Learning & Teaching News
Headstart
The program we call Headstart is the final 2 ½ weeks of the year in which we ensure that no time is wasted in learning and teaching opportunities for your child. The danger of any end of year experience in school is that tired staff and students, with the holidays in sight, “down tools”. Our approach is to use all of that precious teaching time to maximise learning opportunities for we know that apart from the students themselves, teachers are the most significant factor in improving student learning outcomes. Teachers cause learning!
Headstart gives students a chance to begin the 2021 academic year, to start their subjects and do the preparatory work. For the senior students it will allow them to start strongly and grow in confidence. It helps them use some of that extensive holiday time to rest, but also do the holiday homework that they have been given. After the year we have had, our advice is that it is important to rest and recharge, however, it is equally important to put some time aside to complete the work given by the teachers. In particular, the 2020 Year 11 students who have had such disrupted studies will benefit from doing what is asked of them by their teachers over the summer vacation.
At the beginning of Headstart, I spoke to all students about how education has never been more important in today’s world. They must not waste the opportunity they are given. I reproduce here the text of my speech to the students so that parents and caregivers can reinforce the message of the value of education. We hope that it will encourage our young people to not waste this precious time at school…not just during Headstart, but beyond.
2021 Headstart Speech form Deputy Principal – Learning & Teaching
So why, exactly, are you here?
No seriously, I want you to think about why you are here at school?
Is it because you were dragged out of bed this morning by your parents who said you had to go to school?
Is it because your parents said that you need to get a better job than they have, so that you will be happy going to work? Or if not happiness, perhaps you will get financial security or even make lots of money?
Or maybe you are here now, because you realise this is your best chance of survival?
What do I mean by that?
Look at America, which for all its strengths, has not taken the virus seriously. The ABC journalist Michael Rowland, who has just returned from the States, makes this compelling claim. He writes:
“Case numbers have been growing exponentially.
On Friday, the US recorded 180,000 new infections.
That was 30,000 more than the previous day, and 76% higher than a fortnight ago.
There were nearly 14 hundred deaths.
Nearly 245,000 Americans have died from the virus.
If we were on the same trajectory as America, more than 100 Australian would be dying every day from the virus.
We are in a very different place because we took the virus seriously very early on.”
But if you think that this lack of trust in our educated experts is only a problem for Americans, then think again. We have people in Australia who have also been sceptical. Who have not used their education and looked for evidence-based ideas. People who prefer wild and exciting conspiracy theories rather than the more mundane truth.
The celebrity chef Pete Evans (from My Kitchen Rules) has posted “there is no pandemic” on his social media accounts. This is despite him earlier in the year trying to sell a $15,000 lamp that can supposedly help cure people with the “Wuhan virus.”
Pete Evans recently said “I choose not to believe in that narrative (that is coronavirus is contagious) because it doesn’t make any sense to me.”
We must believe the narrative because we know there are people out there smarter than us, who know more than us, who are educated experts. And our education enables us to access this understanding.
Each Key Learning Area at St. Peter’s College has contributed to our educated response to COVID-19:
Humanities helps us understand the past and as we looked back to the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19, we realised that this virus needed to be taken seriously.
Maths – Did the modelling that predicted exponential increases and what rules of lockdown would reduce our active cases. We were sceptical and yet their modelling was amazingly accurate.
Science – Listen to what our scientists have to say to join the quest for truth and understanding. Don’t just selectively seek a minority scientific viewpoint that reinforces your own prejudices. It was important that we learned how the virus is transmitted so that we could then know how to respond.
Health & PE - Our health experts taught us how we can reduce the risk of transmission by social distancing, good hygiene practices and wearing masks.
Technology – These experts designed the technology, such as ventilators, that has helped us save lives.
English & LOTE – Our experts in language from around the world help us to discern in the media what is real and what is fake news. We can critically appraise our sources of information. Social media and its use of algorithms will reinforce our prejudices, so we must actively choose multiple news sources.
The Arts – These experts have fostered creativity in people that seek unexpected solutions to new problems. Furthermore, the artists entertain us, make us laugh and keep us sane when our mental health was at risk.
And finally, Religious Education teaches us to think ethically and our faith motivates us to care for others. We recognise Catholic Social Teaching about the Common Good which means that my individual right to certain liberties is not greater than the broader community’s right to health and life.
And so here in Victoria, we did an amazing job. We trusted our education and we have shown the world what can be done as a consequence.
Important not just for how we responded to the pandemic, but as I said at the beginning, this is about survival.
Education has never been more important. Headstart starts tomorrow and it is a new beginning to the academic year.
Are you here because you have to be?
Are you here because you want to get a good job?
Are you here because you want to learn about our world and not just survive, but indeed thrive?
Take your education seriously from tomorrow, because it’s never been more important.
Mr David Hansen
Deputy Principal - Learning and Teaching