Shining Lights, Week 7, Term 1 2022
Consistency and Trust
School spirit and belonging are strong elements of our College culture. These don’t arise on their own, but relies upon each and every one of us to play our part. One of the key contributors is the development of an ethos of trust in our learning community. Trust builds a web of connections and security for our students, it affirms the work of our teachers and is at the heart of friendship and amity in the College community.
After the challenges of the past couple of years, we are focused on bringing a renewed consistency to our College interactions. Through the CE teacher development program, Catalyst, our teachers are sharing pedagogies, teaching techniques and instructional language as never before. Teachers have undergone extensive training in the teaching of primary literacy, Many teachers are working on sharing High Impact Teaching Practices (HITPs), and The Writing Revolution (TWR) is underway.
They Started It !
The second in our series of problematic students is They Started It, having met Other People previously.
Frequently, when a student is called to account and if they have both They Started It and Other People supporting them, they feel almost bullet proof! But alas, for them, things do not always work out the way that they had hoped…
At a very simple level, I often find myself using the analogy that if a Kindy kicked me in the shin and I (who am a LITTLE older) then kicked them back (perish the thought!!), who’s going to jail? Will they judge accept the testimony of They Started It. Nah. Open and shut, move on. Of course, Other People has fled the scene well before this.
They Started It also has buddies like Stand Up For My Mates. I fully recognize that the vulnerable should be safeguarded (an absolute cornerstone of a Catholic school!) - and at times Stand Up for My Mates has a very valid point, IF they act in a defensive, protective way, rather than in an escalating way; but let me share another mantra from across my desk. I pose to Stand Up for My Mates the scenario, after the initial conflict has occurred and they have then retaliated, that a better outcome for everyone might have been born of a different approach. Their retaliation, perhaps physical, often cyber, has them in as much strife (sometimes more) than the person who caused the initial hurt. Anyway, it is a good chance to teach irony. I offer to them the thought that we teachers, or parents, or Police (when necessary) just might have a little more experience and resources…dare I say effectiveness, than they do in addressing the problem. And there is the wonderful added bonus that we are almost never in trouble afterwards!
I am a huge fan of Right and Wrong, and we will no doubt meet them at length in a future installment, but it is worth mentioning that as cherished as Right and Wrong is, it is not always applicable in some contexts when They Started It gets over-revved. There are, of course, many dangerous, threatening scenarios when the knee jerk reaction of They Started It places them personally at great risk. Again, there is a social intelligence required to approach the problem in a different way than mindlessly or viciously strike back.
They Started It, like Other People, as often cited by kids, is a road to nowhere. They Started It most often becomes far less sure of themselves when posed the question, “Was what YOU did right?” Perhaps restraint - you can but choose not to - is the dawn of maturity.
Following this was information about the Future Me Program which is available to all Year 12 students. It involves over 20 hours of free Year 12 and beyond skills development under the guidance of our UOW student mentors & Outreach staff.
Students will have face-to-face and online subject resources to assist with the HSC, assistance completing post school admissions and UAC online applications. Mentoring to explore post-high school options, including higher education and pathways options, based on their Year 12 academic performance.
For further information about Careers Pathways at Lumen Christi, please contact Ingrid Thompson, our Careers Pathways Specialist, by telephoning (02) 6495 8888 or emailing lccc@cg.catholic.edu.au
Giving Feedback
Giving feedback is a critical part of the teaching and learning cycle. It allows students to know when they have achieved success and what steps they can take to improve. Unfortunately not all feedback is equal. There are many factors that impact the effectiveness of feedback.
Feedback needs to be timely, that is it needs to be delivered at the appropriate time for students to act on it. An example of this is a teacher actively moving around the class as students are performing a task to check for understanding. This allows the teacher to correct any errors or misconceptions in real time and to reinforce student understanding. In this situation feedback might be verbal or it could involve the teacher remodelling the desired skill or task.
Feedback needs to be given in a way that students can act upon it. Teachers may encourage students to focus on a specific element of their work to improve on, such as punctuation, letter formation or work choice for writing, and ignore other errors at the time. This allows students to focus on a particular skill without being overwhelmed by too much information that will overload their working memory. Once skills are mastered and become more automatic they use less memory and students are able to move on to work on higher order tasks.
At Lumen Christi we approach feedback as a complex and dynamic process that needs to be tailored to different settings and students. Whilst going through student work at the end of the day can be a valuable tool for teachers to assess student understanding it does not allow students to be directly involved in the feedback cycle. For this reason teachers are constantly checking for understanding during lessons and engaging with students to provide feedback that works in context. Often work in students' books or worksheets may have limited or no written feedback at all, instead teachers can use strategies such as individual whiteboards, choral response, partner sharing and direct questioning to check that students are on track and understanding the key teaching points of lessons.
As always, if you have any questions about your child’s learning please don’t hesitate to contact their teacher.
Noticeboard
For further information please contact Tamika Gaudie on 6495 8888 or via email at tamika.gaudie@cg.catholic.edu.au.
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