Barnabas Conference at Shore

On Thursday 23 May last week, Shore hosted over 100 delegates for the Barnabas Conference. The Barnabas conference was originally set up to encourage people to think about Christian education and how schools continue to do this well. At our conference, we had two excellent speakers in Emeritus Professor Trevor Cooling, who has travelled from his home in England and is in Australia for the next few weeks, while Stephen McAlpine was the second speaker.

Trevor Cooling is a world-renowned speaker and he reflected on the importance of knowledge, how we get it and the learning process that takes place in our schools. One of his key points was that we all have a worldview and a particular way we see life. We receive all sorts of knowledge but then filter this with our worldview or understanding. The key, he argues, is getting us to think about our worldview more deeply and the principles of seeing why we believe what we believe. Stephen McAlpine spoke about the changing nature of culture in our society and the impact this has on our students and their learning. Understanding this more will actually help us to see where our students are coming from including their difficulties, their thoughts and their motivations. It was a wonderful opportunity to reflect deeply on these things and then, in turn, how this can shape our teaching and learning.

Top image: Professor Trevor Cooling

Rev Anthony Benn
Chaplain