable Art & Fashion Design, Design Art, Circus, Drama, Dance, Media Arts, Certificate II in Music

Humanities & Social Sciences: Exploring Business

Languages: Italian, Indonesian

Physical Education: Expedition Sport & Recreation

Note: Each Year 10 options course will only operate if they attract sufficient numbers and each option has a compulsory charge.

Click here to view the 2019 Year 10 Course Information Handbook

Information Handbook for students entering in to Year 11 in 2019


Year 11

The diversity of courses at Network Secondary College offers opportunities for young adults preparing for a range of post secondary pathways, including further education, training or employment. There is a strong focus on maintaining and enhancing our ethos which is to meet the needs of young adults.

Studying at the senior level allows students to take greater responsibility for their decisions. Additionally, courses require students to be self-directed in their study and organisation.

Below are Network Secondary College  Year 11 resources that contains information to help students understand the commitment required and help to decide which
courses to study in Years 11 and 12.

The options are many and the need for discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors and others is very important.

Parents/Guardians are an important part of this process as they provide the biggest single influence in a student’s choice of direction. Students will be looking for guidance and support in making informed choices and parents are asked to be active participants in the courses selection process.

Please note: ALL subjects in Year 11 and 12 attract COMPULSORY charges. 

Click here to view the 2019 Year 11 Course Information Handbook

Click here to view the 2019 Year 11 Curriculum Information Handbook

Click here to view the 2019 Year 11 Proposed Fixed Grid

WACE Manual 2019 


 


Year 12

The diversity of courses atNetwork Secondary College offers opportunities for young adults preparing for a range of post secondary pathways, including further education, training or employment. There is a strong focus on maintaining and enhancing our ethos which is to meet the needs of young adults.

Studying at the senior level allows students to take greater responsibility for their decisions. Additionally, courses require students to be self-directed in their study and organisation.

Below are Network Secondary College Year 12 resources that contains information to help students understand the commitment required and help to decide which
courses to study in Years 11 and 12.

The options are many and the need for discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors and others is very important.

Parents/Guardians are an important part of this process as they provide the biggest single influence in a student’s choice of direction. Students will be looking for guidance and support in making informed choices and parents are asked to be active participants in the courses selection process.

Please note: ALL subjects in Year 11 and 12 attract COMPULSORY charges.

To view the Year 12 Semester 2 2018 Exams and Workplace Learning Student Information Booklet please click here.

Year 12 Calendar 2018

Coming Soon - 2019 Year 12 Course Information Handbook

WACE Manual 2019 


Yoobi is pronounced 'YOU-BE'. Our Co-Founder, Ido Leffler, was thinking of a way to get people excited about what we were about to embark on, and kept going back to the notion of inspiring people to be whoever they want to be…You be the difference. You be great. You be awesome! You be YOU. YOOBI! What better name for a cute, nation-changing toucan?
Isn’t he cute and friendly? We introduced a number of characters to our market research board—i.e., a bunch of awesome kids we know. They loved the toucan the most, and how could they not? Thus, Yoobi was born.

Yoobi products are currently available at Target stores nationwide, Yoobi.com and Yoobiforbusiness.com.
Yoobi team members are available to help via phone Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM PST, except holidays. Otherwise, feel free to email us at customerservice@yoobi.com and a Yoobi team member will be sure to get back to you within 2 business days!

We love hearing from students and teachers that we’ve impacted! Please send your letters to: Yoobi HQ 2210 E Maple Ave El Segundo, CA
You can easily check the status of your order by emailing us at customerservice@yoobi.com or giving us a ring at 1-855-YOOBI-US. Be sure to have your order number handy!

This occasionally happens when an item is out of stock. Please e-mail customerservice@yoobi.com with the name of the item you are trying to add to your bag so we can double check our inventory availability.

When you place your order, we pack it up as soon as we can! Because of this, we aren’t able to cancel or make any changes to orders once they are placed.

Yes, Yoobi reserves the right to suspend or cancel fulfillment of a particular order for any reason, such as suspected unauthorized distribution. Of course, no payments will be retained for cancelled orders.

