Daily Webex Sessions - A Welcome Addition to Remote and Flexible Learning.

Much like the way I walk through learning spaces in the school to enjoy sitting in on classes or learning alongside students, so too have I enjoyed joining webex sessions throughout this week and intend to continue to do so in the coming weeks.

It is clear to me that students, teachers and parents alike are in absolute partnership in making remote and flexible learning be so successful at Featherbrook College. I am grateful to our teachers and families who, against the backdrop of the ever changing and dynamic nature of the public health landscape, are dedicated to educating our young students. By optimising the digital tools available to us to provide, as best we can, a focused and stable learning program, our Featherbrook students continue to learn well. The images below, with explanations further down, tell some of the learning journey story provided by Featherbrook teachers and enjoyed by Featherbrook students.

As part of our learning model in the school setting, teachers always begin their learning sessions sharing with the students, the intention of the learning they are about to engage with along with the criteria expected to be addressed that will inform them of the degree of success they have had in learning the intended skills, focus, content. The above has been drawn from a Year 3 webex session I joined today where the students were using a vocabulary building model call the Frayer Model. The following image captures the learning in the Year 5/6 sessions where an in depth literature study is being undertaken specific to Australian authors John Marsden and Shaun Tan's 'The Rabbits; a book about the colonisation of Australia. It presents the students with considerable symbolism to tell share the perspectives of those represented in the book. The next image is a task that the Prep students were asked to do after their webex session earlier this week where they had explored the Zones of Regulation and emotions. This set them up well for undertaking the independent task after their session. The 'System Explanation' slide is from a Year 9 English webex session. It is a scaffold used to inform writing an explanation text across a number of curriculum areas of study. It is a very sophisticated and high order structure that will be explored and learned through much guided practice and eventually be mastered by the Year 9 students. The complexity of learning at this level is considerable and necessarily, informs the next 3 years of senior college education. The final image is the token count for our Houses this week and reflects the ways in which our Featherbrook College students have demonstrated high expectations and the other 3 school values whilst engaging with their teachers, peers and the learning provided. On looking at the considerable variety and rigor of learning provided by the teachers as I join in webex sessions, I think that the teachers should be awarded House tokens too! Congratulations Acacia and to all of those students who earned tokens for yellow House!