Ms Lyn Zarifis Global Pathways Offer Global Opportunities

In Humanities Honours, the teacher has taken the students on an adventure in History exploring the life of Cleopatra in Ancient Egypt. The class examined a range of primary and secondary sources which you do not see in your standard Year 7 History texts. The students were required to evaluate the reign of Cleopatra rather than merely being required to remember some key dates and events. By contrast, the students to use a detailed template that consolidated the expertise and experience needed of VCE students in terms of the vocabulary and skills required to write well in History. The focus has been for the students to see history through the lens of an historian and write at a complex level to gain deeper understanding of the world around them. These two examples of the Science and Humanities Honours programs are typical of the approach in the Honours classes at Years 7 and 8. The girls are stretched and challenged in their thinking. They are required to think deeply. This capacity to engage in Deep Work as described by Cal Newport (who is currently Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Georgetown University and author of the acclaimed book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) is “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” This is an essential skill and disposition all students need to succeed academically. While every student is supported to reach their individual potential in our classes, whether they are in the youngest of Year levels right through to Year 12, we must also ensure we enrich and extend the thinking of all students, including our most academically able, so they are never, ever bored. Our challenge as teachers, is to ensure they are in a state of flow as often as possible.

Mr Robert Marshall

Deputy Principal, Director for Teaching and Learning

Name: Ms Lyn Zarifis Title: Head of Global Pathways Date: 29 October 2021 Strategic Intent: Co-curricular Opportunities

GLOBAL PATHWAYS OFFER GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES

Establishing our Global Pathways and Partnerships program is at the heart of our Values at St Catherine’s School.

Our Global Pathways and Partnerships Program provides our students with global opportunities and experiences. It provides a vital platform to deliver our School’s commitment to equipping our students with Integrity, Empathy, Curiosity, Gratitude and Perseverance. Our Global Pathways and Partnership Program is multifaceted, incorporating our School’s commitment to maintaining and broadening worldwide connections and partnerships to offer our students global opportunities and experiences. In doing this, not only do our current students benefit, but future students, parents, teachers, and all those who work and engage in the St Catherine’s community. Through our experiential Global Programs, our students gain the skills necessary to perceive and act appropriately and responsibly within varying cultural and environmental contexts. Connecting with people from diverse cultures and within different environments provides our students with the abilities to interact on both an intellectual, as well as emotional level. Through our immense and varied programs, students are exposed to many aspects of the world. These include:

• Adventure programs such as the Duke of Edinburgh

Program, the New Zealand Expedition and The

Tasmania Expedition, where students engage with the natural world, learn physical skills, and gain a sense of the world around them. • Service projects such as Heyington to Highlands and World Challenge, open students’ worlds to lifestyles vastly different to their own, within cultures experiencing food insecurity, limited schooling opportunities and limited health support. These projects operate to instil the idea of establishing passion for action, empathy, and gratitude in our students. • Our Language Exchanges to France, Japan and Italy encourage students to immerse themselves in another way of life, living with local families and attending a local school, enables them to see the day-to-day nuances of different customs, learning and respecting cultural subtleties. The Exchanges also highlight to students the similarities people from around the globe can have. • Exchanges within Australia, the UK, USA, and Canada see the students live with a local family and attend a local school for an extended amount of time. This lends itself to establishing long-term friendships and an in-depth understanding of other countries, local people, and local concerns. St Catherine’s

School is hoping to expand this program through membership of the Round Square Organisation. • Our Academic Programs including the Visual Arts Program, the Ocean School Marine Biology Program, NASA Space

Camp and Global Young Leaders are once-in-a-lifetime experiences, where students learn by being and doing.

What better way to experience marine life than being immersed in the Great Barrier Reef with Marine Biologists as your teachers or gaining a sense of different political systems through the Global Young Leaders’ Program.