(gentle music)
- Creating a culture that promotes learning
provides a foundation for great student outcomes.
Taking a systematic approach
to student ownership of learning allows schools
to establish clear processes, guidelines,
and roles that align to community values,
and the school's strategic goals.
Students, teachers and carers develop
a shared understanding
working together to set high expectations
and track and monitor student progress.
In this segment, we return to Spinifex State College,
where students are engaged as informed partners
in planning their learning pathway.
- You know, at Spinifex we are fortunate
to have a strong industry partner
in Glencore Mount Isa Mines,
as well as a range of other businesses in town.
We don't leave that to chance.
Students at Spinifex State College
have a fantastic senior schooling team
who are highly capable and dedicated,
creating those opportunities, those links,
with our industry bodies,
ensuring that students actually achieve their pathways
and post-school success,
our senior schooling team provide
really strong case management of individual students.
But the key factor in that is in creating student ownership
around their own learning journey.
So in our school at Spinifex State College,
we run a gradual release of responsibility process,
and that really permeates right
through the students' time here at Spinifex.
Our work starts in Year 6
with our comprehensive transition program into high school,
and goes all the way through to Year 12.
And through gradual release of responsibility
and the additional support that we provide students,
our graduates are independent learners.
- The culture of high expectations starts
with your teachers.
They've got to walk into their classroom
believing that every student they are teaching can succeed.
And the students know that when you walk into the class,
it's time to learn.
Student ownership of the QCE has been really important
for us for a number of years.
By having students understand the process
for attaining their QCE, it demystifies it,
and they understand that
what they're doing in class has a direct influence
on their ability to obtain the QCE.
Every one of our students in grade 11 and 12 has
a case manager who works with them
around monitoring their progress
towards attaining their QCE.
- Students meet with their case manager once a term,
and together they track the student's progress,
establish areas of improvement,
and strategies to ensure success.
Students in Year 11 and 12 are taught
how to calculate their own QCE credits.
And this gives students ownership of their results
and also an understanding of how the QCE system works.
Case managers also check on the mental wellbeing
of our students, and we provide them
with additional support if we need to.
- At Spinifex,
we're able to monitor our learning
through QCE tracking interviews.
In my QCE case management meetings,
we take a look at if we're on track to achieve our ATAR,
and if we're on track for QCE.
Here we're also able to set goals for our attendance
and literacy and numeracy skills.
- Students should be able to tell you
how many credits they're sitting on currently,
what they've banked at the moment,
they should know what assessment's coming up,
they should also know where their areas of strength
and weakness are in each of their subjects,
so they know what they've got to work on
to improve their results.
The great thing about the case management
and doing it once a term is that students become experts
in their own learning.
It is a time-consuming process
to have these individual meetings, but as a school,
we're making a commitment to giving
our senior schooling team and other interested staff,
the time to be able to meet with those students,
so that there's really no chances of anyone falling
through the gaps.
And then of course,
that relationship is being built between those students
and teachers,
so that they've had that one-on-one case management
for seven terms with the same person.
And that allows them to build really strong relationships
to be able to have really open and honest conversations.
So it's the partnership between the school,
so the teachers, and the parents and the student,
working together to enable their students
to get the best outcomes.
- I've learned that through different experiences,
it can help to choose what you'd like to do after school.
At Spinifex,
we've had a number of opportunities,
such as work experience in Year 10.
In Year 11,
we had our TAFE courses,
and throughout Year 12 we'd have information nights
around ATAR and the mining experiences we can have.
- [Muthu] Through my senior schooling,
I've been able to learn that time management
is a really important thing,
not just for school, but also in the future.
- When I finish Year 12,
I'd like to do a Bachelor of Education.
- And I'd like to do Civil Engineering.
- I really believe that, you know,
really quality schools build strong communities.
You know, we have a diverse range of students
at Spinifex State College.
Seeing our students actually going into the local community
and becoming, you know,
leaders in their own right has been fantastic
over the last few years.
They can take the learning that they've learned here
at school, and they can apply it to the workplace.
Our graduates are achieving success.
And one of the things I absolutely love about my job
at graduation is seeing each young person come
across the stage, and knowing what went
behind those young people, and knowing
that they've got a future,
and that they can actually achieve their personal goals.
Students need to be in charge of their own learning.
They need to take ownership of their own learning,
and they need to be empowered to do that.
And we're doing that, and that's really exciting.
And we've got a great team,
and we've got a great team of young people
who are empowered and know where they're heading.
- When we engage students as agents of their own learning,
we build their capacity to be lifelong learners.
This ensures they will have the flexibility, curiosity,
and positive attitude
they will need to be ready for a life beyond school.
- How does your school foster a culture of high expectations
and work in partnership with students, parents, and carers
to ensure every student is able to achieve success?
(gentle music)