ENGLISH

Learn More

MATHEMATICS

Learn More

SCIENCE

Learn More

HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (HASS)

Learn More

TECHNOLOGY

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HEALTH AND PHYSICAL EDUCATION

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LANGUAGES

Learn More

ENGLISH AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE OR DIALECT (EALD)

English as an Additional Language or Dialect: Teacher Resource (EAL/D)

Learn More

The Authority

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority is an independent statutory authority that is responsible to the Western Australian Minister for Education. It is administered by a board consisting of seven members appointed for their expertise in education and assessment.

The work of the Authority is supported by a secretariat.

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority is responsible for

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority complies with the Western Australian Government's Public Sector Standards. Our Disability Access and Inclusion Plan is available now. Our Workforce and Diversity Management Plan is available upon request.

Conflict of interest

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority complies with the Western Australian Government’s Public Sector Standards. Any potential for a conflict of interest by a board or committee member, secretariat staff or persons completing work for the Authority must be declared.

Please refer to the Conflict of Interest policy and guidelines for further information.


SCSA Logo

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority logo is a tree of knowledge, representing growth and expansion. The tree is analogous with the growth of the young adult (the stem and crown) whose abilities and qualities are developed from diverse sources of learning through the educational process (the roots). The stem reaches upwards and the crown spreads outwards moving into a future world and its community.

In addition, the design signifies the human brain and the brain stem which communicates with the body’s complex physiological systems. The brain is also the location of memory and knowledge and where the processing of information takes place. It is also believed to hold the secrets of consciousness.

This logo was designed by David Walker.

 

The Student Engagement and Support team promote whole school inclusive practices and individual pathway planning as the foundation for learning for all students including those working towards academic benchmarks who may be at academic risk, with special education needs or disability.

The Student Engagement and Support team is led by an Associate Principal. The team includes: Managers of Lower school, Upper school and the Education Support classes, Year Coordinators, Specialist Learning and Support Coordinator, Nurse, Psychologist, Chaplain and a variety of external support agencies that can add to the support provided by classroom teachers and education support staff.

Your Sincerely
Jake Smith
Associate Principal, Student Engagement and Support 




STUDENT ENGAGEMENT & SUPPORT image

Students who complete all or part of a nationally recognised qualification may receive credit towards satisfactory completion of their VCE and/or VCAL. Recognition can be achieved through:

  • enrolment in a VCAA-approved VCE VET program, or a school-based or part-time apprenticeship or traineeship
  • enrolment in any other nationally recognised qualification at certificate II level or above – this arrangement is called block credit recognition.

 

VET in the VCE and VCAL
VET in the VCE or VCAL allows students to include VET within their senior secondary certificate. Students undertake nationally recognised training from either accredited state curriculum or national training packages which may contribute to their VCE and/or VCAL.

Industry Pathways in the VCE and VCAL
Industry pathways in the VCE and VCAL will be introduced from 2015. They provide a new form of recognition for students who choose to complete a senior secondary program of study in a specific vocational area.

Registered training organisations (RTOs)
Information on how to become an RTO, delivery options for VET and the Standards for Registered Training Organisations 2015.

VCE VET Examination information
Includes links to program-specific pages that include examination specifications and advice and past VCE VET examination papers and assessment reports. To view the examination timetable for VCE studies and scored VCE VET programs: Examination Timetable.

Statistical Information
Includes statistical information relating to post-compulsory completion, achievement and performance in senior secondary certificates.

Schools and study search
Conduct a search to find which schools offer what Victorian senior secondary subjects. This listing is based on student enrolments in the previous calendar year.

Return to study
Information for adults on studying the VCE, VCAL or VET.

