Weekly Update - Thrive Framework - Learner Character

Secondary Framework - Learner Character

My focus this week is on the third dimension of the Framework, Learner Character.

A definition of education I frequently turn to is from Stephen Kemmis (2012). He argues that education is process of initiating children and young people into ways of being that benefit them as individuals but also the wider collective community. He argues that education is more than preparing young people to take their place in the future economy. It is about preparing them to be citizens, active contributors to the communities in which they live. His key ideas are summed up within the following diagram:

As we were designing the learning framework, our focus was on developing something that was specific to SCC, that genuinely reflected our aims for our students. The strength of SCC is growing students up as whole people, recognising their individual strengths and passions while engaging them in a caring and supportive community, with opportunities to actively contribute. All this is through the lens of our Christian distinctive that teaches children and young people that they are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, that we are loved so much that God did not even spare His son so that we could be reconciled to Him. In response, we are called to love and serve the Lord and to love others as ourselves.

We started by looking at two Frameworks I had worked with in previous schools. Both included a character dimension as central as they were schools that were also committed to the holistic development of young people. We then started brainstorming the attributes we wanted to see developed in our young people over the course of their Secondary schooling, those that they would need to navigate the challenges of school and beyond.

A decision was made early in the Framework development to connect the character attributes to our core values, as we wanted to ensure the two were woven together. We wanted to connect the Framework to our core values, so there was cohesion.

As I have been sharing the Framework with people over the past couple of months, it has reinforced for me again how important it is to have a common language to be able to talk about the characteristics we want our young people to develop and I have been excited to see how something that we, as an SCC community can feel genuinely represents them.

Jodie Bennett

Principal