From the Principal

From the Head of Curriculum Ms Victoria Kelleher

Our school vision aims to create a school community of trailblazers, creating a 21st century approach to thinking, learning and teaching that transforms lives and revolutionises education. As a community, we aim to reconceptualise what a 21st century approach to education looks like for our students. We are very much aware that one-size-fits-all approach to education is ill-adapted to addressing our students’ needs and is not the direction our school is working towards.

The OECD has offered a model of education, like the one shown above, which they believe represents the future of education. The model shows the relationship between knowledge, skills, attitudes and values which are interconnected and interacting to produce capabilities which are, in fact, knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in action. However, it’s not enough to merely be capable in school. We need our students to be prepared for a world with increasingly complex problems, to be critical thinkers with high level project and time management skills, to be media literate, ethical, socially aware and collaborative, to be creative, adaptable and strong communicators. Through a 21st century approach, we aim to prepare our students to be capable in a range of real-world settings. A 21st century approach involves teachers taking on more of a supportive and coaching role, guiding our students through their learning. Last Friday, the teaching staff of St George’s spent the day working on ways our students can get what they need by tailoring their learning to match their learning needs. We focused on a range of teaching and learning domains, working from the notion that our purpose is to empower our students to be capable, independent learners and guide their education from teacher-centred, to learner-centred, to learner driven.The unique setting of our school already allows for our staff to make use of flexible spaces to support our students learning and engagement. These spaces support our students who are comfortable learning in a variety of places. On Friday, we explored how we can use technology, namely our learning management system SEQTA, as a flexible way to support our students learning and engagement. We want our students to collaborate, to persevere and be motivated. These are skills that can grow into capabilities, which can become a student’s default disposition, perfected and practiced in several different contexts.

One of our focus areas on was the improved use of the Daily Planner on SEQTA. It was agreed that where applicable, staff will use the Daily Planner on SEQTA to communicate with students for each lesson. They will provide a lesson objective and a clear outline of the lesson, along with all additional resources. The use of the Daily Planner will provide us with a sophisticated platform to put our students at the centre of the learning process and to communicate our teaching and learning in a personalised and detailed way. Staff will use this approach to deliver a learner driven curriculum to our student and we are confident such an approach will continue to support your son/ daughter’s learning journey at St. George’s. Victoria Kelleher Curriculum Coordinator

OLNA (Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment) The first round of OLNA 2020 got underway on Tuesday 3 March with the Writing component. The Reading component was completed on Thursday 5 March and Numeracy will be on Tuesday 10 March. I will continue to communicate with our students and our families closer to the date.

4 St George’s Anglican Grammar School Newsletter NAPLAN (National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy) NAPLAN Online 2020 will be conducted from Tuesday 12 May to Friday 22 May 2020. NAPLAN assesses literacy and numeracy skills that are essential for every child to progress through school. All students in Years 7 and 9 will participate in tests in reading, writing, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) and numeracy. Further details and more specific dates will be provided closer to the time.