Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to Year 10! My name is Jo Cook, and I will be your child's English and Studies of Society
and Environment (SOSE) teacher this year. I work on Mondays and Tuesdays, and every alternate
Wednesday (odd weeks). It has been timetabled so that your son or daughter will have most of
their English/SOSE on those days, which will ensure that their learning experience is consistent. As
we prepare your student for college and future employment, it is important that we maintain
constant communication, and remain positive through any challenges. Learning is not necessarily
easy, but we are also building resilience and endeavour - two of our school values - when we solve
learning problems together.
A unit overview will come out in Term 1, Week 2, which outlines the learning for Semester 1, and
the outcomes we are focused on achieving. If your son or daughter has particular issues with
regards to their learning style or literacy needs, I would like you to contact me as soon as possible.
In the meantime, in Weeks 1 and 2 we will be working on a writing task where students will analyse
and compare two short visual texts. This task will be due on Monday 16th of February so that I
have a sample of each student's written work. In Week 4, I would like to meet with all
parents/carer's and their student, to discuss the learning goals for the semester based on this
writing sample. Meetings will be 15 minutes each, so if you could please look at the meeting
schedule below and email me with your first three preferences that would be appreciated.
There are some applications for your child's device which would be helpful to have pre-installed for
English/SOSE. They are listed in order of importance. Some have a cost, and other are free, but if
you have any issues with downloading applications for any reason, please let me know.

Application:

Used for:

Cost:

Pages

For word processing, creating

graphs, posters, newsletters, etc.

Notability

For annotating images or

documents, peer editing, etc.

Dictionary

Great app for expanding

vocabulary, synonyms, example
sentences, and the origin of
words.

Free

Overdrive

The school uses this to purchase

digital copies of books so that
students can then borrow them for
free.

Free

iBooks

To access novels and other digital

media.

Free

$3.79

QR Reader

To access lessons or secondary

resources via QR Code.

Creative Book Builder

To create anthologies or portfolios

of work.

Mindomo

Concept mapping and

brainstorming.

Free

Read-write-think Timeline

Build interactive timelines of

events in history.

Free

Dragon Diction

To assist students for whom

writing is challenging to get verbal
ideas into a written form.

Explain Everything

To present their learning using a

multi-modal format.

For any questions, feedback, or concerns, please email me at: joanne.cook@ed.act.edu.au

I look forward to meeting and working with you!
Kind regards,

Jo Cook
English/SOSE teacher
Harrison School

Meeting Schedule:
Monday 23 February 2015

Tuesday 24 February 2015

3:00

3:00

3:15

3:15

3:30

3:30

3:45

3:45

4:00

4:00

4:15

4:15

Free

$3.79

4:30

4:30

4:45

4:45

5:00

5:00

5:15

5:15

5:30

5:30

5:45

5:45

6:00

6:00