Staff & Professional Learning

Throughout Term 3, the College staff have continued to embrace professional learning and engage in opportunities to further their teaching and learning practice. The staff development day on the first day of the term involved teachers being introduced to the new College Professional Learning Site which will assist with communication and organisation of their PL needs. Staff then worked together in their faculties to focus on student learning and reflect on their teaching programs, endeavouring to embed Approaches to Learning into all areas of the classroom.

In recognising the importance of wellbeing in the learning cycle, the College is working together with the AISNSW on the Compass: Navigating Whole-School Wellbeing initiative, to develop a K-12 wellbeing framework. This initiative recognises the close relationship between Personal Development, Heath, and Physical Education (PDHPE), and whole-school wellbeing. The framework endeavours to ensure we have a proactive approach to fostering care and offer a supportive and respectful environment to enhance learning.

Staff have been fortunate to work with Samantha Kourakis, AIS education consultant, on a number of occasions throughout the term. During Week 5, Samantha led the K-12 teaching and learning staff in a workshop and guided our understanding of the five elements of the national wellbeing framework; leadership, inclusion, student voice, partnerships and support. Staff recognised our strengths and opportunities of each element, assisting us in the creation of our own bespoke wellbeing framework.

In August, members of our PDHPE and wellbeing teams attended an AIS networking day in Sydney. It gave teachers the opportunity to share ideas and experiences with other schools, and further understand how wellbeing can complement quality PDHPE K-10 teaching and learning as part of a whole-school approach to wellbeing. 

Later in the term, the College Compass Team had the opportunity to work with AIS educational consultants, Katrina Mostyn and Samantha Kourakis, to map the wellbeing opportunities across the College K-12. We feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to work with such expertise in the area of education and wellbeing, and look forward to continuing to do so over the next twelve months.

On Saturday the 10th September, members from the English faculty attended a Discursive Writing in the Junior Stages professional development here in Wagga. The course was led by Emily Bosco, and provided teachers with strategies for programming and teaching discursive writing in Stage 4 and Stage 5 English, and thinking routines and protocols for examining and analysing pieces of discursive writing with students.

Select staff have been working with Mr Wade McKechnie from the AIS on their accreditation needs and TAS staff have been completing award upgrades and ensuring our compliance requirements are met. Mr Sam King attended an IPSHA conference at Knox Grammar in Sydney, focusing on Technology and Innovation in the junior school classroom, which he found to be inspirational and insightful.

Mrs Bianca Miller graduated upon the completion of her Masters of Education, specialising in Mathematics and Science, through the University of Melbourne. We already knew Mrs Miller was a master at Mathematics and has an exceptional knowledge of her subject area, but wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate her on this wonderful achievement. 

As we near the end of another busy term, with a lot of learning naturally occurring, it is not lost on us to know how hard the staff work to ensure the students in our care receive the best educational experience. We know they go beyond the standard expectation in their daily duties and we gratefully recognise we are very lucky to have such expertise amongst our staff here at the College. We hope the holidays gives staff, students and parents the opportunity to unwind and refresh, and look forward to everyone’s return in Term 4.