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Learning and Teaching
PLC Sydney Towards 2030: Vision Statement and Strategic Directions
E. Become accomplished in all areas of endeavour with which she engages
If we set our goal to assist each student to become accomplished we need to both note our orientation towards learning, and to identify how we will support the teachers to support each student’s learning. Accomplished students take on the primary responsibility for learning. To find joy and meaning in learning they need to be able to own their learning. They discover that learning is not primarily the parents’ responsibility, or the teacher’s, but the student’s. As the adults who seek the student’s betterment we can unintentionally cripple their learning by: • Taking on the role of constantly telling them to complete their responsibilities • Doing work for them • Not allowing them to learn from their errors
Thus, our attitude towards the learner will be to allow them to have the responsibility, joy and engagement with their own learning. We will encourage this through: • Principal’s communications with parents • Assemblies
• Staff professional learning • Incidental discussions with students All such claims require a counterbalance. It the responsibility of the teacher to prepare students well for all learning by: • Providing a warm classroom climate • Teaching with a high degree of effectiveness
• Seeking to differentiate • Scaffolding early learning • Removing scaffolding to bring about independence • Challenging the independent learner • Linking learning to the real world.
This will involve:
• Professional learning programs that also count towards registration maintenance (a NSW government accountability) • Teachers watching other teachers apply their trade • Teachers reflecting collaboratively on what makes learning successful • Teachers researching the learning capacities of their own classes • Students providing feedback to teachers as to how they best learn • Further use of the Independent
Schools Teacher Accreditation
Authority (ISTAA) research pathway to enable high quality teacher reflection
• Ongoing faculty-led/Junior Schoolled analysis of how to achieve excellence in each area.
There are also particular groups that require further consideration. They are: • EALD (English as an Additional
Language or Dialect) • Learning Enrichment Specific academic support for EAL/D and LE students is led via the Learning Enrichment Department Their particular goals include: • Consistent and dedicated EAL/D and LE support for all senior school and junior school students, across all subjects including in-class support • Consideration of the process of integration for new EAL/D students and LE students, with staging as a preferred methodology • Raising the profile of the ELLE club • Development of a protocol around the languages to be spoken in class
Overseas Students
Specific academic support for overseas students is jointly led via the Overseas Student Coordinator and Head of Learning Enrichment. Their particular goals include: • Review of the interview and induction process • Compulsory testing for all incoming overseas students in order to gain an understanding of their level of
English and allow for preparation to best support them • Encouragement of early enrolment at PLC Sydney • Building on the 2017 and 2018
Professional Learning for staff to embed understandings of culture and learning patterns for Asian students • System for attraction of students from United Kingdom, who are already studying
Cambridge courses.
Indigenous Students
Specific academic support for Indigenous Students is led by the Indigenous Student coordinator. Her particular goals include: • Continuance of current and developing programs involving celebration, cultural expression and academic support • Development of an Indigenous
Languages club • Growth of indigenous student leadership program.
Transition Students
Our Transition students are a strong part of our community. Our aims for them are:
• Connection with PLC Sydney
Futures for growth in post-school opportunities • Renewal of Literacy and
Numeracy studies • Development of further financial skills.
• Stronger connections with day girls.
PLC Sydney Towards 2030: Vision Statement and Strategic Directions
Learning and Teaching
F. To learn how knowledge is formed, and to consider the ethics of its uses
In order to ensure that our students understand that knowledge is not refined to specific subject areas, rather that all areas of knowledge interact and draw from each other, PLC Sydney will be deliberate in developing its cross-curricular frameworks. This enables students to better understand the ethical applications of knowledge.
One of the main contested areas is ‘Nature versus Nurture’. As a broad (and by no means complete) principle, the sciences tend to support the idea that life is heavily influenced by one’s genes. The humanities tend to emphasise one’s experiences. Therefore, we need areas of interaction in the College between these fields so that students can learn to see how they contest one another.
To achieve this aim, PLC Sydney will seek to include initiatives.
• Introduce subjects that combine different disciplines: • For example, in 2019 Cambridge
Business and Entrepreneurship combine with the NESA Design and Technology course to create a program whereby students learn not only to design but how to market designs • A further example being considered is Cambridge
Biology and NESA Design and Technology • Create an Agora in the new Alpha and Omega Centre as a space that promotes debate and discussion • Develop connections with Alumni who work in these frames
• Introduction of medical mission opportunities in cooperation with
Australian and overseas universities.
