Assistant Principal - Learning
On Tuesday the O’Connor Catholic College school leadership team had the pleasure of meeting with the leadership teams from the other two secondary schools in the diocese, (MCCarthy and St Mary’s Gunnedah) at the Catholic Schools Office (CSO) to discuss our 2020 Annual Improvement Plans. Now, you might expect an element of tedium filled compliance in such an exercise, but as Chris Smyth, our Director of Schools’, it was an exciting opportunity to hear the alignment and cohesion of the school plans with the CSO’s own. The aspect of ‘excitement’ authentically arose from the realisation of a ‘coming together’ of the schools and their future forward direction. We are not separate entities trying to negotiate differing paths, rather, we are a converging learning community striving for enhanced learning opportunities for all.
How very different from such meetings of the past, where competition and protectionism impeded the promotion and valuing of student voice and the acceptance that teacher pedagogy needs to improve as it is the greatest effect on student learning outcomes. This meeting emphasised the importance of professional collaboration and highlighted the move to this being simply ‘what we do’ when we collaborate professionally, paralleling what Hargreaves and O’Connor (2018) signal when they argue, “no profession can serve people effectively if its members do not share and exchange knowledge about their expertise or...about the students they have in common.” Judgement, and fear in solitary educational confinement is pushed aside as we ‘transform teaching and learning together to work with our students to develop fulfilling lives of meaning, purpose, and success.’
As hosts of the meeting, we had the opportunity to put our words into action. Taking the leaders on a learning walk through our school, we visited four differing Key Learning Areas; English, HSIE, Religion, and Music. Our guests were able to experience all the work we have been doing to ensure that here at OCC ‘we are a learning community founded on faith and focused on learning’ They interacted with our students and asked our students the 6 questions:
What are you learning?
Why are you learning this?
How are you going?
How do you know?
What can you do to improve?
Where do you go for help?
Our classrooms were buzzing! The students were not phased by the surprise interlopers to their learning environment, at all. And as they responded confidently and honestly to the visitor’s questions articulating the what, the how and the why of their learning, the positive impact that the deepening learning partnership between teacher and student here at O’Connor is having, was abundantly clear.
Eli Simpson
Assistant Principal (Learning)