From the Head of Teaching and Learning

The new term has commenced with a new energy, as all in our learning community focus on being the best version of ourselves. Our HEROIC learning framework is authentically living out in the classroom, in the playground, in our interpersonal relationships and in our co-curricular pursuits. It was indeed fitting at the Academic Assembly last Friday, that Levi and Bridget our Head Prefects, encouraged the student body to ensure that this term they were committing to work hard to reach their potential with all the challenges that their academic program offers them, through a focus on the HEROIC Habits of Learning.

For our teachers, the new start of term is always busy, but it seemed to be even more so last week, with eleven of my colleagues across both the Junior and Senior school, joining me in a two-day online course in Gifted Education with the University of New South Wales; ‘Mini COGE’. 

GERRIC’s (Gifted Education Research Resource and Information Centre) Mini-COGE course is a highly practical professional development for educators to support high potential and gifted students. My colleagues and I were buzzing after the course, as we found the content so pertinent to our whole school focus on engaging and supporting our High Potential students to reach their potential in the classroom. Outside of the classroom, our co-curricular clubs begin this week and Ms Selvaggi and I are very much looking forward to commencing our ‘HEROIC Questioners Club’ for our Year 5 to Year 11 students today. Ethics is the process of questioning, discovering, and defending our values, principles, and purpose. It’s about finding out who we are and staying true to that in the face of temptations, challenges, and uncertainty. Ethics asks us to take responsibility for our beliefs and our actions and live a life that’s our own. It empowers individuals to build confidence to make decisions to stand by and own. It invites individuals into a future they want to be a part of. The values, beliefs and norms that are available that will be measured in our Ethics club, will help your child to develop the skills to form the condition of a ‘best choice’ and then figure out which of the available options is the ‘best one’. Stay tuned. Ms Selvaggi and I will share the wonderful thinking our students are experiencing across our school. 

Last Wednesday evening, we officially launched our HEROIC Learning Framework and were joined by our colleague Dr. Mark Williams; Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience. He presented a very insightful session on ‘habits’ through a neuroscientific lens. He outlined the ways in which you as parents and carers can support your children to foster good habits and change bad habits to reclaim their time and productivity and get the most out of their learning. He addressed our modern lifestyle and explained how social media, devices and video games are impacting the productivity, resilience, curiosity, creativity, innovation and mental health of our children. Mark then detailed how our Deep Learning competencies (Character, Creativity and Critical Thinking) are developing in our students at Pittwater House. We want our students to make good choices daily to aspire to be the best version of themselves. We are therefore committed to ensuring that our students reach their fullest potential by respecting technology as a powerful tool for learning, whilst also respecting the power of the traditional whiteboard and marker, pen and paper methods of teaching and learning. This blended pedagogy is very important to us at Pittwater House. As we continue to live out our learning framework, we are very much attuned to the boundaries young people need with the advanced technology prevalent in our modern world, for their overall learning and wellbeing. 

For those of you who missed Mark’s session last week, we look forward to further opportunities to engage you as parents into the 5 key learning tenets that encapsulate our HEROIC Learning. Framework:

1. An Innovative Learning Model
2. Twin Schooling Approach
3. Excellence in Teaching and Learning
4. Knowing and Respecting Students, Staff and Families
5. Well-Rounded Opportunities for a Balanced Education