Dear Parents and Guardians,
One of the joys of working with young people is encouraging them to extend themselves while supporting them in achieving their goals.
Over the last few months, our School Captains Emily, Sara and Jess have been dedicated to their goal of running an evening with members of our community (mostly grammarians) where students could explore a diverse range of career pathways and learn more about ways to overcome challenges. They designed an evening program available to Years 10-12 students, consisting of a panel discussion followed by table discussions with our guests.
With the additional support of Karen Bartram (Alumnae Relationships Coordinator) and Kath Woolcock (Head of Senior School), we mentored the girls over a number of weeks to enable them to design their event and to make all of the necessary people, program and technical arrangements. We were determined to provide what was needed but also to ‘get out of their way’ so that the program titled ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ was truly a student initiative.
It was a fantastic evening with almost 100 attendees and guests with backgrounds in a variety of health occupations, law, sport, defence, media and the creative arts. A range of questions were explored, including.
I was certainly impressed by their questions, as they are important life challenges. Congratulations to our Captains on creating such a sophisticated and rich learning experience for their peers. It was a good reminder that we should never underestimate the capabilities of young people.
For the last four years, we have been involved in New Metrics, a significant national project run by the University of Melbourne with forward-thinking schools. In this project we have been designing credentials to measure a number of competencies (we call them transferable skills). We are delighted that this year we will be credentialling our Year 6 and Year 9 students in the competencies of Agency in Learning, Communication and Collaboration.
I have asked Dr Charlotte Forwood, our Director of Learning Design and Development, to share more details (see below).
Our work with the University of Melbourne has been an invaluable learning opportunity for a number of teachers at our school.
Finally, next week we will be sharing more information on our Giving Day and the very special project that it will be supporting. Stay tuned!
With best wishes
Debbie Dunwoody
Principal
A University of Melbourne and Camberwell Girls Research Collaboration for Year 6 and Year 9 Students
Melbourne Metrics is a University of Melbourne initiative to support research-practice partnerships between the university and schools. Camberwell Girls Grammar School is one of 37 ‘first mover’ schools from around Australia who have been involved in the New Metrics Project, ‘a collaborative research venture between the University of Melbourne and selected forward-thinking schools to work in partnership to address the meta-problems faced by Australian schools today and in the future’ (Melbourne Metrics, 2024).
The New Metrics Project aligns closely to the principles and elements of the CGGS BY DESIGN Learning Architecture, which identifies eight key transferable skills to purposefully embed when designing learning. These skills include communication, collaboration, teamwork, and creativity. The New Metrics Project uses the term ‘competencies’ for these transferable skills. For almost four years, teachers at Camberwell Girls have been involved in co-designing and testing competency progressions for use with students in Foundation to Year 12 nationally.
These competency progressions can be used at the class or year level to provide insights into student mastery of behaviours associated with different competencies. For example, when assessing communication, consideration is given to the way students express their ideas, monitor the comprehension of listeners, select language to make their communication more accessible, interact with others and respond to feedback.
In 2024, Camberwell Girls is piloting the Australian Learner Competencies Credential (ALCC) as a transition credential for Year 6 students moving from Junior School into Middle School, and Year 9 students moving from Middle School to Senior School. The ALCC provides insights into students’ skills in the following three competencies:
Agency in Learning, Communication and Collaboration.
At the end of 2024, each student in Years 6 and 9 will be awarded the ALCC which is co-badged by the University of Melbourne and Camberwell Girls. As part of the pilot, we will be providing the University of Melbourne with feedback about the assessment elements, logistics and the relevance of the ALCC.
If you are curious about this initiative, please email Dr Charlotte Forwood, Director of Learning Design and Development.
