AUSTRALIA LINKS PAGE 2005
"BOTH WAYS UP"
Over February half term 2005, a group of teachers from Norfolk visited Melbourne, Australia, on a trip organised by Rob Lodge, Secondary Strategy consultant for Norfolk and previously co-chair of the GA's SESC. The aim was to improve links between teachers in the UK and Australia, and to investigate the use of THINKING SKILLS in the classroom. A colleague of mine went on the trip, and fed back to our department with some of the ideas. This page will hopefully develop over time as the links develop.
12 Apostles. Image by L. Davidson. Click to enlarge! Remember that one of the stacks has since fallen down, but which one ?
AUSTRALIA SITES
General Information
ABOUT AUSTRALIA - great site!
An excellent site for MAPS OF AUSTRALIA - good for IWB use.
A Norfolk teacher who went on the STUDY SKILLS visit has apparently produced a Scheme of Work. More on this soon hopefully.
CONTACTS
There were 5 schools which were visited during the 10 days. They included State, Catholic and Independent schools, teaching years 7-12, or K7-12.
SHARING OF INFORMATION
One of the key areas we saw was the use of various thinking skills and learning style information.
Some ideas were Professional Learning Programmes (PLPs) produced by PLTs (Teams) All teaching staff join a PLT. There was a lot of use of Thinking Skills frameworks such as:
BLOOM's TAXONOMY
De Bono's THINKING HATS
Graphic ORGANISERS
COSTA's HABITS OF MIND
Many schemes such as Sustainable Schools were also in operation, and students spent time on 'camps'.
One key area was in the idea of libraries as RESOURCE CENTRES, and greater collaboration between teachers and library staff.
Also the idea of 'PASSIVE SUPERVISION': classrooms with glass walls which meant that they were open to all to view what was going on.
Also had large staffrooms with more resources for staff, who were encouraged to spend time there rather than in subject areas.
FUNDING
The trip came under the aegis of TIPD, funded by Specialist Schools Trust.