Our School February 24

A Safe School

With so much media attention and parental concern focussed around violence in schools this month, I feel it is incumbent upon me to offer a few words of reassurance about the relative safety of Canberra Grammar School.

Recently there have been several shocking incidents of knife violence elsewhere between Australian school students not even in their teens, and I am sure all of our thoughts are with the families involved and the anxious communities which surround them.

However whilst the apparent rise in violent incidents in some school is alarming, I am confident in saying the culture here at Grammar is such that such incidence are extremely unlikely to occur.

All human environments suffer conflict, but Canberra Grammar School students rarely resort to physical violence to resolve disputes. All of our boys are taught conflict resolution skills, and they all know who to turn to - whether a more senior boy, a class teacher, a coach, a Housemaster, a counsellor or the chaplain - when their efforts to resolve such conflicts falter. Because these older boys and teachers are inevitably open and approachable, where tension-points arise the boys are more often than not able to address them in appropriate ways.

Knowing that safe environments do not arise by default, we work consistently at promoting an accepting and happy environment where students and staff alike can feel safe and respected. We know that when students feel valued and safe, they are less inclined, when differences of opinion arise or when relationships are tested, to actually go beyond what we would consider normal boundaries.

Boys also know that we have clear expectations in terms of behaviour. We emphasise constantly that we expect them to be respectful and tolerant of each other.

There would be few boys who go beyond what might be considered acceptable boundaries. That said, boys will inevitably test boundaries. One of the strengths of the School is that we understand boys and we can by and large keep them on track.

Any boys do go beyond the bounds of acceptable behaviour in regard to their interactions with their peers will firstly have conversations with their Housemaster and then the Director of Pastoral Care. A repeated occurrence will see us work through the issues with increased sanctions.

All that said, I urge any parents who are concerned, or have heard rumours about inappropriate behaviour, to contact us as a point of urgency. Our doors will always be open.

Simon Murray

February 9

As is always the case at Grammar, the start of a new School year has seen the characteristic flurry of activity that stems from settling a new group of Year 7 boys into the Senior School set-up.

Year 7's first week was marked by their House Swim 'N Gyms, an excellent opportunity for the boys to showcase their talents as they vied for selection to compete for their senior houses at the School carnival later in the year.

Boys from both Burgess and Clements House were assisted by our new and eager Year 11 seniors, who gave them an excellent understanding of what was expected of Grammar students.

This week the entire Year 7 cohort has headed off to the week-long Year 7 camp at Wombaroo, where they are being led through a series of challenging and team-building activities such as canoeing, raft building and ropes courses.

Throughout the week they will be joined by different teachers and seniors, making this an invaluable experience in getting to know each other outside a School environment as they settle in to life at Canberra Grammar.

It is always wonderful to witness the positive interactions as boys throw their heart into activities or just enjoy a chance to relax and build friendships.

During One-Up days Year 6 students are partnered with a Year 7 buddy, with whom they spend the day attending classes to expose them to a variety of subjects and experiences.

Academically, the current group of Year 7s will be the beneficiaries of a significantly revamped curriculum in furtherance of our educative purpose designed to significantly increase Maths, Science and English teaching time.

They have also been introduced to our new Assessment Policy for Years 7 to 10, focused on helping boys to achieve their potential in all assessment tasks, to fully understand the expectations on them from each assessment task, and to ensure they received valuable feedback from teachers.

It is programs such as these which we believe make a Canberra Grammar School education so very special, and which play a major role in forging the values and character that help us to create fine and gentle men.

January 29, 2010

My School

In our continuing quest for educational excellence, Canberra Grammar School welcomes the launch of comparative national student testing data on the federal government's My School website, with certain caveats.

As anticipated, Grammar ranked well indeed in comparison with similar schools, reflecting both the excellence of our teaching and your committed support as parents. Without being complacent, we are, on the whole, pleased with these results.

However as many wise souls have noted, just as no report card can ever hope to paint the entirety of a child's personality and proclivities, no ranking of test scores can hope to give a full measure of the education available from any school.

While the site provides some useful information, there is considerable complexity behind what appears on its face to be a range of simple comparisons. For example Canberra Grammar School is ranked against both co-educational and all girls Schools as well as other boys schools, yet there is a wealth of educational data that points to major differences in brain development between the sexes.

