In recent times I have been reminded of the powerful feedback students can provide for teachers and for me in my role as principal. One such example started a few weeks ago when I presented Year 9 2015 Interest Elective Information to all current Year 8 students.
In a nutshell, the New South Wales Board of Studies has clear expectations about what subjects can be taught and the mandated (minimum) hours for those subjects to be properly delivered. Across Years 7 to 10, our school delivers significantly more than the required number of hours for each and every subject. When a school does this they can then deliver options which are not mandated, like we do with Careers once a week in Year 10 and Sport once a week in Year 7 & 9.
A week later, I invited students to offer a comment via the Year 9 2015 Interest Elective Survey. The responses of that survey were distributed to a representative group of 10 Year 8 students (pictured below with me and Pedagogy Leader @Carl Heise) at a meeting on Wednesday of this week. They see the interest elective as an opportunity to inform them about their future employment. Also, they stated that if they have the choice to work in an area of interest they will be motivated to work harder because they will be more focused. The group informed me that we should continue to explore the idea.
As a result of that feedback, more work will be done with teachers over the next few months with the idea that teachers will work with students about actual subjects that might will offered. With regards to Year 9, 2015 we are asking these questions:
When exploring those questions, there is real excitement about the possibilities for students in Year 9, 2015. When more ‘concrete’ information is available, we will invite Year 8 parents to offer feedback before a final decision is made about subject offerings to Year 9, 2015. However, it has been the “Student Voice” that has convinced me to keep exploring this exciting initiative.