Sunata 2021: St Margaret's Professional Learning Journal

EDITION ELEVEN

2021 SUNATA

Sunata

St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School 11 Petrie Street Ascot QLD 4007 Australia Telephone: +61 7 3862 0777 Facsimile: +61 7 3862 0701 mail@stmargarets.qld.edu.au www.stmargarets.qld.edu.au St Margaret’s School Council Ltd ABN: 69069684019 CRICOS Code: 00511K A School of the Society of the Sacred Advent

EDITION ELEVEN

No pupil in the history of education is like today’s modern learner.

STAFF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING JOURNAL

ceTLe Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence

Sunata Edition 11 Principal: Ros Curtis Editors: Karen Gorrie, Wendy Johnston, Nicole Devlin Graphic Designer: Pam Smiles Photographer: Sophia Taylor, Michael Marston and Miranda Everett

EDITION ELEVEN

Sunata THE STAFF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING JOURNAL

CONTENTS

Travelling along the ‘Brightpath’: A writing assessment and moderation journey undertaken by the Year 6 teaching team Kimberley Bachmann | Classroom Teacher and Primary Literacy Coach

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The significance of social and emotional learning in our current climate Rhea Barber | Acting Head of Year

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Growth mindset for emotional wellbeing Claire Bloomer | Head of Year

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Buddying up for learner centred teaching Kylie Briggs | Primary Teacher

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Why good school culture matters Hannah Calcino | Boarding House Supervisor and Secondary Teacher

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Looking to the future Kate Curran | Director of Human Resources

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Are you ready for school leadership?

Ros Curtis | Principal

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Reflection and Action: The journey so far for the development of a Reconciliation Action Plan Nicole Devlin | Dean of Academics

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Laying the Foundation – the importance of early mathematics Angela Drysdale | Head of Primary School

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Embedding general capabilities to transform the classroom environment Georgi Eadie | Primary Teacher

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The benefits of a school dog Lesa Fowler | Head of Boarding

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The gender gap in STEM Kate Frewin | Assistant Head of Primary School – Curriculum

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Global competency at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School Karen Gorrie | Deputy Principal

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The case for a strong school careers program Naomi Holley | Director of Careers and Portfolio Pathways

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Before you publish Wendy Johnston | Director of Marketing and Communications

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Promoting student engagement by balancing the study of canonical literature with popular culture texts in secondary English classrooms Alina Layton | Head of Faculty – English

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Effective study strategies for students in the ATAR system Caitlin McCluskey | Dean of Studies

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Overcoming anxiety in second language learning Kate Montgomery | French Coordinator and Head of Year 12

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Looking back, moving forward Mary Surtees | Assistant Head of Primary School – Wellbeing and Operations

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What students need … is not to be overparented Nikki Townsend | Dean of Students

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Confidence built in a concurrent context Nicole Walker | Head of Year

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Girl Talk Kelly Alford | Director – Durack College

Kelly Alford Director – Durack College

GIRL TALK

I began my career in girls’ education in the late 90s. Fresh faced from the teenage years myself, I entered the education profession focused on opening my students’ worlds to the beauty of literature and the science of human movement.

While this combination often raised eyebrows among the purists, I was passionate about literacy and health and couldn’t think of a better way to fulfil my interests and share my knowledge. I dived right in and loved it.

For the first ten years of my career, I continued to share my passion and expertise and came to understand how girls ticked.

And then something startling happened. Seemingly overnight, I began noticing a disturbing culture emerge. Unhealthy obsessions with academic progress, rising levels of anxiety, and a lowered sense of self began smothering our girls. But why now? Was it that I was a more experienced educator, working primarily in pastoral care roles, which invites closer insight to the woes of teen girls? Had becoming a parent opened my eyes to a different perspective of my students? Potentially.

Yet my colleagues were sharing in my concerns. Educational conferences and professional development opportunities were increasing around the topic of ‘student wellbeing’. It seemed I was not alone in my observations and concerns.

Around this same time, schools were facing another challenge – smartphones. As technology improved, allowing phones to do so much more than make a call or receive an SMS, there were issues with students accessing devices during the school day. For a while there was the ‘collaborative vs calamitous’ debate. It was argued that smartphones can be a very powerful educational tool; however, often the distraction and misuse of the device caused frustrations for staff. The idea that the smartphone could be held accountable for far more than a sneaky game of Tetris, instead of completing the revision questions, was always speculated, but now there is proof.

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According to the World Health Organisation (WHO 2014), mental health is ‘a state of wellbeing in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community’ and is an integral and essential component of health. Dr Lisa Damour, American psychologist and recognised ‘thought leader’, says that except for during the summer months, today’s teens now, for the first time, feel more stressed than their parents do.

They also experience the emotional and physical symptoms of chronic tension, such as edginess and fatigue, at levels that we used to see only in adults.

The consequences of teens dealing with the levels of stress that adults are used to is worrying on several levels. A young person

does not typically have the experience nor resilience, often developed through adversity, to manage the emotional and physical manifestations of stress. In her book, Under Pressure, Damour (2019) says we need to change the way we view stress and anxiety. We need to understand the difference between their healthy and unhealthy forms. If we appreciate that stress and anxiety are mental states essential for human growth and development, we may be able to turn the tide on the mental health crisis tormenting our young people – particularly girls.

But how much stress is too much stress? Damour (2019) says ‘stress becomes unhealthy when it exceeds what a person can absorb or benefit from. The volume of manageable hardship differs from person to person and can even differ for a single person from day to day’ (p. 25).

Having established that stress and anxiety are more prevalent among students now than ever before, it’s important to unpack the reasons behind why this is so. Let’s begin with school and girls’ heightened anxiety towards their academic performance.

Girls tend to view their grades as a telling sign as to what they can and cannot achieve. They frequently believe that a grade is an absolute judgement on their ability. This puts a lot of pressure on them to excel academically – good grades reinforce their self-worth. When girls doubt and worry about their academics, they habitually find that studying actually soothes their nerves. The more nervous a girl feels, the harder she’ll work. The dangerous thing about a hyper-conscientious approach is that it almost always works. As Lisa Damour (2019) puts it, ‘Excessive preparation helps girls quiet their worries about their academic performance, it consistently yields excellent outcomes that leave them feeling proud, and it earns them praise from their parents and teachers. For students who are motivated by fear, this system is exceedingly effective.

Until it become unsustainable’ (p. 145). But why is there so much emphasis on top marks? There is a pervasive belief in our culture that your future ‘success’ in life has a direct correlation to one’s high school grades. It’s simple. Top grades get you into the top courses at the top universities, which in turn gets you a top job, earning top money. Everyone knows that professional status and financial gain leads to happiness, don’t they?

Anything less is, well, less.

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Much has been published about the ugly culture of impossible standards of success for girls and no place is this more prominent than the online world. The drive to achieve is fuelled in part by unhealthy social comparison and competition endorsed on social media. Teens spend most of their day at school – a source of much angst for some girls especially, and they spend a frightening amount of time online – a platform spruiked as a place to connect and communicate – when really, it’s a more sinister place.

After a long day at school, girls are turning to social media to construct their ‘duplicate persona’ online. A girl feels it necessary to ‘amplify the features of her life to make herself appear prettier, smarter, more accomplished, closer with her friends, happier, and more popular than she really is’ (Simmons 2018, p. 30). It takes no small amount of effort and comes at a huge cost. Few girls get enough sleep. This is touted as likely one of the simplest, yet most powerful, explanations for girls’ high levels of anxiety. The connection between sleep loss and anxiety is clear. When we get enough sleep, we can handle most of what life hands us; when we don’t, we become frazzled and brittle. Plenty of things keep girls up at night, but none more so than online activity. While the blue light from screens is a known factor in sleep disturbance, it is the content encountered on social media keeping girls up at night. Rachel Simmons, author of Enough as She Is says, ‘The Internet is a giant, sprawling petri dish for social comparison: take a girl’s feelings that she’s not pretty, successful, or social enough, combine it with her inimitable drive to improve herself, then add a relentless stream of others’ edited images. It’s no wonder girls see social media as a way to establish their life is so much better than yours’ (2018, p. 32). A girl’s social media brand is yet another highly demanding platform where she is expected to perform, achieve and compare herself to others. Simmons (2018) goes on to explain that when ‘she taps on her phone, she will be likely to visit a visual platform like Snapchat, Instagram or TikTok, where she will feel pressure to construct a physically flawless, hypersocial digital life through a carefully curated stream of videos and pictures’ (p. 28). Social media is known to put girls on a non-stop roller coaster of emotions, veering from surges of adoration to stomach-clenching lows of exclusion and insecurity. The rush or control, optimism, and even power you get from producing social media can swiftly evaporate while you wait anxiously for a response, or, worse, don’t get the one you’re hoping for.

What girls need from parents and educators is not a conversation about what’s wrong with social media, but what’s wrong with the way many of them use and value it. As Simmons (2018) laments, ‘we can tell girls all day that social media isn’t a representation of reality – that it’s an illusion crafted by shrewd magicians of their own lives – but until a girl decides that social media can’t be the barometer of her own self-worth, very little will change’ (p. 44).

Both Damour and Simmons agree that our current culture holds girls and young women to unfair and unwavering expectations. Despite the overwhelming ‘success’ girls are experiencing, they have never struggled more. Simmons (2019) believes we have ‘failed to cut loose our most retrograde standards of female success and replace them with something more progressive. Instead, we’ve shoved more and more expectation onto the already robust pile of qualities we expect girls to possess’ (p. 173). Recognising these irrational standards to which girls are held is the first step in addressing them. From here we need to work on letting our girls know that they are, in fact, enough as they are.

References Damour, L 2019, Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls, Atlantic Books, London.

Simmons, R 2018, Enough As She Is: How to Help Girls Move Beyond Impossible Standards of Success to Live Healthy, Happy, and Fulfilling Lives, HarperCollins, New York, NY. Twenge, JM 2017, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, Atira International, New York, NY. World Health Organization 2014. Mental health: a state of well-being, WHO, Geneva.

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Dr Jean M Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, reports in her book iGen that teens who spend more time than average in front of a screen are more likely to be unhappy (2017, p. 40). She directly blames the arrival of the smartphone for the precipitous decline in teen wellness.

Social media invites and promotes incessant ‘social comparison’

to which girls are particularly prone. What was once private and intangible information – say how many friends you had or where you went and what you did – is now publicly visible online. One can measure and quantify social success by its own metric of likes and followers. It really is another world and extremely treacherous to navigate.

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Kimberley Bachmann Classroom Teacher and Primary Literacy Coach

Travelling along the ‘Brightpath’: A writing assessment and moderation journey undertaken by the Year 6 teaching team In alignment with St Margaret’s strategic focus on literacy, a St Margaret’s Innovation Award was granted to the Year 6 team in 2020. Led by myself, acting in a dual role as Year 6 teacher and writing coach, the Year 6 team trialled an online writing assessment and reporting tool called Brightpath.

Rationale Assessing writing could never be classed as an ‘easy’ part of a teacher’s job. Even after years in the profession, teachers can still find it challenging to assign a letter grade to a piece of student writing. Marking with a rubric alone requires teachers to deeply understand the small yet discernible differences between descriptors such as ‘partial’, ‘effective’ and ‘purposeful’.

And they need to understand what these descriptors actually look like in student writing. And on top of that, they need to apply this marking scheme consistently across a large cohort of students. It is most certainly not an easy job.

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The complexity of writing assessment underpinned the conception and design of the Brightpath Assessment tool.

Research in the field of assessment reveals that, 'Teachers draw on multiple sources of knowledge and evidence when making judgements and that the use of standards and criteria alone will not result in consistency of teacher judgements' (Connolly, Klenowski & Wyatt-Smith 2012, p. 596). Therefore, rather than asking teachers to mark student writing solely based on a rubric, Brighpath is based on a ‘pairwise approach’ to assessment (Humphrey & Heldsinger 2020). In the initial stage of Brightpath’s design, a large group of teachers compared pairs of writing samples and judged which performance was of a higher quality. After these 160 student samples were analysed, a rating scale and a set of performance indicators were developed.

The result was a set of calibrated student writing examples and performance descriptors that helped teachers understand the discernible differences between writing of varying performance quality. Classroom teachers are supported to make consistent

judgements about writing achievement by comparing their students’ writing to Brightpath’s examples, which sit along a rating scale. High levels of inter-rater reliability can be obtained with the pairwise approach, with correlations ranging from 0.897 to 0.984 in a study asking teachers to compare early years samples to calibrated examples (Heldsinger & Humphry 2013).

With these quality assessment principles underpinning the Brightpath Assessment tool, the St Margaret’s Primary School saw the potential to increase professional confidence, increase levels of inter-rater reliability, and also foster moderation conversations in the field of writing assessment.

Process Year 6 was chosen as the trial year level which allowed me to work in a dual role as both writing coach and classroom teacher. Once the Year 6 teachers understood the Brightpath assessment process, the first step was familiarising ourselves with the student examples. As previously mentioned, these were organised in a ranking system that demonstrated increasingly sophisticated writing skills. There were accompanying descriptors (which we came to think of as success criteria) that sat alongside the different levels of the rating scale. While we did familiarise ourselves with these descriptors, the Brightpath creators did emphasise that these were not to be used like a checklist. As teachers, this was one of the most difficult shifts to make in our thinking. But there was a solution. It felt a little silly at first; however, we were encouraged to read the student writing aloud. And honestly, this was a ‘game-changing’ approach. Some of the richest conversations we had while simply reading these writing samples to each other, listening to the emerging author voices and discussing the comparative performances of writing. Reading aloud was the element that helped us shift our mindset to the pairwise assessment approach.

Once we had become familiar with the Brightpath samples, the next step was comparing these to our students’ writing.

At moderation meetings, each Year 6 teacher shared samples that they believed sat at the high, median and lower ranges of the scale. Each sample was read aloud and then our team debated where it belonged along the scale. Initially, arriving at a consensus about a student’s rating was time laborious.

Rigorous conversations were had about the positive elements of the writing and the perceived next steps for the author.

Eventually, I’m pleased to report that we became more efficient and confident with the pairwise comparative approach of the Brightpath tool. If you walked into one of our moderation meetings towards the end of the pilot project, you may have heard someone exclaim, 'Oh, this one sounds just like the "Hot Air Balloon" example. Do you agree that it’s a 320 on the scale?'

Outcomes Focusing on a range of authors across the four different classes allowed the Year 6 team to develop shared understandings about what quality narratives ‘sounded like’ and the next required teaching steps. Conversations were had about the future learning needs of individuals, classes and the whole cohort. Towards the end of 2020, we were impressed with the ambitious vocabulary and the range of sophisticated sentence structures that the authors were demonstrating. It appeared the VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation) framework adopted by the St Margaret’s Primary School had positively impacted on these areas of their writing development. However, many students found it challenging to build suspense and resolve a problem within an allotted time. The teaching team took this feedback onboard and, as a result, adapted our narrative teaching unit for 2021. This year we read a range of short stories, profiled their plots, and gathered ideas for possible narrative complications. We also privileged time during lessons to generate plot ideas within groups and share planning strategies, and the students were explicitly taught strategies to end stories. As a result, during the first term of 2021, the team observed significant improvements in the students’ plot development skills. This conclusion was reached by considering both the Brightpath assessment data and other more informal teacher observations. The students weren’t the only ones to have improved learning outcomes as a consequence of the Brightpath project.

Next steps In accordance with Standard 5 of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, St Margaret’s Primary School staff are currently focusing on quality assessment, moderation and reporting practices. We are currently establishing a ‘photo album’ approach to Mathematics assessment through which progressive assessment tasks build up a picture of what students know and can do. Regular feedback about these tasks is delivered so that students can take ownership for setting and monitoring learning goals. As the Year 6 team become increasingly efficient using the Brightpath tool, it will be a means for us to apply this ‘photo-album’ approach to the English learning area. Teachers will be able to regularly track writing progress and give students explicit next steps for moving forward as an author. No matter how hard the work is, assessment is at the core of a teacher’s role. The Brightpath tool is a means of giving teachers more confidence to talk about writing with each other, assign consistent ratings and, most importantly, plan how we to move each student forward in their writing journey.

References Connolly, S, Klenowski, V, & Wyatt-Smith, C 2012, ‘Moderation and consistency of teacher judgement: teachers’ views’, British Educational Research Journal, vol. 38, no. 4, pp. 593-614.

Heldsinger, S, & Humphry, S 2013, ‘Using calibrated exemplars in the teacher-assessment of writing: an empirical study’, Education Research, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 219-235.

Parr, J & Timperley, H 2010, ‘Feedback to writing, assessment for teaching and learning and student progress’, Assessing Writing, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 68-85.

Peterson, S, & Portier, C 2014, ‘Grade one peer and teacher feedback on student writing’, Education 3-13, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 237-257.

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Humphry, S & Heldsinger, S 2020, ‘A two-stage method for obtaining reliable teacher assessments of writing’, Journal of Educational Measurement, vol. 56, no. 3, pp. 505-520.

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Although the assessment process seemed time-consuming at first, personally, I came to value this time as a very practical form of professional development. Each piece of writing was another opportunity to practise and strengthen our close analysis skills. By comparing each student’s writing to the ranked examples, we had to think deeply about the interrelated elements of quality narratives. Consequently, we are now better equipped to read a piece of student writing, discern their unique strengths, and identify the next key steps to move them forward as a writer. Another professional learning outcome occurred as a result of the ‘read-aloud’ approach suggested by the Brightpath creators. By listening to each student writing

sample, the teachers were encouraged to view it holistically rather than focus on surface-level features. Primary school teachers are cautioned against feedback focused solely on revising the surface features of writing (i.e. grammar, punctuation and spelling). Instead, researchers encourage them to discuss deeper text features in order to improve the content and organisation of student writing (Parr & Timperley 2010; Peterson & Portier 2014). The more we heard our students writing read aloud, the more we could hear their emerging author voices and appreciate elements that aren’t typically privileged (e.g. realistic characters, interesting turns of phrase, the flow of sentences). Throughout our moderation meetings, we discovered that many of our students had a clear awareness of how to write for an audience. They knew just how to capture the audience’s attention and imagination. After embarking on the Brightpath assessment journey, I’ve found that so many more of my feedback dialogues have focused explicitly on this essential concept of author voice. Evidently, the Year 6 students and staff benefited from the Brightpath project. The question was – where to next?

Rhea Barber Acting Head of Year

THE SIGNIFICANCE

of social and emotional learning in our current climate Young people are facing increasingly uncertain and challenging times. The global coronavirus pandemic has led to a decline in their wellbeing and their ability to cope with stress. The Headspace 2020 National Youth Mental Health Survey, conducted over May and June when much of the country was in lockdown, found that ‘rates of psychological distress remain high among Australian young people, with one in three reporting high or very high levels of distress’ (Headspace 2020). Significantly, the survey found that ‘one in two young people were unable to carry out their daily activities due to a decline in wellbeing, up from two in five in 2018’ (Headspace 2020). Similarly, the Mission Australia 2020 Youth Health Survey surveyed 25,800 young people aged 15 to 19 years.

Respondents reported coping with stress and mental health as their top two personal concerns (Mission Australia 2020).

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There is no better time than now to stress the importance of social and emotional learning (SEL) for our students. It is an integral part of education and students’ development. SEL is the process of acquiring and applying the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities. Students learn to manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals.

They learn how to feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions (CASEL 2020). The SEL framework encompasses five core competencies: self-awareness, selfmanagement, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (CASEL 2020). The framework was developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in 1994. If social and emotional wellbeing is vital for academic success, then SEL must walk alongside the teaching and learning of curriculum content and the pursuit of academic excellence. In this current climate, you could argue that SEL for our adolescent students should be the foundation of our classrooms in secondary schools, with the content driven learning following.

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The benefits of SEL are significant. Through the process of SEL, students develop greater self-awareness, learn self-

control, and improve essential interpersonal skills. Social and emotional competence enables students to cope with everyday challenges and improves learning and wellbeing.

SEL develops skills to nurture a positive sense of self, promote respectful relationships, foster academic success, manage emotions, behaviours and interactions with others (NSW Department of Education 2020). Decades of CASEL research indicates improved social and emotional skills in students, improved attitudes, relationships, academic performance, and perceptions of school (CASEL 2020). Research also suggests a decline in students’ anxiety, behaviour issues, and substance use (CASEL 2020). An analysis by Durlak et al. (2011) of 213 studies of SEL in schools indicated that ‘students receiving quality SEL instruction demonstrated better academic performance, improved attitudes and behaviours, greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behaviour’. There was a decrease in disruptive class behaviour and disciplinary referrals, reduced emotional distress and fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal.

