This week I want to outline what we are working on with our teachers in terms of their professional development. Last year we appointed Mr Michael Street, who was our Faculty Co-ordinator for HSIE (social sciences) as the Director of Teacher Development K-12.

Michael is an outstanding teacher and a rising academic who is currently working on his PhD through Macquarie University. He is responsible for planning and organising the professional learning program for our teachers. We have set aside Wednesday after school for an hour each week to focus on the on-going equipping of our teachers and their upskilling.

Michael has developed an approach called the Active Professional Development Framework. It is grounded in our Teacher Profile which picks up the same elements as our Graduate Profile but adds in elements such as ‘strong presence’, ‘creating a supportive and safe environment’, ‘uses a range of strategies’, and ‘values real-world learning’. We also connect this framework to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership’s professional standards for teachers which is the national benchmark for teacher quality.

The Framework requires each teacher to develop a professional learning plan which sets out the goals they will focus on for each year. We have set up several Active Development Channels – Foundations for Christian Education (for teachers new to GPCC), Productive Pedagogies (for all teachers), Curriculum Leadership, Community Leadership and External Workshops and Conferences. While everyone participates in the weekly Productive Pedagogy sessions, new teachers to the school must select the Foundations channel and all others may select another voluntary channel for the year. Any teacher may request or be encouraged to participate in external courses and conferences.

The strength of our school is very dependent on the continued up-skilling of our staff. This framework gives shape to our expectation of this and helps staff take some responsibility for their own growth with our support. We also identify common areas for development so for example, in 2021 Primary staff engaged in a literacy project and this year are engaged in a mathematics project. These are led by an external consultant. The Productive Pedagogies afternoons have focused on differentiation in teaching i.e., providing opportunities for students of differing abilities to learn and demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways in the same class and program.

The NSW Government has launched an entire new set of curricular documents which must be adopted in the next few years so much work will also be done on revising our current units of work to align with the new curriculum.

Teaching is a constantly changing profession with new demands and expectations coming in all the time. Pray for our teachers as they take on the challenge of keeping up their knowledge of current practice and the development of new skills.  Our desire is to offer a quality academic program for your children undergirded by the worldview of our Christian faith that will equip them with the ability to make a positive contribution to the world.

Phillip Nash