NSW Centre for Excellence Initiative
Our partnership with the NSW Centre for Excellence Initiative is with Macquarie Fields High School and St Andrews Public School. Below is a link to Macquarie Fields High School who is the hub of our Centre of Excellence.
Macquarie Fields High School Website
The Centres for Excellence initiative concentrates the resources that already exist in some NSW schools in combination with new resources available under the National Partnership. The initiative will strengthen university partnerships with cluster schools and professional mentoring, as well as improve initial teacher education professional experience placements.
As a cluster school new professional learning and leadership opportunities will be offered to teachers building positive, productive and meaningful relationships within the school and beyond. Schools will work together to plan and provide support for quality teaching initiatives. Cluster schools have been identified because of their professional commitment to teacher quality and a demonstrated capacity to work collegially with other schools and tertiary institutes.
Operating through the ‘hub and spoke' model, the Centre for Excellence cluster will work to achieve quality teaching practices leading to improved student learning outcomes. The negotiation of our ‘hub' model is well underway and is premised on achieving targets specified in each school's plan related to the demonstration of quality teaching practices and improved student learning outcomes.
We are providing collaborative support to pre-service teachers through a digital learning network and developing joint programs to support professional learning and quality teaching practices in our cluster. Some school operations to support professional learning are shared collegial support opportunities, team teaching through connected classrooms and shared professional learning and development sessions for targeted groups across schools such as executives/teachers/teacher teams focussed on improving student outcomes.
Current Activities and Professional Learning Opportunities
Currently, we are working together to develop resources and skills in new Web 2.0 tools and other interactive technology based tools. In addition there is planning occuring to develop a Year 6 and 7 unit to help support the link between primary and high school, reducing the stress in students in the middle years.