Riley Johnson

College Executive Chairman

Peter Smith

Network College Principal

Olivia Cassidy

Associate Principal, HR and Curicculum Performance

Benjamin Carter

Associate Principal, College Development

James Adler

Associate Principal, Special Education

Frederic Adhitama

Head of Learning Integrated Curriculum

Jake Smith

Associate Principal, Student Engagement and Support

John Stewart

Associate Principal, Children Protection

Emma Campbell

Manager Corporate Services

I've haven't commenced my role for over 3 year and this year I've returned to my good old role

Michelle Godlet

Operation Manager

Joined since July 23 2018

Alex Brett

Year 7 Coordinator

Starts Commenced on 31 January 2018

Maria Sasoon

Year 8 Coordinator

Starts commenced on 2 February 2017

Tony Selbert

Year 9 Coordinator

Rachael Harbourne

Marketing Officer

Adam Lee

Year 10 Coordinator

Liam Nelson

Year 11 Coordinator

James Dawson

Year 12 Coordinator

Will Dawson

Executive Corporate Officer

Jake Davison

Manager of Commonwealth and Community

Matt Stevenson

Administration Manager

Alison Doyle

VET and Career Coordinator

Jeffrey Anderson

Workplace Learning Coordinator

Alex Stewart

College Officer

Parenting Info & Links

This section lists a range of services available to parents and their children that may help during the sometimes difficult teenage years. A range of issues are covered including alcohol, drugs, relationships, mental health, bullying, and sexual health.

Helpful Website Addresses For Parents And Caregivers

Alcohol And Other Drugs:

  • Drug Aware - https://drugaware.com.au/. Access to the Alcohol and Drug Support Line (08) 9442 5000 which is a statewide 24 hour confidential telephone counselling service for anyone seeking help for their own or another person’s alcohol or drug use.
  • Alcohol Think Again - http://alcoholthinkagain.com.au/Parents-Young-People. Access to the Alcohol and Drug Support Line (08) 9442 5000 which is a statewide 24 hour confidential telephone counselling service for anyone seeking help for their own or another person’s alcohol or drug use.
  • Parent and Family Drug Support Line - https://www.mhc.wa.gov.au/about-us/our-services/alcohol-and-drug-support-service/parent-and-family-drug-support-line - a confidential, 24 hour telephone counselling, information and referral service for anyone concerned about a loved one’s alcohol or drug use.
  • Holyoake- www.holyoake.org.au Provides a service for individuals, youth and family to address issues around alcohol and other drug use.
  • Drug Arm WA- www.drugarmwa.org.au Provides counselling to individuals and families.
  • Headspace- https://headspace.org.au/ Youth services for young people aged between 12-25. Young people can access information and support to address a range of issues including mental health, drug and alcohol, sex and sexuality and family and relationships.
  • Anglicare WA- Youth Crisis Accomodation Services- www.anglicarewa.org.au Provides a range of services for children, youth and families including crisis accommodation, education and support.

Relationships: 

  • Centrecare - www.centrecare.com.auprovides counselling, support and mediation for children, youth and families. Specific services include Youth Outreach Intensive Support Service (10-18 year olds) and Parent Teen link (10-21).

  • Mercy Reconnect - www.mercygroup.com.auprovides free mediation between young people and parents.

  • Relationships Australia - www.relationships.com.auprovides counselling for children, adults and families on a variety of issues.

  • Communicare - www.communicare.org.auprovides family support, education, practical assistance and counselling.

  • Respectful Relationships - http://www.theline.org.au/

  • Relationships Australia - regularly run a number of patenting courses, view all courses running in Term 3 2018 by viewing the PDF here.
  • Autism Spectrum Australia- www.autismspectrum.org.auAutism Spectrum Australia (Aspect) is Australia’s largest service provider for people on the autism spectrum. Our specialised, evidence informed schools program is one of the largest in the world, with additional services that include information and advice, diagnostic assessments, behaviour support, parent and family support, and adult programs. We share evidence-informed Aspect practice and applied research nationwide.
  • Raising Children- https://raisingchildren.net.au - Early teenage relationships often involve exploring physical intimacy and sexual feelings. You might not feel ready for this, but you have an important role in guiding and supporting your child through this important developmental stage.
Mental Health:
Bullying:

Sexual Health:

Youth:

  • Reach Out - www.reachout.com.au - provides information to young people about a range of issues.

  • Youth Beyond Blue - www.youthbeyondblue.com - Information for young people and their parents about mental health.

