From the Assistant Principal 7-9

Professional Learning Day May 13th

Auburn High School teachers participated in an intensive and productive professional learning program on Monday, focusing on leveraging curriculum design and goal setting to support high quality teaching and learning. We were excited to intoduce our new, common curriculum design template to teachers as part of the day, after much consultation in the Leadership and Curriculum & Learning teams. Research tells us that collective teacher efficacy has the highest effect size in improving student learning outcomes, and the new template and process will support greater teacher collaboration in developing engaging and highly differentiated lessons for our students. It will also promote student agency and accountability in their learning as it encapsulates the outstanding work that we've been focusing on over the last two years with embedding our Auburn Learner Qualities and High Yield Strategies. Thanks to our Leading Teachers for 7-9 and 10-12 Curriculum, Andrea Ganotis and Peter Ryan, for all their work in the extensive research and consultation process, including student focus groups and discussions with our Learning Area Leaders, all of which resulted in a highly successful and energising morning.

The second part of the day was led by our Leading Teacher for Instructional Practice, Dr Louisa Phillipson, who guided teachers through strategies to enhance student agency in goal setting and monitoring their own learning progress.

Cognitive work should shift slowly and intentionally to independent practice and application. This gradual release approach is supported by our whole school instructional model, GANAG, but strengthened by the purposeful use of specific High Yield Instructional Strategies. We know that learning requires enormous mental energy and that setting and achieving goals makes learning more rewarding. Students are more likely to apply themselves in their learning when they can see the connection between effort and success. Teachers got stuck into reviewing existing learning intentions and looking at ways to adjust these to ensure this connection is more explicit. 

Pat Cronin Foundation presentations

We were very proud of our Year 7-10 students today, who engaged with great maturity and empathy in presentations from the Pat Cronin Foundation. It's so important we talk openly with our young people about ending social violence and strategies for staying safe in the heightened situations we may be faced with in life. 

Students heard about the achievements of this promising young man, his aptitude for footy and leadership, his scholarly achievements and excitement at embarking on his university studies, his close-knit friendships; not the sort of person to get himself into trouble. But one ill-fated night, Pat found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time and was the victim of a fatal one-punch assault. 

Aidan and Stacey from the Foundation shared really useful information with students about anger as an emotion and its physical 'symptoms', as well as strategies to avoid social violence. We are all just one decision away from a totally different life. Be Wise. Think Carefully. Act Kindly. Find out more: https://patcroninfoundation.org.au

Experiencing our new building!

7S were lucky enough to have their Economics class in our new West Wing last week.  They were the first of each of our junior classes who will have a lesson in the new building over the next few weeks, thanks to our Super-Daily-Organiser, Georgina McLay.