Teaching & Learning

Teaching & Learning

Optimum learning occurs when teachers, working in partnership with parents, actively engage students.  Best practice pedagogy underpins learning and teaching to ensure learners are able to contribute positively as global citizens.  Learning is enhanced when teachers and students work within a positive culture that reflects gospel values and respects the human person. Monitoring students’ progress and catering for their individual needs promotes continuous learning.

At Holy Trinity we recognise that we are part of a local and global community, and as such, ensure curriculum provides learners with an awareness of the needs and responsibilities of citizens working within communities with rich social and cultural diversity. This includes an understanding of social and environmental issues, an awareness of differing cultural needs in decision making and the role and responsibility of being a member of a global technological world.

Each learner brings their own knowledge and experiences to the classroom and through engaging with new experiences learners are given the opportunity to build meaning and refine understanding, principally through structured inquiry. Connections are made between the learners’ existing knowledge and their individual learning styles within the context of new experiences.

It is believed that learning takes place best when it is connected to the learner’s real world outside of the classroom. We aim to deliver a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, challenging and significant. 

The inquiry pedagogy allows learners to make sense of their world by making connections and building on their prior knowledge. In this approach learners are given greater independence to implement their own learning. It also helps learners to increase their awareness of the different styles of learning while creating different levels of challenge. Strategies for problem solving, organising and sorting, thinking creatively and reflecting can be used in many different aspects of the school curriculum and applied to life beyond the school.

In the inquiry based classroom there is increased emphasis on real life situations, decision-making, problem solving, research and action. Learners are actively:  

• exploring, wondering and questioning  

• experimenting and playing with possibilities  

• making connections between previous learning and current learning  

• making predictions and acting purposefully to see what happens  

• collecting data and reporting findings  

• clarifying existing ideas and reappraising perceptions of events  

• deepening understanding through the application of a concept  

• making and testing theories  

• researching and seeking information  

• taking and defending a position  

• solving problems in a variety of ways

Differentiation

Differentiation involves teachers designing learning experiences that match learners’ readiness levels, learning styles and interests. All learners learn differently, and differentiation is how teachers react responsibly to different learning needs. Differentiation ensures that every learner demonstrates growth. At Holy Trinity we believe that every learner should be challenged to grow in their skills, knowledge and understandings. Some of the key differentiation strategies at Holy Trinity include:  

• providing learners with choices in how they learn and demonstrate their learning 
• using assessment results to design learning experiences that meet individual learner needs
• learners working in small groups, with partners, and independently on learning tasks focused on their unique learning needs
• providing learners with alternative class work and home learning (not just more of the same work) that extends their learning of a specific skill or topic
• providing review and re-teaching for learners who need help in developing an important skill or concept  open-ended learning tasks and questioning strategies that encourage the development of learners’ high-level thinking skills

Collaborative Planning

In order to plan for the diverse needs of learners, all Holy Trinity teachers engage in structured collaborative planning and reflection. Planning for learning is based on the premises and beliefs that: 

• there is no known ceiling to achievement

• intelligence can be developed by effective teaching  

• high expectations are important, but to fulfil these high expectations learners must be shown how to improve by their teachers. This requires learners to be taught to learn and to reflect on their learning, and to assess their progress  

• learning objectives that challenge each learner and take their own learning forward must be shared explicitly with learners and reviewed at the end of the lesson or unit of learning  

• lessons must be carefully planned and clearly structured to include an engaging and stimulating variety of learning experiences that contribute to meeting the learning objectives

• teachers must evaluate their lessons so that their own practice can improve

Students at Holy Trinity:

• Learn and grow in a community where Gospel values inspire commitment to social action and spiritual growth

• Participate in a broad and diverse curriculum that enables them to develop their talents and experience success

• Develop the learning dispositions needed for curiosity and for creative, reflective and critical thinking

• Are active learners, taking responsibility for their own learning and contributing to the learning of others

• Are supported and empowered to take risks in their learning and to experience the benefits of perseverance

• Grow in their capacity for resilience and for dealing positively with life’s challenges

• Are motivated by our culture of high expectations for all

Teachers at Holy Trinity:

• Respect and uphold the innate dignity of each student

• Are highly attuned to the distinctive learning and wellbeing needs of our students

• Are restless and innovative in their pursuit of excellence in their own and others’ learning

• Collaborate to plan and construct learning goals, assessments and activities that are responsive to students’ individual needs and respectful of difference

• Make thinking visible through use of a range of contemporary approaches, learning tools, technologies and resources to foster students’ understanding of how to learn

• Provide timely, specific feedback to guide students in their learning progress

• Create a culture of high expectations