  • Kinetica Performing Arts-www.kineticacdt.com.auKinetica's aim is to provide an environment for talented local artists to train, collaborate and produce new works. Kinetica's Circus School provides training for both youth and adults, catering for beginner to advanced skill levels.

  • Kidsmatter- www.kidsmatter.edu.au - KidsMatter is an Australian mental health and well-being initiative set in primary schools and early childhood education and care services (like preschools, kindergartens and day care centres).

Hospitality Studies (Secondary) - Cross-institutional study through Central Queensland University (CQU)

Students are able to enrol in any offered mode of a course (on-campus, external or online), regardless of the program mode of study they enrolled in.

This minor is only available to students who are studying the Bachelor of Education.
Hospitality takes place in many areas, including our homes, public spaces and between countries. In Australia, the hospitality industry contributes greatly to social, cultural, economic and entertainment needs. Hospitality operates in commercial fields that provide food and beverage, accommodation and entertainment services for guests or clients. Please refer to the Hospitality Studies Syllabus for further information. Hospitality Studies can only be undertaken as a minor Teaching Area.
Student must already have a Certificate II or III in Hospitality or a Certificate IV in Commercial Cookery.
Credit may be given for these studies. Please contact the Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts for advice. Email usq.support@usq.edu.au.
Students wishing to teach Hospitality studies as a minor Teaching Area must complete a minimum of 5 and maximum of 6 Teaching Area courses. Students beginning in 2014 or later are required to complete at least 6 content courses and 1 Teaching Area specific curriculum and pedagogy course. Once employed, in most schools it would be expected that you could teach: Hospitality Studies and Hospitality Practices in Years 11 - 12
A number of these courses must be taken as cross-institutional courses. Contact the Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts. Email usq.support@usq.edu.au for assistance. Please contact CQU (sat@cqu.edu.au) for further course information including Course Fees, Residential Schools etc.

SCHOOL-BASED APPRENTICESHIPS AND TRAINEESHIPS

School-based Apprenticeships and Traineeships provide students aged 15 years or older with valuable employment skills, hands-on industry experience and a nationally recognised qualification, while still completing secondary school qualifications.


  

BENEFITS OF EMPLOYING A SCHOOL-BASED APPRENTICE OR TRAINEE

 

Employing a School-based Apprentice or Trainee gives you the chance to:

 

  • Recruit keen young staff before they graduate from high school
  • Employ and train a young person part-time in your business
  • Meet the current and future skills need of your business
  • Give a young person realistic exposure to your industry

  

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

 

The student must:

 

  • Be a full time school student aged 15 years or older
  • Have the school’s agreement to undertake school based training
  • Find an employer willing to train in their workplace
  • Have the parent/guardian’s permission (if under the age of 18)
  • Some School Based Apprenticeships have additional requirements, e.g. Electrotechnology qualifications, find out more here

  

HOW IT WORKS

  • Identify a suitable part-time position in your business
  • Find a school student willing to undertake a School-based Apprenticeship or Traineeship
  • Discuss and approve alongside the school the student’s release day(s) for employment and training
  • Employ the student directly or be the host employer through a Group Training Organisation (GTO)
  • Work with the school and Registered Training Organisation (RTO) to develop and set the training plan
  • Mentor and support the student throughout their apprenticeship/traineeship

  

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

  • The student will receive training from a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) who will either come to the school or to your workplace
  • The school principal or authorised school representative is required to sign an Education Training and Employment Schedule (ETES) for school based training to commence. If conditions of the ETES are not met, it should not be signed or supported.
  • When the student signs up for school based training, all parties must complete a National Training Contract (NTC). The NTC is a legally binding apprenticeship/traineeship agreement to provide employment and structured training for the duration of the contract.
  • Once the National Training Contract is registered, the school principal or authorised school person must endorse the RTO’s training plan as specified on the National Training Contract.