We know these skills are crucial for the healthy growth and development of our students, but have we lost sight of these key competencies and their immense benefits for our older students in our pursuit of academic excellence? SEL is a key component of the Personal and Social Capability in the Australian Curriculum F-10 as students learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] n.d.). However, the implementation of SEL needs to shift away from an intensive focus in the younger years of schooling and into all areas of a young person’s schooling life, with a renewed focus and vigour in the senior years of schooling. CASEL believes ‘it is most beneficial to integrate SEL throughout the school’s academic curricula and culture, across the broader contexts of school-wide practices and policies, and through ongoing collaboration with families and community organisations.

These coordinated efforts should foster youth voice, agency, and engagement; establish supportive classroom and school climates and approaches to discipline; enhance adult SEL competence; and establish authentic family and community partnerships’ (CASEL 2020).

So how can teachers effectively promote or teach SEL in their classrooms? Schools can create an environment that infuses SEL into every part of students’ educational experience and promotes positive social, emotional, and academic outcomes for all students (CASEL 2020). While SEL can be taught explicitly (for example through personal development sessions), it needs to encompass all our interactions in school as the capabilities are about relationships and our interactions with others. Schools could build teacher capacity to promote and teach SEL through professional learning. Teaching practices could create classroom conditions that facilitate and support social and emotional development in students. Students could be encouraged to consider the social and emotional learning of others in daily activities. Schools could include students as agents in their SEL with a conscious selection of students across the entire demographic of the student body to promote and implement effective SEL programs. SEL competencies could be shared and discussed with parents and caregivers at every opportunity and could also be infused into skill development on school camps, sport information sessions, and co-curricular information sessions. School reports could address the SEL competencies. All these initiatives would ensure that SEL competencies are at the forefront of everyone’s minds and provide students with the ability to learn, develop and practise SEL competency.

As educators, we need to be mindful of the daily uncertainty, stress and challenges our students are experiencing in this current time. If we neglect to include SEL as a significant part of our daily interactions with our students, we will not be equipped to meet the needs of our students in the future (Walker 2020). SEL can create the conditions needed for individuals and schools to create more inclusive learning environments and reveal and nurture the interests and assets of all individuals (CASEL 2020).

References ACT Education Directorate (n.d.), Support for Students and Families: Positive Behaviour, Mental Health and Wellbeing Approaches in our schools: Social and Emotional Learning Approaches, viewed 12 April 2021, https://www.education.act.gov.au/support-for-our-students/positivebehaviour-mental-health-and-wellbeing-approaches-in-our-schools/ social-and-emotional-learning-approaches Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (n.d.), Foundation to year 10 curriculum: General capabilities, viewed 12 April 2021, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/ general-capabilities/personal-and-social-capability/ Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL] 2021, viewed 12 April 2021, https://casel.org/ Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL] 2020, CASEL SEL Framework, viewed 12 April 2021, https://casel.org/ wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CASEL-SEL-Framework-11.2020.pdf

Durlak, JA, Weissberg, RP, Dymnicki, AB, Taylor, RD & Schellinger, K 2011, 'The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions', Child Development, vol. 82, pp. 405-432.

Headspace, National Youth and Mental Health Foundation, n.d., Insights: Youth Mental Health and wellbeing over time: headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey 2020, viewed 12 April 2021, https://headspace.org.au/assets/Uploads/Insights-youth-mentalhealth-and-wellbeing-over-time-headspace-National-Youth-MentalHealth-Survey-2020.pdf Mission Australia 2020, Annual Youth Survey, viewed 12 April 2021, https://www.missionaustralia.com.au/what-we-do/research-impactpolicy-advocacy/youth-survey NSW Department of Education 2020, Student Wellbeing: Behaviour and engagement: Student Behaviour: Positive behaviour: Pro-social behaviour: Social-emotional learning, viewed 12 April 2021, https://education.nsw. gov.au/student-wellbeing/attendance-behaviour-and-engagement/ student-behaviour/positive-behaviour/pro-social-behaviour/socialemotional-learning Tsirtsakis, A 2020, 'Pandemic’s mental health impact on young people a "national crisis"', NewsGP Clinical, viewed 12 April 2021, https://www1. racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/pandemic-s-mental-health-impact-onyoung-people-a Walker, T 2020, Social-emotional learning should be a priority during COVID-19, National Education Association, USA. Support for schools https://www.aisnsw.edu.au/learning-from-home/wellbeing The AISNSW Wellbeing Portal provides infographics, resources, SEL and Protective Factors factsheets https://beyou.edu.au Has modules in learning resilience, SEL resources, factsheets and professional learning modules https://casel.org/ The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) provides an interactive SEL framework, case studies, and support packages https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzOdB_dsqKjUqG7Cwc3m7Vg CASEL Youtube https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidancereports/social-and-emotional-learning/ Six recommendations for improving SEL in Primary Schools https://studentwellbeinghub.edu.au/educators/framework/ The Student Wellbeing hub provides a national student wellbeing framework and additional resources https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/education Has monthly calendars, topics, quizzes, videos https://ggia.berkeley.edu Has a range of teachable actions to support SEL https://mindup.org/about/ A research-based training program for educators and children https://www.morningsidecenter.org Explore classroom resources emphasising social responsibility https://schools.au.reachout.com Explore student, parent and classroom resources https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kidsmatter +social+and+emotional Social and Emotional Learning videos

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Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL] 2018, Respected. Perspectives of Youth on High School & Social and Emotional Learning. A report for CASEL, viewed 12 April 2021, https:// casel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Respected.pdf

Department of Education and Training Victoria n.d., For Schools: Student health and wellbeing: Mental health in schools, viewed 12 April 2021, https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/health/ mentalhealth/Pages/socialemotion.aspx

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Growth mindset for emotional wellbeing

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Claire Bloomer Head of Year

For many students, the transition to secondary school can result in a decline in academic grades, sense of belonging and self-esteem (Benner 2011). As many as one in five high school students will experience mental health problems during any year (Barrett & Cooper 2014). Traditionally, schools have focused on achieving high academic results; however, with recent research demonstrating a positive correlation between emotional wellbeing and academic achievement, there has been a shift toward teaching emotional skills in the classroom (Christner, Kamon & Mennuti 2013). Along with having implications for academic achievement, students’ emotional development has implications for their success in life after school (Barry, Clarke & Dowling 2017).

Aside from the first few years of life, adolescence (ages 12 to 18) marks the most significant time of brain development (Fuller 2002). Additionally, adolescence is a time of rapid physical, cognitive and psychosocial development (Swanson 2010).

Throughout adolescence, individuals are exploring where they fit in at a time of cognitive, physical and physiological change, and emotionally challenging situations typically become more frequent and intense (Riediger & Klipker 2014). This means that adolescents are typically more vulnerable to being overwhelmed by emotional challenges and at risk of developing psychopathology problems (e.g. depression) (Riediger & Klipker 2014), and it highlights the need for emotional regulation skills to be taught in secondary school.

Strategies such as developing students’ growth mindset about emotions assist students to be self-aware and more able to manage their emotions and protect against the development of mental health issues throughout their lives (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning 2015).

Having a fixed mindset in the context of emotions means that a student believes that their emotions are fixed and unable to be changed unless the external situation changes (Dweck 2006). If a student has a growth mindset of emotions, then they believe that their emotions can be changed through one’s own efforts (Dweck 2006). Individuals with a growth mindset are more likely to be happier, satisfied with their relationships, and have higher levels of achievement and emotional wellbeing (Passmore, Howell & Holder 2017) and lower levels of anxiety and stress-related health issues (Howell 2016).

References: Barret, P & Cooper, M 2014, ‘Prevention and early intervention of social anxiety disorder’, in S Hofmann & P DiBarolo (eds), Social anxiety -Clinical, developmental and social perspectives, 3rd edn, Elsevier, London.

Barry, M, Clarke, A & Dowling, K 2017, ‘Promoting social and emotional well-being in schools’, Health Education, vol. 117, no. 5, pp. 434-451.

Benner, A 2011, ‘The transition to High School: Current knowledge, future directions’, Educational Psychology Review, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 299-328.

Christner, R, Kamon, E & Mennuti, R 2013, ‘Implementation of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to school-based mental health A developmental perspective’, in R Mennuti, R Christner & A Freeman (eds), Cognitive-behavioural interventions in educational settings: A handbook for practice, 2nd edn, Taylor and Francis, London.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2015, Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs, Chicago.

Dweck, C 2006, Mindset, 1st edn, Ballantine Books, New York.

Fuller, A 2002, ‘Raising Real People: An Overview of Adolescence’, in A Fuller. Raising Real People: Creating a Resilient Family, 2nd edn, ACER PRESS, Camberwell, Vic, pp. 1-25.

Howell A 2016, ‘Implicit theories of personal and social attributes: Fundamental mindsets for a science of wellbeing’, International Journal of Wellbeing, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 113-130.

Merrell, K & Gueldner, B 2010 ‘Social and Emotional Learning: What is it, and what it can do for your students’ in K Merrell & B Gueldner (eds), Social and emotional learning in the classroom: Promoting mental health and academic success, Guilford Press, New York, pp. 1-20.

Passmore, H, Howell, A & Holder, M 2017, ‘Positioning Implicit Theories of Well-Being Within a Positivity Framework’ Journal of Happiness Studies, vol.19, no. 8, pp. 2445-2463.

Riediger, M & Kilpker, K 2014, ‘Emotion regulation in adolescence’, in J Gross, 2nd edn, Handbook of emotion regulation, Guilford Press, New York, pp. 187-202.

Rodgers, A & Dunsmuir, S 2013, ‘A controlled evaluation of the 'FRIENDS for Life' emotional resiliency programme on overall anxiety levels, anxiety subtype levels and school adjustment’, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, vol. 20 no. 1, pp. 13-19.

Swanson, D 2010, ‘Adolescent psychosocial processes: Identity, stress, and competence’, in D. Swanson, M Edwards & M Spencer, Adolescence: Development during a global era, Academic Press, Netherlands.

Teubert, D & Pinquart, M 2011, ‘A meta-analytic review on the prevention of symptoms of anxiety in children and adolescents’ Journal of Anxiety Disorders, vol. 25, no. 8, pp. 1046-1059.

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Strategies for emotional wellbeing and developing a growth mindset view towards emotions should be explicitly taught (Barry, Clarke & Dowling 2017) and followed up in teachers’ everyday interactions with students (Teubert & Pinquart 2011).

Strategies taught should focus on students’ self-awareness of emotions and the impact they have on thoughts and behaviours and students’ self-regulation of emotions (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning 2015). Some of the evidence-based strategies teachers may wish to use include teaching students thought challenges they can use when they recognise they are having negative self-talk, or teaching students to recognise physical signs that they aren’t coping with a situation and some relaxation techniques to assist them to regain control of their emotions (Rodgers & Dunsmuir 2013).

Adolescence is a difficult period for students owing to the multitude of changes they are undergoing as part of this developmental stage. By equipping students with the skills to challenge their mindset towards how they cope with emotional stressors, teachers ensure students are more able to learn and grow academically (Christner et al. 2013). Additionally, when thinking more long term, students who learn to have an incremental view towards their emotions are less likely to develop mental health issues throughout their lives (Kneeland et al. 2016).

Kylie Briggs Primary Teacher

BUDDYING UP

for learner centred teaching In the wake of COVID-19, the primary school has now been able to reintroduce its highly successful buddy program whereby the Year 5 girls are paired with Prep students for a mutually beneficial relationship. The pairing of students from these year levels reflects the psychological thinking in education of Vygotsky (Leong & Bodrova n.d.) that important learning by a child occurs through social interaction with a skilful mentor or someone with knowledge and skills beyond that of the learner. He theorises that this social interaction is where we can observe the Zone of Proximal Development for each of our students. This thinking also underpins our school pastoral care program and guides our student wellbeing practices, fostering social, emotional, spiritual, ethical and physical student development.

Our buddy program not only mirrors St Margaret’s core values but builds a sense of connection between students and the school, which promotes a sense of belonging. In past years, the buddy program has been successful in promoting social and support networks for children beginning Prep, while giving the girls a sense of community and a culture that celebrates difference and diversity. The main objective of our St Margaret’s buddy program is to develop relationships that support a smooth transition for children starting school. ‘Friendships and being with a friend have been found to be one of the most important factors for successful transition’ (Fisher 2009). The Year 5 buddies act not only as a friend to the Preps, but as responsible role models and a guide for expectations, especially in the playground. In turn, the Year 5 girls have the opportunity to practise leadership in action on their journey into Year 6 through peer mentoring and cooperative learning.

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The leadership program in Year 5 prepares the girls for their future roles in Year 6 and reflects the zone of proximal development, providing scaffolding of students through leadership opportunities. Their passport into leadership connects with the buddy system, which is directly linked with the Year 5 pastoral curriculum of social thinking and emotional wellbeing. Through buddy reading, the girls develop their social and emotional skills such as patience, empathy, cooperation and self-efficacy as they read to and with their Prep buddies.

This pairing provides an opportunity for cooperative learning and for students to build community within their school. Buddy reading has benefited Prep students profoundly. They have been able to observe what fluency looks look as their buddy models reading skills, helping them to gain a strong foundation in language and encouraging them to read.

The Year 5 girls are also lunchtime buddies to their Prep friends, releasing them for play after they have eaten lunch and then continuing to grow their leadership capabilities through the role of activity leaders during playtime.

A child’s greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that tomorrow will become her basic level of real action. Lev S. Vygotsky Alongside the pastoral benefits of buddies, the program also links in with supporting our curriculum content which is evident during the Prep M-Spired unit on living things. Our Prep students have been utilising their Year 5 buddies to engage in active learning while exploring and investigating ideas about living things. ‘Active learning requires students to engage in the learning process, instead of an educator simply telling them the necessary information. New understandings are developed through discussions, practical application, and inquiry’ (Campbell, Jobling & Howitt 2018).

The Year 5 girls have helped their buddies to develop an understanding about the basic needs of all living things, specifically hermit crabs, loaning their class hermit crabs to the Preps as they guide them in exploring how environment supports life and how our actions in daily life can impact the environment.

The buddying up of students at St Margaret’s has given students the opportunity to authentically engage in learning activities that are student centred, supportive and inclusive, but more importantly, lots of fun!

'I think having a buddy is good because it gives me a chance to demonstrate how to live The St Margaret’s Way.' Zara Lyons – Year 5

'I get to show how to be leader to the Preps.'

Emily Brown – Year 5

'I get the chance to talk to the Preps and get views from people who are younger.'

Clementine Cooke – Year 5

References Campbell, C, Jobling, W & Howitt, C 2018, Science in Early Childhood (3rd ed), Cambridge University Press, Great Britain.

McLeod, SA 2012, Zone of proximal development, viewed 3 June 2021, www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html Fisher, JA 2009, ‘We used to play in Foundation, it was more funner: Investigating feelings about transition from Foundation Stage to Year 1’, Early Years, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 131-145.

Sahra Pattel-Brown – Year 5

Leong, DJ & Bodrova, E 2021, Pioneers on our field: Lev Vygotsky – Playing to learn, viewed 3 June 2021, https://www.scholastic. com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/pioneers-our-field-levvygotsky-playing-learn/#:~:text=%22A%20child's%20greatest%20 achievements%20are,ideas%20to%20early%20childhood%20education Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, n.d., Foundation to year 10 curriculum: General capabilities, viewed 3 June 2021, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/ general-capabilities/personal-and-social-capability/

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'The buddy program with Preps helps the Year 5s to be leaders and it helps the Preps to learn about their living things unit.'

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Hannah Calcino Boarding House Supervisor and Secondary Teacher

Why good school culture

MATTERS Culture is not easily defined, nor is it a phenomenon that is simple to understand. Culture is not a cookie cutter practice that can be picked up from one organisation and easily transferred to the next. Even anthropologists grapple with this idea and cannot universally agree on a specific definition of culture (Alvesson 2013). What they do agree on though is this: culture is an ambiguous blanket term; culture is entrenched in history and tradition; and culture is holistic, intersubjective and emotional, rather than rational and analytical (Alvesson 2013). What this means is that culture is naturally going to form, and how we intentionally react to it or mould it will influence its outcomes.

However, positive school culture is not an organic product; it takes effort to create. The process of developing a positive culture is like growing a vine.

Imagine the growing frame as strategy and the water and fertiliser as culture.

While we can put structures and frames in place to dictate the vine’s growth pattern, it is the water and fertiliser that helps a vine to flourish. Similarly, while an organisational strategy is important, it is the culture of an institution that influences its outcomes.

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How many people do you think would influence a school culture? Deal and Patterson (1999) defined school cultures as ‘a collection of traditions and rituals that have been built up over time as teachers, students, parents, and administrators work together and deal with crises and accomplishments..’ This definition highlights the importance of various stakeholders within a school and speaks to the notion that culture is an all-encompassing, evolutionary process. School cultures are shaped and re-shaped time and time again by many people within the same context (Hongboontri & Keawkhon 2014).

The interaction between individuals and the social environment is a powerful agent in the creation of organisational behaviour (Owens & Valesky 2015). The behaviour of people, individually as well as collectively, is not simply a reflection of unique personalities but is moulded by social norms and expectations. This is where the ideology of ‘unwritten ground rules’ comes into play. Unwritten ground rules are the things within an organisation that people do, or ‘get away with’, that no one discusses (Du Plessis & Simpson 2019). Unwritten ground rules can be both positive and negative.

An unwritten ground rule could be that someone buys someone else in their staffroom a coffee on their birthday, or it could be that only negative things are discussed at staff meetings. Typically, when strong affirmative culture exists, and stakeholders are largely onboard with the culture, vision and ethos, unwritten ground rules are going to be positive. If you need to identify a school’s culture, look to the unwritten ground rules and where the boundaries are being pushed. Where do people stay in their lane and within the line of instruction and where do they push the limits slightly to see how far it will stretch? Unwritten ground rules are a pivotal example of the importance of good culture over good strategy.

Culture has a human dimension that strategy cannot emulate. While an institution can have pristine policies and strategies to reach success, strategy alone cannot create a successful working environment. If the culture within the organisation is not positive, the unwritten ground rules will undermine the strategy.

While all stakeholders are important in the development of a positive school culture, teachers, from a collective perspective, would arguably be the stakeholders that have the most influence upon culture. While

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a principal or school council might enforce structures to promote a certain culture, it’s those in the classroom and in the trenches that are going to ultimately influence a school-wide culture. Gorrell and Hoover (2009) suggest that while you cannot coach a culture, you can coach individuals to create a positive culture. Southworth (2011) corroborates this principle and believes that collaboration creates a school culture that prizes professional and pupil learning alike. Teachers are on the frontline in more aspects than one, so if a school is striving for a positive organisational culture, it is imperative that teachers are onboard and considered in the process.

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The role of the teacher is an important one, and educators, irrespective of which level of the hierarchy they perch, are the heart and soul of schools. It is identified that while being unique is important, aligning one person’s self-interest with the organisation’s interests provides a stronger framework for a successful organisational culture (Shahzad, Lugman, Khan & Shabbir 2012). Research has found that the more teachers collaborate in evaluation and faculty goal setting, the more teachers present a positive attitude towards

their workplace and take pride in their pedagogy (Hongboontri & Keawkhong 2014; Thompson 2010). This pride then transfers into the creation of high care environments that put students at the centre and results in higher rates of positive student outcomes (Department of Education 2016).

So, what does a positive school culture look and sound like? We know that culture is not a one-size-fits-all process, and it takes more than someone simply saying ‘This is our culture’ to embed a culture within a school. Schools are unique organisations. Where other organisations may be filled with people, the point of a school is the people. Schools are unique because their purpose is to provide a safe and holistic learning space to encourage growth, development and learning. A positive school culture looks like care and respect. It looks like safety, and there is the utmost concern for the whole student, from personal wellbeing to moral and social development (Department of Education 2016). A positive school culture sounds like laughter. It sounds like ‘Here, let me help you’ and ‘I trust you’. Yes, the aim of a school is to pursue academic objectives, and it is these objectives that ultimately

steer the ship, but that does not mean that these objectives cannot be delivered in an environment of care and respect for staff, students, parents and the community.

Community plays an important part in creating a positive school culture.

Think of all the things schools rely on a community for: bake sales, school fetes, fundraisers, reading group volunteers, the list goes on. Community is woven into the fabric of the school, and community is more than just the P&F Association. Community is the collective response in both celebrations and crisis, and the culture of the school effects how the community responds.

Culture is not a stagnant phenomenon; rather, it is a living breathing organism.

And if there is the desire to stimulate a positive school culture, it is up to the stakeholders to breathe life into it.

