Wonder- Marian College Ararat

The Highs and Hope during the Pandemic.

It has been an incredible eighteen month roller-coaster ride for all schools as we navigate the demands of COVID lockdowns, remote learning, and physical separations from our communities.  I am so proud of the efforts of our staff, students and parents at Marian College Ararat. We each play a part in ensuring the community remains safe and well.   

Winston Churchill’s poignant remark to ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’, is as relevant today during the pandemic as it was for the War generation.  Much of what we do as leaders today is about Hope. The Sisters have taught us well about the positives and beauty in our world, and about change, without necessarily knowing what the path ahead may hold for us.  

Pope Francis wrote of this recently:

‘I am thinking of what comes after; of the social and economic consequences. 

The future has a memory, 

and I am asking you to prepare for the future in two ways, 

with science and imagination, 

to rise above the challenge in front of us.’ 

May we all use our human agency; our science and imagination, in merciful ways.  

Eventually, we will emerge from this time with new ways of thinking, new skills, and perhaps a greater understanding of and empathy for the difficulties experienced by past generations.  We know we are fortunate here in Ararat when compared to more vulnerable communities across the globe.  This knowledge does not devalue the very real struggles we are seeing here in Australia, but it does provide a way for our community to focus our actions at a time when very little else is permitted.  

With so many cancelled plans for all schools over the last eighteen months,  there was a real celebration and joy in our community when our Fred Hyde Day was fortuitously timed one day before the most recent lockdown.  Since 2012, Marian College has supported a kindergarten in Bhola, Bangladesh.  In Covid times, that means supporting teachers to provide home delivery education to remote, impoverished communities.  For Marian College, Fred Hyde day is always a joy-filled community event. One of the great highlights is the afternoon of ‘Marian Has Talent’. Through the generosity of student volunteers, we are entertained, inspired, and grateful to those willing to put their safety into the hands of the Marian audience.  Every year there is tremendous support and admiration for each contestant, and for the work and support for the Fred Hyde Foundation (Co-Id).  I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to our wonderful Year 12 students who organised this special day for our community.  It came at just the right time.  Thank you to all other students, staff, parents and the many organisations and businesses across the Grampian regions who sponsored this event through donations and gifts for our fundraising.

Partnerships in Learning and Teaching - What’s new in learning and teaching at Marian?

This year we have formed two strong partnerships to ensure we are meeting the individual needs of our students and supporting their further development.  The ReLate project (Reframing Learning and Teaching Environments), in partnership with the MacKillop Institute and Catholic Education Ballarat, is a three-year, research and evidence informed trauma educational model for school leaders and teachers.  It is designed to create the preconditions for improved teaching, learning and wellbeing.  In essence, it is about understanding the impact of trauma upon the brain and how this can significantly influence how students act, feel safe, learn and think.  It is designed to assist teachers and schools develop supportive attitudes, perspectives and responses to student behaviours and disengagement.  We are in the early days of this program working closely with the ReLate team. Part of the project is about reviewing the effectiveness of the systems, structures and processes that support our students.

The second partnership with Melbourne University and Catholic Education Ballarat is the ‘Improving Literacy in the Secondary Years (ILSY) Strategy 2021-2023’. Based in part on the research by Harreveld, Baker and Isdale, 2008,  this three-year project emphasises the need for school leaders to support and lead a whole school approach to literacy development.  We have started with the Science department as a pilot study, knowing that disciplinary literacy knowledge is particularly valuable in vocabulary-heavy subjects such as Mathematics, Science and Humanities.  Next year we plan to extend to all disciplinary areas and provide on-going literacy training for staff.

As we head towards the Term 3 break and the uncertainty of when the lockdown and remote learning will end,  I know the students at Marian will be okay with our support.  We’ve got this!  It helps to know that for a school more than one hundred and thirty years old, many have walked our path before.  Parents have been marvelous.  Our staff have been generous, student focused, caring and incredibly supportive of the students and each other.  We have great students.  

Carmel Barker

Marian College Ararat.