New Approach at St Mary’s

CHANGE can be confronting and trying something innovative is not a transition everyone makes well.

But the students and teachers of St Mary’s Primary School have embraced a new approach to learning and reinvigorated the classroom.

Mr Jim Fitzgerald, principal of St Mary’s Primary School in Scone has been teaching for more than 40 years and has extensive experience from overseas and within Australia with the new teaching approach he is implementing at the school.

He describes the approach as staged teaching with a team approach and he first experienced the system when he was teaching in Scotland.

“It is early days, but it is going very well,” he said.

“Last year five teachers from our school visited schools in the Lismore diocese to observe this approach and speak with staff there,” he said.

“I am blessed to come here because the response from people has been amazing,” he said.

“There is always some natural resistance but that’s good to question why we are doing things a certain way and they have embraced it,” Jim Fitzgerald said.

The classrooms are now divided into pods, where students of like ability work on set tasks and the teachers spend time with each group helping them to progress towards their learning aims for that lesson.

There are larger classrooms, with students across stages, not pigeon holed into year classes and a team of teachers, an approach Jim Fitzgerald said works better for children and teachers.

“With the old approach to teaching you really had to teach to the middle of the class, because if you taught to the top, children at the bottom fell behind and if you taught to the bottom children at the top were bored,” said Mr Fitzgerald.

“With this approach to learning it is much more individualised so all students are learning and developing no matter what stage they are at,” he said.

“As a teacher you can spend more time with each student to identify their strengths and weaknesses.

“Every three weeks we sit down and examine the learning goals and look at each student and regroup them again.

“So they are being continually assessed and evaluated.

“We are really teaching children how to learn, the skills of learning,” he said.

“The result of this approach is a noticeable jump in student confidence and ability to work in teams, to think and question and collaborate, the kinds of skills employers look for,” Jim Fitzgerald said.

As a teacher Mr Fitzgerald questioned why in high school teachers could specialise, but in primary school the system thought it was acceptable to have one teacher teach the children everything.

“You don’t want me teaching children music, all I can do is press play on a CD player,” he laughed.

“But there are teachers here who have a passion for certain subjects and we want those teachers to teach the children what they are good at and passionate about,” he said.

“With a team approach you can do that,” Jim Fitzgerald said.

Patty Dunn has taught for more than 25 years and said she is excited about the new approach.

“When I first visited a school to see how it worked I was sceptical, but the teacher said ‘ask these children what they are learning and why’ and they were only kindergarten students and they could actually tell me what they were working towards and why, which blew me away,” said Ms Dunn.

“They use lots of ‘I can’ statements to articulate their understanding of learning objectives and they can even do it at kindergarten level,” she said.

“The children strive for the next step, instead of just going with the flow.

“We provide the content and guidance and keep them on track, but the children do the activities at their level.

“It’s also good to have another teacher in the class room,” she said.

“You can do more personalised teaching, more one-on-one and there is more communication between teachers and students,” Patty Dunn said.

St Mary’s will be holding an open day as part of catholic schools week, where members of the community can visit the school and observe the new approach in the classroom.