A further aspect of this work is the development of research skills. Macindoe Research Centre and the Faculties of History and Science lead in the development of student research skills.
A further area of connection is technology. Technology challenges our understanding of how knowledge is formed and how it is useful.
There are new technologies that may require investment in the future. To select the right technologies the College will: • Send key staff to events that highlight new technologies • Receive reports on these conferences
• Assess these reports and select technologies that enhance learning according to our vision and values • Ensure all new technologies are integrated into the College in a manner that means they are used pragmatically, but are not encouraged uncritically to be icons. Some recent areas of technology that are of interest are:
• 3D printing • 3D imaging • 3D virtual reality video • Technologies that enable people with disability to function with greater ease • Technologies that enhance learning Some technologies that will be watched with particular care are: • Human augmentation towards cyborgs • Entertainment-based technology that is easily addictive • Transhumanism
PLC Sydney will seek to provide students with opportunities to develop a deep understanding of the complex moral, ethical and practical questions that underpin these areas. They do connect not only to what is technologically possible but quite deeply with notions of how terms and definitions are constructed.
For example, Transhumanism (that technology will enhance the human body and mind) sets itself up in opposition to what is called Presentism (adherence to current attitudes) and Anthropocentrism (belief in the central importance of the human being). We must educate students in how ideas are contrasted against each other as well as in technological possibility – its benefits and costs.
Christian teaching about the ineliminable value of the human being is helpful in providing a basis for the use of technologies. Technology is a tool, not a god.
PLC Sydney Towards 2030: Vision Statement and Strategic Directions
Learning and Teaching
G. Achieve proficiency and confidence in communication
Public Speaking is very important at PLC Sydney. We seek to enable each student to be a capable communicator. Since the mid-1950s every student has given a public speech every year. Lyons House, the College’s Centre for Speech, is very important. We will continue to extend students via national and international competitions. We aim to remain the largest school provider in Australia of training in public speaking.
It is critical that students read and think, and that they read and think beyond the curriculum. Over the course of the Strategic Plan PLC Sydney will implement a new reading policy and program, from Pre-K to Year 12. The aim is to provide incentive and direction for reading, to enable students to enjoy reading, to develop a broad vocabulary, and to have a strong general knowledge. This will be led by the ‘I read to understand program’. This program will be developed in league with the Macindoe Research Centre and will be central to its Strategic Plan over the next decade. We will also seek to create a bookshop that provides the capacity to purchase books connected to matters of faith as well as to student studies, based on the Regent College model in Vancouver.
Evandale will have its own library reading space which will operate as a subset of Macindoe. This saves younger children spending time walking to their library lesson. The Junior School Library workbench will be remodelled.
What is Lyons House? The Centre for the Spoken Word.
H. Grow in confidence and develop her academic abilities towards excellence
Our academic results indicate the following: • Each year a significant number of
PLC Sydney students achieve at the highest possible level in their areas of endeavour, resulting in selection in teams, receipt of prizes and commensurate academic results
• Each year the performance of students who achieve results in the middle section of each Year 12 grade is of a very high standard. • Each year students in the lowest deciles achieve sound results, including our Transition students, who have high employability rates. We will review our cohorts to establish if and where there are areas where students are not heading towards their personal best. We will review the factors involved, including: • School related causes
• Personally related causes We will review possible responses to the factors that are uncovered.
We will seek to use our teaching and learning framework and Home Room framework to strengthen identified strengths, and to address weaknesses. We will also introduce some new areas of learning such as: The Senior Life Skills Program PLC Sydney senior students are on the brink of entering the world of tertiary study and work. We currently hold a ‘practical life skills program’ at the close of Year 12. We will seek to expand this to include: • Tax
• Superannuation • Home Budgeting • Looking after a car • Organising living spaces • Other required skills
I. Read widely and thoughtfully
J. Write clearly and genuinely
Reading and writing has changed significantly since 2000, when a raft of new syllabuses came in. We saw a phenomenon occur which we are not entirely comfortable with: students were asked to read and write in ways that reflected the kind of theoretical engagement that we would expect of a university student studying French philosophy. Consequently, what we saw was an upswing in rote learning, tutoring colleges, and students who struggled with any element of surprise in a written examination. What we seek to do at PLC Sydney is to allow our students to engage theoretically and philosophically on their own terms, so that their writing is authentic. Good writing always seeks to engage with an unanswered question. At PLC Sydney, we will always privilege genuine questions from students, teachers, and historical figures, allowing our students unfettered access to wonder, query and work through the questions that they themselves pose. This is the birthplace of good writing, such that each girl develops a voice of her own.