HOW WE CAN HELP

 

Our local dedicated Industry Training Consultants can provide assistance and expertise with:

 

  • Identifying and mapping the school-based training opportunities within your business
  • Recruitment
  • Access our candidate pool and Jobs Board at Skillsroad.com.au
  • We have an extensive network of schools and established relationships with teachers, careers advisers etc – often schools have the students and struggle to find employers.  Schools may also be able to advertise the position to the school community.
  • Coordinate all parties to ensure successful outcomes of the school based training
  • Coaching and mentoring support for the employer, student and school

Interested to find out the projected financial incentives for your business or to book a complimentary Workplace Assessment?  Call our team today on 1300 363 831.

Email them on : info@apprenticeshipsupport.com.au

Pastoral care is an ancient model of emotional and spiritual support that can be found in all cultures and traditions. It has been described in our modern context as individual and corporate patience in which trained pastoral carers support people in their pain, loss and anxiety, and their triumphs, joys and victories.


Pastoral care as a care model and profession is emerging in the public arena in its own right, in our day, and its value and helpfulness is now recognised as applicable to people generally in their everyday life.

Just as its theory and philosophy is not dependent on any one set of beliefs or traditions, so pastoral carers are trained to relate gently and skilfully with the inner world of individuals from all walks of life, and the elements that go to make up that persons sense of self, their inner resources, resilience and capacity to cope.

They are not counsellors or therapists. They are personal relators operating under a positive motivation that has no strings attached.

  • Holistic approach the whole person
  • To explore the inner essence soul in all of us: the inner world
  • Historically Christian but is now a multi faith community
  • Caring for the sheep is the role of pastors.

What qualifications does a pastoral care worker have?

  • Minister of religion can be a chaplain or theologian, or both
  • Clinical pastoral education diploma.

What is clinical pastoral education?

  • Educational through learning about holistic self, identity
  • Clinical through healing, personal and spiritual growth toward wholeness, reaching full potential, for example through the confrontation of pain, or identifying barriers to growth
  • Interpersonal training patients, supervisors, groups your stuff, my stuff awareness
  • Seminars, daily journals, case-studies, worship, life journeys, verbatims, evaluation (final)
  • Minimum standard 150 hours ASPEA, TCMA
  • Internationally recognised
  • Encouraging students involved in pastoral relationships to have a spiritual connection person to person. Quote from poetry, poems, music, song, meditation, prayer, morning worship.

How does pastoral care differ from chaplaincy?

A religious leader can perform religious ceremonies for a particular faith, and helps people meet their obligations to that faith, and examine the implications of that faith and its beliefs. Some religious leaders can also be pastoral care workers.

A pastoral care worker is available for general or specific life issues concerning grief, loss, identity, cultural and racial, climate if alienation (food, wine), meaning of life, loss of hope, marriage break-downs, financial burdens, language barriers, loneliness, coping with disability, etc., as well as peoples triumphs, joys and victories.

To spend time with a pastoral care worker:

  • We seek to be available to you at all times, however it may be necessary to make an appointment (except in crisis).
  • Somewhere to go, someone to listen without necessarily wanting an outcome or treatment e.g. for depression
  • Spiritual/religious issues are often a part of a quest for a deeper meaning of life, and understanding of self.
  • Pastoral care workers are willing to refer people to Health and Counselling
  • Pastoral care workers assist people who are too afraid to approach more formal avenues of help that is, they can act as gatekeepers
  • They provide a place to go and talk for those who are uneasy with the society in which they find themselves e.g. international students with cross cultural issues such as alcohol, dress codes such as veils, or with relationships.
  • Pastoral care workers may sustain ongoing relationships with people to develop healthy relationships.
  • Pastoral care workers seek to nurture and celebrate the respective cultures, rituals and customs of individuals and groups eg. UC Harmony and Face Project.

To view the full report about Pastoral Care click here


What is a registered training organisation (RTO)?

Registered training organisations (RTOs) are those training providers registered by ASQA (or, in some cases, a state regulator) to deliver vocational education and training (VET) services.

RTOs are recognised as providers of quality-assured and nationally recognised training and qualifications.

There are currently around 5000 RTOs in Australia. A complete list of RTOs is maintained at training.gov.au,  the authoritative national register of the VET sector in Australia. 

What are the advantages of registered training organisations?

