In the discussion forum consider what you have learnt so far. Select one of the created threads to briefly respond to:

💡 What sort of organisation is your school?
💡 What sort of organisation does the school sit within?
💡 How does this hinder or facilitate the adoption of 21st century education practices?
💡 How does this organisation and the decisions it makes affect staff at the school level and the library?

My school organisation is a private K-12 Uniting Church school, set in the northern suburbs of Perth in Western Australia. The school is well established and highly regarded in the local community, and has a history of solid high ATAR scores, and an excellent VET pathway program. The Uniting Church Australia is central to the fabric of the school mission, beliefs and values. School teaching pedagogues, pastoral activities and excursions are planned intrinsically with Christian values at the core. This organisation facilitates 21st education practices in partnership with moral and transformational leadership practices of the school principal. The school strategic plan and vision reflects a strong emphasis on shaping the future of our students.

At St Stephen’s school, through the guidance of the strategic plan, teachers are beginning to consider how to prepare students for global citizenship, but we are not quite there yet.  I think many staff still need more knowledge, understanding and skills in 21st century education. This year, the whole staff professional development days were forward thinking, and focused on building staff awareness of global citizenship so that the teachers can have an appreciation of the issues students will face as adults. I hope this could lead teachers into a stronger position of considering how they can integrate 21st century education into their current subject curriculum. Further internationalisation of professional development of staff would be beneficial as teachers need to be able to put into practise in lesson plans, what are challenging concepts and skills.

There is no doubt that today’s education requires a technological environment. St Stephen’s is well positioned to provide this, as each secondary student must have a personal mac book for use at the school. Every classroom has access to a smart board and there are IT classrooms and the library with desktop Macs and PCs. It is a school expectation that teachers provide a digital learning environment in their classrooms, and are confident to do this. Within the library space, teachers often book the space for using technology and for the support of the expertise of the teacher librarians. The library portal is set up with an abundance of digital tools to support the development of 21st century skills in our students. Digital literacy is taught as a timetabled subject to all Year 7 classes by the Teacher librarians. Information Literacy is taught within HASS and Science through a partnership between classroom teachers and teacher librarians. In conclusion, I think our school is supporting 21st century education especially in Year 6-8, but I think there could still be more on offer for extra support for our students in Year 9-12.