Senior School

Knowing Students

Our focus at KRB is knowing our students in order to provide a personalised education that meets the diverse interests and needs of every individual. The individual learner is always at the centre of our decision making. This is evident in many ways including through the diversity of our success across a range of HSC subjects, the one-on-one academic interviews as students choose their subjects when they move into senior years and the detailed analysis of student data that teachers use to inform their practice throughout the year.

Learning Framework

Our teachers are contemporary learners who work collaboratively in professional learning teams targeted to knowing our students and initiating improvement in their teaching and learning practice. This year the focus has been on developing a clear, shared, future focused vision for learning to meet the needs of our students. Teaching staff from ELC right through to Year 12 have worked to build a shared understanding of how we can design learning that caters to the unique context and attributes of our learners. They implemented new ideas in their classrooms and shared these at our “Learning Bazaar” at the Professional Learning Conference. They also commenced the first steps towards developing a new learning and teaching framework for our students at Kincoppal-Rose Bay, to ensure we are up to date with best practice to foster strong student outcomes. Designing the new framework is an opportunity to draw on recent research, future proof and respond to the everchanging needs of our rapidly changing world. Throughout the Professional Learning Conference, teachers heard from experts, worked collaboratively, engaged in rich conversations, debated ideas, and reflected on who our graduates needed to be and the big ideas that will shape our learning practices.

Staff reflections from the Professional Learning Days included:

• The importance of giving students as much opportunity to direct their own learning as possible;

• It was great to work in small groups to brainstorm ideas about how to make changes in the classroom. This will be exciting to implement and action; • The Learning Bazaar was a wonderful opportunity which provided insight into the learning that happens around the

School.

We now continue in our work to develop a learning framework suited for our students in our context to ensure that they are ready to face the future as life-long learners.

Focus on STEM

A strategic focus on STEM this year has seen students across Years 7 to 10 participating in various learning activities using emerging technologies and tools in order to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities. Opportunities have included the Nexgen Code Robotics Camp, the Science and Engineering Challenge, the Australian Video Game Challenge and the Computational and Algorithmic Thinking (CAT) competition. We have also had STEM Days for Year 7 and Year 8 which have involved presentations from guest experts and active problem-solving sustainable design challenges. Year 9 also participated in ‘The Grand Challenge’ STEM-Entrepreneur Day at the University of Sydney to stretch their thinking beyond school. Our students are also working in partnership with St Catherine’s School every week in a robotics workshop.

Digital Learning

Digital Learning has focused on cultivating excellence in digital pedagogy across the School. Our online Learning Management system ‘Aspire’ has continued to be used for communication and to access interactive learning resources. Aspire is also evolving to be our platform for continuous reporting, providing up-to-date information to students, parents and teachers about student learning progress and achievement. This new format makes student reporting intrinsic to the learning cycle – something that students participate in and learn from rather than occuring at the end of the process only. This enables more effective use of data to inform learning and track learning growth effectively.

Angela Thomas Director of Pedagogy