The Herald

From the Principal

ITEC 2024

Recently 75 of our staff and board members attended the amazing International Transforming Education Conference (ITEC) in Perth, WA. This was a fantastic event that focussed on Biblical education, spiritual nourishment and practical application. It also provided our LCS attendees an opportunity to talk and share with a wide variety of CEN teachers, leaders and staff from across Australia. I also appreciated the time that our LCS crew were able to spend together in fellowship. Thank you to the LCS board, who generously made funds available for so many of us to attend. From all I have something? an investment that will have significant benefits for our students, teachers and the wider LCS community. 

 

Over the coming Heralds I will highlight some of the core messages of the conference, and my hope is that you will be encouraged as we all were by the powerful messages, and the potential impact that this will have on our school community and lives. 

 

David Smith - Everyday Christian Teaching 

The story of who we are as Christian Teachers and Schools is what happens every day in our schools and specifically in the classroom.
  1. Remember the vantage point of where something comes from.
  2. Christian Schooling is also what students think we are doing, not just what we are doing. How do student interpret what we are doing?

 

Beginnings:

  • How we start stuff plays a big role in how students understand what we are doing. Think about the way we start classes! We have one chance!
  • First day of school and class matters! Students make a story in their mind how a class will go based on first experiences.
  • As teachers we set a baseline on the first day and in the first lesson and this will resonate with students – If you set the baseline on day one that you are a boring and only interested in process then students have made their mind up and this lasts. It all happens in the first hours of your class.
  • Start by telling a story!
    • The invitation is to go on a journey as a class.
    • God is present in the journey
  • Get students to introduce each other! Invest in getting to know each other. Invest in each other’s learning.
  • We need to be mindful of the first image, words that students in our classes are exposed to. What is the beginning saying? Year, Semester, Unit etc. What do you think Students are learning about our beginnings.

How do we live together in community?

  • Explicit intentional, realistic, manageable practices such as:
  • Humility
  • Patience
  • Ask for help
  • Admit failure

Framing: images we use, stories we tell, ask students what they are doing what would they say?

  • We give things a place and how we frame things impacts on how we process curricular content.
  • Loving your neighbour – what we do has consequences on how the next person who has to work with your work after you.
  • How do we frame the whole journey of learning at LCS?
  • We need to spend more time listening!
  • A small act of reframing can be very impactful for a student. We need to ask ourselves – What do we think our students think we are doing?
  • We need to learn hospitality not just tolerance.
  • Experience something as beautiful or meaningful before it is useful!
  • Awe and Wonder is an act of framing!

Connecting:

  • Teachers oversee this process – how humans bump up against each other.
  • Group work: The focus should not be on the product alone but also on how to work as a group! Work in a group etc.
  • See quote on success – it is about the success of others. 
  • How well do we know each other in our classrooms? What is our responsibility to look after each other in our class
  • We are committed to each other’s good. We need to cultivate this in an active manner!