Let’s cast our minds back to the vine mentioned at the beginning of this article. Strategy, just like a climbing frame, dictates the vine's path. It may provide a climbing frame, but it does not stimulate growth. It is the care taken in watering and fertilising that helps the vine flourish, just like it is the positive culture within a school that cultivates a unique and thriving community.

References Alvesson, M 2013, Understanding Organisational Culture (2nd Ed.), SAGE Publications Ltd, Thousand Oaks.

Beare, H Caldwell, B & Milikan, RH 1989, Creating an Excellent School – Educational Management Series, Routledge, England.

Deal, TE & Peterson, KD 1999, Shaping School Culture: The Heart of Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Department of Education 2016, Building a culture of high performance and high care in every school, viewed 7 April 2021, http://det. wa.edu.au/policies/detcms/policy-planningand-accountability/policies-framework/ director-generals-statements/building-aculture-of-high-performance-and-high-carein-every-school.en?cat-id=6317484

Owens, RG & Valesky, TC 2015, Organisational Behaviour in Education, Pearson Education Inc, New Jersey.

Shahzad, F, Luqman, RA, Khan, AR & Shabbir, L 2012, ‘Impact of Organisational Culture on Organisational Performance: An overview’, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, vol. 3, no. 9, pp. 975-985.

Southworth, G 2001, ‘Connecting Leadership and Learning’, in H Timperley & J Robertson (eds), Leadership and Learning, pp. 71-85, SAGE Publications Ltd, London.

Du Plessis, S & Simpson, S 2019, Unwritten Ground Rules, viewed 7 April 2021 https://ugrs.net Gorrell, P & Hoover, J 2009, The Coaching Connection: A Manager's Guide to Developing Individual Potential in the Context of the Organization, Amacom, New York.

Hofstede, G 1980, Culture’s Consequences, Sage, London.

Hofstede, G & Bond MH 1998, ‘The Confucius Connection: from Cultural Roots to Economic Growth’, Organ Dyn, pp. 5-21.

Hongboontri, C & Keawkhong, N 2014, ‘School Culture: Teachers Beliefs, Behaviours and instructional practices’, Australian Journal of Teacher Education, vol. 39, no. 5. pp. 65-88.

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Kate Curran Director of Human Resources

LOOKING to the future Increased automation, rapid technology advances, economic instability and a global pandemic all combine for heightened uncertainty. How can we prepare for what lies ahead for the future of work?

For decades, experts have been hypothesising about the future of work, in particular the impact that technology and automation will have on employment. There are many experts who argue that technology is taking over employees’ work. One such expert is Daniel Susskind, an Oxford University academic.

In his book A World Without Work, he argues that 'technology is taking over existing jobs faster than humans can create new ones, and that soon we will work a lot less, if at all' (Stapleton 2021, p. 12). Looking back historically as technology has advanced, there have been some industries and job functions that have suffered; however, the net impact on jobs overall hasn’t been negative. 'Today, there are over five million more Australians employed than there were in 1988' (Deloitte 2019. p. 1). Looking forward, it is predicted this trend will remain.

Recently, it has been estimated that by 2025 85 million jobs may be displaced; however, it is expected that 97 million roles may emerge (World Economic Forum 2020, p. 5).

In The future of work report (World Economic Forum 2020, p. 36), the top 10 skills required by 2025 were identified as: • analytical thinking and innovation • active learning and learning strategies • complex problem-solving • critical thinking and analysis • creativity, originality and initiative • leadership and social influence • technology use, monitoring and control • technology design and programming • resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility • reasoning, problem-solving and ideation.

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When compared to the first edition of this report by the World Economic Forum in 2016, problem solving and critical thinking were the two top skills; this is relatively unchanged with the two top skills focused on thinking skills. The 2020 report is the first time there has been inclusion of self-management skills such as ‘active learning and learning strategies’ and ‘resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility’. After the challenges 2020 brought for the world of work, it seems little wonder that ‘resilience, stress tolerance and flexibility’ have made their way onto this list.

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Skills of a thinking nature remain the most prevalent with five of the ten identified skills categorised as problem solving. Many of these skills that top the list could be what are often referred

to as soft skills; however, looking to the future, they seem crucial skills for individual growth and success. Despite there being only two skills listed of a technical nature, 60 per cent of Australian adults are worried that automation is putting jobs at risk and 59 per cent believe technology will change their job in the next three to five years (PWC 2020, p. 12).

While the pace of technology adoption is predicted to continue to increase and will require employees to remain technologically capable, technology is not a substitute for human employees. Steve Jobs, for all of his achievements in technology development at Apple, was quoted as saying: 'Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.' Technology, when used well, makes a workforce more productive and releases employees from work that can be automated, allowing them time to concentrate on more complex tasks. Afterall, if we were still using technology of previous decades, working from home seamlessly, like many have experienced in the past year, wouldn’t have been as successful.

In Deloitte’s paper, The path to prosperity – Why the future of work is human, the argument is strong that 'humans' are the key to the future of work. It is forecast that by 2030 two thirds of jobs will be soft-skill intensive. There has been a shift from work with the hands to work with the head. There is also the work of the heart, which is seen to be the hardest of all to automate.

This work of the heart is the interpersonal and creative aspects of work. A key to the success with automating jobs and using technology is the link between whether they are routine or non-routine jobs. It is almost impossible to automate a nonroutine job. Technology can still assist with a non-routine job. For example, a surgeon can use technological advances to diagnose a patient; however, it will still require the essential skills of the surgeon to perform the surgery and deal with the many unpredictable variables at play (Deloitte 2019, p. 8).

If we continue on our current path, by 2030 it is estimated that there will be a total of 29 million skill shortages, almost 25 per cent higher than the shortages we are already experiencing (Deloitte 2019, p. 24). With 21 per cent of employing businesses reporting difficulty finding suitably skilled staff in December 2020 (ABS 2020), skill shortages already seem to have had an impact on some industries in Australia. Playing into these potential skills shortages in Australia is the COVID-19 response, with border closures impacting the availability of the international labour market.

The issue of a potential skills shortage is shared by both the employee and employer. Without adequately upskilling the individual, employability is compromised. It is also being recognised that for many the traditional linear career path is no longer a reality. Employees are pivoting between careers;

sometimes this is into evolving industries that require them to upskill and retrain. Conversely, if employers don’t invest in their employees, they run to risk of losing their competitive advantage and being left behind. On average, companies estimate that around 40 per cent of workers will require reskilling of six months or less and for those workers set to remain in their roles, the share of core skills that will change in the next five years is 40 per cent (World Economic Forum 2020, p. 5-6). In response to this skills shortage, 94 per cent of business leaders report that they expect employees to pick up new skills on the job, a sharp increase from 65 per cent in 2018.

Employers also expect to utilise internal training heavily with 39 per cent expecting to utilise internal training departments and 16 per cent using online platforms (World Economic Forum 2020, p. 37-38).

The need for development of employees is a key priority for businesses. In a recent Ganter survey of 800 human resources professionals, 68 per cent rated the need to build critical skills and competencies as their number one priority for 2021 (Ganter 2021, p. 2). It is little wonder it is a priority when recent Gallup research reports that organisations with a strategic investment in employee development report 11 per cent greater profitability and are twice as likely to retain their employees (Mullen O’Keefe 2020).

References Australian Bureau of Statistics, December 2020, Business Indicators, Business Impacts of COVID-19, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.abs.gov. au/statistics/economy/business-indicators/business-conditions-andsentiments/dec-2020 Deloitte 2019, The path to prosperity – Why the future of work is human, viewed 30 May 2021, https://images.content.deloitte.com. au/Web/DELOITTEAUSTRALIA/%7B90572c4f-4bb5-4b54-bf27cc100d86890d%7D_20190612-btlc-inbound-future-work-humanreport.pdf?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_ campaign=20190612-btlc-inbound-future-work-human&utm_ content=body Ganter 2021, Top 5 Priorities for HR Leaders in 2021, viewed 6 June 2021, https://emtemp.gcom.cloud/ngw/globalassets/en/human-resources/ documents/trends/top-priorities-for-hr-leaders-2021.pdf Mullen O’Keefe 2020, What Companies Are Getting Wrong About Employee Development, viewed 6 June 2021, https://www.gallup. com/workplace/311099/companies-getting-wrong-employeedevelopment.aspx PWC 2020, Where next for skills? – How business-led upskilling can reboot Australia, viewed 31 May 2021, https://www.pwc.com.au/importantproblems/where-next-for-skills/where-next-for-skills-report.pdf Stapleton, D 2021, 'Where to next?', HRM The Magazine of the Australian HR Institute, p. 12-16.

World Economic Forum, October 2020, The Future of Jobs Report 2020, viewed 31 May 2021, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_ of_Jobs_2020.pdf

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World Economic Forum 2016, The Future of Jobs – Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, viewed 31 May 2021, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_ of_Jobs.pdf

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With one popular estimate that 65 per cent of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new jobs that don’t exist (World Economic Forum 2016), it seems an impossible feat to predict the future of work. What we do know is that change is a certainty and the world of work is going to look very different in the future.

Given this, it is arguable that the key to the future of work is lifelong learning coupled with a growth mindset and agility.

Where we stand now, it is hard to see how robots and technological advancements will ever replace what humans can offer with empathy, care and connection.

Are you ready for

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP? So, you are thinking of a career in school leadership? Here are five questions to answer and think about before taking the leap.

Over the years as deputy principal and principal, I have worked closely with many aspirant leaders and have facilitated conferences and seminars designed to encourage teachers thinking about their leadership aspirations.

During this time, there has been consistency in some of the questions.

Below are the questions most often asked and need to be clarified for the aspirant before ‘making the leap’.

How do I know that I could be a good and effective leader?

Developing leadership is a personal journey about self-awareness and requires the ability to self-reflect and commit to self-improvement. It is not a professional journey, and many would-be leaders often forget about the personal dimension of leadership. Senior leaders need to understand their effect on others. We are familiar with the quote that says: ‘The people who follow you will not remember what you say or do, but they will remember how you make them feel.’ If, as a leader, you can facilitate well the work of others in the organisation, so they know what they have to do, have clarity about the purpose and the impact of their work, and feel safe in the relationship, then people are usually happy with their leadership.

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While it is important to study further and to be involved in building the school and seizing every opportunity to grow as an educator, it is also important to work on oneself. I have met many leaders and managers who have the best qualifications for the role, but their mindset and their interpersonal skills are not fully developed. They have no understanding of how both affect their colleagues and their productivity.

How should I be preparing for my next leadership role?

Peter Gronn (1999) describes four stages in career development in leadership as the following: • Formation • Accession • Incumbency • Divestiture Aspirants are in the accession phase.

Gronn (1999) refers to this as the ‘anticipation’ phase, where aspirants rehearse or test their personal capacity to lead by comparing with existing leaders or prospective ‘rivals for advancement’.

What assists aspirants here is an unblemished career to date. For example, are they a credible teacher, willing to go the extra mile, outward looking, solution focused, and supportive of colleagues and management? This, however, is only one part of the equation. Other attributes are important—an open mindset, how well they work with others and how flexible they are.

Patrick Lencioni, in his fable The Ideal Team Player (2016), believes great leaders and team members must pay attention to three virtues. He writes: ‘For organisations seriously committed to making team-work a cultural reality, I’m convinced that the "right people" are the ones who have those three virtues in common—humility, hunger and people smarts' (2016, p. 155).

Hungry people are those who are motivated and hard working. They are always looking for more work, to learn more, and to take on more responsibility in order to learn more. Hungry is about demonstrating a commitment to the job and going above and beyond what is required.

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In the Lencioni model, Smart refers to having good relationships with Ros Curtis Principal

people, being attuned to the group dynamics, judging social and work situations correctly, listening to others, and responding appropriately. Lencioni likens it to having emotional intelligence but believes it ‘is probably a little simpler than that’ and that it ‘refers to a person’s common sense about people’ (2016, p. 160).

Humble is not about being selfdeprecating and dismissing one’s talents and contributions to the team. It is about directing ambition to building something great, being generous in thought and behaviour, being inclusive, working with other people’s strengths, and giving credit to those in the team.

It is defined by a lack of ego and interest in status and hierarchy.

The best preparation for the senior leadership role is to practise and demonstrate these virtues in the incumbent’s current role, so that they earn the respect of colleagues and members of the team.

Reading widely is also important preparation. Leaders are readers.

Reading books and articles on leadership assists with the self-reflection required for personal and professional growth. The sources in the reference list below are recommendations for leadership reading.

For example, John Maxwell, a prolific writer on leadership, talks about people’s ‘blind spots’ (2016, p. 6). He is excellent at providing guidance for the personal growth that needs to occur for successful leadership.

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It is so easy to slip up in this area as a leader because sometimes people behave inappropriately.

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I recently read in the September 2020 Qantas magazine (p. 63) an interview with Rachael Robertson, who had just spent a year in Antarctica leading an expedition. She said for her ‘no triangles’ was a game changer. ‘It is so simple—I don’t speak to you about another person.

If I have something to say, I go directly to that person and I don’t complain, whinge or moan to a third party. No triangles.’

She went on to say in the interview she sought the commitment to ‘no triangles’ from everyone in her team. She did this ‘to build respect in the team because it meant that under intense pressure, in really difficult situations, we knew we had each other’s backs. The side benefit for me as the leader, which I didn’t anticipate, was it freed up so much of my energy. I didn’t realise how exhausting those conversations were and I also didn’t realise that by listening to them I was condoning them’ (2020, p. 63).

‘No triangles’ is something to aspire to every day (please note ‘aspire’—I am not always successful) as it helps build trust in relationships.

Is it true that it is ‘lonely’ in leadership?

This question comes in many forms.

Teachers usually express a concern about missing the classroom or the giving up the collegiality of the staffroom. Many teachers have been concerned about letting go the familiar (and therefore, what currently gives them joy) and then being faced with the challenge of leadership. Of course, there is no gain without risk. However, senior leaders are a member of another team which over time can be as supportive and collegial as any other work relationship. Any foray into senior leadership requires a degree of courage; yet, it is important to remember that there is a tremendous amount of joy and satisfaction in the facilitating the work of the team and the staff.

It would be a shame to let fear and the comfort of the familiar keep someone from realising their leadership talent.

How do I deal with all the people management issues as I have no real experience in this area?

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It is true that you might be more exposed to difficult conversations in senior leadership. You will also be more exposed to the graciousness and generosity of many people (staff, students and parents). Yet, many aspirant senior leaders do not focus on the positive interactions they may have.

It is true that difficult conversations are uncomfortable; no matter how long one is in leadership that fact never changes.

But like all things, the more of these conversations someone has the better they are at them, especially if they are using a framework to the discussion so that they remain on track.

In The Motive (2020), another fable

by Lencioni, there is a recognition that a most important role of a senior leader is to address less desirable behaviour and ensure everyone is accountable for positive relationships and communication. Those who don’t address poor behaviour are fundamentally forgetting their purpose as a leader, which is consistent with his work on humility and should be about paying attention to the reason they are leading in the first place, that is, building something better. Maxwell believes the ultimate purpose of leadership is ‘about adding value to people’ so that they can be productive and ‘get the job done’ (2016, p. 24).

The worst difficult conversations occur when there is no relationship between the senior leader and the person they are speaking to – where relationships have come second to completing the workload of the senior role and there has been no attempt to be known and understood and to connect with others.

The Seven Heavenly Virtues of Leadership (2003) provides guidance as to what is important for a leader to demonstrate.

In the words of Aristotle, ‘We become virtuous by practising virtue’ and Barker and Coy believe that attention to the following seven virtues assists in all relationships and reflects well the personal dimension of leadership: Humility Passion Compassion Courage Wisdom Humour Integrity

How do I ensure work-life balance?

This is always a popular question when one is seeking promotion. For me the answer is simple. If someone truly desires to be a senior leader, then it is their responsibility to ensure work-life integration. ‘Balance’ is a nonsensical notion, but effective integration will ensure that no one becomes resentful of the time taken. An effective senior leader should be focused on ‘being present’ and giving their full attention to the events they may be required to attend. If the leader is thinking of the report to be written, the lesson to prepare, and the emails to answer, they will miss out on the joy of involvement at this level across the school.

We are all adults and can make our own decisions about how and when to work outside the hours of the school day. There is a lot of work to do, just like what happens now as a teacher, and it is important that time is taken out for family and friends. That is something, that with a degree of self- awareness and understanding of working patterns, the senior leaders can organise themselves to control.

Taking the time to think about the answers to these five questions will assist any would-be leader in their quest for senior leadership.

References Barker, C & Coy, R (ed.) 2003, The Heavenly Virtues of Leadership, McGraw Hill, Sydney.

Gronn, P 1999, The Making of Educational Leaders, Cassell, London.

Lencioni, P 2016, The Ideal Team Player, Jossey-Bass, Hobokan, New Jersey.

Lencioni, P 2020, The Motive, John Wiley and Son, Hoboken, New Jersey.

Maxwell, J 2016, What successful people know about leadership, Hatchett Books, New York.

Galliott K 2020, Rachael Robertson, Qantas Magazine, viewed 7 April 2021, pp. 62-64 https://www.qantas.com/travelinsider/en/ qantas-magazine.html?c=september-2020edition&page=1

Reflection and Action: Nicole Devlin Dean of Academics

The journey so far for the development of a Reconciliation Action Plan

This year the theme for Reconciliation Week was ‘More than a Word, Reconciliation Takes Action’. 2021 marks not only twenty years of Reconciliation Australia and almost three decades of Australia’s formal reconciliation process, but also the first year of action for the St Margaret’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

In 2019, a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) group was formed at St Margaret’s to begin the journey to scope and develop relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders stakeholders, to develop our vision for reconciliation, and to explore initiatives and actions we could take to develop a RAP that represents the approach our community is taking to commit to reconciliation.

Sitting in the room for our first RAP committee meeting, it was clear that this process was going to have the potential to significantly influence and shape the culture at St Margaret’s.

It took the group a year of meetings and online connections to understand what we already do and what we could do.

This process challenged, reinforced, reinvigorated and empowered us as a group. However, while inspirational and vitally necessary, the pragmatic reality of the political and social landscape is complex, and we have challenging terrain to navigate as we make progress towards changed behaviours and shared understandings so true reconciliation can be realised.

The conversations, auditing of curriculum, and the reflection on what we already do and what we need to do have culminated in the following visions. These visions and underpinning commitments are our guiding principles to unite and energise our school and community to have reconciliation live in the hearts, minds and actions as we move forward, creating a school community strengthened by respectful relationships between the wider Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

St Margaret’s Vision for Reconciliation Our vision for reconciliation is an Australia that embraces unity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians, and a national culture that represents equality and equity, historical acceptance of our shared history and removal of negative race relations. By establishing a better understanding and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, we will support reconciliation and develop an enriched appreciation of Australia’s cultural heritage and move towards the maturity of our community and Australia as a nation based on mutual respect and trust.

Our commitments • We believe in the power of shared learning experiences, and welcome Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into our learning spaces. We believe that having Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices in our classrooms are an essential part of learning about and understanding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures.

• We believe in fostering authentic connections between our vision, our plans for reconciliation, and the principles and practices of the Early Years learning framework. We commit to fostering a strong working relationship between the two, and to ensuring that reconciliation is authentically embedded into our early learning environments.

• We believe in celebrating cultural identities. St Margaret’s commits to providing opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to cultivate a shared pride for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, contributions, identities and histories within our school community. We believe that these opportunities will have a positive impact on the wellbeing of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

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• We commit to reflection regarding our own level of cultural competence, and to provide opportunities for staff to build and extend upon their own knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories. We support staff in actively developing their cultural awareness to ensure greater cultural competence and understanding.

• We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the land. We honour their legacy through formal acknowledgement and ensure that significant events at our school begin with a Welcome to Country address. We acknowledge that welcoming visitors to Country has been part of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures for thousands of years.

• We will celebrate National Reconciliation Week (NRW) each year from 27 May to 3 June and commit to talking about reconciliation in our classrooms and within the school community. This is an important time for all Australians to learn about and understand our shared histories, cultures and achievements, and to recognise how each Australian can contribute to the national reconciliation effort.

• We believe in fostering relationships with our local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and believe that these bonds must be built on mutual respect, trust and inclusivity. We recognise that these valuable relationships help to create opportunities for a deeper understanding between our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community and non-Indigenous staff, students, and wider community members.

• St Margaret’s commits to ongoing learning about reconciliation in Australia, and to understanding the ideas, history and progress that have been made towards reconciliation within our country. We recognise the role that our RAP plays in the story of reconciliation in Australia and we commit to promoting its understanding and integration within our school community.

• Raising awareness of significant issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the process of reconciliation is vital. We commit to integrating this knowledge into our curriculum delivery, policies and procedures, and into the ethos of our school.

