From the Principal

Dear Parents, Carers and Students

St Joseph’s College Teaching and Learning Framework

Among the many highlights (outlined throughout the newsletter) of the last two weeks has been our staff twilight this Tuesday just gone. All our teaching staff completed a variety of professional learning workshops breaking open, providing feedback on, and considering how they will be able to engage with and implement our new SJC Teaching and Learning Framework. Teachers led by the College’s Curriculum Team engaged with the various aspects of the framework resulting in great creativity, critical reflection, collaboration and communication. This is what we aim to build in all our students every day, and Tuesday’s Twilight was a wonderfully humbling and inspiring experience of deep learning. Congratulations again to our Curriculum Team on their development of the framework and leadership of the Twilight.

A reminder that information and discussion about the SJC Teaching and Learning Framework will be the focus of our Term Four Parent Engagement Network (PEN) session on Tuesday October 25 at 6.30pm. This will be the first of many opportunities over the upcoming years for parents to engage with the framework to develop their understanding of what we are doing at the College to grow our students as learners and how as a parent / carer you can assist in this process.   

FINDING FLOW

Last term I spoke to the students on assembly about the idea of “FLOW and striving for our best academically – be good today – but better tomorrow!” The idea of flow came from the article below from Luke McKenna who is the founder of the “Unleashing Personal Potential,” (Growth Mindset) program. Given the phase of the year that we are in, I believe that this is a very appropriate time to share this article.  

GETTING 'IN THE ZONE"- FINDING FLOW  

By Luke McKenna

"Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity" (Csikszentmihályi,2013).

"Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best. It is total absorption in a task and total focus" (Kotler, 2015).

Have you ever lost track of time or been totally absorbed in a task? You may have been in a flow state, which is characterised by: 

Intense and focused concentration on the present moment

Merging of action and awareness

A loss of reflective self-consciousness

A sense of personal control over the activity

A distortion of temporal experience, one's subjective experience of time is altered

Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding (rewarding for it's own sake- not particularly for an outcome)

What Causes Flow To Happen?
 So what can we do as educators and parents to create optimal learning conditions, and what factors are conducive to flow? There are 3 main conditions that can lead to flow:

Clear goals and purpose - In class it makes sense that teachers identify and articulate learning objectives and success criteria at the start of a lesson and for parents it makes sense that we have set routines and purpose for homework and study sessions. Setting goals with our children and students leads to a greater sense of purpose and focus.

Clear, immediate feedback- Feedback does not only need to be from the teacher- it may be peer to peer, or most often, students would get feedback from their progress on the task at hand and from their parents. It is important to note that it is very difficult to get feedback from progress on completing tasks or completing set homework or study when they don’t have a clear goal / purpose / learning objective / set amount of study time to shoot for.

A balance of challenge and skills- This emphasises the need for differentiation in our classrooms, as the aim is to match the challenge to the perceived skills, to ensure that each student is able to “stretch” their skills. A slight stretch is best. This is the same for homework and study time. As parents we need to work on students beginning to develop the good habits and not expecting them to immediately be able to flick a switch and study for extended periods.

Finally, let’s be clear, teachers and parents cannot create a flow state within their students. However, they can create environments where the flow state is more likely to occur by providing clear goals, feedback and challenges that match the student’s perceived skill. When they get students in their flow state, the neurochemical bomb that is created could lead to higher outcomes. One other consideration- flow is highly contagious. So flow environments could be key to high quality learning environments.

2023 School Calendar Dates

Please see below the information regarding dates for 2023. We hope that in providing this information families will be informed and be able to make appropriate decisions regarding planned family holidays and events. Whilst illness and specialist appointments have an unavoidable impact upon attendance, as a College our goal is for each of our students to maintain a 95% attendance rate allowing the students to engage in as much learning time as possible. We look forward to continuing to work with our families to strive to improve not only our attendance rate but also our punctuality to school each day.

Kort Goodman - Principal - KGoodman@sjc.qld.edu.au