Leader Of Learning & Teaching Message
Dear parents and carers,
This week Ms Scutti and I met with Years 7, 8 and 9 students during Coaching to speak with them about how they can contribute to a positive culture of learning at Kildare. In these sessions, we shared with students the common instructional framework Kildare teachers use to plan our lessons and sequences of learning.
Teachers have been engaging in professional learning this year by meeting once a fortnight in Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) to develop and refine our collective understanding and use of the learning cycle. At different points in the year, teachers have been observing each other’s lessons as part of a ‘learning walk’ where we provide feedback to each other on what learning looks like in different classrooms and learning spaces around the college. These experiences enable us to learn from our colleagues and to see our students in different environments.
Our next step is to develop self-regulation strategies in students so they can gain the most from their learning at Kildare. In particular, we challenged students to increase their participation in each lesson by:
- asking questions to clarify their understanding
- contributing to class discussions to show their thinking
- seeking feedback on their work to improve it
We also reminded students that learning is challenging but everyone must engage in the ‘struggle’ if they are to strengthen their skills and understanding of content as a learner. I used the analogy of the ‘learning pit’ (depicted below) to explain this concept. I encourage you to talk with your child/ren about this.
Ms Scutti reiterated the importance of contributing to a positive learning culture and shared somedata on Positive Behaviour for Learning (PBL) with each of the three year groups. She askedstudents to think about the ways they set themselves up for success at the beginning of a lesson toprepare for learning and how they work with teachers in the last five minutes of a lesson. We callthese strategies the ‘First Five and Last Five’.
Each of the year groups responded positively in our session with them. Today I have shared thedocument below with students in Years 7, 8 and 9, and encouraged them to look for these features intheir lessons.
I am sharing this with you to keep you informed of the focus on teaching and learning at Kildare. You may wish to discuss learning with your children and this information can be a useful lead-in to these conversations, especially if your teenager is light on detail when sharing their daily experiences with you!
Kind regards,
Lauren Verdon | Leader of Learning and Teaching