Oakleigh Education Plan
OEP Report
We have had a busy year across Oakleigh Education Plan, as leaders and teachers within our three schools worked closely together to achieve our goals and priorities.
DESIGN THINKING and STEM
A major focus of our work with Monash Tech School and design studio MoveMerge earlier in the year enabled us to learn from our teachers about their beliefs, perceptions and aspirations regarding STEM learning and design thinking. Through this work and ongoing engagement with the Design2Innovate professional learning series delivered by Monash Tech School, the focus of the OEP has transitioned to place a greater emphasis on design thinking.
A Design Thinking professional learning community is being established in 2023 to provide greater structure to our leaders' and teachers' collaborative work and learning. The professional learning community will further strengthen the collaboration and shared learning among our teachers as they continue building their design thinking capability.
MONASH MAKER FAIRE
Organised by Monash Tech School, Monash University and the City of Monash, the Monash Maker Faire was held on Sunday, 4 December. Over 9000 people across the day visited physical marketplaces, labs and studios at Monash University. Our three schools developed a 'Mission to Mars' project where students engaged in design thinking to identify and address several challenges in mounting a mission to Mars. OSPS students tackled the challenge of food and how to grow, harvest and prepare food for living on Mars. HPS students design the facilities to house mission members and provide a habitat and sustainable environment. SOC students designed and developed robots to construct the buildings and facilities designed by their Huntingdale classmates.
The quality and depth of work were outstanding, as was the enthusiasm and depth of knowledge students demonstrated when presented to visitors who filled the Woodside Building throughout the day. Congratulations must go to all our students, teachers, and the Monash Tech School team, who delivered an incredible event.
JAPANESE
Japanese learning continues to be an OEP priority. This year has featured several engagements with the Japanese Consular General. Students have had the opportunity to visit the Japanese Consulate and welcome the Consular-General to Japanese cultural events during the year.
The OEP, through OSPS and SOC, has successfully applied to be part of the Local Native Speakers Language Assistant program in 2023. This program offers only limited places, and securing
the services of a language assistant as part of this program for a second year is a great outcome. In no small part, this success can be attributed to OSPS and SOC jointly funding the appointment of a language assistant in 2023, as the program only provides partial funding.
Reciprocal Japanese learning walks will continue in 2023, continuing the learning walks in 2022 to provide teachers with the opportunity to observe Japanese learning across our three schools. It is essential to identify an explicit teaching and learning focus. This supports successful learning as teachers can understand our classrooms' challenges, teaching strategies, and learning strategies by observing, reflecting, and discussing.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
As our focus has shifted entirely to implementation, work is underway to identify the most meaningful data. Doing this will enable us to continue to monitor and evaluate our achievement and progress across all aspects of our work, such as building teacher capability in design thinking.
The OEP has continued to build momentum throughout the year. With implementation continuing to be driven by the principals, leadership teams and teachers at each of our schools, we look forward to what will achieve to benefit the learning and engagement of all our students in 2023.
