Learning 

Learning & Teaching

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During our closure day last term, staff of St. John’s worked on developing their knowledge and understanding about the Capabilities curriculum. We would like to share some of our thoughts with you and we always welcome your ideas and wonderings.

To give you some context, we are going to borrow Guy Claxton’s* metaphor for learning. To do that, we need to imagine learning as a river. There are different depths to a river. The surface of the water is continuous, often fast paced, moving rapidly, and could be likened to building knowledge. This could be when we learn a strategy to solve a maths equation. For example, we come to know that finding the perimeter of a shape involves adding together all of the sides. This type of learning would be sitting on the surface of the river. As we go deeper, we can imagine that the next layer down could involve skills. By solving problems efficiently, we learn the skill to find the perimeter of a square, using the formula P = 4a (four multiplied by the length of one side). Then as we go even deeper, right to the bottom of the river, we find the dispositions, capabilities and character traits that children are continuously developing in every learning experience they encounter (whether we like it or not). Like the creatures that live deep down at the bottom, these habits take longer to evolve and develop and are certainly affected by the water above it. For example, when learning about the formula for perimeter and how to successfully use it, children could also be immersed in reflection about what helped to overcome the challenge, building character traits and thinking habits such as reflection, resistance, collaboration and persistence. Alternatively, they could be feeling anxiety about using a formula and their experience implicitly reinforces a fixed mindset (fear of mistakes) and desire to always be correct rather than to see mistakes as opportunities to learn.

As we hope you can see through Claxton’s analogy, the Capabilities curriculum isn’t a new thing to ‘add’ to our current learning areas. It really urges us to consider how we approach learning to ensure that capabilities, dispositions and character that sit at the bottom of the river, can be developed in an intentional way. We want to ensure that these habits, like collaboration, critical thinking and self-reliance will be explicitly encouraged in the way we create the conditions for learning. 

*Guy Claxton is currently a professor of the learning sciences at University of Winchester. He is a cognitive scientist and has written over 30 books in education and psychology. Claxton’s fascination with learning and how people can get better at it has greatly influenced our thinking in education.

Literacy

This Sunday is Mother's Day,  when we celebrate our Mothers / Step-Mothers/ Grandmothers / Aunties / other important women in our lives. Wishing you all a special day - whether it be breakfast in bed, or a sleep in(!); or whatever it is that brings you joy! The Story Box has some beautiful stories you might like to share as a family on this day, including: 

My Mum Says The Strangest Things: “When Mum's busy she says she's run off her feet. When I dawdle, Mum tells me to shake a leg. When I say, "I'm coming," Mum says, "So is Christmas." My mum says the STRANGEST things.”

Grandma’s Treasured Shoes: A story for young children about a grandmother's journey as a little girl from Vietnam to Australia, Grandma's Treasured Shoes is a refugee story told through engaging illustrations and a gentle, rhythmic story.

In Your Dreams: Told poignantly by Ellen van Neerven, a writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage, In Your Dreams is about young Susie, who with Gran’s help, embarks on a mission to interpret a series of puzzling dreams, in order to understand the answer to her question.

Under The Love Umbrella: A gentle, rhyming story that is a lovely reminder to children that love is ever-present, even if you may be physically separated from those who love you.

Who’s Your Real Mum: A beautiful story that celebrates nontraditional families and captures exactly what lies at the heart of family life — love.

Family Forest: Half sisters, step-parents and big brothers are all part of the mix. Storyteller Ali McGregor shares with us Kim Kane's delightful story which features a young boy describing his family in all its richness.

With Nan: Simon takes a walk through the bush with his Nan and along the way finds out that things are not always what they seem.

Sarah’s Two Nativities: “Sarah loves her two grandmas – Grandmother Azar and Grandmother Maria. Grandmother Azar tells Sarah stories from the Holy Koran, while Grandmother Maria tells her stories from the Bible. At Christmas time, Sarah snuggles in each of her grandmothers' laps and listens to two nativities stories about the birth of baby Jesus. They are the same in some ways, and different in others ... but both can be Sarah's favourite.”

Brothers From A Different Mother: Inspired by a trip to the zoo and a new child arriving at his daughter's school, this is an important story that emphasises how children focus more on similarities than differences.

My Nanna Is A Ninja: fun, poetic picture book that portrays the many different guises, faces, and personalities grandmas can have.

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Numeracy

Wednesday 5th May was World Maths Day! At St. John's, we celebrate this day every day! Our recent maths experiences have focused on being able to reflect on our thinking during/after we have wrestled with some challenging problems! This is called metacognition - thinking about thinking. For our 9 to 12 year olds, this may include labelling strategies that helped them through the learning challenge. For our 5 to 8 year olds, this may be expressing how they feel by labelling their emotions. During maths target groups, a child from Hub Two reflected on his learning using the Blob Tree, "I feel like I am here (happy one) and the sitting one because I am thirsty for knowledge. I really want to learn".

You might like to ask your child about their experiences in their maths target groups and discuss their strategies for success.

Wellbeing

This term, during our morning Ready to Learn time, students will focus on the Development of Resilience from the Personal and Social Capability Curriculum. Resilience can be defined as ‘doing well during or after an adverse event or period of adversity.’ (beyondblue.org.au) For children, adversity might look like a falling out or argument with a friend, the loss of a pet, obstacles or setbacks in their learning or changes in family dynamics. Students will explore these areas of resilience:

• Our Prep Hub will identify their abilities and strengths. They will explore how problems or challenges are a normal part of life and that actions can be taken to manage problems.
• Our One and Two Hubs will identify personal strengths and how these are useful in school and family life. They will also explore how being prepared to try new things can help to develop strategies when faced with unfamiliar or challenging situations.
• Our Three/Four Hubs will identify how persistence and adaptability can be used when faced with challenging situations and change. They will also work on skills for working independently.
• Our Five/Six Hub will reflect on how their strengths have assisted in achieving success and will describe how confidence, adaptability and persistence are important in dealing with new or challenging situations.

Beyond Blue have some great information and strategies for building resilience at home. You can visit their page here - 

https://healthyfamilies.beyondblue.org.au/healthy-homes/building-resilience

Faith

It was wonderful to have so many families join us this morning for our Mother's Day Blessing. We hope you enjoyed hearing our children share some love with you all. Our next Prayer Gathering will be on Fri 21st May, 2:30pm, led by our Yr 1 Hub. 

In hubs we are currently investigating sacred stories and in the coming weeks will turn our attention to the Catholic Social Teaching of Subsidiarity and Participation. 

Term 1 Sports Day

Students from Prep-6 had a wonderful day participating in a wide variety of team challenges and Easter themed relays. All houses are to be congratulated for displaying excellent team work, house spirit and enthusiasm in all of the challenges. A special congratulations goes to Alex house for achieving the highest number of points on the day to win the sports day for Term 1.

Special thanks go to the House Captains who helped run the day. Setting up early in the morning as well as all the behind the scenes planning and practice to ensure that the day ran smoothly and was enjoyed by all. Supporting educators and students at events during the day, explaining the relays and challenges as well as encouraging participation and House chants. I would also like to thank all the educators and SSE’s.  They did an amazing job supporting their house teams leading them around through all of the challenges.

Regards,

Andrew Sharpe

Physical Education