Grammar Gazette- Issue 1, 2012

Introducing our Philosophy of Teaching

Brisbane Girls Grammar School parents will scoff at the suggestion that their girls’ learning happens only in classrooms, or the only place that lessons occur are in rooms with tables and chairs. Anyone who has spent any time around the School knows that not to be true. The formative experiences for our students occur in diverse locations and contexts and so, therefore, does the teaching. It may be on a mountain bike on a trail in the Noosa hinterland through an outdoor education programme, or in a South East Asian rural village as part of an Antipodeans expedition. It may

the School faces, that future cohorts leave equipped with the same confidence, wisdom and integrity.

But, too often, these ambitions can be lost in the noise that surrounds debates about education and schooling in this country. While much of the noise generated by the release of the Gonski report concerned the politicking of financial modelling, too often overlooked was its rationale, underpinned by the 2008 Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians . That is, that confident and creative individuals,

‘ ’ The philosophy challenges the School’s teachers to create authentic and empowering learning environments.

be in a rehearsal room, a drama theatre, a pool or on a court. It may be in a place where girls and teachers are together in a room exchanging ideas and learning from each other or it may be in a virtual space in an online environment.

informed citizens and successful learners must come from high- quality schooling. The key element in that equation is the quality of teachers and the approaches they bring to their work. Professor John Hattie’s research in 2003 and 2010 argues that over thirty per cent

Irrespective of where and with whom learning occurs, Girls Grammar aspires to more for its girls than to cursorily cover a syllabus topic or satisfactorily complete a unit. We aspire for them to be scholars, indeed exceptional scholars, and embody the values of scholarship. However old- fashioned an idea of a scholar is, as our students leave us for uncertain futures we want them to leave with many of the things that a scholar would have. We hope they leave with an innate interest in ideas and a desire to ask questions and the skills to find the answers. We hope that they leave us with confidence to construct new ideas and seek new perspectives. We hope that they leave us with the skills to be heard. These are what generations of Grammar girls have taken from their time at the School, and we would hope that whatever social, technological or regulatory challenges

of the variance in student achievement is due to the work of a teacher with a student. Similarly, Dr Ken Rowe’s (2003) benchmarked analysis of the determinants of student success concluded that teacher quality and its role in building environments that met the cognitive needs of students was the most influential factor. However, as Ladwig (2005) argues, those schools with a coherent and explicit view of what effective teaching is have the most significant ability to improve student outcomes. It is with this in mind the School has asked what it believes are the foundations of the type of teaching practice that exploit the best of the School’s educative traditions and practices, and set us the challenge of taking the best advantage of emerging technologies and pedagogies.

11 Grammar Gazette Autumn 2012