Macquarie Anglican Grammar School

Acting Head of Teaching and Learning – Mrs Lynne Fleming

The Teaching and Learning Framework at Macquarie is a shared set of concepts and practices that guide our work with students from Pre-Kindergarten to Year 12.

This framework also supports the Home/School Learning Partnership.

Our framework has been developed around the idea of Building Learning Power. We aim to develop powerful and lifelong learners who are supported to approach the joy, challenge and reward of learning and are thus equipped to face the contemporary and evolving workspace.

The 4Rs and their 'buttons' (Resourceful, Relational, Resilient and Reflective) are learning dispositions (or behaviours and attitudes) that research has associated with powerful learning. These dispositions are apparent every day - physically in our classrooms, in our language, in our lesson design, in our student diary, and in our home/school communication.

All heroic stories are subject to challenge and review, but I provide you with some real-life examples of the dispositions in action:

• Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar used their relational capacity to develop Atlassian, a multibillion-dollar software company grounded in relational skills. Indeed, their mission is “to help unleash the potential of every team”.
• Farmers in the Central West use their skills of resourcefulness every day. Some particular examples are exploring alternate energy sources or adapting production to exploit emergent markets.
• Kurt Fearnley and Dylan Alcott have both exercised resilience to forge careers in sports, the media and advocacy.
• The designers, architects, artists and administrators of the Sydney Opera House are now in their eighth decade of reflection about unleashing the potential of Utzon’s original design.

These people have all been powerful learners who have moved through the dispositions to achieve powerful outcomes.

So too do we work at Macquarie. Encourage your children to collaborate with others, to look for answers, to re-engage after setbacks, and to reflect on the processes and causes of successfullearning.

I encourage students to develop their capabilities of empathising, listening, modelling and collaborating.

Relational - Being ready, willing, and able to learn alone and with others.

Actively listening to others and seeing things from their perspective.

Constructively adopting, adapting and utilising the methods for others you observe.

Working productively with others whilst self-managing and respecting others.