Quality Learning and Teaching Coordinator

The 2021 school year as begun and our teachers at PHS are well and truely under way with planning and sequencing authentic and deep learning activities for your children. At PHS we pride ourselves on providing an innovative 21st century curriculum. 

One of our focuses this year will be fostering opportunities for learners to think critically and deeply within their learning. 

In the Australian Curriculum, students are able develop capabilities in critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. Critical and creative thinking involves students thinking broadly and deeply using skills, behaviours and dispositions such as reason, logic, resourcefulness, imagination and innovation in all learning areas at school and in their lives beyond school.

Thinking that is productive, purposeful and intentional is at the centre of effective learning. By applying a sequence of thinking skills, students develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the processes they can use whenever they encounter problems, unfamiliar information and new ideas. In addition, the progressive development of knowledge about thinking and the practice of using thinking strategies can increase students’ motivation for, and management of, their own learning. They become more confident and autonomous problem-solvers and thinkers.

Responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century – with its complex environmental, social and economic pressures – requires young people to be creative, innovative, enterprising and adaptable, with the motivation, confidence and skills to use critical and creative thinking purposefully.

We are developing these thinking skills through ‘Transforming Tasks’ pedagogy. 

Lauren Amey

Quality Learning and Teaching Coordinator