EDUCATING GLOBAL CITIZENS

One of my favourite events each year at St Peters is our multicultural Parade of Nations, where our young people proudly dress in their national costume or the national dress of their parents or grandparents and parade through the middle of the Campus Heart in front of the whole College community. This event reminds me that St Peters is, as a tagline in our Strategic Intent Plus Ultra 2025 reminds us, 'A World School'. We are part of a global community responsible for educating global citizens.

We live in a global world that has become smaller in many ways—most people move about, and it is increasingly easy to travel and work overseas. Many workplaces are becoming internationalised. Digital technologies are and will continue to make it easy for employers and workers to connect, transact and collaborate across geographies, helping a labour force of 'virtual global workers' to flourish. There are economic shifts, rapid income growth in Asia and new emerging middle classes in many parts of the world, including China, India and South America. This economic shift has and will build new export markets, trade relations, business models and cultural ties for Australia. Tourists, funds and ideas will increasingly flow out of these countries and into Australia's economy and society. We also live in a world where we are all tied together as citizens of the global community and where the challenges we face are complex and interconnected. Understanding and valuing diverse cultures and developing intercultural competency skills are essential in preparing our students for their futures, enabling them to engage positively.

At St Peters, through providing a globally focused education, developing intercultural competency skills and celebrating the diversity of our multicultural community, we aspire to graduate internationally minded citizens well prepared to lead, work and live in a global context.

The College does this in several ways through curricular and cocurricular learning programs and experiences. In the Primary Years, we offer the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme (PYP). This framework utilises the Australian Curriculum with an international lens that helps to develop international mindedness in our youngest students. In Years 11 and 12, our young people have the opportunity to study the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, an internationally recognised curriculum and qualification for entry into universities around the world. In the secondary years, the College offers five languages: German, French, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish. Approximately a third of our students elect to study a language in their Senior years, a stark contrast to the 13% of students who, on average, study a language in other Australian Schools. The College values language study because it helps build intercultural understanding in our young people. St Peters students have for many years had the opportunity to undertake cultural exchanges with France, Germany and Japan, and there are plans to provide such an opportunity to China in the near future. Cultural exchanges expand our young people's cultural literacy, a vital part of being a global citizen. Every year, our young people can be part of international music and sporting tours, helping to build worldwide friendships that last a lifetime. St Peters also facilitates international service learning tours. For a decade, our Year 11s have been helping to build a school in a village in Cambodia. Such international learning opportunities enrich the lives of both the people we serve and those who do the serving.

St Peters, as a school of the Lutheran Church, has a distinctly Lutheran perspective when it comes to developing global citizens—that is, to view other people as our neighbours.

Martin Luther, 500 years ago during the Reformation, regarded 'neighbour' as the primary way of regarding another person. In a global world of strangers, the Lutheran worldview of St Peters is to help our students regard those who are different from us, whether here at home or abroad, as their neighbours. Neighbours share a common space, and their proximity means we have a civic responsibility to make a common life together. When we help our young people see others as their neighbours, this changes how they engage with other people from their own backyard and around the world.

Seeing other people as our neighbours helps to shape the design, provision and delivery of curriculum, cocurricular programs, exchanges and learning experiences here at St Peters. This worldview of seeing other people as our neighbours helps prepare St Peters' young men and women to excel, lead and serve in a global context, inspiring them to be engaged global citizens and stewards who make a difference in the world.

Plus Ultra. More Beyond. St Peters Lutheran College.

Article by: Tim Kotzur, Head of College