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• We recognise and celebrate the continuing connection that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have to the Country that we live, learn and work on. We encourage all staff and students to show respect to our Traditional owners and Custodians by regularly participating in an Acknowledgement of Country at meetings and significant events throughout the school year.

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• St Margaret’s is committed to reconciliation; with respect and pride, we fly the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags in acknowledgement and recognition of the histories,

cultures and contributions of Australia’s First Peoples.

• We take a strong stance on racism and understand the serious negative consequences that it can have on people who experience it. St Margaret’s commits to building a shared understanding of what racism is and how best to respond when it occurs, and to creating a tailored solution that reaffirms our shared ethos. Only when racism is understood can it be overcome.

• We commit to integrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures into our curriculum planning and development. This process reaffirms our ongoing respect for and commitment to reconciliation.

Our curriculum documents have been or will be audited to assess the extent that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and contributions have been embedded.

In this process, we will strive to identify opportunities that will allow for a stronger representation of this content in our curriculum.

• Staff are committed to improving the educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and to developing their knowledge and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures in Australia. We also commit to ensuring that all staff comply with these inclusive policies, and that ongoing amendment of these documents ensures inclusivity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

• St Margaret’s is committed to implementing its Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) in a meaningful and sustainable way. With this in mind, all staff will be involved in its operation and ongoing development and will be encouraged to participate in its implementation through staff development opportunities.

• St Margaret’s commits to tracking the progress of the RAP in order to revisit and refine our commitments to reconciliation in our school. We commit to ongoing growth in knowledge and the understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and will continue to explore authentic ways to integrate new ideas, which will further develop and sustain our RAP into the future.

Reconciliation is a journey for all Australians – as individuals, families, communities, organisations and, importantly, as a nation. This journey of reconciliation and the school’s Reconciliation Action Plan are far from complete, but from these commitments the RAP committee will continue to reflect and act to play our part as we collectively build relationships and communities that value Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, histories, cultures and futures. At the heart of this journey are relationships between the broader Australian community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

LAYING THE FOUNDATION

– the importance of early mathematics Angela Drysdale Head of Primary School Children need the knowledge and skills to fully participate in 21st century life and this is acknowledged by governments worldwide (Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers [AAMT] (2014). Policymakers recognise that quality early childhood education and care creates the foundations for lifelong learning. For example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) early this century reviewed early childhood education in its report Starting Strong, acknowledging that 'childhood (is) an investment with the future adult in mind' (OECD 2001 p. 38).

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A growing body of knowledge related to young children’s capabilities has impacted on our understanding about the education of this age group and young children’s mathematical proficiencies. Previous thinking included the view that young children have little or no knowledge of mathematics.

In the sixties, the work of Piaget recognised that children were mathematically curious and able to actively construct

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Australia has responded to these calls by prioritising the educational programs prior to school and in the first year of primary schooling, including the development of the Early Years Learning Framework (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR] 2009); the National Quality Standard for early childhood provision (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority [ACECQA] 2011) for childcare and kindergarten years; and the inclusion of the Foundation Year (preparatory and preschool) in the Australian Curriculum. The development

of the Australian Curriculum not only prioritised a national curriculum, but also acknowledged the importance of the year prior to Year 1 by creating a curriculum for this year, identified as the Foundation Year. The development of these documents (Early Years Learning Framework, National Quality Standard) and the inclusion of the Foundation Year in the Australian Curriculum are each testament to the nation’s commitment to early childhood education and acknowledgement of the importance of providing a quality education for children in these age groups (prior to school and first year of school).

These documents acknowledge the need to provide quality mathematical experiences to children in these early years (Clements & Sarama 2016).

mathematical knowledge, but young children were viewed as 'incapable of abstract and logical thinking until concreteoperational stage around age seven' (Hachey 2013, p. 420).

Increasingly, research has moved away from the belief that young children, because of their stage of development, have limited capacity to learn mathematics (Askew 2016). Recent research has found that children can show mathematical competencies 'that are either innate or develop in the first and early years of life' (Clements & Sarama 2016, p. 77).

Moreover, explicit quantitative and numerical knowledge in the years before formal schooling has been found to be a stronger predictor of later mathematics achievement and school success than tests of intelligence or memory abilities (Claessens, Duncan & Engel 2009; Duncan et al. 2007; Krajewski & Schneider 2009). There is some discrepancy in the research about when children have the capability to reason; however, there is agreeance that children in these early years are capable learners and they need opportunities to develop their mathematical proficiencies (Boyer et al. 2008). Early years teachers need to ensure all students have access to rich and challenging mathematical experiences. Research has found that the skills that normally develop during adolescence can be developed, with purposeful teaching, in younger students in school settings (Hilton & Hilton 2013). Therefore, teachers need to offer mathematically stimulating and focused activities 'based on research-informed knowledge of children’s mathematical development' (Bruce, Flynn & Bennett 2016, p.

543; Siemon et al. 2012).

Early childhood teachers are familiar with presenting mathematical experiences that support children in the development of these concepts. However, we need to offer experiences many times, in different ways, and question children’s thinking in order for them to be able to use numbers flexibly and to develop their own mental image of numbers; that is, children need to develop number sense. Number sense is being intuitive with numbers; it is how children use and relate to numbers. Therefore, they have a conceptual understanding rather than a procedural understanding of number.

Listed below are the key mathematical concepts that are common to early childhood mathematics experiences. More importantly, these concepts lay the foundation for more sophisticated mathematics in the older year levels.

• One to one counting occurs when a child calls number values by name, knowing the last number named is the total or the cardinality and answers a how many question (Reys et al. 2012). This can be tricky for young children who have learnt number naming without the act of counting objects. It is a prerequisite to counting and patterning.

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• Patterning requires a child to understand the difference between repeating patterns (what part is repeating) and growing patterns. Growing patterns link to number patterns. For example, if you know 2 plus 3 equals 5 then you understand 20 plus 30 equals 50.

• Counting sequence is where each number has a position (e.g. 7 is between 6 and 8) that remains the same. Children are encouraged to look for patterns in the sequence, and count on and back from any number, and build up to counting in multiples of 2,3,5 and 10. By the end of Year 2 they should be able to count forwards or backwards by 3 from any starting point.

• Ordinal number parallels the development of counting sequence.

• Understanding of ‘more’ and ‘less’, i.e. 1 and 2 more and/or less.

• Spatial representations of number by exploring different representations (dot patterns). Collections are rearranged but the quantity stays the same.

• Relative size of numbers is identifying gross differences (e.g. between 3 and 10) and small differences (e.g. between 9 and 10) • Trust the count is when children understand that the count is a permanent indicator of quantity and can be rearranged but the quantity will remain the same. When students recognise the group, they can then count on rather than counting from the beginning. Understanding ‘trust the count’ contributes to the concept of addition and counting groups as one.

• Subitise is closely aligned with ‘trust the count’ and is when children can look at small collections of objects (around 1 to 5) and recognise how many objects there are without the need to count; i.e. they can subitise.

At the early stage of mathematical thinking or additive thinking, children do not trust the count, nor understand that skip counting tells how many. Grouping also makes no sense to them (Jacob & Willis 2003). To move to the next stage of thinking, children need to develop each of these concepts, as one-to-one counting and trust the count are key foundational concepts relating to the first stage of thinking (Siemon et al. 2012). As the child progresses through this stage, the child recognises equal size groups or the multiplicand, but does not understand that the number of groups can be counted and the role of number of the groups in multiplication (Jacob & Willis 2003). The student progresses from one-to-one counting to trust the count and can count using repeated addition and skip counting.

• Repeated addition, in its simplest form, is a counting based strategy of counting in groups, especially counting with materials (Siemon et al. 2011). If it is used with a multiplication, it involves adding of the same number, e.g. if Tom has 3 bags with 5 marbles in each, Tom would count: 5+5+5.

• Skip counting is a higher form of repeated addition and relies on knowing number-naming sequences and instead of counting by 1’s, counts by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s or other amounts.

• Partitioning is the physical separation or renaming of a collection in terms of its parts. It can occur in additive terms (e.g. 8 is 5 and 3) in multiplicative terms, parts are equal double (8 is double 4) or half a quantity or collection into equal parts (with concrete objects).

• Additive part-part-whole is the knowledge of numbers to 10 (8 is 2 and 6), that is part + part = whole. Also, in relation to larger numbers, that is, those numbers of which it is a part (part-whole) (e.g. 6 is 1 less than 7, 4 less than 10, half of 12). Part-part whole knowledge is a key factor for mental strategies and place value.

The concepts and relationships described above contribute to a child’s well-developed sense of number. It is therefore vital that teachers ensure that students are offered many explicit learning experiences so that students develop a strong foundation on which to build mathematics for now and future learning.

References Askew, M 2016, Transforming Primary Mathematics. Abingdon, Routledge Publishing, Oxford.

Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) 2011, Guide to the National Quality Framework, viewed online 1 June 2020, http://www.acecqa.gov.au/Uploads/files/ National%20Quality%20Framework%20Resources%20Kit1%20 Guide%20to%20the%20NQF.pdf Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers 2014, Strategic Plan 2014-2016, AAMT. Boyer, TW, Levine, SC & Huttenlocher, J 2008, ‘Development of proportional reasoning: Where young children go wrong’, Developmental Psychology, vol. 44, no. 5, pp. 1478-1490.

Bruce, C, Flynn, T & Bennett, S 2016, ‘A focus on exploratory tasks in lesson study: the Canadian ‘Math for Young Children’ project’, ZDM Mathematics, vol. 48, pp. 541-554

Claessens, A, Duncan, G & Engel, M 2009, ‘Kindergarten skills and fifth-grade achievement: Evidence from the ECLS-K’, Economics of Education Review, vol. 28, pp. 415-427.

Clements, DH & Sarama, J 2016, ‘Math, Science, and Technology in the Early Grades’, The Future of Children, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 75-94.

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) 2009, Belonging, being and becoming: The Australian early years learning framework (EYLF), Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, ACT. Duncan, GJ, Dowsett, CJ, Claessens, A, Magnuson, K, Huston, AC, Klebanov, P & Sexton, H 2007, ‘School readiness and later achievement’, Developmental Psychology, vol. 43, no. 6, p. 1428.

Hachey, AC 2013, ‘The early childhood mathematics education revolution’, Early Education and Development, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 419-230.

Hilton, A & Hilton, G 2013, Improving mathematical thinking through proportional reasoning, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD. Jacob, L & Willis, S 2003, ‘The development of multiplicative thinking in young children’, in L Bragg, C Campbell, G Herbert & J Mousley (eds), MERINO: Mathematics Education Research: Innovation, Networking, Opportunity (Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Mathematical Education Research Group of Australasia), Deakin University, Sydney.

Kandola, B 2012, ‘Focus Groups’, in G Symon & C Cassell (eds), Qualitative Organizational Research Core Methods and Current Challenges, Sage, London.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2001, Starting strong: Early childhood education and care, OECD Publications, Paris.

Reys, RE, Lindquist, MM, Lambdin, DV, Smith, NL, Rogers, A, Falle, J, Frid, S & Bennett, S 2012, Helping children learn mathematics (1ST Australian ed.), John Wiley & Sons, Milton, Queensland.

Siemon, D, Beswick, K, Brady, K, Clark, J, Faragher, R & Warren, E 2012, Teaching Mathematics Foundations to Middle Years, Oxford, Melbourne, Vic.

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Georgi Eadie Primary Teacher

Embedding general capabilities to transform the classroom environment

The general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum encompass the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that students require to succeed in the 21st century (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] 2017). These general capabilities are underpinned by the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration which outlines the educational goals for young Australians, whereby the importance of students becoming successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens is emphasised (Education Council 2019).

Although general capabilities are addressed through the content of the learning areas, when incorporated thoughtfully into the design of a classroom environment, the general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum also offer an opportunity to add richness and depth to student learning.

Effective classroom design There is much research denoting a correlation between an effective learning environment and effective learning experiences (Robinson & Neylon 2018). The learning environment can be considered a visual representation of teacher pedagogy and form of communication with students and the learning community (Lewin-Benham 2011). Berris and Miller’s (2011) research on the effectiveness of classroom learning environments concluded that effective environments have the potential to affect children’s physical, emotional and cognitive development. Similarly, Lippman (2010) suggests students are more likely to engage in learning when the learning environment supports a diverse range of pedagogical practices and includes a variety of spaces for a range of learning experiences.

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The Reggio Emilia Approach is a student-centred educational philosophy greatly recognised in terms of classroom design, whereby the classroom environment is influential in student learning, so much so that it is referred to as the ‘third educator’ (Kinney & Wharton 2015). Within Reggio classrooms are connected spaces which provide opportunities for children to express their potential, explore and learn both independently and collaboratively, and reinforce their sense of identity (Millikan 2003). The Reggio Emilia Approach supports the notion of emphasising the aesthetics of the classroom environment, while also recognising the environment as an important part of student learning.

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When designing an effective classroom space, Crowther (2011) suggests it is important to consider the size of space; fluidity of movement between separate spaces; displays that are aesthetic and meaningful; storage and organisation of

resources and materials which promote learner independence and support the function of the classroom; and representation of student identity. Similarly, Deviney et al. (2010) suggest the seven defining principles of classroom environments are the incorporation of natural materials; use of colour to generate students; textures which add depth and provide tactile experiences; furnishings which define the space and create areas within the room; displays which enhance the environment and support organisation; multiple light sources for ambience; and focal points which attract immediate attention and invite student participation.

Classroom learning centres The general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum in conjunction with perspectives from Reggio Emilia and subsequent research regarding effective learning environments have informed my decisions to support student learning through a range of thoughtful learning centres within my classroom space. A learning centre can be likened to an area or space designated for a specific activity or learning opportunity (Wilson 2015). Learning centres not only provide students with opportunities to explore and construct their own knowledge, they also provide opportunities for movement, socialisation, and development of agency and responsibility for learning (Bottini & Grossman 2005).

Some of these learning centres within my classroom include dramatic play, art, library, loose parts and tinkering, writing and communication, and numeracy and science investigations. Each learning centre has multiple links to the general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum and support the aspirations of the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration.

A dramatic area invites the students to experiment with reallife experiences and offers an opportunity to develop literacy skills while learning to work harmoniously with others, use language to communicate effectively, and expand vocabulary.

The dramatic area supports students in developing their social skills, exposes them to numeracy concepts such as money, and is a reflection of the families, cultures and communities of the students, which affords intercultural understandings (Feeney et al. 2013).

An art area invites students to use critical and creative thinking behaviours such as resourcefulness, curiosity and innovation; literacy skills to prepare drawings and diagrams and follow instructions; and numeracy skills to estimate resource requirements and identify patterns.

A library area reflects warmth and fosters a love of reading.

This centre supports literacy skills as students engage with a variety of texts and develop their reading skills and vocabulary.

Students also develop their critical and creative thinking and intercultural understandings while experimenting with a diverse range of literature and exploring the ideas of authors.

Personal and social capabilities are developed as they consider points of view and communicate with others.

A writing and communication area allows students to emulate the behaviours of writers and experiment with vocabulary which supports their literacy development (Robinson & Neylon 2018). Writing prompts are derived from key learning areas and incorporate literacy and numeracy, as well as ICT, as students experiment with past and present digital forms of communication such as phones and laptops.

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The investigation areas promote inquiry as well as wonder and imagination (Robinson & Neylon 2018). These areas typically reflect learning in mathematics and science and incorporate a range of hands-on resources that stimulate exploration and nurture investigation. The investigation areas incorporate literacy as students develop subject-specific vocabulary; numeracy while students practise specific

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A loose parts and tinkering area can be likened to a construction centre, which invites students to use spatial reasoning and numeracy skills to measure and create patterns. Students develop their critical and creative thinking skills as they plan designs, and literacy and personal and social capabilities while working collaboratively on projects.

The use of ICT is also supported in this learning centre as students use their iPads as an investigative tool and method of communication. This area incorporates natural materials that foster a sense of calmness and tranquillity and invites students

to engage in learning with materials that are sustainable and consequently influence their ethical understandings (Scade & Halton 2016).

concepts; and critical and creative thinking capabilities as students apply their thinking skills to solve problems.

These learning centres are changed constantly and are ever evolving while the students develop as learners. These learning centres reflect student interests and needs, curriculum requirements, and teacher and student collaboration.

An aesthetic classroom In addition to incorporating the general capabilities in learning centres, the overall design of the classroom and aesthetic elements are also influenced by the general capabilities, specifically the personal and social capability, and intercultural understanding capabilities.

The focal point of my classroom is a large hanging tree branch which displays a timeline of photographs of children and their families. This element contributes to the aesthetics of the classroom and creates visual interest, while also personalising the classroom space, reminding students of the home-to-school connection and facilitating the children’s sense of belonging and identity (Bullard 2014). Similarly, a hanging chandelier comprising student names hangs in the classroom as a symbol of unification and community.

An aesthetic classroom is also characterised by organisation – shelves with baskets that are organised yet readily accessible to students are effective and encourage student independence.

Displays also enhance the aesthetics of the classroom environment and include learning materials that support student learning, such as alphabet and number posters, and displays of student work, which are beneficial to student selfefficacy and sense of ownership over the classroom.

Putting it all together The significance and purpose of thoughtful classroom design is encapsulated by Dr Anita Rui Old’s (1999), 'Children are miracles… We must make it our job to create, with reverence and gratitude, a space that is worthy of a miracle!'

The importance of supporting the development of prepared students is summarised in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration and the general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. This notion is also embedded in the St Margaret’s mission statement, whereby students are supported through a balanced curriculum which prepares them in becoming confident, compassionate, capable women able to contribute in a global community.

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A classroom environment is much more than an aesthetic space. A classroom is the foundation of learning that balances function with purpose and involves much consideration and planning (Radich 2012). When the classroom environment and general capabilities of the Australian Curriculum are collectively incorporated into a learning space, students are afforded a variety of learning experiences and their opportunities as 21st century learners are maximised.

References Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA] 2017, Australian Curriculum, viewed onliine 1 June 2021, https://www. australiancurriculum.edu.au/ Berris, R & Miller, E 2011, ‘How design of the physical environment impacts early learning’, Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, vol.

36, no. 4.

Bottini, M & Grossman, S 2005, ‘Center-based teaching and children's learning: The effects of learning centers on young children's growth and development’. Childhood Education, vol. 81, no. 5, pp. 274-277.

Cleveland, B 2009, ‘Equitable pedagogical spaces: Teaching and learning environments that support personalization of the learning experience’, Critical and Creative Thinking, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 59-76.

Crowther, I 2011, Creating effective learning environments, 3rd edn, Cengage Learning, Andover.

Curtis, D & Carter, M 2014, Designs for living and learning: transforming early childhood environments, Redleaf Press, Minnesota.

Deviney, J et al. 2010, Inspiring Spaces for Young Children, Gryphon House, Maryland.

Education Council 2019, Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, viewed online 21 June 2021, https://www.dese.gov.au/alice-springsmparntwe-education-declaration Feeney, S, Moravcik, E & Nolte, S 2013, Who am I in the lives of children?

An introduction to early childhood education, 9th edn, Pearson, Upper Saddle River, NJ. Kinney, L & Wharton, P 2015, An encounter with Reggio Emilia: Children and adults in transformation, Routledge, London.

Lewin-Benham, A 2011, Twelve Best Practises for Early Childhood Education: Integrating Reggio and Other Inspired Approaches, Teachers College Press, New York.

Lippman, P 2010, ‘Can the Physical Environment Have an Impact on the Learning Environment’, OECD. Millikan, J 2003, Reflections: Reggio Principles within Australian Contexts.

Pademelon Press, Jamberoo.

Radich, J 2012, ‘Being, belonging and becoming in the physical environment’, Every Child, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 36-37.

Robinson, C & Neylon, G 2018, ‘The Indoor Environment’, in M O'Rourke (ed.), Learning Through Play, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. 71-89.

Scade, N & Halton, S 2016. Engaging children in play: Practical ways to create stimulating play spaces, Teaching Solutions, Blairgowrie.

Wilson, H 2015, ‘Patterns of play behaviours and learning center choices between high ability and typical children’, Journal of Advanced Academic, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 143-164.

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Lesa Fowler Head of Boarding

THE BENEFITS OF A SCHOOL DOG

Luna Peggy Fowler is St Margaret’s new school dog who has already proven to be a positive member of our school community. Research has shown that a school dog has an impact on students' wellbeing by providing social and emotional support to the students. While Luna is only a puppy at the time of writing, her presence in both the day school and the boarding house is having an incredibly positive impact on the girls and staff.

One of the major benefits of a school dog is that it can provide comfort and support while also teaching responsibility to the girls in a way that is different from what they may learn in a classroom. According to Beetz et al. (2012), ‘the presence of a dog in an educational setting seems to support concentration, attention, motivation, and relaxation, reflecting reduction of high stress levels which inhibit effective learning and performance'.

