Semester 1 2024

BUILDING A CULTURE OF BELONGING AND THINKING IN HOUSE GROUP: WORLD VISION FUNDRAISING

SANDRA VECCHIO, GIBSON HOUSE

Modelling and language As a culture shaper during World Vision fundraiser planning, I modelled task requirements to an explicit level (Harvard University, 2024). I drew upon World Vision posters created by my Year 8 House Group from a previous year and the House Group debated which key features of the poster should be added and/ or improved in this year’s edition (refer to Figure 3). I used open questions to elicit creative thinking and foster an environment where students felt comfortable verbalising their creative thinking (refer to Figure 2). Figure 2: Questions used to promote creative thinking and the sharing of ideas • What do you like about this poster? • How can we incorporate that component into our own poster? • What do you think we could improve in our own poster that this exemplar has not considered? • How can we draw people’s attention to our poster?

House Group activities, much like academic lessons, are opportunities for a Year level group to learn with, and from, their peers in pursuit of a mutual goal. This article outlines my personal experience of how each of the eight cultural forces were leveraged during Year 8 Gibson’s planning and execution of a World Vision fundraiser event in Term 1 of 2024. Time and routines At the start of the year, particularly in a Year 8 House Group, time is distributed between the Healthy Minds program, prefect visits and other organisational duties. The World Vision fundraiser planning is another successful element of the Year 8 House Group schedule (refer to Figure 1). In Year 8 Gibson this year, we collaboratively created a planner of routines that was available on our Minerva class page. This planner consisted of both important events from the school calendar and checkpoint completion dates for World Vision planning. Having my students as significant contributors to the decision-making process proved to be immensely beneficial; fostering a culture of accountability as they consistently adhered to deadlines.

The poster produced (before the checkpoint date in Figure 1), is featured in Figure 3.

Figure 1: Term 1 Planner for Year 8 Gibson, including World Vision Fundraiser checkpoints in purple

Figure 3: Year 8 Gibson 2024 World Vision poster

SCHOOL-WIDE PEDAGOGY NEWSLETTER SEMESTER 1 2024

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