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enjoy an evening of high quality restaurant food whilst
re-enacting some moments in history as part of the unit
called Historical Perspectives. Year 5- 8 students were
treated to some comedy from
Les Batons Français
– an
amazing hour of history and culture combined with
musical comedy. Year 9 and 10 students participated in a
theatre workshop incursion run by Melbourne French
Theatre, a bilingual theatre company. Students and
teachers enjoyed performing scenes from
Le Petit Nicolas
,
but the highlight for all was Amélie (one of the French
Assistante)’s improvised performance with the visiting
actors. Finally, who can forget M (and Mme!) Crêpe, who,
once again, cooked an amazing amount of crêpes for
students and staff alike, all the while amid bracing icy
winds?
Alliance Française
competition results were very pleasing.
All students in Years 4-6 and 12, as well as selected Year 8
students, participated in either oral, written or both
sections of the competition. Virtually all Ruyton entrants
this year received
Bie
n (Credit) or above, and the School was
delighted to send eight girls from Years 4-8, together with
two Year 12 students, off to finals.When a Year 12 student is
selected as a finalist in the oral section of the competition
this is a particular achievement as this is similar to an
end-of-year Oral Examination and students must receive
20/20 on the day to be selected.
Bravo
to all those who
received awards, and especially to a Year 5 student for
achieving a prize – a wonderful achievement!
Whether it is in the French or Chinese Department, we are
fortunate to be part of a whole School community who
values language learning very highly. Students have
opportunities to begin language learning from an early age
and benefit from staff who are fluent in their target
language. I am sincerely grateful to all the wonderful staff
in this Department.
Mrs Danyang McAuliffe,
Dean of LOTE
Mathematics
‘Do as much Mathematics as you can – it will empower your
professional life.’
Sir Gustav Nossal
Mathematics is older than recorded history and has,
through the ages, developed into a sophisticated, complex
body of knowledge. Mathematics pervades all aspects of
our lives – as citizens, in our homes and in the workplace. It
has applications in all human activities, crossing cultural
and linguistic boundaries to provide a universal way of
solving problems in such diverse areas as science and
engineering, business and finance, technology, arts and
crafts and many everyday activities. Mathematics studies
the patterns arising from the real world and from within
Mathematics itself. These patterns can be used to make
predictions about mathematical objects and about the
behaviour of real things. Because mathematical knowledge
is about relationships between things, it is inherently an
abstract discipline. This abstractness makes it applicable in
a wide variety of situations.
The University of Melbourne School Mathematics
Competition is the most difficult of all Mathematics
competitions that are available to Victorian students.
It is done under examination conditions. In the long and
distinguished history of this School, there have been only 17
awards in this Competition. Two girls, in Year 8 and Year 9,
secured our 18th and 19th awards this year. Ruyton girls
have also taken out 63 distinctions and 29 high distinctions
in this year’s Challenge Stage of the Mathematics
Challenge for Young Australians, and 34 distinctions and 31
high distinctions in the Enrichment Stage of the Challenge.
In the Australian Mathematics Competition, Ruyton girls
have this year won 47 distinctions, seven high distinctions
and one prize. The Mathematics Challenge for Young
Australians and the Australian Mathematics Competition
are both run under the auspices of the Australian
Mathematics Trust and the University of Canberra.
As part of the Mathematics Department’s Three-Year Plan,
2014 has seen the introduction of online Readiness to Learn
Tasks in Year 7 Mathematics. These are designed to show
what girls know about a topic prior to its commencement
and what they will still need to learn during the teaching of
that topic.While Readiness to Learn Task results are not
reported in Semester reports, teachers use the data gleaned
from the tasks to differentiate the learning and to
determine appropriate pathways for each student as they
progress through topics. Girls receive all of their own data
at the end of each Readiness to Learn Task so that they too
Annual Report 2014
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