Education Reimagined

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

2020 will certainly be a year we will always remember as a turning point in education. The Global COVID-19 Pandemic reached Australia and schools had to quickly transition their delivery of learning to adjust to new restrictions and social distancing requirements. If ever the acronym “VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous)” felt appropriate to use, it was this year. It has been characterised by constantly evolving and ever changing circumstances, fast paced manoeuvring, rapid upskilling and constant adapting.

Teachers at The King’s School showed remarkable resilience, adaptability and flexibility as conditions changed on a weekly or daily basis. Change of this magnitude would usually take a year to prepare, but without the luxury of time, the teachers were outstanding in managing to continue to deliver a high quality learning program meeting the NSW syllabus outcomes with a new method of delivery.

Being isolated at home and spending more time with family suited many children who thrived, while for others the change brought challenges; but this too was a learning opportunity. Teachers found new ways to engage with the students, introducing interactive quizzes and real time tutorials, pre-recording lessons, and online assessment - to name a few. displaying resilience, agility and optimism. We can look back on this time period as King’s being a part of history in the way we teach and learn.

Stories from the Online Learning Experience

With the return to face-to-face teaching, it is important that we build on the experiences we all had in the online world. In such a short time, teachers and students embraced new technologies and new ways of connecting. We discovered that using Zoom enabled the voices of students to be heard; even the most introverted breakout rooms in Zoom facilitated rich conversations.

What is evident is that we need to learn from these experiences and apply this to teaching and learning as students return to campus. The following are just some of the stories from our Senior School teachers and students. We are truly blessed to work with amazing educators, agile students and understanding parents!

Agriculture: The evolution to Zoom masterclasses

All of us who teach will know that some of the greatest teaching and learning experiences can come out of the blue, the evolution of Zoom masterclasses is one of these. While delivering a Zoom lesson to my senior class, one student gave me notice that he would not be attending the next lesson due to harvesting on their property. I suggested that if he used Zoom on his phone he could still listen as he worked and not fall behind. The outcome was better than this, because when the student did Zoom in, he could show the class the activity he was doing, the machinery he was using and produce direct context for what we were covering in the syllabus. This was such a rich and rewarding experience for all students, but in particular, those studying Agriculture who are Sydney based. Out

of this, came Zoom masterclasses where students would provide lessons to the rest of the class on activities they were undertaking on their farms. It was brilliant, and has grown to now include a list of wonderful parents who are willing to provide future lessons to the students on a whole range of farming environments/experiences from shearing sheep, helicopter mustering right through to making cheese. This is such an amazing resource that the Agriculture Department intends to utilise moving forward. What a wonderful way to connect our farming and agribusiness community to our learners.

Tony Turner Head of Agriculture

Geography

To provide the interactive, inquiry-based field excursions the Geography Department facilitates annually, Geography teachers needed to think differently about delivery this year. Instead of taking students to the study environment and the guest speakers, we brought the study environment and guest speakers to them, this time viewing the landscape from the air, in a virtual 360 video and with Zoom. Students were able to remotely access targeted content, pause, review and replay – which added a further dimension to their reimagined learning. Geography students were enabled by our teaching efforts, with the aid of technology, which exposed the boys’ resilience and adaptability, evidenced by the delivery of their high quality post-virtual excursion research reports.

Brendan Stewart Head of Geography

Break-Out Rooms and ESS support

Another significant outcome from working remotely using Zoom was the opportunity to set up break-out rooms with ESS support being available in these rooms. The opportunity to use their support was open to all students, however, for the majority of the time, only students with identified learning needs utilised this avenue of support. In saying this, as time went on working remotely, more and more other students would join the ESS support break-out room. This really does reflect the quality of the support our wonderful ESS staff provide to students and the respect our students have for them.

Tony Turner Head of Agriculture

The experience of distance learning has had many challenges in relation to the Performance component of all music courses, however, the Musicology, Composition, and Aural components have been successfully transferred to this new way of learning. DL has allowed lesson plans to be more targeted for individual students, and thus opened up a great tool for differentiation. Since moving to online, the use of share folders for the collection of student work has been really successful. The fact that the teacher can pop in and provide real-time feedback has worked really well, and students have enjoyed the individual attention this gives them. Further still, being online has provided a greater choice of activity for the students, allowing them to catch-up, if need be, and be extended at the other end of the scale. Frankly, in many instances, the students are producing more quality work with less classroom distraction.

Sarah Feltham Head of Music

Visual Arts

In Visual Arts the online learning experience has taught us how important practical artmaking activities are to our boys. It has reinforced our knowledge that the skills and concepts developed in Visual Arts can provide a line of critical and creative inquiry that allows students to reflect on the world and communicate their ideas through a range of artmaking mediums.

Melanie Taylor Head of Visual Arts

Online Learning

Online learning challenged both teachers and students to accept and embrace the new way of learning. We needed to get creative in ensuring that the reality of the new pandemic world did not hinder our learners and their growth. We needed to get out of the traditional learning paradigm and enter the world of the digital generation to keep them engaged and learning. As we moved to remote learning, we set up project based learning opportunities. Students were given the opportunity to develop promotional strategies in line with the content being taught.

A successful project was the development of King’s Shark Tank. Students were given the challenge of developing a pitch for a product or service, particularly for those isolated at home. They had to complete various on-line modules to move forward to the next stage, finally pitching their idea via Zoom in front of a panel. The boys stepped out of their comfort zone and presented some very unique and creative pitches.

Jeanette Mikhael Head of Economics and Business Studies

Click & Collect Service in the Senior Library

The Click & Collect service provided continued access to the Senior Library’s physical collection and was created to complement the extensive range of digital resources available to students. By searching the Library catalogue online and completing a “book request” via King’sNet, staff and students were able to continue to borrow books, which were made available for “drivethrough” collection the next day from the Senior School’s Turning Circle.

Reading Club Goes Virtual

Not one to let COVID-19 come between the Library’s weekly reading club and a lively discussion of books, Mrs Pooja Mathur moved meetings of “The Page Turners” into cyberspace via Zoom. Here the boys continued their weekly discussions of Australian authors, explored different literary genres, discussed, their latest reads, and considered nominations for the various Young Adult literature awards. These sessions were highly valued by the boys, who relish the regular opportunity to discuss their “page time” interests.

Casual Academic Tutor CAT Program

Information Services manages the CAT Program in two locations – the Senior Library (Years 7 – 12) and the Senior Study Centre (Year 12). Pre-COVID-19, Old Boy tutors were available during the day and evening to provide face-to-face tutoring in 30-minute sessions. When classroom teaching and learning moved to distance learning, the CAT Program moved online via Zoom. Students made bookings for a Tutor and then met them in Zoom. To ensure the online safety of both Tutor and Tutee, members of the Information Services staff hosted and recorded all sessions. Such was the success of this online initiative that, despite the CAT Program returning onsite, tutoring online has been retained as an option for students unable to remain after school.

Di Laycock Head of Information Services