Pulitzer Prize Winning author Marilynne Robinson describes the process of writing fiction as a very human affair. Her characters are complex. Excellent writing pays attention to the nuances of being human. We will review how we teach writing across the College to ensure that our style and influences have rich historical, theological and philosophical resonances that extend beyond a recent trend.
We will introduce specific programs that enhance student writing in both the Junior and Senior Schools.
“I think a character is complex or not worth pursuing. People are complex — that’s the whole centre of interest. I don’t make my characters complex. I have a feeling that I know a character, and one of the aspects of that is knowing that they are complex. I never have the feeling of putting a character together from a selection of qualities.”
Marilynne Robinson, acclaimed novelists of Housekeeping (1980), Gilead (2004), Home (2008), and Lila (2014).
PLC Sydney Towards 2030: Vision Statement and Strategic Directions
Learning and Teaching
K. Calculate with elegance and accuracy
The employment of ‘in residence’ positions is part of a plan to connect learning to the real world. Education can become a mechanical process. Teaching can become a pattern of safe practices. In order to encourage our teachers and our students to take risks, we employ in-residence roles. In 2019 we will have: a Mathematicianin-Residence, a Nuclear Physicist-inResidence, a Scientist-in-Residence, a Composer-in-Residence and an Artist-in-Residence. Some are part-time (one day per week). Others come for blocks of time.
In order to enable students to have their thinking challenged, such that they value accuracy, we will continue to support such frameworks. We employ a Philosopher to teach PaTh for the same reasons.
L. Develop a keen and lifelong pursuit of learning
Lifelong learning is an attitude we need to model and develop. One way we do this is by regularly reviewing our programs. We do not rely on the past. We seek to develop the future.
We do have some significant individual initiatives in mind for the future in individual faculties. They include:
English
• Create a Literature Festival • Introduce a ‘Poetry and
Prose Gallery’ for celebration of student work • Develop the PLC Sydney Great
Books Program
PaTh
• Create a globally accessible program for teaching Philosophy and Theology
STEM
• Embed the Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
Tours in the International Program • Create discussions between
STEM subjects and PaTh • Create real world research links to universities • Introduce NESA Engineering as a distinct subject • Introduce a finishing course in
Technology • Further develop Robotics in the senior school
• Ensure the Science Summit is an international event
Humanities
• Create the aforementioned Reading,
Writing and Speaking Programs • Create a Humanities Awards Evening • Develop the ‘Women in Enterprise’
Program
Arts
• Introduce Dance • Integrate Arts performances so that the entire show is interconnected • Connect Arts performances with
Service Learning opportunities • Increase the emphasis on Musical
Composition
Languages
• Consider a different language as
‘A’ level Cambridge studies are introduced • Create stronger connections with the local German School – held in the adjacent church
Outdoor Education and PDHPE
• Increase the number of students undertaking Duke of Edinburgh awards
• Review ‘Body Education’ in order to make sure we are teaching students with the greatest level of effectiveness how to understand and care for their bodies
Outdoor Education, Sport and PDHPE
• Continue to develop each Sport program to seek to ready students for competition and to further improve sports participation, sportsmanship and competitiveness. • Develop a strong positive personal health and sex educational framework • Develop a means to expect higher levels of personal fitness
From 2019 - Business Studies and Design Technology
• To assist young women to both design products and create a business model
Introduce at a future point a similar subject
• For example, Business Studies and
Biology – to assist young women to create environmentally friendly science-based businesses
Our Junior School infrastructure has now been renewed
Our philosophy of classrooms that should both be intimate (for close, direct teaching) and open (for collaborative learning) has been completed from Pre-K to Year 6. We have specialist Science, Technology, Speech, Art, Music, Theatre, Language and Community programs. We teach English and Mathematics thoroughly. We will complete our Year 2 classrooms in 2019. We will continue to review our pedagogical developments in these spaces.
Mentoring with Alumni
It is our goal to pair each HSC student with an Alumni for her HSC year. The expectations must be specific:
• Sustainable encouragement • Opening up to post-school networks
We are also seeking to ensure future generations join PLC Sydney in Evandale
Our targets are as follows: • To create a series of PLC Sydney
Preschools across Sydney, including
Ashfield, Petersham, Abbotsford,
Lane Cove and on our own campus.
We aim to secure places for future
PLC Sydney students through a high quality, flexible and creative preschool program • These pre-schools will offer a range of services to the community including programs that run 2 days per week and 3 days per week.
