Head of Junior School
On Thursday 30 January, the Junior School hosted the annual 'Meet the Teacher' evening. This important event gave us the opportunity to talk to parents and enabled us to share key focus areas and the Junior School goals for 2020.
The evening commenced with Dr O'Connell speaking about our School Mission which aims to develop boys of character with strong self-understanding, a passion for sustained learning and spiritual inquiry who will become valued members of the global community. This is emphasized by the co-mission statement of these four key areas;
- Know the boy/students – this is developed through assessments, discovery and sharing of interests, working and learning closely with all students in class.
- Learn globally – as a key aspect of the PYP, ensure international perspective is sought, build upon this developmentally as the boys move through the Junior School and link this to existing community expertise which are several vital ways to develop a global perspective.
- Embrace discovery – this is strongly developed through investigation, interrogation of information, communication of understanding and celebration of success.
- Inspire excellence – we aim for excellence for all. We want boys and girls to try hard and with our assistance succeed within school, as well as acknowledge outside of school achievements too.
Goal development for the Junior School
The Junior School over the last 2 years has spent time reviewing and developing a shared vision and core values. The premise of this review was to enhance student learning and to reflect on the practices in place within the school and their effectiveness.
All IB schools undergo a mandatory review of their IB program and Scotch has spent considerable time assessing its own program. The outcomes of this review have identified that 'Approaches to Learning' should be updated in the new PYP program. This is going to be implemented in all IB PYP schools over the next 2 years. The review findings and the review work that our Scotch Junior staff produced resulted in the goals that have been selected for 2020.
The individual areas that Scotch have decided to focus on for 2020 are:
- Mathematics through inquiry
- Continual feedback systems
- Wellbeing with a child protection implementation
- Approaches to Learning
These are also linked to the school directives from our whole school strategic plan. The combination of systemic reviews, tabling of research findings and whole school directives formed the goals for 2020.
2020 Goals
The Junior School intends to ensure we provide a high-quality differentiated program in all curriculum areas and year levels, ie:
- Approaches to Learning - To further integrate ATL's into the Junior School curriculum.
- Mathematics - To consolidate our approach and delivery of Mathematics inquiry units.
- Feedback – To develop our approach to continuous feedback including updating reporting policy and increased use of rubric feedback.
- Wellbeing – To consolidate and refine our current Wellbeing practice including the upskill and implementation of a Child Protection program.
I look forward to working with our dedicated and committed Junior School staff in 2020 to successfully achieve these significant goals.