Learning and Achieving in Clare School's Academic Culture

Girls in Clare School find themselves in a unique place in their academic and holistic education journey. Being in the midst of the middle years, they face challenges unique to this time of their lives. They have to navigate and negotiate their way through fundamental physiological adolescent change, as well as social and emotional trials, all the while maintaining a busy and challenging school schedule. In Year 9 they are transitioning from the relative security and comfort of core teachers and, in Year 10, girls are beginning to think beyond school and thus contemplating their ultimate transition into the Senior years. It is obvious to those who are either parenting or educating girls in Clare School that, in these crucial years of change, we must remain consistent in our dealings, and insistent on sustaining high standards for our girls to assist them in achieving their academic best.

As the Teaching and Learning Guardian, I work closely with Pastoral Guardians, Teena Christofis (Year 10) and Therese Dooley (Year 9), to maintain and perpetuate a strong learning culture within Clare School. We are wholeheartedly committed to ensuring our girls are striving to attain their potential, so that we can send them off to their Senior years feeling confident, capable, and able to manage and thrive when faced with academic challenge and risk. We know we already have intelligent girls, but we often find that girls themselves have a lack of self-belief, fear of failure, or dislike at being publicly recognised as academically strong. With our college focus on Raising the Bar, we are even more cognisant than usual of working to support the girls in strengthening their sense of themselves as keen, enthusiastic, and hard-working students who do not shy away from challenges in the classroom. By developing strong working relationships with their teachers, our girls can and will navigate challenges successfully. There are numerous research findings which support the need for positive teacher-student relationships, and the essentiality of student engagement with their learning, in raising student academic outcomes (Allen, Pianta, Gregory, Mikami and Lun, 2011; Chase, Hilliard, Geldhof, Warren and Lerner, 2014). Mount Alvernia College is well known for its excellent pastoral care of students and relational interactions, but we believe our girls must be equally challenged to identify themselves as academically-focused and strong, not just socially and in terms of outreach activities.

It has been really pleasing in recent weeks to see Years 9 and 10 girls attending the new Clare School Study Groups on Thursdays after school, which are focused on improving academic success for attendees. Those in attendance work collaboratively to share ideas, improve their understanding and to raise their potential achievement on up-coming assignments and tests. These girls demonstrate commitment and depth of the character in the excellent way they discuss ideas, generate new ones, and negotiate between themselves best ways forward. It has been really enjoyable to observe the girls in academic action, and rewarding to see their huge smiles as they sign out at 4.45pm, knowing they’ve achieved something positive for their studies. I am hoping these study groups will grow and grow over time and the girls will see the connections between effort, engagement, self-belief, and academic success. I envision this spreading across Clare School and girls confidently celebrating scholarly achievements of themselves and their peers in a strong, continuing, and thriving culture of learning at Mount Alvernia College.

Sacha Carney

Teaching and Learning Guardian for Clare School

References

Allen, P., Pianta, R., Gregory, A., Mikami, A.Y. and Lun, J. (2011). An interaction-based

approach to enhancing secondary school instruction and student achievement.

Science, New Series, 333(6045), 1034-1037. Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27978498

Chase, P.A., Hilliard, L.J., Geldof, G.J., Warren, D.J.A. and Lerner, R.M. (2014). Academic

achievement in the high school years: the changing role of school engagement.

Youth Adolescence, 43, 884-896. DOI:10.1007/s10964-013-0085-4