As Luna grows, the students will become more involved in taking responsibility for her care by looking after her during the day, at night in the boarding house, and by taking her for before and after school and weekend walks. Developing the ability to take care of Luna will, for some students, be a very important lesson in responsibility, beneficial at both an immediate and much broader level. Many students have already demonstrated they are willing to take responsibility for Luna and she, in turn, provides them with a source of comfort and enjoyment, especially for our boarders who are a long way from their own pets.

Other research (Grove and Henderson 2018; Campanini 2019) has shown a variety of positive impacts a school dog can bring, including: • helping students to relax and contributing to a sense of calmness • reducing stress and anxiety • improving physical wellbeing • increasing positive mood • easing social isolation • increasing mental performance • building confidence

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• providing sensory stimulation

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• teaching empathy and appropriate interpersonal skills.

• enhancing relationships with others through trust and acceptance • helping boost self-esteem

This last point is particularly important. Caring for an animal is excellent training for building and sustaining caring relationships in humans. Empathy is the ability to sense another person’s feelings as one’s own and to communicate this recognition in a comforting way so that the other person feels emotionally supported. Teaching our girls empathy is very important as the ability to share and understand another’s perspective and feelings – to consider it before acting – is so important within a school and boarding community. By extension, another fundamental avenue of learning these skills is that pets can be invaluable in teaching children emotional intelligence, a measure of empathy and the ability to understand and connect to others. Empathy also involves the ability to read nonverbal cues – facial expressions, body language and gestures and Luna offers nothing but nonverbal cues.

Another major benefit is that school dogs provides companionship and they have proven to be very good listeners that make no judgements. In situations of high emotional stress, simply sitting with a dog can help students deal with many different individual issues. Each student responds differently to stress and the presence of a dog can help students to relax and reflect more positively on the situation. Luna has already been present in situations where a staff member has been required to deliver bad news – for example, the passing of a pet at home – and she has certainly had a positive impact in these difficult situations.

The importance of a pet at home is well documented; it is not unreasonable to suggest that a dog on the school campus would not have the same impact.

References Beetz, A, Uvnäs-Moberg, K, Julius, H & Kotrschal, K 2012, ‘Psychosocial and psychophysiological effects of human-animal interactions: the possible role of oxytocin’, Frontiers in psychology, vol.

3, no. 234, viewed online 1 June 2021, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pmc/articles/PMC3408111/ Campanini, M 2019, ‘The benefits of a therapy dog in the school setting’, Independent Education. September, viewed online 1 June 2021, https://publications.ieu.asn.au/2019-september-ie/articles1/benefitstherapy-dog-school-setting/ Grove, C & Henderson, L 2018, ‘Therapy dogs can help reduce student stress, anxiety and improve school attendance’, The Conversation, viewed online 1 June 2021, https://theconversation.com/therapydogs-can-help-reduce-student-stress-anxiety-and-improve-schoolattendance-93073

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The gender gap Kate Frewin

Assistant Head of Primary School – Curriculum

IN STEM

Our highest performing students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are also our least represented in STEM career fields by a startling margin.

A recent meta-analysis of more than 200 individual studies from around the world revealed that girls outperformed boys at all ages. The study showed that girls earned 7.8 per cent higher average grades than boys across non-STEM subjects, and although the margin narrowed across STEM subjects, girls still maintained a higher average grade than boys. The analysis also considered variability factors for gender gaps across the distribution and found that gender representation in the top 10 per cent of students within a STEM subject was equal (O’Dea et al 2018). With the meta-analysis eliminating a higher representation of boys at the top of academic performance as a causal factor, questions need to be asked about the leading causes for the gender gap for girls enrolling in undergraduate courses and going on to pursue STEM careers.

The STEM Equity Monitor, an Australian data report on girls in STEM, reports the current state of STEM gender equity in Australia: • Since 2015, the proportion of women enrolled in university STEM fields of education has increased by 2 per cent. This reached 36 per cent in 2019 (more than 81,000 women), up from 34 per cent in 2015 (70,000 women).

• The proportion of women working across all STEMqualified industries has continually increased from 24 per cent in 2016 to 28 per cent in 2020.

Centuries-old gender-based stereotypes have proven to have lasting impacts on engagement in STEM. Despite males and females demonstrating equal proficiency, perceptions that men possess more agentic qualities than women continue to be present in society. In recent studies, when asked to draw a mathematician or scientist, girls were twice as likely to draw a man as they were to draw a woman. Gender-based stereotypes seen in the media continue to underrepresent women in STEM and instead focus on their roles as wives and mothers (Chimba & Kitzinger 2010). These misrepresentations have lasting negative impacts on girls’ perceptions of themselves in STEM pathways.

A contemporary understanding of modern STEM professionals and career contexts is long overdue. Shifting perceptions of what it means to be a scientist or a mathematician and developing a broader understanding of the contexts in which they work is required. Positively, studies that address stereotypes and science suggest that perceptions of successful scientists are likely to change as more women enter those fields.

Shifting stereotypes about scientists to a less idealised and more balanced set of traits may ultimately help facilitate increased interest in STEM careers for both women and men (Carli, I et al. 2016).

While there is no simple fix to resolve the continued underrepresentation of girls in STEM, there is a lot that can be done to encourage them to enter and stay in STEM fields (Reinking, A & Martin B 2018). The shift has started.

References Makarova, E, Aeschlimann, B & Herzog, W 2019, The Gender Gap in STEM Fields: The Impact of the Gender Stereotype of Math and Science on Secondary Students Career Aspirations, viewed 20 May 2021, https:// www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00060/full Carli, L, Alawa, L, Lee Y, Zhao, B & Kim, E 2016, 'Stereotypes About Gender and Science: Women ≠ Scientists', Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 244-260.

Microsoft 2018, Girls in STEM: the importance of role models, viewed 2 June 2021, https://news.microsoft.com/europe/features/girls-in-stemthe-importance-of-role-models/ Chimba, M & Kitzinger, J 2009.' Bimbo or boffin? Women in science: an analysis of media representations and how female scientists negotiate cultural contradictions,' Public of Understanding Science, vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 609-624.

O’Dea, R, Lagisz, M, Jennions MD & Nakagawa S 2018, 'Gender differences in individual variation in academic grades fail to fit expected patterns for STEM,' Nature Communications, vol. 9, no. 10, pp. 1-8.

Reinking, A & Martin, B 2018, 'The Gender Gap in STEM Fields: Theories, Movements, and Ideas to Engage Girls in STEM,' Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research ,vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 148-153.

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Further compounding the problem is a lack of diverse female role models. Statistics show that the presence of a STEM female role model has proven to substantially influence girls’ decisions to pursue STEM beyond secondary education. For girls, female role models have proven to have a positive impact on perceptions of themselves in all STEM subjects. Research indicates that, on average, positive STEM female role models have resulted in a 12 per cent increase in female participation in STEM subjects across all fields.

Role models not only assist girls in seeing themselves in those fields, but they greatly increase both their interest and passion for the subjects. The number of girls interested in STEM almost doubles when they have role models compared to those who do not (26 per cent of girls without a role model report an interest in STEM subjects, versus 41 per cent with role models) (Microsoft 2018). Programs such as Australia's Superstars of STEM aim to build the public profile of women employed in STEM and smash society's gender assumptions about scientists and increase the public visibility of women in STEM.

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Karen Gorrie Deputy Principal

GLOBAL COMPETENCY

at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School The importance St Margaret’s places on global citizenship is explicitly acknowledged and embedded in its practices in many ways. The school’s mission states that it '…aims to provide excellence in learning and teaching within a broad, balanced and flexible curriculum complemented by other school activities, preparing confident, compassionate, capable women able to contribute in a global community'. The school’s mission was again recently articulated in its new Strategic Plan entitled ‘A Local School with a Global Outlook 2020 - 2025’. For the first time, the strategic plan also outlined an Envisioned Future for 2025, which signposts St Margaret’s as 'an innovative school which has a global outlook’. Two of the strategies sitting under the goal of ‘Strengthening the St Margaret’s Experience’ pay particular attention to this global outlook. They are: • To ensure a focus on developing our students’ global outlook; specifically, enabling resilient and responsible engagement in a multicultural and globalising world

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• To develop our careers and employability programs for Years 9 to 12 which help students identify and develop the necessary skills to participate, thrive and lead in a global economy.

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As a school we have long promoted and believed in fostering global citizenship in our students, and our language, goals and underlying mission mirror that belief. More importantly, we provide many opportunities to open our students’ minds

and broaden their horizons to ensure they are ready to enter a global community once they graduate.

As a boarding school with around 186 full time boarders from Years 5 to 12, who all come from geographically widespread locations, the school places a high value on diversity. Our boarders hail from rural and regional areas across Australia; we have partnered with Yalari for many years to offer Indigenous scholarships; we have international students from many different countries; and daughters of ex-pat Australians living overseas also attend the school. This cultural and geographic fusion combines with the day school which is also quite diverse, bringing a cultural richness to the entire school community, which is widely celebrated and from which everyone benefits.

Some years ago, the school wanted to further broaden the opportunities for our students to experience global cultures and learn new skills beyond the classroom, beyond their hometown, and beyond the Australian borders. We introduced a Global Exchange Program – a robust experiential program that would provide students with an opportunity for incredible personal growth.

This program is specifically for our Year 10 students. Students who are successful in being selected for the program spend one term at a partner school in another country. As it is a reciprocal exchange, it means that their partner will come and spend a term at St Margaret’s.

The Year 10 Global Exchange Program enables St Margaret’s students to: • acquire and further develop new skills in problem solving, independent decision making and social poise • expand cultural and ethnic awareness • enhance their passion for learning • become exceptional ambassadors of the program overseas and in the St Margaret’s community.

The program promotes the vision of the school in providing unique opportunities for students to participate in global citizenship in the context of school and family life and encourages active demonstration of the six core values of St Margaret’s – passion, respect, spirit, integrity, courage and faith.

Pre-COVID, each year approximately one third of the Year 10 cohort participated in a global exchange opportunity for eight to ten weeks. Not only do our students leave our school, travel to one of our partner schools abroad, and send regular updates on their progress, as it is a reciprocal exchange, the school also welcomes and accommodates (with our families or in the boarding house) the same amount of students.

While only one third of the Year 10 cohort individually engage in the exchange by travelling to other countries, the whole school population benefits from receiving the same number of ‘foreign’ exchange students to our school. They enter our families’ lives, the boarding house and, most importantly, our daily lessons and extra-curricular activities. As a community we thrive on welcoming these students each year and everyone within the school, whether or not they partake in the exchange, truly benefits from the injection of different cultures into the community each year.

The school currently partners with 11 schools in six countries across the globe in this reciprocal exchange program. They are: • Crofton House School, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • Shawnigan Lake School, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada • Saint-Nom-de-Marie, Montreal, Canada • Ursulinenschule Hersel, Bornheim, Germany • Konan Girls High School, Kobe, Japan • Nga Tawa, Wellington Diocesan School for Girls, Marton, New Zealand

• St Anne's Diocesan College, Hilton, South Africa • St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls, Kloof, South Africa • Chatham Hall, Chatham, Virginia, USA

Of note is that many girls who go on exchange are often successful in gaining leadership positions in the school in Year 12. We credit the growth in maturity and skills gained in working with others to their leadership success.

Students are selected for the Global Exchange Program based on how they reflect and embody the core values of St Margaret’s, their academic standing, personal motivation and participation in school activities. Students selected must demonstrate initiative, strong communication skills, social maturity and resilience. They must complete the online Cultural intelligence (CQ) test as a requirement of exchange selection. The test is designed to measure the individual’s CQ Drive, Knowledge, Strategy and Action. The students are asked several questions and they then come up with a self-rating score that summarises scores across four capabilities. Students are selected on their suitability as an ambassador for St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School and their ability to adapt and function independently in new environments.

COVID has presented new and hopefully short-term challenges to this highly successful program. The school has kept in regular contact with our overseas exchange partners. In some ways this ‘keeping in touch’, via email or Microsoft Teams, has been more meaningful and more frequent. There are plans afoot for students from Chatham Hall in Virginia to soon meet with our Year 10 boarders via Microsoft Teams on a ‘virtual exchange’.

The school has also initiated some domestic exchanges to provide some form of exchange opportunity. Interestingly, interstate schools (perhaps without having experienced the benefits an exchange program offers) were reluctant to commit to a full term’s exchange. Therefore, the domestic exchanges have been adapted to be from two to six weeks in duration.

Nevertheless, we hope our students will still receive many of the benefits they would have received from participating in a longer-term global exchange.

One thing COVID has cemented is how interconnected we are.

We really are one big village. We look forward to continuing and growing our global connections for our students in future years.

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• Augusta Preparatory Day School, Martinez, Georgia, USA

The length of the exchange – a whole term – is purposeful. This timeframe allows for growth across multiple areas: maturity; the transferrable skills of problem solving; global knowledge; and intercultural understanding. These all directly translate back to their educational journey at school.

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• St Margaret's College, Christchurch, New Zealand (Rowing Exchange)

These exchanges include schools where their first language is not English, notably our partner schools in Montreal, Japan and Germany. Additionally, students from South African schools will often speak Afrikaans as their first language. Students attending these schools do not need to speak the local language.

Language has never been a barrier to our students attending and indeed thriving on exchanges to these schools.

Naomi Holley Director of Careers and Portfolio Pathways

THE CASE FOR A STRONG SCHOOL

CAREERS PROGRAM The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) (2018) argues that 'today’s 15-year-olds will likely navigate 17 changes in employer across five different careers' in their lifetime and that young people are bearing the burden of an increasingly complex transition to adulthood while struggling to navigate a career path in a rapidly changing world (pp. 5, 8, 9). Due to these significant changes, there is a growing demand for highquality career education programs to be initiated in schools across Australia and a radical rethink in the ways that schools ensure the preparedness of young people for the future of work and the management of their careers (CDAA 2018, p. 1; FYA 2017, p. 2).

Students need to be prepared for a world of work that is characterised by increasing and constant change (MCEEECDYA 2010, p. 8). Every day, secondary students make significant decisions that are pertinent to their life after school. A key source of motivation for students to study hard is to realise their dreams for work and life. These dreams and aspirations are not just dependent on a student’s talents; however, they can be influenced by their family backgrounds, depth and breadth of knowledge about the world of work, and socioeconomic status, among a range of other factors. In a nutshell, students cannot be what they cannot see: they need help to make sense of the world of work. (Denis et al. 2020, p. 5). Collectively, an effective careers program supported by effective careers guidance encourages students to reflect on who they are and who they want to become and to think critically about their post-secondary school choices and future economic life.

The Career Industry Council of Australia (CICA) (2017, p. 1) has outlined that 'Australia is approaching the biggest intergenerational employment transition ever and what is needed for students about to commence further study or work, in addition to world’s best education, is world’s best careers advice'. It is therefore imperative that student skills and capabilities are built for the future 'through a planned program of learning to prepare them for a life beyond school' (Australian Government, Department of Education and Training 2019, p. 7).

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The changing nature of the world of work and careers has significantly altered how a careers program should be delivered to students in the 21st century. The Federal Government’s National Career Education Strategy (2019) highlights the Australian Government’s focus to improve career education in schools across the country and this provides the perfect

opportunity for schools to update their approach to careers education. The strategy reflects the nationally agreed objectives for schools in developing a high-quality careers education program and reasons that such programs need to reflect a close alignment with community, industry and future skills acquisition and the adaptive capacity of students to prepare for transitions to post-school options of further study and/ or employment (Australian Government, Department of Education and Training 2019, p. 3-7; McCowan, McKenzie & Shah 2017, p. 21). This strategy endeavours to provide consistency across Australia and should be taken into consideration when planning a strong Careers Education and Development (CED) Program. Hooley (2014, p. 34-35) explains that careers guidance and support in educational settings is best implemented by connecting career learning to the curriculum into a 'meaningful whole' but concedes that this form of approach requires substantial buy in from teachers and school leaders. Irrespective of this issue, secondary schools have an integral role to play in ensuring that its students are equipped with the skills required to navigate the world of work.

Due to the changing work scape, young people are now challenged to play a greater part in the construction of their careers and prepare for the likelihood of several work experiences throughout their lifetime. Essentially, young people should be proactive life/career managers (McMahon, Patton & Tatham 2003, p. 5). Savickas (1999, p. 327) further argues that individuals must prepare themselves for a dynamic working life by 'looking ahead' and 'looking around' to ensure they are developing appropriate skills to equip them for their continued career journey. 'Learning how to adapt to changing conditions in the workplace will be an essential skill for success' and therefore a robust and well-considered career development learning program would maximise student involvement in their own career journeys (McMahon, Patton & Tatham 2003, p. 12; Krumboltz and Worthington 1999, p. 314).

Implementing a CED program has many benefits which extend to all aspects of school and post-school life for students, parents, educational institutions and the wider community. A career development program is a significant addition to the curriculum of any school as the development of contemporary work skills, entrepreneurship, resilience and self-actualisation are necessary to thrive in the 21st century (QCAA 2018, p. 1).

Such skills are key features that underpin an effective career development program.

References Australian Government, Department of Education and Training 2019, Future Ready: A student focused National Career Education Strategy, viewed 19 March 2021, https://docs.education.gov.au/node/52421 Career Development Association of Australia 2018, CDAA Applauds Victorian Inquiry into School Career Development, viewed 19 March 2021, https://www.cdaa.org.au/sb_cache/associationnews/id/76/f/ Media%20Release%20-%20CDAA%20Applauds%20Victorian%20 Government%20Inquiry%20into%20School%20Career%20 Development.pdf Career Industry Council of Australia 2017, As key influences, school career practitioners need more time to assist students make well-informed decisions, viewed 16 March 2021, https://cica.org.au/wp-content/ uploads/CICA-Media-Release-21-June-2017.pdf Mann, A, Denis, V, Schleicher, A, Ekhtiari, H, Forsyth, T, Liu, E & Chambers, N 2020, Dream jobs? teenagers’ career aspirations and the future of work, OECD, Paris, viewed 18 March 2021, https://www.oecd. org/education/dream-jobs-teenagers-career-aspirations-and-thefuture-of-work.htm.

Foundation for Young Australians 2018, The New Work Reality, viewed 18 March 2021, https://cica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/The-NewWork-Reality-2018.pdf

McMahon, M, Patton, W & Tatham, P 2003, Managing life, learning and work in the 21st century: Issues Informing the Design of an Australian Blueprint for Career Development, DEST, Canberra, viewed 16 March 2021, https://cica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Managing-LifeLearning-and-Work-in-the-21-Century-MMcM_WP_PT.pdf MYCEECDYA 2010, The Australian Blueprint for Career Development, prepared by Miles Morgan Australia, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, viewed 1 March 2021, https://cica.org.au/wp-content/ uploads/Australian-Blueprint-for-Career-Development.pdf Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2018, Career Education 2018 v1.0: Short Course Syllabus, viewed 1 March 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/portal/syllabuses/snr_career_ edu_short_course_18_syll.pdf Savickas, M 1999, ‘The Transition from School to Work: A Developmental Perspective’, Career Development Quarterly, vol. 47. no. 4, pp. 326-336, viewed, 15 March 2021, https://doi. org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1999.tb00741.x

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Hooley, T 2014, The Evidence Base on Lifelong Guidance: a guide to key findings for effective policy and practice, viewed 19 March, 2021, http:// www.elgpn.eu/publications/browse-by-language/english/elgpn-toolsno-3.-the-evidence-base-on-lifelong-guidance/

McCowan, C, McKenzie, M & Shah, M 2017, Introducing career education and development: A guide for personnel in educational institutions in both developed and developing countries. InHouse Publishing, Rochedale.

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Foundation for Young Australians 2017, Inquiry into Career Advice in Victorian School, viewed 19 March, 2021, https://www.parliament.vic. gov.au/images/stories/committees/eejsc/Career_Advice_Activities/ Submission_72_-_Foundation_for_Young_Australians_15122017.pdf

Krumboltz, J & Worthington, R 1999, ‘The school-to-work transition from a learning theory perspective’, The Career Development Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 312-325, viewed 18 March 2021, https://doi. org/10.1002/j.2161-0045.1999.tb00740.x

BEFORE Wendy Johnston Director of Marketing and Communications

YOU PUBLISH

In the event that you have opportunity to write an article for publication, there are several handy tips that can be utilised by you to ensure that your writing is fresh and engaging.

If you have the chance to be published, these handy tips will ensure your writing is fresh and engaging.

See what I did there?

I have shortened a sentence but kept the same meaning.

