From the Head of Junior School

Dear Members of the St Gregory’s College Community,

Welcome to another Newsletter edition and one that has seen many events take place over the past couple of weeks. It has been lovely to see our new families starting to settle into the community as they become familiar with the St Gregory’s College customs and practices. I hope that you feel that the start of your journey here at the College has been a positive one and one that is also full of hope. There has been plenty happening at the College in the past two weeks with our annual ‘Meet the Teacher’ Evening, Swimming Carnival, Enrolment Information nights, Open Day, Assembly, our Junior School Mass and not to mention the wonderful lessons taking place. It has been an energetic and strong start to the school year!

New Beginnings

2020 has seen the development of this Junior School Campus as a two-stream school, which has been exciting to witness. The buildings and grounds look amazing and the Junior School has a total now of 345 students. This has obviously been a big change over the past two years as we have grown from 194 students back in 2018 when we kicked off life in the Junior School.

It has been a really settled start for our students and as we set up our routines, expectations and processes in the school they will continue to feel more comfortable in their surroundings. I want to thank the hours that the staff and parents have contributed to the start of the year to ensure that the student experience is one of comfort and enjoyment.

Schools are about learning, but that learning is not limited to the students. This year, our new staff have started very strongly to get a sense of where we have been in the past two years as a College and where we are heading towards. This learning for all staff is extremely valuable and having this targeted professional development is crucial to making this a united College.

Kindergarten 2021 Enrolment Information Evening & Open Day

On Tuesday evening it was wonderful to talk to our prospective Kindergarten families about our wonderful College! This was a great opportunity to have our Kindergarten Team share our Kindergarten Transition Program and what life looks like at the Junior School. Applications for Kindergarten in 2021 are now open and families have until March 20 to have their applications handed the office. Tuesday evening was a huge success which piggybacked off a successful Open Day. I want to thank the staff, parents and students who made themselves available on Open Day to make it such a worthwhile experience for visiting families. There was definitely a buzz in the air and my highlight was having our Junior School students leading the tours and talking about the College from their point of view – what a selling point!

K-6 Parent Forum – Monday 24 February

On Monday we look forward to hosting families for the first Parent Forum of the year. Our first session will be at 9am and the second at 7pm. We warmly invite all parents to come along and hear about the College and participate in some discussion about the year ahead. I will also be discussing with parents our future plans for a teaching and learning framework in the Junior School and outlining our plans for 2020 and beyond. We look forward to seeing as many parents as possible at these two sessions. The Parent Forums will be held in the Hermitage Room on the side of the Brother Luke Hall.

From Good to Great

Good schools like St Gregory’s College are always looking for ways to be even better. As a College that is growing, developing, refining and challenging what a good education looks like . . .

‘we are too good not to be better!’

A great deal of research has gone into identifying the major factors in improving student learning outcomes. Work by Professor John Hattie, as many of us know is pre-eminent in this area. Hattie developed a way of ranking various influences in different meta-analyses according to their “effect sizes”. In his ground-breaking study “Visible Learning” he ranked those influences which are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects on student achievement. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore, he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this ‘hinge point’, in order to find an answer to the question “What works best in education?”

Hattie studied six areas that contribute to learning: the student, the home, the school, the curricula, the teacher, and teaching and learning approaches. Quite clearly, the quality of teaching is foremost among these factors.

If we apply that research to St Gregory’s College, it means that one way of improving our student learning outcomes is to improve the quality of teaching. This is our bread and butter, this is what makes coming to St Gregory’s College great. Our staff professionalism, dedication and understanding that we all need to continue to focus on improving student learning!

Our aim across the College is to develop a culture of professional improvement, feedback and growth. Within that culture, learning conversations between peers, based on lesson observation or student work samples, is one of the most effective ways of developing strong classroom practice. Having a staff that is open to other teachers observing practice is one of the key strategies that we are employing this year to ensure that we are continually improving for the benefit of the students. Each day I am so thankful that I work in such a positive and supportive environment – we look forward to continuing to do the best for each child in our care!

Concluding Statement

What happens in the classroom is the main game. Thanks for being a huge part of our first weeks at the Junior School – we look forward to the exciting journey ahead of us this year.

As the St Gregory’s College motto states, ‘You will reap what you sow"

Joel Weekes

Head of Junior School