At this time of year, when senior students and their parents are digesting school exam results and eyeing up the final push to the big exams, ACG Parnell College deputy principal Ed Coup knows what to expect.
"Parents start saying: 'What can we do? What's the magic to getting good results?'" he says. "The answer is to be realistic. Help the child set a plan, but that's not going to be 10 hours study a day. Sure, kids have to put the time in, but they need to know, 'here are the five things I need to improve'."
Coup, who has been in the management role for five years but still keeps his hand in the classroom teaching a senior chemistry class, says while passing exams and getting into university may seem like success for a student, his - and the colleges' - definition is much bigger than that.
"We really talk about being a good learner; that is more important. Success for each student is quite different but we need to start defining that right from year 1. Then they are well prepared for that first university lecture, that first assignment."
The faculty of ACG Parnell College have honed a system that helps each child 'get' what's happening in class. As well as longer class sessions (80 minutes) to allow time for students to ask questions and teachers to check learning, every lesson begins with a 'whiteboard tab' which sets out the aims of that lesson, success criteria, homework, key words to learn and a link to the school values.
"That is the first thing everyone checks in a classroom and it becomes the culture, that checking back all the time," explains Coup. "So the student knows how they're learning, what they've learned, and what the priorities are. To have the breathing room and space to do that, to be unhurried with your learning, is really valuable."
Good learning at ACG also includes the expectation students are active in class; teachers judge that by the number of questions asked. There is plenty of literature supporting the role of curiosity in life-long learning, so meaningful questions, lively interaction with listening, completing the work, smartly reviewing and consolidating the learning in the evening are all markers of the engaged learner.
Coup says the school culture means students feel safe about asking questions; the culture encourages behaviours that help them learn more efficiently.
"We talk about 'feeding forward', when we stop twice a year to review the goals for each student with their parent and pastoral teacher," he says. "A student looks at where they are at and what they need to do to go to the next level. Again, we do that from year 1 - as they get older we really focus on the tutor period on how to get organised, how to prepare for exams."
Leaders at the ACG schools have recognised modelling good behaviour is the best way to reinforce it with the students. So things like electronic rolls and shared lesson plans are made more efficient to focus students in tutor periods on what matters: pastoral care, study skills, interaction and role modelling between senior and junior classmates in the vertical tutor groups.
Coup says teachers are well-planned and organised, with assessments and learning outcomes laid out at the start of the year so students know where to put their focus. Homework includes not just review and consolidating notes but also writing up questions for follow-up (no better way, he says, to check on learning, than by asking more questions).
"At this time of year, if a student hasn't done as well, it's going to be a big task to face a whole year of study," he admits. "So parents need to encourage the student to have a plan, so it's manageable. Maybe in the holidays, that's half an hour per subject per day before you go out with your mates.
"Then students need to ask their teacher 'what are the five most important things I need to do in this subject to lift my work? How can I go about that?' It's not difficult, but it's about checking back all the time."