Some phrases in the first sentence are redundant and can be substituted for something simpler; for example, ’In the event that’ for ‘If’. Even Microsoft Word will underline this in a broken red line and ask you to ‘Consider using concise language’.

Consider also minimising nominalisations, such as publication and utilised, and where possible, avoid passive voice, as in ‘there are several handy tips that can be utilised by you’.

This article looks at five simple ways you can recharge your writing for maximum engagement.

Nominalisations A nominalisation is a word derived from a verb or adjective (Petelin 2016). In the first sentence of this article I have used the noun ‘publication’ derived from the verb ‘publish’ and the noun ‘utilisation’ derived from the verb ‘use’. Nominalised verbs end with suffixes such as -ion, -ment, -al, -ance and many more.

For example: Teachers came to an agreement that it could be beneficial for students to experience failure.

Where possible consider using the verb form. For example: Teachers agreed that students could benefit from experiencing failure.

Note that failure is also a nominalisation; it’s not necessary to banish them completely. However, nominalisations are heavy nouns that will drain energy away from sentences. They ‘hide the real action’ (4Syllables n.d.), so look for opportunities to swap them out.

Nominalisations also lead to other problems such as passive voice, heavy reliance on ‘to be’ verbs (considered ‘weak verbs’) and too many prepositions. More about those later.

Expletives There are expletives and there are expletives.

When we are not talking about swear words, an expletive in grammar means a filler, having its origin from the Latin word expletivus, meaning to fill out or occupy space (Ladict 2021).

Expletive pronouns include ‘It is/there is/there are’ and ‘It was/ there was/there were’.

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In these following examples you can see how expletives delay the main point of the sentence.

There is a tendency in some organisations to overuse capitals. vs Some organisations overuse capitals.

There are likely to be many students asking questions about the assignment. vs Many students will ask questions about the assignment.

On their own, expletives have little or no meaning, serving only to take up space. They are to be avoided if possible or Avoid them if possible!

Strong action verbs Littering your writing with flowery adjectives and heavyduty adverbs will not necessarily lead to more descriptive, evocative prose. William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, dismisses most adverbs and adjectives as 'clutter,' while Mark Twain exhorted readers to 'kill' any adjectives they could catch (Jump 2013).

Use fresh, vivid verbs as the engine of your sentences (Gwynne 2021).

Consider these two very simple sentences.

The winding river flowed to the sea. vs The river meandered to the sea.

He looked at his rival angrily. vs He glared at his rival.

Stronger action verbs do the heavy lifting, negating the need for additional adjectives or adverbs, leading to more powerful and succinct sentences.

The verb ‘to be’ – encompassing am/is/are, was/were, has/have – is considered weak in many cases. It leads to what Ros Petelin (2016) describes as ‘is-ness’. For example: The intention of the tax office is to audit their records vs The tax office intends to audit their records.

The rewrite disposes of the heavy nominalisation intention, replacing it with the verb form intend, which negates the need for the weak ‘to be' verb ‘is’ (p. 82) Passive Voice Use of passive voice is not a grammatical error but could be one of the deadly sins of clear and succinct writing, depending on context. There are occasions where it is necessary or useful to use passive voice, but generally, active voice makes for a punchier sentence. Take this example: Why did the chicken cross the road? vs Why was the road crossed by the chicken?

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A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence.

So, the chicken is the subject in the first, more familiar, sentence, which is in active voice. In the second sentence the chicken is moved into the object position and the road (the previous object) becomes the subject. This is now in passive voice.

The most common way to identify passive voice is a form of the verb ‘to be’ and the past participle.

In the above example this construction is ‘was crossed’. The subject may not always be in the sentence, so you won’t necessarily identify passive voice by seeing ‘by xxxxx’. Take this example: Her house had been invaded.

To reconstruct this into active voice you would need to identify the subject. For example: An angry mob had invaded her house. This also serves to clarify what is happening (if in fact you know who had invaded her house).

Prepositional Podge 'Piled up connectives grow like weeds if you don’t pull them' (Kane 1988, p. 207).

Strings of prepositions are also referred to as ‘of-ness’ (Petelin 2016) or 'prepositional podge' (Sword 2016). Take this example from Wordvice (2020): The focus of this project was to study the effects of increased global temperatures on local fish hatcheries.

(18 words) vs This project examined how increased global temperatures affect local fish hatcheries.

(11 words)

References 4syllables n.d., Verbs: Nominalisations cheat sheet, viewed online 2 June 2021, https://4syllables.com.au/resources/verbs-nominalisationscheat-sheet Grammar Monster n.d., What are Weak Verbs? (with Examples), viewed online 1 June 2021, https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/ weak_verbs.htm Gwynne, A 2021, The University of Queensland WRIT7150 Advanced Writing – Grammar, Syntax and Style, Semester 1, 2021, Lecture Powerpoint slides, viewed 1 June 2021, https:// echo360.org.au/lesson/bc9aab98-e59f-4b3d-9408-30c7c63ee959/ classroom#sortDirection=desc Jump, P 2013, ‘Study finds that too many adjectives and adverbs detract from academic writing’, viewed online 2 June 2021, https:// www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/29/study-finds-toomanyadjectives-and-adverbs-detract-academic-writing Kane, TS 1988, The New Oxford Guide to Writing, Oxford University Press, New York.

Petelin, R 2016, How Writing Works: A field guide to effective writing’, Allen and Unwin, NSW. The Writing Center 2021, Passive Voice, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, viewed online 1 June 2021, https://writingcenter.unc.edu/ tips-and-tools/passive-voice/ Whitman, N 2021, Can I Start a Sentence with a Conjunction?, Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips, viewed online 18 June 2021, https://www. quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/can-i-start-a-sentencewith-a-conjunction?

Mahoney, KD 2020-2021, Latdic: Latin Dictionary and Grammar Resources, viewed online 4 June 2021, https://latin-dictionary.net/ definition/19895/expletivus-expletiva-expletivum Sword, H 2016, The Writer’s Diet: A Guide to Fit Prose, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Wordvice 2020, How to Improve Your Writing: Elimate Prepositions, viewed online 2 June 2021, https://wordvice.com/improve-writingeliminate-prepositions/

If you had a page of similarly structured sentences, think of the words you could delete and the clarity you could gain!

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These five points represent just a few techniques writers can use in the pursuit of clear, concise writing. Once you finish penning your article, deploy these strategies to make your sentences sparkle.

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Last words

Alina Layton Head of Faculty – English

Promoting student engagement by balancing the study of canonical literature with popular culture texts in secondary English classrooms Belonging to the canon is a guarantee of quality, and that guarantee of high aesthetic quality serves as a promise, a contract, that announces to the viewer, 'Here is something to be enjoyed as an aesthetic object. Complex, difficult, privileged… You will receive pleasure; at least you're supposed to, and if you don't, well, perhaps there's something off with your apparatus.' (n.d. Landow).

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The backdrop of Australian English classrooms is often characterised by debates concerning the supposedly alarmingly low levels of literacy among adolescents as they enter the postschool world, the reasons underpinning the decline in their rates of reading for pleasure, and their perceived disengagement in the classroom. These issues are pitched against the broader backdrop of debates concerning the design of the Australian Curriculum and each State’s Senior Curriculums. Resultingly, there are myriad viewpoints about what students should and should not study in English during their time at school (Merga & Roni 2018, p. 136; Hopwood et al. 2017, p. 46).

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Given the nature of my role and the fact that text selection for our English programs is now governed to a certain extent by the prescribed text lists for Senior English subjects, I thought it timely to examine the often-disparate viewpoints regarding the

incorporation of texts from the Western literary canon and those that fall under the umbrella of popular culture.

The opening satirical quip from George P. Landow captures the essence of attitudes towards canonical literature in that if it is not valued by readers, there is something deeply wrong with the receiver (an incredibly unfair assumption!) and, by extension, their taste in popular culture. However, there is a very strong argument in favour of striking a balance between the classic and the popular in order to engage and challenge adolescents.

Defining the Western literary canon and popular culture texts Landow’s definition of the Western literary canon posits that it is, ‘an authoritative list, as of the works of an author…which forms a basis for judgment’, (Landow, n.d.). Perhaps the most well-known figure associated with the Western literary canon is the critic Harold Bloom, whose seminal 1994 work – The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages – endeavours to ‘isolate the qualities that made these authors canonical, that is, authoritative in our culture’, (Bloom 1994, p. 2). Literary texts on the list of canonical works are conferred the status of embodying what Bloom terms as ‘sublimity’ and ‘greatness’ (Bloom 1994, p. 2-3).

Conversely, texts belonging to the category of popular culture encompass those that belong to ‘everyday life’ or the ‘culture of the people’ such as television, films, video games, multimodal

texts, music and social media and are, in our current context, unable to be separated from ‘mass or digitised mediation’, (Benson & Chik 2014, p. 2). Because of this digitisation, it can be argued that historical views of popular culture as constituting what ‘was left after high culture’ are in fact now defunct given the pervasiveness of digital media, and that the lines between popular and high culture are more blurred than they are distinct (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 776).

The culture wars These definitions underpin much of the debate surrounding the place of popular culture texts in the curriculum which has taken place since the introduction of the Australian Curriculum and, more recently, the introduction of the new Queensland Certificate of Education. At one end of the debate spectrum are those canonical texts and authors afforded the status of belonging to ‘high culture’ and at the other are those texts associated with the mass populace and, by extension, ‘low culture’. Furthermore, the debate extends to the pedagogical approaches adopted by English teachers and curriculum writers, namely the critical literacy approach as opposed to more traditional literary appreciation.

Much of the argument in favour of students studying the classics revolves around the view that such texts offer greater writerly quality and scope for aesthetic and moral engagement.

In an Australian context, many viewpoints stem from the belief that canonical literature is undervalued, with criticism aimed at, for example, ‘posters and graffiti’ sitting alongside the ‘works of Henry Lawson and David Malouf’ and that, ‘instead of privileging the moral and aesthetic value of great works, literature is analysed in terms of power relationships and the rights of victim groups’, (Donnelly 2007). Such problematic sentiments underpin the often-reductive critique of the place of popular culture texts in the curriculum based on their perceived lack of quality and value for students, unfairly blaming them for students’ literacy under-achievement and a broader ‘dumbing-down’ of cultural capital (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 780).

On the other side of the fence, proponents of popular culture in the classroom do so with reference to the reality of the increasingly digitised world, its impact on schooling, and subsequently the new literacies that young people mediate on a daily basis. Thus, incorporating popular culture into the curriculum has its educational foundations in an awareness that the contemporary practices of students go beyond traditionally print-based literacies and that there is a need to engage with such texts on a critical as well as aesthetic level (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 778-779). The necessity of bridging the divide between the students’ ‘lived worlds’ and that of their curriculum is in fact central to literacy development (Marsh 2005 in Dowdell et al. 2014, p. 1).

The argument in favour of striking a better balance

As educators, we must consider our approach to the teaching of popular culture texts, especially with reference to navigating the way that such texts are discussed and viewed, and being mindful of striking a balance between attention to the pleasures afforded by these texts as well as the opportunities for critical examination (Alvermann et al. 1999, p. 23). What needs to be avoided, therefore, is a situation whereby popular culture texts are included as a means of ticking the ‘relevance to youth’ box, and then the manner in which they are examined subsequently reverts to a values-based one where students are reduced to being seen as ‘mindless viewers’ of texts that are either harmful or invaluable (Alvermann et al. 1999, p. 24-25).

We should embrace an ‘aggregate approach’ that recognises the authentic nature of popular culture texts’ influence on the lives of students, their expertise and pleasure in relation to such texts as well as the possibilities for critique (Alvermann et al. 1999, p. 28). Research-based practices with regards to the use of popular culture texts in the classroom are numerous and include strategies such as the interpreting and using genre features, connecting and revising texts, sharing personal responses to as well as constructing popular culture texts, and critiquing them (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 779-780). For instance, facilitating students’ knowledge-construction links can assist in comprehending particular concepts in one text type by engaging with conceptually similar television shows, films or music (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 785). Additionally, creating opportunities for multiple forms of representations and sharing both constructions of and responses to popular culture texts via online spaces, rather than strictly print-based forms for example, encourages engagement and creative expression (Beach & O’Brien 2008, p. 787-788). Furthermore, pedagogy in English classrooms that is characterised by deep engagement with popular culture texts and thereby viewed as a ‘serious’ pursuit in itself, rather than as leading to more ‘serious’ explorations of traditional texts, is more successful and thus more likely to offer greater relevance and engagement for adolescents (Benson & Chik 2014, p. 5).

Balance in action – a personal reflection

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In my experience, adolescents have an array of literary and non-literary tastes, reflected in what they choose to engage with outside of the classroom and the way in which they

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The rationale of texts in the Australian Curriculum for English pertains to affording students with opportunities to engage with literature beyond ‘the scope of their experience’. It encourages teachers to move beyond only using texts traditionally seen as ‘literary’, favouring instead an approach which sees students examine, evaluate and discuss classic and contemporary Australian and world texts ranging from novels, poetry and plays to multimodal texts such as films and non-fiction texts

(ACARA). The necessity of a balance of texts is underpinned by the description of the Literature Strand, which states that students are to be offered opportunities to ‘identify and explore ideas and viewpoints about events, issues and characters represented in texts drawn from different historical, social and cultural contexts’ (ACARA). In turning to a Queensland context, this same embracing of balance and variety is largely apparent in the new Senior English syllabus documents and the rationale underpinning the prescribed text list. The criterion justifying the texts on this list – which range from those in the Western literary canon such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the poetry of Keats, Dickinson and Browning to contemporary print and multimodal texts such as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Tara June Winch’s Swallow the Air and the television series Stranger Things – centres on reflecting cultural and social diversity, providing range and balance in respect to time, place and gender, and encouraging critical and creative engagement (QCAA 2018, p. 1). Thus, the English curricular at both a national and Queensland State level value variety, scope and balance with the aim of engaging and challenging students.

respond to the texts that form part of the curriculum. They are fairly immediate in expressing their boredom or distaste for the texts studied, but in equal measure also their enjoyment and appreciation. These expressions of genuine enjoyment can often be surprising! While it is common to hear some English teachers bemoan their students’ dispassionate attitudes towards poetry, there have certainly been times when my students’ eyes have lit up when they finally ‘get’ a passage from Shakespeare or when they have shrieked with delight upon reading Mr Darcy’s declaration of love for Miss Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. Equally surprising is when students have, contrary to popular opinion, lambasted with keen critical minds a modern television show for its veiled racism or a film’s problematic gender stereotypes. What has been constant, however, is that secondary English students crave variety and relevance, though not necessarily simply of the contemporary kind – too much of one thing is never conducive to ongoing learning engagement or fostering creativity and critical reflection, and students are keenly aware of this.

Rather, it has been my experience that we as teachers, parents and commentators need to give adolescents a little more credit. Presenting them with canonical texts that they should view as authoritative and from a deferential perspective, with little attention to facilitating their ability to both critique and appreciate, is a situation which will only ever result in them disconnecting and most likely lumping all canonical texts in the same basket of dry, yawn-inducing irrelevance or the basket of highly problematic attitudes, values and beliefs concerning race, gender and class for instance. Equally, it has also been my experience that you cannot simply arbitrarily insert texts like song lyrics into a unit on poetry without attention to students’ expertise in popular culture, or include internet memes merely as vehicles to achieve fleeting moments of student engagement, or even include reality television shows into a classic novel study but only with the view to discrediting them and, by extension, their personal enjoyment of them.

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The incorporation of both canonical and popular culture texts must be considered and purposeful in relation to meeting the requirements of curriculum documents and creating opportunities for students to be both critical consumers and imaginative creators of traditional print-based and multimodal texts. In light of this, I like to think we do achieve this balance here at St Margaret’s. Our English programs offer students the opportunity to engage with contemporary texts such as Wonder

by R. J. Palaccio; The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon; Dry by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman; Life after life by Kate Atkinson; The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak; the poetry of Rupi Kaur and Neil Gaiman; the documentary 2040 directed by Damon Gameau; and the film Hidden Figures directed by Theodore Melfi. These texts sit alongside the works of Shakespeare, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee and the poetry of John Keats, William Butler Yeats, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning. However,

our selection of texts is a moveable feast and we constantly strive to update our programs to reflect both the learning needs and engagement of our students.

References ACARA n.d., F-10 Curriculum: English, viewed online 27 March 2021, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10curriculum/english/ Alvermann, D, Moon, J & Hagood, M 1999, Popular culture in the classroom: teaching and researching critical media literacy, Routledge, New York.

Beach, R & O’Brien, D 2008, ‘Teaching Popular-Culture Texts in the Classroom’, in Coiro, J, Knobel, M, Lankshear, C & Leu, DJ (eds.), Handbook of research on new literacies, Routledge, New York.

Benson, P & Chik, A 2014, Popular culture, pedagogy and teacher education: International perspectives, Routledge, New York.

Bloom, H 1994, The Western Canon: The Books and Schools of the Ages, viewed online 27 March 2021, http://joshvahvmphreys. com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/BLoom-Canon.pdf Bowmer, M & Curwood, J 2016, ‘From Keats to Kanye: Romantic Poetry and Popular Culture in the Secondary English Classroom’, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 141-149.

Donnelly, K 2007, ‘A canon we can’t afford to overlook’, The Australian, viewed online 27 March 2021, https://www. theaustralian.com.au/ Dowdall, C, Vasudevan, L & Mackey, M 2014, ‘Popular culture and curriculum’, Literacy, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 1-3.

Hopwood, B, Hay, I & Dyment, J 2017, ‘Students’ reading achievement during the transition from primary to secondary school’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 46-58.

Merga, MK & Roni, SM 2018, ‘Children’s perceptions of the importance and value of reading’, Australian Journal of Education, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 135-153.

Landow, GP n.d., The Literary Canon, viewed online 9 August 2020, http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/canon/litcan.html Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority (QCAA) 2018, prescribed text list for English and English as an Additional Language 2019–2021, Queensland Government, Brisbane.

Caitlin McCluskey Dean of Studies

Effective study strategies for students in the ATAR system 2020 was a landmark year for secondary schooling in Queensland as it was the first year the new Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) and Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) system were implemented. For the first time in over 50 years, the QCE system now comprises external assessment pieces. Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) states that: 'The new QCE system combines the flexibility and authenticity of school-based assessment, developed and marked by classroom teachers, with the depth and consistency of external assessment set and marked by QCAA-trained assessment writers and markers' (QCAA 2019, p.1) . These external examinations account for 50 per cent of a student’s overall outcome in each subject within the Mathematics and Science faculties and 25 per cent for all other subjects. In addition, the external examination for Mathematics and Science subjects will cover two units (or 110 hours) of content that has been covered over the previous twelve months.

In contrast, the now phased out Overall Position (OP) system had a significantly different assessment structure.

The OP system operated under the principle of 'continuous assessment' with assessment being completed at regular intervals throughout the year (Queensland Studies Authority [QSA] 2014). All assessment was developed internally, and in Mathematics subjects, there was more opportunity for students to demonstrate knowledge with a minimum of four and maximum of ten assessment pieces that were used to determine an exit level of achievement at the end of Year 12 (QSA 2014). This meant that with regular testing students were not required to maintain knowledge of the unit content for long periods of time – most commonly, assessment would cover eight weeks of content. In addition, as the assessment was written by classroom teachers, it could be tailored to student knowledge strengths and depth of coverage. It is evident that the assessment styles differ greatly between the two systems – both in terms of the amount of content assessed in each piece of assessment and the additional pressures of an externally written and marked examination. Therefore, it follows that it would be beneficial for student outcomes to develop more effective approaches to teaching and learning for teachers and students alike.

Tullis et al. (2013) found that even when students implement retrieval in their study, they do not recognise the direct benefits of the strategy, only the indirect. Therefore, there appear to be two approaches to overcoming barriers to student implementation: firstly, ensuring students know what the effective strategies are and, secondly, ensuring that students attribute success (or failure) to the appropriate cause (Francis & Nagel 2020). Therefore, developing student meta-cognition is integral to countering the Dunning-Kruger effect both with respect to what they know and how they study (Dunning 2011; Kennon 2010; Krajc 2008; McGuire 2015). In addition, Hattie (2020) implores the lack of ‘teaching of thinking’ that occurs in the classroom as, despite reviewing 5,000 hours transcripts of lessons, he was unable to find a single example of teachers teaching 'how they thought, how they’re thinking, how to get better at thinking' (p. 117). It therefore stands to reason that the lack of education around how to think and study is impacting students’ ability to implement effective strategies. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found that students prefer repeated studying as it provides increased short-term benefits. This approach would have been a successful study strategy for the previous OP system in Queensland, where examinations were administered once a term. Given the longer duration of retention required in this new system, the evidence implies that this is no longer an effective strategy.

