Leader of Pedogogy

LOP Message

As Term 3 comes to a close, we are again reminded of the lasting impact the teacher-student partnership has on our students and our entire Catholic Learning Community. Throughout each Year Twelve student’s secondary schooling experience at O’Connor, all of our teachers have played a part in developing every opportunity for our students to leave us as creative, confident and informed people ready to make a difference in our world. They haven’t done this alone, rather, their work has been prefaced, supported, and continued by our students’ parents and caregivers working in collaboration with us. In the current climate, developing active citizens that embrace the world and all it offers, that think innovatively, seek knowledge, that are compassionate and empathetic, is absolutely critical. And it is through this partnership during our students’ time at school where they build the perdurable foundations for discovery and evolution.

Which is why the learning we do right from the beginning of high school is essential. 21st century global literacy needs demand that our students are metacognisant in their learning - that they can recognise and acknowledge how they learn, why they learn, and what they can do to learn. At O’Connor, we are well on track in building our students’ metacognition skills through teaching and learning approaches that promote student voice and ownership. But the challenge we face is not throwing out the old for the new, it is instead, how do we take the very best from the past and utilise this alongside the ‘new’ so that we can meet the learning needs of every one of our students?

So, as we rapidly work away the first quarter of the 21st century, the more traditional understandings of pen to paper, spelling and memorisation, phonetics and skim/scan reading, times tables and mental estimation, are not defunct. Not. At. All. Literacy and numeracy are crucial in our ability to promote life-long learning! Moving into Term 4, I look forward to sharing with you the incredible work our learning community is doing to improve the literacy outcomes of all our students and our numeracy strategising. It is often quoted that, “ alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Let’s not forget the essence of these words - the learning exchange is a partnership and developing the creative, confident and informed people that are truly represented by our Year 12 students is only achieved together.

Eli Simpson

Leader of Pedagogy