Only RTOs can:

  • deliver nationally recognised courses and accredited Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) VET qualifications,
  • apply for Australian, state and territory funding to deliver vocational education and training.

RTOs can offer qualifications at the following levels:

  • Certificates I, II, III and IV
  • Diploma
  • Advanced Diploma
  • Vocational Graduate Certificate
  • Vocational Graduate Diploma.

Which RTOs are regulated by ASQA?

ASQA is the regulatory body for RTOs in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. 

ASQA also regulates providers in Victoria and/or Western Australia that:

  • offer courses in any of the following states (including by offering courses online): the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania, or
  • offer courses to overseas students studying in Australia on student visas.

Students in Victoria and Western Australia who are unsure whether ASQA is responsible for the regulation of their RTO should contact the ASQA info line on 1300 701 801 or email enquiries@asqa.gov.au.


Contact them on:

Phone: 1300 701 801

Email: enquiries@asqa.gov.au

  • 90 Douglas Ave, South Perth WA, Australia

Network College

Terms of Use ("Terms")

Last updated: December 13, 2018

Please read these Terms of Use ("Terms", "Terms of Use") carefully before using the https://a3452114.site123.me/ website (the "Service") operated by Network College ("us", "we", or "our").

Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service.

By accessing or using the Service you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you disagree with any part of the terms then you may not access the Service. The Terms of Use agreement for Network College is based on the TermsFeed's Terms of Use Template.

Accounts

When you create an account with us, you must provide us information that is accurate, complete, and current at all times. Failure to do so constitutes a breach of the Terms, which may result in immediate termination of your account on our Service.

You are responsible for safeguarding the password that you use to access the Service and for any activities or actions under your password, whether your password is with our Service or a third-party service.

You agree not to disclose your password to any third party. You must notify us immediately upon becoming aware of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account.

Links To Other Web Sites

Our Service may contain links to third-party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by Network College .

Network College has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. You further acknowledge and agree that Network College shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such web sites or services.

We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third-party web sites or services that you visit.

Termination

We may terminate or suspend access to our Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.

All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

We may terminate or suspend your account immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service will immediately cease. If you wish to terminate your account, you may simply discontinue using the Service.

All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of Western Australia, Australia, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us regarding our Service, and supersede and replace any prior agreements we might have between us regarding the Service.

Changes

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time. If a revision is material we will try to provide at least 30 days notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion.

By continuing to access or use our Service after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to the new terms, please stop using the Service.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us.

Network Secondary College

Disclaimer

Last updated: December 15, 2018

The information contained on https://a3452114.site123.me/site-disclaimer website (the "Service") is for general information purposes only.

Network Secondary College assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents on the Service.

In no event shall Network Secondary College be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. Network Secondary College reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modification to the contents on the Service at any time without prior notice. This Disclaimer for Network Secondary College is based on the TermsFeed's Disclaimer Template

Network Secondary College does not warrant that the website is free of viruses or other harmful components.

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Last updated: March 03, 2019

Please read these Terms and Conditions ("Terms", "Terms and Conditions") carefully before using the https://a3452114.site123.me/ website (the "Service") operated by Network College ("us", "we", or "our").

Your access to and use of the Service is conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. These Terms apply to all visitors, users and others who access or use the Service.

By accessing or using the Service you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you disagree with any part of the terms then you may not access the Service. The Terms and Conditions agreement for Network College has been created with the help of TermsFeed.

LINK TO OTHER WEBSITE 

Our Service may contain links to third-party web sites or services that are not owned or controlled by Network College.

Network College has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party web sites or services. You further acknowledge and agree that Network College shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such web sites or services.

We strongly advise you to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any third-party web sites or services that you visit.

TERMINATION

We may terminate or suspend access to our Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.

All provisions of the Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity and limitations of liability.

GOVERNING LAW

These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of Western Australia, Australia, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court, the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between us regarding our Service, and supersede and replace any prior agreements we might have between us regarding the Service.

CHANGES 

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time. If a revision is material we will try to provide at least 60 days notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion.

By continuing to access or use our Service after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms. If you do not agree to the new terms, please stop using the Service.

CONTACT US 

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us.

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