From the Principal...

Class Structures for 2021

What is a Facilitator of Learning?

A traditional teacher is believed to be someone who tells us what to learn and how to think about it. A facilitator of learning is a teacher who does not operate under the traditional concept of teaching, instead they provide guidance to students and assist them to learn for themselves. This creates an 'ownership' of the learning by the student.  The students  picking apart ideas and concepts and from this form their own opinions therefore owning the material through their self-exploration and discussions. 

("Facilitator of Learning: Definition & Concept." Study.com. December 30, 2015. https://study.com/academy/lesson/facilitator-of-learning-definition-lesson-quiz.html.)

Why Facilitators of Learning?

At St Mary's over the last five years we have been building a culture of collaboration and co-teaching between grade level teachers. This has evolved into teachers flexibly grouping students across the grade level to achieve the best academic outcomes for every student in every subject area. 

Throughout this process teachers have been working on including inquiry based learning into their lessons, therefore working towards being a facilitator of learning rather than a traditional teacher. Our data has shown that this works and that are students are improving. 

Our next step in the process was to change the title of teachers to better reflect the work they are doing, hence we now refer to them as Facilitators of Learning rather than teachers.

While within the classrooms this has worked well, from an administration and parent perspective, at times, there have been problems. When we allocate students to a roll class it comes with the preconception that the roll class teacher is solely responsible for your child's learning. This as you can see from the above explanation is not the case. If parents are meeting with a class teacher about their child who does not have their child for the majority of their learning then this creates problems. By allocating both teachers to the whole grade level they are sharing the load of being responsible for every child in the grade level. When parents meet with the teachers they can gain a full picture of their child's learning. 

From an administration perspective we at times have problems within our system sharing classes so that all grade teachers have access to do reporting. By having one grade level this is not an issue.

What is the Structure of the Classrooms?

Year 1, 2 and 6 are our only classrooms where students are in one open room for the day. The teachers however may group them throughout the rooms throughout the day so they are not working all the time as a large group. 

In the other classrooms students may at times be all together in one room and at other times grouped across the two rooms.  

How will Classes Work?

At present teachers are working with students on the classroom processes and expectations as they start to commence their learning for the year. Groupings will be flexible to meet the needs of students and teachers will work collaboratively to make sure that students are at all times being challenged in their learning and that their needs are being met. 

Over the next few weeks your child may tell you that they have a specific teacher for their English and maybe the other or the same teacher for their Maths. While these may stay the same for the term being flexible to your child's learning these may change as groups change and learning improves.

If you are wanting to contact the teachers I would recommend that you address all correspondence to both teachers. If emailing please send your email through smaadmin@arm.catholic.edu.au and the office staff will forward it to all the grade teachers and they will get back to you.

Parent Information Session

The current COVID restrictions limit us to 30 people/parents/carers gathering indoors for information sessions. As each of our grade level parent body is well above that number we are in the process of planning Zoom Meetings to provide parents with the information that you would normally get at our Parent Information Sessions. As soon as we have finalised arrangements for these sessions we will put a notification out via Compass. We will then send home the packs you would normally receive with students the same day as your information session is run.

Professional Development

Last Wednesday and Thursday all our staff undertook professional development in the following areas:

• Child Protection
• Code of Professional Conduct
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Culture in Our School
• Our Mission Statement
• Going from Good to Great - Strong Collaborative Partnerships
• Catholic Principles and Values
• The English Block