Nonetheless over time we will closely analyse these results to ensure that our curriculum and teaching methodologies best meet the needs of the boys and very young girls in our charge so that they can perform to potential.

Indeed the School is annually provided a very rich set of information on NAPLAN data which we routinely analyze to ensure our teaching and learning fully addresses student needs.

To take just one example,in 2009 Canberra Grammar Primary School sought and secured funding under the National Literacy and Numeracy Agreement to provide ongoing professional development and support for all class and enrichment teaching in the area of literacy teaching - specifically reading, writing (spelling, grammar and punctuation). As a result all class and enrichment staff have undertaken refresher courses in First Steps - Addressing Current Literacy Challenges.

We have also increased the teacher to student ratio in Primary School classes and altered the Primary School Timetable to increase time spent on the core subjects of Mathematics and English.

After similar analysis across the Senior School we have increased Maths, Science and English teaching time by 16.7 per cent in Year 9 and allowed an extra 12.5 per cent in Years 11 and 12 for all unit two courses and 25 per cent for all extension courses.

Numbers Game

More broadly speaking, the My School website has been touted as a new era of accountability and transparency in school performance. Yet what strikes me most about the data is not only just how little all these numbers reveal about what schools are doing or how well they are doing it, but how much the numbers obscure.
 
At best, the national testing data enable us to draw some assumptions about the students attending different schools. What the data does not tell us is how schools are meeting the challenge of engaging those students in learning, building their capacity for learning or contributing to their development as human beings able to contribute to and participate in society in meaningful ways. These are the issues that drive and impassion educators. In my experience, these are also the issues that concern parents.

The danger of the My School site as it stands is that it can seduce us into believing that what can be easily measured in schools is the most important thing about them. This is not to deny the importance of teaching and learning good literacy and numeracy skills. On the contrary, ensuring students have these skills is a primary responsibility of schools because they are the foundation of independent learning. But there is so much more to education and much more to the business of schooling, none of which can be reduced to a set of numbers.

I talk to a lot of students and parents. In my experience numbers in the form of test and examination results can be a source of distress and concern to both. The university entrance result achieved by Year 12 students is a particular stress point in many families. Yet, other than the relief or delight many families express in those Year 12 results, I have very rarely found numbers to be the source of what truly animates and excites students or parents.

I typically see students light up when they tell me about their community service work, I see their pride on completing a project, I see the passion and focus with which they'll argue a point and follow through on a subject even when no assessment is involved, I see amazing demonstrations of their loyalty to and self-sacrifice for friends and team mates. I see respect and gratitude, even affection, for teachers and the desire to live up to teachers' expectations.

Students and parents can be thrilled by Year 12 results, and many deservedly so for the hard work and dedication they represent, but when parents make a point of thanking me for what the school has done for their child it is invariably about how pleased they are with the kind of young person their child has grown into. The pivotal moments in that development, the individual challenges faced and conquered by their child as recounted to me, have never yet included exam grades. Test performance is instead described in the context of what really counts - the formation of good study habits, the desire to do one's best, the ability to 'knuckle down' and delay immediate gratification for a higher goal, the capacity for self-discipline - all the things we look for in maturing young adults.

I think many school principals would agree with me that the sharp end of accountability is felt not in reporting to government but when facing parents.

I am not suggesting that we abandon the My School data comparisons, but that we learn to 'read' them. We all understand the difference between a work of art and a picture painted by numbers because we have an aesthetic context within which to understand them. Similarly, we have to read the national test data in a wider educational context and be aware of their limitations. We must not let mere numbers distract us from our educational aspirations.

For parents in the process of choosing a school for their child, the My School testing data can be used as the basis for questions to the principal when visiting schools. It cannot replace that visit or discussions with other parents with children already at the school.

At the very least parents need to be assured that a school respects its students and has high expectations of them. No school can be considered 'good' without evidence of these attitudes in its culture. A good school is a good community built on good relationships - relationships between teachers and learners, between students and students, between school and parents. There is no number that can compensate when these relationships aren't working.

Simon Murray