Principal's Message

One of our key focus points for this year is student engagement by raising the quality of teaching to ensure that every student has the opportunity for rich learning experiences. There is a huge amount of information out there about what raises student engagement. Often this learned discourse is quite mechanical in its approach. Teacher knowledge and passion for what they teach are often cited as key elements to raise student engagement along with things like positive reinforcement/feedback techniques, classroom learning strategies like group work/pair and share and the use of IT/multimedia to stimulate the senses. Whilst these elements can and do affect student engagement positively we know that there are more fundamental things at play.

In a modern, digital world our young are having to deal with huge shifts in the social order and how they relate to others. Driven by popular media they are constantly pre-occupied with how they are perceived by others (language, dress sense, what/who's cool and what/who is not). At the heart of this is their need to connect with each other and those who come into their sphere of influence. This includes their teachers of course. Ergo it makes sense that we have to create a learning environment that is safe, open and empathetic to where students' are at. We have to find the "hooks" that bring them into their learning.

In a Catholic school environment our job is not to so much to understand our students as it is to accept them-especially when they are doing it tough and trying our patience. Jesus points us to "the least of these" as being where he resides. An encouraging post-it note strategically left for a battling student, a visit to support the "C" sports team on Saturday, or a quiet compliment can have a MASSIVE effect on a student, their sense of well being and their ability/willingness to engage. What? Somebody noticed ME?  

Tracy O'Brien