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Yan et al. (2016) conducted a series of experiments to investigate the most effective way to dispel incorrect notions about effective study techniques. It was hypothesised that participants were often exposed to blocking rather than interleaving in their schooling and had experienced short-term success with blocking, and therefore would feel strongly that blocking would be a more effective strategy than interleaving.

The study found that, of the participants who were not exposed to the theory behind interleaving versus blocking, 46 per cent

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While teachers can control the environment in the classroom and implement effective learning strategies in their own lessons, what students do outside of the classroom is largely outside of their control. Hattie (2003) asserts that students account for 50 per cent in variability in outcomes, meaning that assisting students to work effectively outside of the classroom could have high gains, a stance Pashler et al. (2007) support. Pashler et al. also note that the development of these metacognitive skills

requires explicit intervention: 'Accurately assessing one’s own degree of learning is not something that comes naturally to our species and fostering this ability is a useful, albeit neglected, component of education' (Pashler et al. 2007, p. 1). McGuire (2015) surmises that focusing on teacher delivery only and not including the work of students as learners is leaving out half of the equation and will never result in long-term learning. In fact, she argues that if students are taught the skills of how to learn effectively, they will become productive learners regardless of their learning ability and the teacher quality in the classroom.

Francis and Nagel (2020) further infer that teaching students to learn and study means being efficient and effective in these pursuits, rather than a perhaps more traditional view of hard work requiring hours and hours of study.

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reported finding interleaving to be the most effective strategy in comparison to the 37 per cent who supported blocking.

The participants who were exposed to the theory had vastly different results, with 75 per cent supporting interleaving as the most effective strategy compared to the 16 per cent who favoured blocking (Yan et al. 2016), providing compelling evidence that education in the theory is paramount to reversing metacognitive illusions. Bjork (1999) asserts that the effects of unconscious techniques and influences are often not attributed to those techniques, which leads to ongoing application of conscious techniques which may not be as effective. For optimum learning gain, it is therefore necessary to explicitly teach students which techniques support long-term retention and transfer (Bjork, Dunlosky & Kornell 2013). McGuire (2015) recommends explicitly teaching the neuroscience behind cognition, ensuring that instead of phrasing this in terms of 'study skills', 'metacognitive learning strategies' is introduced instead. Research indicates that intentional, explicit introduction to study and learning strategies and the science behind them is the most effective way to encourage students to implement effective strategies in their own work.

Ultimately, only a certain amount of learning occurs in the classroom and the remainder is student directed. It is important that students take responsibility for their learning outside of the classroom and receive the support to implement the strategies that will produce the greatest gain in their learning outcomes.

Key among student actions is growth mindset combined with reflection on practices and attributing success (and failure) to the processes and actions that have occurred (McGuire 2015).

Instead of seeing disappointing results as a reflection of ability, it is important to attribute these results to the methods and strategies used in the leadup to assessment and reflect on what can be improved. Beyond mindset, McDonald and Boud (2010) contend that teacher feedback is insufficient for optimum student development and that, in fact, students should be using self-assessment to regulate their own learning. Students should therefore be taking responsibility for creating their own opportunities for retrieval and reflecting on the process and feedback. To promote self-regulated learning, students should be directed to textbook resources to find these opportunities (Testing as a tool for learning: ideas for classroom application 2015). In addition, teachers could be modelling self-testing strategies in the classroom and helping students to identify how to create appropriate quizzes and low-stakes testing opportunities from the resources on hand (Zabrucky & Bays 2015). While these strategies are student based, in order for them to be successful, they require teacher commitment to teaching students not only course content, but how to think and how to learn.

References Bjork, RA 1999, ‘Assessing our own competence: Heuristics and illusions’, in D. Gopher & A. Koriat (eds), Attention and performance.

Attention and performance XVII: Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application, The MIT Press, pp. 435–459.

Bjork RA, Dunlosky J & Kornell N 2013, ‘Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions’, Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 64, no. 1, pp. 417-444.

Dunning, D 2011, ‘The Dunning-Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One’s Own Ignorance’, in JM Olson & MP Zanna (eds), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 44, pp. 247-296.

Francis, S & Nagel, M 2020, Your high-performance guide to study and learning, Hawker Brownlow Education, Cheltenham, Victoria.

Hattie, J 2003, Teachers make a difference: What is the research evidence?, viewed online 4 April 2021, http://research.acer.edu.au/research_ conference_2003/4/ Hattie, J & Larsen, S 2020, The Purpose of Education: A conversation between John Hattie and Steen Nepper Larsen, Routledge, London.

Kennon, J 2010, Mental Model: The Dunning–Kruger Effect, viewed online 4 April 2021, http://www.joshuakennon.com/mental-model-thedunning%E2%80%93kruger-effect/ Krajc, M 2008, ‘Are the Unskilled Really that Unaware? Understanding Seemingly Biased Self-Assessments’, CERGE-EI Working Papers, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_ id=1483793 McDonald, B & Boud, D 2003, ‘The Impact of Self-assessment on Achievement: The effects of self-assessment training on performance in external examinations’, Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 209-220.

McGuire, SY 2015, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, Stylus Publishing, USA. Pashler H, Bain, P, Bottge, B, Graesser, A, Koedinger, K, McDaniel, M & Metcalfe, J 2007, Organizing instruction and study to improve student learning, National Centre for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, Washington, DC. QCAA 2019, Strategies for retaining and recalling information for assessment, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/ portal/resource/organisation/67c34573-caef-4436-872a-a3dd5fcd0c8c/ app/resource/52/long-description.

Queensland Studies Authority 2014, Mathematics B Senior Syllabus, viewed online 6 April 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au Roediger, H & Karpicke, J 2006, ‘Test-Enhanced Learning’, Psychological Science, vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 249-255.

Clegg, P 2015, ‘Testing as a Tool for Learning: Ideas for Classroom Application’, Teaching Business & Economics vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 14-16.

Tullis, JG, Finley, JR & Benjamin, AS 2013, ‘Metacognition of the testing effect: Guiding learners to predict the benefits of retrieval’, Memory & Cognition, vol. 41, pp. 429-442.

Zabrucky, K & Bays, R 2015, ‘Improving Students' Retention of Classroom Material Through the Testing Effect’, College Teaching, vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 91-91.

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Yan, V, Bjork, E & Bjork, R 2016, ‘On the difficulty of mending metacognitive illusions: A priori theories, fluency effects, and misattributions of the interleaving benefit’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, vol. 145, no. 7, pp. 918-933.

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Overcoming anxiety Kate Montgomery French Coordinator and Head of Year 12

in second language learning

When learning a second language (L2), the goal is to be able to communicate successfully with others by attaining a reasonable level of language proficiency (Moskovsky et al. 2016). For most learners, the broad range of cognitive skills which need to be mastered for L2 proficiency means that communication in an L2 is much more difficult and less successful than in their first language (Horwitz 2017). While some secondary students accept these limitations, others find their inability to reflect their true personalities and to express complex ideas in an L2 to be distressing (Horwitz 2017). For these learners, the process of acquiring an L2 can be a psychologically challenging experience as it impacts on their self-concept and leads them to fear that their limited communication skills will prevent them from presenting themselves in an authentic manner and result in unfavourable judgement from others (Horwitz 2017). These are just some of the complex factors which can lead to Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety (FLCA), the study of which has preoccupied Second Language Acquisition researchers for several decades (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope 1986; Aida 1994; Gregersen 2003). FLCA can be defined as 'the worry and negative emotional reaction aroused when learning or using a second language' (MacIntyre 1999, p.

27). Recently, however, the influence of Positive Psychology (Fredrickson 2013) has engendered a shift in second language acquisition research to focus less on the negative emotion of anxiety and more on the importance of students experiencing the positive emotion of enjoyment in language classrooms through fun, creative and challenging lessons conducted in a supportive and friendly environment (Dewaele, J-M et al. 2018).

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One reason that researchers have found FLCA so significant is due to the adverse effects of FLCA on L2 learners. Dewaele and MacIntyre describe FLCA as ‘insidious’ (2014 p. 238), as it can negatively impact an L2 student’s ability to progress in their studies and undermine the best

teaching techniques and resources. Its effects can be academic, such as lower grades and ineffective overstudying; cognitive, such as anticipating failure and inability to retrieve previously known vocabulary; and also social, such as a lack of communication and lower communicative confidence (MacIntyre 2017).

there is also an overlap between teacher and environmental factors, as teachers are instrumental in the creation of the classroom ambience. Consequently, teachers can positively or negatively impact peer relations, which in turn have been shown to affect FLCA in some students (Shao, Pekrun & Nicholson 2019).

Variables that impact on Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety

Studies suggest that the process of teachers providing oral corrective feedback to L2 learners is an essential component of second language acquisition that assists students to improve their level of language competence (Lyster, Saito & Sato 2013).

Nevertheless, the way in which teachers correct these errors can impact on FLCA (Teimouri 2017). When students have their mistakes corrected frequently, harshly and in front of their peers,

There are many variables which can contribute to FLCA, including learner, teacher and environmental factors (Jin & Dewaele 2018).

Learner variables Studies indicate that while variables that relate to the teacher and the classroom environment can contribute to FLCA, the main factors associated with this form of anxiety are connected to the learners themselves, such as personality traits (Saito et al. 2018). There is insufficient space in this article to discuss these learner variables in depth; however, one such personality trait which has been examined with regard to FLCA is perfectionism (Dewaele 2017). The psychological construct of perfectionism has been described by researchers as having both positive and negative components (Dewaele 2017). The positive, or adaptive, aspects of perfectionism can lead to success for these learners based on the high standards they set themselves (Grzegorek et al. 2004). However, these same high standards can prove crippling to perfectionists if they perceive that they are unable to attain them, resulting in much self-criticism and feelings of failure (Grzegorek et al. 2004).

Teacher and environmental variables In addition to learner variables, teacher and environmental factors can also impact on the severity of FLCA experienced by students (Saito et al.

2018). There are some specific teacher variables which can impact directly on FLCA, for example, methods of error correction (Horwitz 2013). However,

it can be not only distracting to the expression of their ideas but can also lead to heightened FLCA and, in some cases, to feelings of shame (Teimouri 2017). While research indicates that teachers are not the main cause of FLCA (Dewaele et al. 2018), they can lessen the impact of error correction on students’ anxiety by selecting which errors require correction, rather than giving feedback on all mistakes, and undertaking this correction in a gentle and sensitive manner (Horwitz 2013).

It has long been acknowledged that the creation of a supportive and positive classroom environment is critical to good teaching and productive learning in all subject areas (Hattie & Clarke 2018). A key aspect of teachers’ roles is to ensure a non-threatening environment where students feel comfortable taking

risks (Arnold 2011). This is especially true in L2 classrooms, where students need to communicate and interact more than in many other disciplines (Shao, Pekrun & Nicholson 2019), and even more so in high school L2 classrooms, where fear of losing face in front of one’s peers can contribute to FLCA (Dewaele & Dewaele 2017). A component of effective teaching is assisting to create an atmosphere of solidarity between classmates and encouraging collaboration between peers (Dewaele et al. 2018). Studies show that the creation of positive and supportive peer relations within an L2 classroom is beneficial in reducing the effects of FLCA (Khajavy, MacIntyre & Barabadi 2018). Therefore, while much FLCA stems from the learners themselves, the manner in which the teacher interacts with the class and the establishment of a supportive

and cohesive environment can impact positively on FLCA. Positive Psychology: the shift to focus on foreign language enjoyment After decades of research on FLCA, the recent influence of Positive Psychology (Fredrickson 2013) has resulted in a shift of focus from the negative emotion of anxiety to the positive emotion of enjoyment. This article adopts a definition of Positive Psychology as 'the empirical study of how people thrive and flourish' (MacIntyre & Mercer 2014, p. 154).

In defining what might constitute foreign language enjoyment, researchers identified that students enjoyed tasks that involved student creativity, choice and expression of ideas (Dewaele &

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MacIntyre 2014). In addition, enjoyment involved frequent use of the target language by the teacher and students using the target language for up to 60 per cent of class time (Dewaele et al.

2018). Providing an appropriate level of challenge and clear learning intentions in lessons that lacked predictability helped to increase students’ enjoyment (Saito et al. 2018), while a positive attitude to the language and the teacher, together with a sense of performing well in comparison with class peers, was equally beneficial to classroom enjoyment (Dewaele et al. 2018).

If teachers can follow the lead of Positive Psychology and focus on helping learners to 'thrive and flourish' (MacIntyre & Mercer 2014, p. 154) in their classes, this seems more practical and beneficial for students than trying to help them overcome FLCA, which stems largely from learner-internal characteristics and is little affected by the actions of teachers (Saito et al. 2018).

Fredrickson’s ‘broaden and build’ theory of positive emotions

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A psychological theory from the subfield of Positive Psychology is Fredrickson’s broaden and build theory of positive emotions (1998). This theory proposes that positive emotions broaden an individual’s thinking and their ability to take in information, resulting in play, exploration and new learning, while also promoting resilience and helping to forge connections with others (Fredrickson 2013). Conversely, the theory suggests that negative emotions, such as anxiety, lead to disengagement, as individuals withdraw from potentially threatening situations and narrow their focus to concentrate on self-protection (Fredrickson 2013). Fredrickson (2013) argues that regularly experiencing positive emotions, such as enjoyment, helps people to develop their selfacceptance and their ability to deal with challenging situations.

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Recently, researchers have begun to consider the implications of the broaden and build theory for L2 classrooms, where a focus on positive emotions may

promote learning through an increased noticing of language input, in addition to the building of greater resilience to recover from embarrassing linguistic or cultural faux-pas (Boudreau, MacIntyre & Dewaele 2018). While FLCA impedes students from forging social bonds with classmates (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope 1986), a focus on the positive emotion of enjoyment may encourage students to interact and connect more with their peers (Fredrickson 2013). This may assist with the language education goal of effective communication in the classroom and building peer relations and may in turn lessen the fear of negative evaluation from classmates (Horwitz 2017).

Recommendations Horwitz rightly states that 'language teachers are not mental health professionals' (2017, p. 38) and that with no 'magic treatment' for FLCA (2017, p. 42), our best option to assist learners with FLCA is to listen to them and offer a supportive and positive environment.

It is interesting to note that despite the decades that FLCA has been the topic of research and the different aspects of the phenomenon which have been examined, the pedagogical implications have remained largely unchanged. That is, that teachers should provide students with opportunities to collaborate with their peers, create an ambience of respect and trust in which students feel supported to take risks, offer encouragement and positive feedback, and correct errors gently (Teimouri 2017; Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope 1986). While the move to concentrate on making language learning enjoyable, rather than focusing on FLCA, is only recent, it is not surprising that it aligns with the aforementioned advice regarding classroom environments, as this is the foundation of good pedagogy for all students, not only those suffering from anxiety (Hattie & Clarke 2018).

The recommendation that foreign language enjoyment can be achieved by challenging students and providing unpredictable lessons with clear learning intentions and opportunities

for creativity (Saito et al. 2018) similarly meets with the expectations of good teaching (Hattie & Clarke 2018). Regular use of group and pair work tasks can assist to create a more collaborative and therefore less competitive environment in which students feel unthreatened by the learning process (Rubio-Alcalá 2017).

Furthermore, it is recommended that teachers explicitly discuss FLCA with their students and provide opportunities for the sharing of strategies that peers have found helpful, as this will help students to feel less alone and to learn from the experiences of others (Horwitz 2017).

It is equally important that teachers assist students to develop realistic expectations and to realise that communicating proficiently in an L2 does not mean producing error-free language (Oxford 2017). Language teachers are encouraged to assist anxious learners, especially those with perfectionist tendencies, to set achievable learning goals and strategies to help students attain these (Oxford 2017). Positive Psychology suggests that this will help learners to develop ‘agency’ and a sense that they have control over their own learning and need to take responsibility for their studies (Oxford 2017, p. 185). Ensuring student familiarity with assessment criteria and instruments prior to examinations can also assist to alleviate FLCA and give students a greater sense of control (Rubio-Alcalá 2017). This can be achieved using mock examinations and providing rubrics prior to testing (Rubio-Alcalá 2017).

Rubio-Alcalá (2017) advocates that educators take an indirect approach to dealing with FLCA by incorporating aspects of personal development into language courses. There is provision for such personal development within the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (QCAA) General Senior Syllabus for Languages (2019). This document embeds what it terms '21st century skills' (p. 8) within the syllabus objectives – skills it deems are essential to the workforce of the 21st century. These include personal and

social skills such as developing 'resilience, mindfulness and self-awareness' (p. 8), all of which could help to combat feelings of FLCA. Additionally, these 21st century skills include other characteristics deemed helpful above in dealing with FLCA, such as 'collaboration and teamwork' (p. 8). Thus, it can be concluded that provision already exists for helping to deal with anxiety in language classrooms at the level of curriculum policy development, and language teachers are already utilising many of the above techniques in their classrooms.

Providing a low-anxiety and motivating classroom environment, while also developing a notion of everyone learning together without judgment of errors, may be the best strategy for language teachers and hopefully this will assist L2 learners to feel comfortable, less anxious and more engaged.

Reference List Aida, Y 1994, ‘Examination of Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s construct of Foreign Language Anxiety: The case of students of Japanese’, Modern Language Journal, vol. 78, no. 2, pp. 155-168.

Arnold, J 2011, ‘Attention to affect in language learning’. Anglistik. International Journal of English Studies, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 11-22.

Boudreau, C, Macintyre, P & Dewaele, J-M 2018, ‘Enjoyment and anxiety in second language communication: An idiodynamic approach’, Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 149-170 Dewaele, J-M, Witney, J, Saito, K & Dewaele, L 2018, ‘Foreign language enjoyment and anxiety: The effect of teacher and learner variables’, Language Teaching Research, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 676-697.

Dewaele, J-M 2017, ‘Are perfectionists more anxious foreign language learners and users?’, in C Gkonou, M Daubney & J-M Dewaele (eds), New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Fredrickson, B 2013, ‘Updated thinking on positivity ratios’, The American Psychologist, vol. 68, no. 9, pp. 814–822.

Fredrickson, BL 1998, ‘What good are positive emotions?’ Review of General Psychology, vol. 2, pp. 300-319.

Gregersen, T 2003, ‘To Err Is Human: A Reminder to Teachers of Language Anxious Students’, Foreign Language Annals, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 25-32.

Grzegorek, J, Slaney, R, Franze, S & Rice, K 2004, ‘Self-Criticism, Dependency, SelfEsteem, and Grade Point Average Satisfaction Among Clusters of Perfectionists and Nonperfectionists’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 192–200.

Hattie, J & Clarke, S 2018, Visible learning: Feedback, Routledge, London.

Horwitz, E 2017, ‘On the misreading of Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope (1986) and the need to balance anxiety research and the experiences of anxious learners’, in C Gkonou, M Daubney & J-M Dewaele (eds), New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Horwitz, E 2013, Becoming a language teacher: a practical guide to second language learning and teaching (2nd edn), Pearson Education, Boston.

Horwitz, E, Horwitz, M & Cope, J 1986, ‘Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety’, Modern Language Journal, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 125-132.

Jin, Y & Dewaele, J 2018, ‘The effect of positive orientation and perceived social support on foreign language classroom anxiety’, System, vol. 74, pp. 149-157.

Khajavy, G, MacIntyre, P & Barabadi, E 2018, ‘Role of the emotions and classroom environment in willingness to communicate’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 605–624.

Lyster, R, Saito, K & Sato, M 2013, ‘Oral corrective feedback in second language classrooms’, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 1-40.

MacIntyre, PD, 2017, ‘An overview of language anxiety research and trends in its development’, in C Gkonou, M Daubney & J-M Dewaele (eds), New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Macintyre, PD & Mercer, S 2014, ‘Introducing positive psychology to SLA’, Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 153-172.

MacIntyre, PD 1999, ‘Language anxiety; A review of the research for language teachers’, in DJ Young (ed.), Affect in foreign language and second language teaching: A practical guide to creating a low-anxiety classroom atmosphere, McGraw-Hill, Boston.

Moskovsky, C, Assulaimani, T, Racheva, S & Harkins, J 2016, ‘The L2 Motivational Self System and L2 achievement: A study of Saudi EFL learners’, Modern Language Journal, vol. 100, no. 3, pp. 641-654.

Oxford, R 2017, ‘Anxious language learners can change their minds: Ideas and strategies from traditional psychology and Positive Psychology’, in C Gkonou, M Daubney, & J-M Dewaele (eds), New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2019, General Senior Syllabus for Languages, viewed online 15 May 2021, www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/portal/ syllabus/?organisation=4993074c-2698-4f36bc76-e61797495701#!/app/4993074c-26984f36-bc76-e61797495701/syllabus/ Rubio-Alcalá, F 2017, ‘The links between self-esteem and language anxiety and implications for the classroom’, in C. Gkonou, M Daubney & J-M. Dewaele (eds), New insights into language anxiety: Theory, research and educational implications, Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Saito, K, Dewaele, J, Abe, M & In’ Nami, Y 2018, ‘Motivation, emotion, learning experience, and second language comprehensibility development in classroom settings: A cross sectional and longitudinal study’, Language Learning, vol. 68, no. 3, pp. 709-743.

