Head of Campus - Arlington
Respect, compassion and courage; our core values
Being a member of Preshil is truly a privilege and since last week I have constantly been reminded of this. Spending time with our students in our Kindergarten, our classrooms and throughout our beautiful play areas demonstrates we are truly a student-centred school. There is a sense of magic at Arlington woven together by our relationships, the unique buildings and our rambling gardens. Some aspects remind me of a school that Roald Dahl would have created!
Importantly, our students are genuinely supported by dedicated teachers who are compassionate toward all needs; a remarkable quality and further evidence of how we place high expectations on respect, compassion and courage. As an important foundation step in setting up for a successful 2017 our teachers have been leading student conversations on our values and, in doing so, co-creating class agreements. We look forward to sharing these with you at our ‘Firesides’.
Preshil: A progressive school that develops a contemporary curriculum
It is my honour to write that we are now successfully recognised as a **candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program (IB PYP) at Arlington and, in doing so, wish to congratulate our leadership and teachers for undertaking the significant work leading up to this wonderful opportunity.
For you, as families, we want to ensure that we will see this as a continuation for us as a progressive school leading a contemporary education. Over the past two weeks, cross-referencing the IB PYP with the Victorian F-10 Curriculum, we have been refining our curriculum planning to develop structured approaches supporting student inquiry.
Students at Preshil have always been encouraged to inquire and now we are shaping this powerful form of learning to include a key concept which we call a Central Idea. Via the Central Idea we now design engaging learning experiences for our students which makes for the teaching of skills to be based in rich context. A new feature of this refinement will be how we now use Thinking Routines as part of our instructional model for inquiry. Thinking routines are contemporary tools that we use to support students in articulating what they know, what they think they know and what they want to know; enabling us to support students to think like engineers, designers, doctors, entrepreneurs or whatever position is relevant to the task. This change of mindset engages students because they’re using their creative and critical thinking skills to solve a problem or find deeper meaning. Not memorising facts for a test; they’re applying what they have learned and then demonstrating their skills to create an end product.
Throughout this year we will be providing you with many opportunities to discuss what this means and in the short-term I can recommend you following these links:
International Baccalaureate Primary Years Program-
- Brochure outlining the IB PYP: http://ibo.org/globalassets/publications/become-an-ib-school/ibpyp_en.pdf
What does the candidate phase mean? http://www.ibo.org/become-an-ib-school/timeline-and-stages/candidate-phase/
Making Thinking Visible-http://www.visiblethinkingpz.org/VisibleThinking_html_files/01_VisibleThinkingInAction/01a_VTInAction.html
Getting to know you, our families, has been an enjoyable experience for me and this will be a continued aspect of what we offer not only through our morning greetings at ‘drop off times’ but also more formally during our forthcoming Family Picnic, our Term 1 Parent-Teacher meetings and the Firesides.
Opportunities to meet
For families of children in the 5s to 11s classrooms. Throughout this first term we have three traditional opportunities for you to come and meet with us:
1: Friday 17 February - 4.00pm to 7.00pm
Please come and join us at the beautiful Blackhall Kalimna Campus (our Secondary School) for a family picnic. This tradition is a wonderful opportunity for our newest families to meet with existing members and get to know our staff in a less formal setting. A BBQ and drinks will be available to purchase if you are not able to bring a picnic. The students will provide plenty of musical entertainment.
2: Thursday 23 February 6.00 to 7.00pm
For families of children in our 5s to 11s we invite you to join for our traditional fireside meetings. Our ‘firesides’ are an old tradition from the early days of our school and are based around the information evening idea. Firesides allow for us to meet you more formally in our classrooms, explain our program, outline our expectations and have question and answer sessions. This year we will trial conducting firesides on one evening and we appreciate that this will not be ideal for all families but are willing to offer additional support if requested. The Term 1 fireside will commence in our Hall at 6.00pm with a general welcome address and then move out into classrooms for our teachers to meet with you.
3: Wednesday 8 March and Thursday 9 March from 4.00 to 7.00pm
We will be offering Parent-Teacher interviews for all families who have children in our 5s to 11s program. Appointments for these will be sent out and managed through Compass. These 15 minute meetings are specifically designed for us to get to know you a little better and for us to provide you with some feedback regarding current observations.
More information on these dates will be posted closer to the dates. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to ask if you have any queries regarding these 3 opportunities to meet.
I am also very keen to meet with you on a more personal level and would welcome an email requesting such a time to jason.barton@preshil.vic.edu.au
Looking forward to seeing you.
Jason Barton, Head of Campus Arlington
**Candidate
Preshil - The Margaret Lyttle Memorial School is a candidate school* for the PYP. This school is pursuing authorization as an IB World School. IB World Schools share a common philosophy- a commitment to high-quality, challenging, international education- that we believe is important for our students.
* Only schools authorized by the IB Organization can offer any of its four acadamic programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), the Middle Years Programme (MYP), the Diploma Programme, or the Career-related Programme (CP). Candidate status gives no guarantee that authorization will be granted.
For further information about the IB and its programmes visit http://www.ibo.org.