Message From the Principal
Schools talk a lot about assessment.
I’m sure for many of you, that word conjures images of tests, marks and grades, rankings. Possibly it’s associated with a sense of dread – or maybe pride and satisfaction; for some it may be annoyance and anger. Right now I wasn’t to reclaim that word for our College – and I’m not the first!
Assessment is about evaluating the state or quality of something or someone. It is about working out where something currently is. In education, when we talk about effective assessment it goes a step further. Assessment is for a purpose – to keep a student growing and learning at the best pace for them. As Professors John Hattie and Dylan Wiliams both say it asks three essential questions – where a student is now, where they are going next and how do they get there?
As a College we can also ask those questions – as can any organisation. Where are we now, where are we going and how do we get there?
We are asking that question about many aspects of our College, post-COVID, also as we grow and shift from being a smaller school to a medium-sized school and more generally as we look at what are the most powerful ways to foster deep learning across all our community.
Some of these COVID changes have been positive, and we need to keep. Some of our old practices are ready to be jettisoned as we’ve developed more powerful ways of learning that can be integrated into our pedagogy and learning community. Equally, as we grow to be bigger we need to change some of the things we could do as a smaller school.
With one eye on the present but continuing to look to the future, Term 4 may seem like the end of the year but we see it as the foundation for the next steps in our learning journey as we pursue tomorrow – where are we going and how do we get there? I hope you join with me in not only asking but also finding some powerful answers to these questions!
This term we welcome two new staff to our College – firstly Mr Liam Bailey, our new Deputy Principal – Strategy and Innovation. Already he’s been spending time learning about who we are as a College and how he can work collaboratively with us to make learning even more engaging and challenging for everyone. He’s had the opportunity to meet lots of students in both the Senior and Junior Schools through duties, lesson covers and the like. Next year he will also teach some Senior School Science. We also welcome Mr Jonathan Hobbs who has joined the TAS faculty to replace Mr Tony Wong. Mr Hobbs has just moved into the area – quite literally a week ago!! We look forward to the dynamic addition both will make to our learning community!
