A highly motivated, committed and creative team of Carey teachers have been working on four research and innovation projects this year. These exciting projects are designed to build on some well-developed initiatives that have been a strong focus at Carey over many years. Each project will further develop student learning outcomes and will create efficiencies for the School community, while also contributing to the wider educational dialogue and reform in Australian schooling.
Last term I shared details on the Personalised Learning Model focussed on growth, and Digital Learning Resources. I am pleased to share two further projects here.
Student Learner Profile
A Student Learner Profile aims to capture a broader range of evidenced capabilities necessary for employment and active citizenship that students have acquired in their years of schooling. It is likely that the ATAR will continue to play a role in university selection process for the time being, although many educational providers and employers are increasingly recognising the value of a broader set of skills, capabilities and experiences.
Importantly, our school leavers are seen as young people, not just their ATAR number, reflecting the breadth of skills and competencies they have acquired. The Student Learner Profile we are working on would provide a much fuller, more transparent tool to help students identify their strengths, and the wider world to match applicants with courses or positions. It is anticipated that it would strongly align with the already well-developed Carey Positive Learner Attributes.
As part of the process, Carey has cultivated various strategic partnerships which has led to engagement with a number of peer schools on the same journey, universities, researchers and industry stakeholders. These include:
- The University of Melbourne – New Metrics for Success, comprising 39 schools Australia-wide working in partnership with academic researchers and mentors
- The Mastery Transcript Consortium, a dynamic network of schools world-wide leading the way in reimagining learning in this context
- Learning Creates Australia – an alliance of organisations who are committed to lifting Australia through a new era of learning.
Student Knowledge System
This project aims to capture the relevant student data at Carey and to find solutions to organise it in accessible ways for teachers, students and parents. Schools traditionally have a lot of student data, including the tracking of attendance, wellbeing, student growth, including formative and summative data and standardised testing data (NAPLAN etc). Data must be in a user-friendly format so that it has a positive effect on student learning and that the classroom experiences and wellbeing intentions have a very clear purpose based on this data.
Our learnings to date are that Carey has the necessary data for school improvement, but it is stored in many places, and it could be much more user friendly and accessible. We are currently looking to custom-build a Carey digital space or dashboard that meets our needs at Carey now and into the future, and this would include the addition of the Student Learner Profile.
We are very excited for the impact of these projects on the future of learning at Carey. If you haven’t yet heard about the other two research and innovation projects currently being undertaken at Carey, you can read more here.
Kate Croft
Deputy Principal – Learning
