iServi News | 23 July 2021 | Term 3, Week 1
Welcome
A very warm welcome back to our Servite community members to the start of a new Term. I hope that you took the opportunity to spend some quality time together as a family.
The start of a term allows us to renew our goals moving forward as we reflect on our past performance and explore ways to ensure ongoing improvement and development. Adopting a growth mindset to our learning allows us to continue to develop our skills, knowledge and abilities. We encourage all of our students to take full responsibility for their own learning and to regularly seek out support from their teachers. We also encourage our students to collaborate with one another in working toward their goals.
Parent Teacher Interview Day
We are thankful to those parents and caregivers who took the opportunity on Tuesday this week to meet with teachers to discuss the progress of their sons and daughters. This partnership between school and home is crucial for the success of students. We strongly encourage all parents and caregivers to regularly monitor their child’s progress via SEQTA and also through communication with teachers. As has been previously mentioned, we also encourage parents and caregivers to play an active role in their child’s learning each day by asking them five simple questions:
- What are you learning?
- How are you doing?
- How do you know?
- How can you improve?
- Where do you go for help?
These questions support rich conversations around learning and encourage students to really think about the way that they learn. Importantly it also allows students to reflect on where their gaps in learning might be and where then can then go for help.
Staff Professional Learning
As a genuine learning community, the College strongly promotes ongoing professional growth of staff. We were thrilled therefore to have the opportunity to gather as a staff on Monday this week to continue work on our Transforming Lives strategy.
As I have previously highlighted to families, the Transforming Lives strategy is a “multifaceted strategy, with a focus on strengthening relationships between schools and their local Aboriginal community” (CEWA). The strategy aims to build cultural competence amongst all Catholic schools and support increased enrolments and learning for Aboriginal students.
As a learning community at Servite, we are developing our Transforming Lives strategy through the lens of learning story:
- Learning OUR story
- Learning MY story
- Learning YOUR story
- Celebrating ALL stories
Entitled ‘Deep Listening’ the day provided opportunity for us to hear from key people to help deepen our understanding of Aboriginal culture and to then explore how we might put our learning into impactful action. We harnessed the “most unique gift” (Miriam Rose) of Dadirri to listen deeply with “quiet, still awareness” (Miriam Rose).
Over the course of the day we enjoyed the opportunity to participate in 4 different workshops:
Workshop 1: Ancient Gateway to a Modern City
We walked with Nyoongar Guide Mr Nick Abraham on Country by the shores of the Derbal Yerrigan (Swan River) overlooking Perth City, Matagarup Bridge and the Optus Stadium Precinct learning about the Nyoongar Nation, people, culture, heritage, language and traditions
Workshop 2 Dignity of the Human person
Ms Kyle Agale, Team Leader Aboriginal Education CEWA reminded us of the importance of the dignity of the human person and how “no human being should have their dignity or freedom compromised” and challenged us to reflect on this as we explored the history of the Aboriginal people from the late 1800s through to today.
Workshop 3: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Ms Emma Janeczko, School Support Consultant CEWA, led us through the four practice areas of culturally responsive teaching, discussing current and potential pedagogical practices in the school that could support the learning of culturally diverse students.
Workshop 4: Cultural Awareness
Notre Dame University Indigenous Education Associate Professor Clive Walley used the sporting lens to highlight the impact of racism on Aboriginal people and challenged us all to strive for the development of a society which is culturally aware, celebrates individuality and is inclusive and accepting of all.
We are most grateful to our guest presenters for giving of their time and expertise in support of our Transforming Lives Professional Development Day. We are also thankful to Director of Ministry Mr Ryan Wiles and Administrative Assistant (Directors of College and Ministry) Mrs Susan Coghlan for their efforts in ensuring the success of the day.
We look forward to continued deep listening to the stories of others and creating meaningful and positive impact through our actions in support of a culturally aware and inclusive environment which celebrates the stories of everyone.
Mr Jeff Allen
Principal