Driving Question: What do you want to achieve this term?

A new year, a new approach. My co-teacher is a growth coach, so whilst we’re incorporating interview practice and such, this course is very much centered around goals (the driving questions was almost: what’s your goal?) Essentially, they’ve been asked to set a personal goal and commit to a community service action. They are reflecting on this each week in their digital portfolio and will share the experience in their presentation of learning in a few weeks. For more on POL experiences, click here.

All students had a one on one growth coaching session with one of the teachers in the first week to set a personal goal – this is super varied from: getting their drivers licence, finding an apprenticeship, improving their home garden, focusing in school. Whatever the goal, it’s something they value and are working towards. It’s been so amazing to spend our periods supporting the students in what they’re hoping to achieve.

The second aspect is community service. The Studies syllabus has such a strong focus on community connections, and our school values Service, so I wanted to play with how we can build this into the classroom a little. Half the class have selected their own individual Service: Vinnies, school canteen etc. A small group opted to join my crazy idea of Toddler Time, running a play group for Toddlers in the community. We live in an area where there really isn’t a whole lot for Mums and Bubs during the week, so they planned a morning with coffee for the Mums and entertainment (books, duplo etc) for the bubs. This was spectacular. I’m trying to avoid wild rants of enthusiasm… but seeing oh so cool teens on the floor crawling around with toddlers was brilliant. And as always, give them an authentic challenge and they’ll rise to it. They LOVED the experience and we’re hoping to make it a regular service. Big props to our librarian here, she fully supported us in turning the library into a Cafe/crache.

Our school has also partnered with 4c’s Transformative Learning and as such we’ve really built this into the unit, asking them to connect to the Learning Wheel and where they can build upon their skill set as a core part of their reflection. This would easily translate to any schools set of dispositions.