Shao, K, Pekrun, R & Nicholson, L 2019, ‘Emotions in classroom language learning: What can we learn from achievement emotion research?’ System, vol 86, 102121.

Teimouri, Y 2017, ‘L2 Selves, emotions and motivated behaviours’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 681-709.

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Dewaele, J-M & Dewaele, L 2017, ‘The dynamic interactions in foreign language classroom anxiety and foreign language enjoyment of pupils aged 12 to 18. A pseudolongitudinal investigation’. Journal of the European Second Language Association, vol.1, no.1, pp. 12-22.

Dewaele, J-M & Macintyre, PD 2014, ‘The two faces of Janus? Anxiety and enjoyment in the foreign language classroom’, Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 237-274.

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Mary Surtees Assistant Head of Primary School – Wellbeing and Operations As I reflect on my forty-plus years’ association with St Margaret’s, I note that much has changed physically but the very soul of the school remains steadfast. The Sisters’ ethos permeates all that we do; in more than 125 years, their values and beliefs continue to underpin all that we do and all that we are, and it is this strong tradition that is St Margaret’s.

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My first time at St Margaret’s was in 1978 as I began my sixweek final block practice as a pre-service teacher. St Margaret’s already had a formidable reputation at the university, so it was a daunting task to front up for my first day. I was extremely fortunate to have as my mentors Miss Sheena Dyason and Mrs Penny Clarke, who taught me to love teaching and to love the school. In 1979, I returned as a bona fide teacher who had, in the back of her mind, that she would stay five years and then move on to discover the world. That five years became 42.

Looking back,

MOVING FORWARD We were the envy of all schools in Brisbane because we had two pools – the historical 25yard pool (still in use today) and the Olympic sized 50 metre pool. And we had that view from the grandstand!

We had ant-bed courts, both netball and tennis, and many a skinned knee was had. Our gym was where the School Supplies Shop is now. It was a stroke of genius to be able to conduct a class of twenty-five girls in there on beam and bars, providing you did not do a back-hip circle on the high bar! Miss Dyason and I coached all the teams, with the exception of tennis. Life was definitely busy but much simpler.

The Angelus bell would be rung at midday every day – a gentle reminder of the presence of the Sisters in our lives. The present Pre-Prep Centre (the Advent Centre) was then the Wafer House

where the Sisters would produce the communion wafers for Anglican schools and churches throughout Australia. The Sisters would also check the length of the middy skirt by asking the girls to kneel down – it was measured with a ruler. The gym tunic and bloomers are the stuff of legends as girls participated in a myriad of activities, ahead of their time.

I was appointed by our first secular head, Mrs Kugelman, and have worked under every new secular head since then. In 2021, we have our highest enrolment numbers in our history – a testament to our staff and families who believe in what St Margaret’s stands for. National awards have been presented to individuals at the school as well as programs and innovations presently in action.

The Thredbo trip was a rite of passage for so many girls. We travelled to the snow for over forty years. Originally, we bussed it down. We did fly for a time but in the later years returned to bussing for convenience and cost. We had ski instructors who were personally hand-picked for us and we had some truly amazing experiences.

A building program over the years has seen some structures disappear and new ones take their place. The old rendered tennis wall hid the fact that it was the original sandstone wall built when Mooloomburram was a stately home and the stables were nearby. It has now been fully restored using sandstone that was found in the rubble when the ‘Loft’ was demolished.

The front doorbell at Mooloomburram still works – ask me how I know?!

Every two years, we would hold the St Margaret’s Fun Fair.

It would start early on Saturday and continue all day into the night. Hugh Cornish always had a hand in its organisation, and through his contacts, we had some big-name stars attend the concert. The cake and lolly stalls were a sight to behold and raised substantial amounts of money. We also had a flower show and an art show for a period of time. Several of the works of art adorn the walls of my own home.

Technology also means that everything – or nearly everything – is done online. In the Archive Centre, there are the beautiful enrolment ledgers of a bygone era with the perfect copperplate writing. Our salary is electronically transferred fortnightly.

When I first began here, we were paid monthly, and we had to go to the office to sign for our pay. If we did not do it within the required timeframe, we missed out on our pay and waited another month to collect it.

Life was simpler then, demands were fewer, expectations not so grand. Our Old Girl reunions conducted around the date of St Margaret’s Day bring many girls back to the school – some for the first time – and what changes they see! I enjoy taking tours on this day and hearing tales and reminiscences of the Old Girls about their school days and what they got up to (and laughing that the staff did not know). I hate to disabuse them of that fact, but the staff always found out in the end!

By looking back, we can continue to move forward. We have a rich history and a strong legacy from the Sisters. I am honoured and privileged to have been a small part of it. As we continue to win accolades for our innovative programs and dynamic staff, we continue to move forward but maintain our history and values. There is nothing a St Margaret’s girl cannot achieve.

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While staff may come and go, the values of the school have remained unchanged and the expectations for the students remain constant. The house spirit has never diminished, and houses may have a run of wins for several years until another

Technology continues to make a huge impact on the way we operate the school and teach our lessons. Large desktop ‘monsters’ have been replaced by the sleek laptops and iPads in the classes today. The onset of COVID further developed our technology skills when home learning became a reality. The skills that the girls are presently acquiring are skills unheard of several years ago.

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The Sisters were always present in the day to day running of the school – many in teaching or boarding roles. Sadly, as the numbers dwindled, their appearances decreased. It is still a delight to see the Sisters who remain at school functions.

We had a few very sporty Sisters and some would delight in taking part in one of my PE lessons if they happened to be walking past. We had some very able javelin throwers and tennis players!

house pips them at the post. The primary school introduced house coloured shirts – both sun shirt and polo – and normal swimming classes then became a sea of colour as both sun shirts and bathing caps were coloured according to the houses.

Play hats were also introduced into the primary school as we gained sunsmart accreditation and ‘no hat= no play’ and ’no sunshirt= no swim’ became recognised incentives to be prepared!

What students need …

IS NOT TO BE OVERPARENTED Nikki Townsend Dean of Students It is not what you do for your children but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings. Ann Landers There are new kinds of parents that have appeared at school over the past few decades of my teaching career, from the anxiously involved helicopter parent to the lawnmower parent, forever, and, sometimes aggressively, creating an obstacle-free path for their child. These differing parenting styles have one thing in common; they signal overparenting. The Oxford Dictionary (2021) defines overparenting as ‘where parents micromanage their children’s lives, giving them little autonomy, putting too much pressure on them to achieve academic and personal success, while allowing few chances for their children to experience failure and frustration’. Overparenting most often comes from a sincere desire for the parent to provide the very best for their child, but this approach can negatively impact the child as they move into adulthood.

Negative effects on the child who is overparented Being involved in your child’s life is vital in helping them to feel loved, safe and supported. This sort of parenting promotes healthy relationships and self-esteem, which increases the chance of your child growing into a successful adult. However, being too involved and suffocating can have a detrimental effect on the child. Parents who overparent are sending a message to their child that they are not capable of dealing with situations on their own and that their world, school and people are unsafe, and they need to be protected. Research has indicated that parents who are overly involved in their child’s life can foster anxiety. Psychologist Rebecca Wheeler states that, ‘a study conducted by Sydney’s Macquarie University in 2012 found that children at the age of four who exhibited signs of anxiety had either a mother who was overly involved or was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. By age nine, these children were more likely to have a been diagnosed with clinical anxiety’. These children are learning behaviours from their parents; as the saying goes, ‘the apple does not fall far from the tree’. Clinical psychologist Judith Locke (2020) goes further, explaining that parents are raising a generation of therapised children, rushing them off to specialists at the slightest sign of a difficulty rather than teaching them how to cope.

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School and university colleagues are reporting these students are profoundly attached to their parents and scared of academic failure. They also challenge rules and have their parents contact their professors and teachers to question their results or behavioural consequences What is going to happen to these students when they enter the work force? How are they going to function in a team? Some would say these young adults are entitled and show little resilience or few problem-solving skills as they have been cloaked in bubble wrap. Yet another problem is how will they learn to cope with disappointment and failure if their parents have protected them from this their whole lives?

Locke (2020) suggests, ‘a child who has been given the perfect childhood can’t cope with the less than perfect but completely normal realities of adult life’.

Signs of overparenting It is important for parents to be able to identify if they are overparenting. The following are examples of parental behaviours schools are recognising as being too overprotective. These are the parents who fly back to school when their child forgets their sports bag, do their homework and assignments for them, and contact other parents for the homework when their child does not bring it home. These parents believe their child is always right. They will confront teachers if the child feels they have been unfairly treated or will confront other parents if their child is not invited to a party.

The ‘overparenter’ has also been known to not allow teachers to talk to their student without them being present. They also overly praise their child for doing the bare minimum, complain if their child does not get a participation trophy for simply running a race and so on. Another way to identify if a child is being overparented is by the amount of extra-curricular activities they do each week. These students’ waking hours are packed with language, art, sport lessons etc. including the everimportant play dates. These overparented children don’t get to experience freedom to just be children, nor do they experience opportunities to establish their own boundaries and, most importantly, learn to handle disappointment.

Strategies to assist in overcoming the urge to overparent The following are some suggestions on how parents can help develop strong, resilient, independent children. The best way to support children to become effective self-advocates is to have them continually practise this skill from a young age. This will ensure they grow up being comfortable with their own individual style of speaking up for themselves.

Parents are encouraged to find moments where their children can practise speaking up for themselves. For example, the next

time a child wants a special privilege, such as more screen time or going out to party, parents can ask to be provided with three good reasons why they should be allowed.

The result here isn’t serious, so there’s no need for the parent to change whatever decision they had in mind. The vital part here is that the child can practise speaking up for themselves and feel they have been heard. This process should encourage the child by letting them know and understand they are their own best advocate.

Parents then need to provide honest feedback about how their child is trying to persuade others, including what works and what doesn’t (for example tone and body language). This is the first step in helping them consciously develop essential negotiating skills.

Role-playing is also an important, impactful strategy to try and help young people practise scenarios, especially when they are facing a challenging situation. It also allows parents to find new ways to support their children without overparenting. Rather than the parent stepping in to fix the next problem, allow the student to role play the scene before trying the real-life version on their own. Even if it doesn’t work out perfectly, the time spent acting out the situation is a good way to prepare them for the next tricky circumstance.

There is also a common misconception that competitiveness is fundamentally bad for children. But a healthy competitive attitude is as important for children as it is for adults – encouraging us to try harder, take more risks, and even be more imaginative. Encouraging children’s participation in sports is an accessible way for parents to nurture a child’s healthy competitive spirit, while also developing their resilience and ability to work in a team. Any sort of co-curricular activity where students need to trial to gain a position on the team or participate in the activity should be welcomed.

Parenting is not easy; there are no perfect parents, and everyone will make mistakes. But parents do need to recognise and be aware of the pitfalls of overparenting and have a tool kit to assist children cope with life. As adults we know all too well that life is full of ups and downs and it is our duty as adults to help students rehearse life when they are children.

Children who are reared in extremely controlled environments by their parents who over-emphasis their child's happiness and give them an expectation they will excel at life will face obstacles. This sort of parental behaviour can develop a student who may suffer from anxiety, perfectionism and have limited emotional intelligence, which they will then carry into their adult life. This in turn will make it very difficult for these children to operate in an adult setting. Our main job as a parent is to raise confident, capable and compassionate adults allowing them the opportunity to experience failure and disappointment.

References Locke, JY 2020, The Bonsai Student – Why modern parenting limits children’s potential and practical strategies to turn it around, Sunset Publishing Service Pty Ltd, Australia.

Anonymous 2020, Over-parenting teaches children to be entitled – let them fail and learn to be resilient instead, viewed 28 May 2021, https://www. aussieipnsider.com.au/over-parenting-teaches-children-to-be-entitledlet-them-fail-and-learn/ Oxford Dictionary 2021, Oxford Languages, viewed 20 May 2021, oup.com.

Wheeler, R 2018, Effects Of Overparenting Are We Raising Anxious Children, viewed 25 May 2021, https://www.rwapsych.com.au/blog/ effectof-overparenting-are-we-raising-anxious-children.

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Nicole Walker Head of Year

Confidence built in a concurrent context

The ability to be confident in one’s abilities, to be resilient and to accept challenges enables us to function effectively as active members of society. Building confidence takes courage and this process is benefited by supportive contexts such as those involving mentoring and collaboration. The 2021 concurrent Years 11/12 St Margaret’s music class is one such context.

Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA) documentation describes concurrent delivery as a pedagogical approach; it is a way to learn and it involves differentiation. As QCAA does not require schools to notify them of concurrent classes, there is no statistical data that identifies how many concurrent classes are running in Queensland. However, it is widely known that many concurrent classes are enabling a wide range of subjects to be offered in secondary schools today.

Although combined or composite music classes are not a new concept, the concurrent delivery mode exists as part of the Music 2019 v1.2 Syllabus (QCAA) and occurs as Year 11 students study Units 1 and 2 while Year 12 students study Units 3 and 4. This change has required a different approach to planning, differentiation and articulation of learning intentions than that applied to composite-class delivery. The alignment of learning experiences has occurred; however, it is common for two different tasks to be occurring simultaneously. Likewise, the assessment tasks are similar, but the topics, content and depth to which these are covered differs. Nayler’s belief that 'classrooms with students in more than one "official" year level have added complexities' (2011, p. 9) certainly rings true.

The planning for this new mode requires regular feedback to occur between teachers and students and constant teacher reflection. The necessity for students to consolidate concepts or access resources to extend themselves encourages independence and self-regulation. Accountability is high.

Online teaching and learning approaches, including the use of OneNote, ‘due work’ on the POD and live recording programs such as Soundtrap continue to support meaningful learning as syllabus objectives are met. The authentic sharing of ideas through making music has forged new connections in an environment reminiscent of an image of parallel train tracks – two groups journeying independently, side by side in the same direction.

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The concurrent music classroom provides ongoing opportunities for students to develop their critical and creative thinking capabilities, one of the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. These capabilities are important throughout the school years as students are being prepared for life in the 21st century. Critical and creative processes are central to the music course as the creation of new ideas and the need to innovate while performing, composing and analysing music

are ever present. Students develop confidence as they learn and reflect on their progress. Interestingly, the concurrent mode has provided ‘space’ for the girls to grow their own confidence levels, particularly in their composition and musicology tasks.

The sharing of ideas has often been spontaneous as students perform their songs to the class, many of which have been of an improvisatory manner and created on the spot. Not only has this brought the two cohorts together, it has developed individual confidence to compose music. This is a wonderful by-product in a class whose members have significant strength in the performing dimension.

The exchange of composing ideas – melodic and rhythmic motifs, and chord progressions – sparks the development of short, sometimes hesitant sounds into songs and instrumental pieces that often mirror the complexity and structure of published works. The girls’ works now demonstrate a deeper understanding of harmony and chord progressions – the most challenging music element to grasp. Such understanding is transferred into the extended responses required for musicology tasks. It is clear that this concurrent, cooperative context supports Johnson and Johnson’s research findings that 'students who work together cooperatively learn more, remember it longer, and also gain more effective social skills and psychological strengths than do students who work alone or competitively' (as cited in Panadero & Alonso-Tapia 2016, p. 69). It is reciprocal inspiration.

The development of confidence and self-regulation evident in the Years 11/12 music students will have long-term benefits.

Self-regulated learning comprises a cyclical approach in which work completed on a task informs subsequent learning.

Panadero and Alonso-Tapia believe that teachers are tasked with assisting students to learn 'intentionally, autonomously and effectively, which is achieved using self-regulation' (2014, p. 450). Indeed, they define self-regulation as 'the control that students have over their cognition, behaviour, emotions and motivation through the use of personal strategies to achieve the goals they have established' (2014, pp. 450-451).

The awareness of one’s emotions and motivations contribute to the interest in a task and engagement in learning. Zimmerman’s model outlines the cyclical approach: forethought phase (task analysis, self-motivation beliefs); performance phase (self-control, self-observation); and self-reflection phase (selfjudgement, self-reaction). It is interesting that Panadero and Alonso-Tapia affirm that 'beliefs, values, interests and goals are the personal variables that generate and maintain motivation to perform a task' (2014, p. 453). These factors, existing in the forethought phase, can impede or ignite progress and this is certainly present in new or challenging music activities.

Without a growth mindset, the commencement of such tasks may be halted due to a diminished level of self-belief in composing abilities. Dweck writes that mindsets refer to how students 'perceive their abilities' (2015, p. 1), and the connection that composing tasks has created within the Years 11/12 classroom has been exciting to see and feel. The girls have tried new learning strategies, given and received feedback from their younger/older classmates and the quality of their work has improved.

Sharing in activities, as described by School Stream (2018), enables students to develop resilience and skills such as empathy, a sense of responsibility and problem-solving skills.

Even as the familiar Italian word 'con' (translated ‘with’) is seen on printed music scores in phrases such as 'Con moto' (‘with motion’), the confidence that is developed within concurrent music classes does reflect the idea of travelling with others. It is community in action.

References Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) n.d., Critical and Creative Thinking, viewed 20 May 2021, https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/generalcapabilities/critical-and-creative-thinking/

Panadero, E & Alonso-Tapia, J 2014, ‘How do students self-regulate?

Review of Zimmerman’s Cyclical model of self-regulated learning’ Anales de psicología, vol. 12, no. 2, viewed online 2 June 2021, https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_ sdt=0%2C5&q=How+do+students+self-regulate%3F+Revie w+of+Zimmerman%E2%80%9Fs+cyclical+model+of+selfregulated+learning&btnG= Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority 2021, Music 2019 v1.2 Concurrent delivery, viewed 12 January 2021, via QCAA Portal.

Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority 2021, Music: Flexible curriculum delivery (Focus – alternate sequences and concurrent delivery), viewed online 12 January 2021, https://www.qcaa.qld.edu. au/portal/syllabus/server/portal/implementation/snr_music_19_flex_ curric_del.pdf School Stream 2018, Why is resilience important? (Cheat sheet and resources), viewed online 25 April 2021, https://www. schoolstream.com.au/why-is-resilience-important-cheat-sheetresources/?utm_campaign=Weekly%20Blog&utm_medium=email&_ hsmi=124904689&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8seF2zWNM2N3IP41mnBz uylUuElBkOa0q4ErtjEXLFOZVmLWkG15w5e-wU1M-qGo-EcD TmMUcLoitcokd5xFTZOLPrKtLDSSDN-Qwlfjj7iG-5jIE&utm_ content=124848857&utm_source=hs_email

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Laurian-Fitzgerald, S 2016, ‘The effect of teaching cooperative learning skills on developing young students’ Journal Plus Education, Issue 1, pp. 68-82, viewed 2 June 2021, file:///C:/Users/nwalker012/ Downloads/674-Article%20Text-2162-1-10-20160804.pdf

Nayler, J 2011, Enacting Australian Curriculum: Planning issues and strategies for P-10 multiple year level classrooms, QSA, viewed 30 May 2021, https://find.search.qld.gov.au/s/search.html?query= Nayler%2C+J.+%282011%29.+Enacting+Australian+Curriculum% 3A+Planning+issues+and+strategies+for+P-10+multiple+year+lev el+classrooms.+QSA&num_ranks=10&tiers=off&collection=qldgov&profile=qcaa&form=simple

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Imagine your future...

atSt Margaret’s Australia’s Boarding School of the Year 2019 and 2020

2020

AUSTRALIAN EDUCATION AWARDS

Emmeline Ezzy (’11) Engineer

Sunata Edition 11 Principal: Ros Curtis Editors: Karen Gorrie, Wendy Johnston, Nicole Devlin Graphic Designer: Pam Smiles Photographer: Sophia Taylor, Michael Marston and Miranda Everett

EDITION ELEVEN

2021 SUNATA

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St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School 11 Petrie Street Ascot QLD 4007 Australia Telephone: +61 7 3862 0777 Facsimile: +61 7 3862 0701 mail@stmargarets.qld.edu.au www.stmargarets.qld.edu.au St Margaret’s School Council Ltd ABN: 69069684019 CRICOS Code: 00511K A School of the Society of the Sacred Advent

EDITION ELEVEN

No pupil in the history of education is like today’s modern learner.

STAFF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING JOURNAL

ceTLe Centre for Teaching and Learning Excellence