After day 1 we are all BUZZING - Cribby and I are stoked - our seed has truly grown and it has been amazing to sit and watch our tour participants today in the school environments. The conversations between participants as well as the networking and communication with teachers and students in the schools has been incredible. Top 'words' of the day include - Modern learning pedagogy, differentiated learning, personalised learning, passion, engaged, inspired, visionary and the e-Learning tools have just been an integrated part of this.
Day 1 - Debney Meadows Primary School
Quick facts about the School
- New Principal
- 100% of students with EAL (English as an additional language)
- 90% of students from Horn of Africa
- 95 students in the school
- Arabic, italian and vietnamese languages taught in school
- 1-1 iPad programme from P to Grade 3
- 'Banks' of MacBooks
- Parents pay a $150 bond for iPads if they want to take them home - nearly 100% uptake of this
- Strong value in the school around intercultural awareness
- Strong value placed on relationships and language - an example of this is all teachers go to the gate with the students at the end of each day to meet with parents
- Strong community relationships, many community volunteers support students with EAL
- Collaborative teaching spaces - focus on flexible and inviting learning spaces
- Huge focus on inquiry learning
- Strong partnerships with other organisations eg Centre for Cultural Partnerships
Links to explore more about Debney Meadows
Debney Meadows Links
Debney Meadows School Blog
Debney Meadows Website
iPads for Preps @ Debney Meadows - You Tube Clip
These films were made as part of "Many Voices, Many Cultures" project; a collaboration between Centre for Cultural Partnerships, Faculty of VCA & MCM, University of Melbourne and Debney Meadows Primary School. For over three months, year 5 & 6 students worked with Shahin Shafaei and as a result 13 stories were written. At the end, three of those stories were chosen to be told as films.
A Short Film by students @ Debney Meadows
Short Film 2
Animation Short Film
Day 1 - Silverton Primary School
Quick Facts
- Collaborative learning hubs
- No teachers 'own' space - all shared spaces including teacher offices
- 67 nationalities within school
- 21 plus learning spaces within each learning hub
- HUGE focus on professional learning communities amongst teaching team
- Every teacher has a mentor and is involved in a research project (4 teachers per project) which is presented back at the end of each year in a variety of ways
- Bottom 10% of 'decile rating'
- Performing in the top 5% in the country
- Play based learning for 5 year olds
- 6 and 7 year olds working on their own inquiries
- Strong focus on personalised learning
- Students could clearly articulate their learning, the process, their goals and their where to next
Silverton Primary School Website
Images of Silverton School - You Tube Clip
Slideshare Photos
In both of these schools we were 'blown away' by the passion of both teachers and students. It's hard to think about visiting two more schools tomorrow. What a day! Photos to come.
2 comments:
Sounds like you have taken Melbourne by storm Tania. Looking forward to the pics and to further feedback. Say hi to Cribby and the team. A group of your CORE buddies are at the Albany Google Summit today!!! Watch the twitter feed I'd say. Ngā mihi - Nick B
Thank you so much for sharing the excitement, Tania and Cribby. I hope the rest of the week goes well. Looking forward to having a good crunchy chat about the e-learning goodness:) Go well, ngā mihi nui, nā K
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