On Tuesday, Lindfield held an open morning for prospective parents. There were over 60 parents in attendance, which was fantastic. It was  a great morning talking about Lindfield and what we strive to achieve for our boys. I would like to share some of the key points that we shared. We focused on the Newington College Vision as the point of focus.

In the 21st century, Newington College strives to provide an internationally respected education for the purpose of developing young men who will contribute positively to society.

We spent a fair proportion of our time unpacking two areas; positive contribution to society and internationally respected education.

Positive contribution to society

We are a Uniting Church school which is expressed through an ethos of faith, diversity, inclusiveness and service to others. We welcome boys of all faiths, backgrounds and cultures. We are an inclusive school that strives to represent a cross section of the community reflective of our great Australian society. Our aim is to develop boys who are active contributing members of society. The pillars that we use are character education, community engagement and service.

In character education, we develop social skills and emotional problem solving skills so that our boys are resilient in the face of adversity and able to cope with the challenges that will emerge throughout life. We want confident boys who are unafraid to discover what is possible throughout their lives. This is achieved through the teaching the PYP learner profile and Newington values.

We use the research of Carol Dweck and her work on developing a growth mindset, focusing on the boys’ thinking and ways of approaching problems. We redefine their ideas of success, focusing on effort, learning and growing. Learning is a journey that continues throughout life.

There is also a strong emphasis on service to others and the community. The reality is that many of our boys will be the leaders of tomorrow. To be a strong and effective leader, boys need to understand the importance of service, to lead is to serve and not the other way round.

Internationally Respected Education

Newington provides a rigorous and inclusive education that caters for all our boys including those who need extra help and those who are working beyond the grade level expectations. There is strong emphasis on literacy and numeracy as it is the foundation of all learning.

In terms of literacy, the boys experience focused small group instruction at their level. Each boy is assessed using benchmarked reading assessment and then books at his level are used for instruction. We are in the process of introducing a new benchmark reading assessment system (Fountas and Pinnell), which will tie in with leveled books to enhance the ability to find just right books for your son. There are many opportunities for boys to interact with texts and explicit instruction on reading strategies and writing genres are at the core of our literacy program. We are currently piloting the Seven Step Writing program to explicitly teach the writing process focusing on text genres from the Australian national curriculum.

In terms of Numeracy, there is also a rigorous program that focuses on small group instruction and a concrete hands on approach to maths. There is a strong emphasis on the basic skills in maths coupled with a problem solving approach this emphasizes maths strategies and multiple ways of thinking.

Maths teaching today is very different to the teaching we experienced as students. There is a much stronger emphasis on the different thinking processes involved in maths. There are myriad ways to solve a problem mathematically and it is these flexible problem-solving processes that are explicitly modeled and taught.

Lindfield is also a Primary Years Program school. The PYP framework is from the International Baccalaureate. The Mission of the PYP is to provide a framework for an outstanding education to develop students who are internationally minded, inquiring, knowledgeable, life long learners.

PYP takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning, teaching big ideas through concepts. If we are looking at the concept of change, we can look at change in maths through graphing and time, change in science with experiments, change through history by comparing the past with the present.

Teaching and thinking conceptually is how we as adults solve problems and make sense of the world. We use our knowledge from all areas of learning to solve problems and make connections to new learning.

In terms of technology: We spoke about our aim to transform learning through the use of technology.  Many schools are just changing the medium of instruction (I used to get a book from the library, now I read it on my kindle). We continue to develop our use of ICT to be transformative and change the way our boys learn.  An example of how we are transforming the way boys learn is shown in year six, where we are experimenting with a 3-D printer and the boys are beginning to learn about design and structures through technology in a way not previously possible.

We also showcased to prospective parents the rich and varied co-curricular, clubs and sports programs that we have in place. Newington is part of the small schools competition, we are very competitive with a focus on enjoyment, learning and playing as a team for Newington. We showcased the rich and hugely rewarding performing arts program. All these experiences are designed to help the boys discover and broaden their interests and give them opportunities to experience for themselves the myriad opportunities that Newington offers.

What will parents discover at Newington Lindfield?

Newington teachers know your boys. There are strong teacher/student relationships, which is one of the main predictors of student success. Every boy has a chance to be involved and opportunities to shine. Newington is a close community; parents are fully involved and essential part of our School. We welcome parents into the school and classrooms at anytime.

The last and most important message we shared is that we are constantly thinking about and modeling teacher and learning practices that are best for boys. We are a learning school and we are constantly evolving our practices, it is an exciting time to be an educator, there is constantly new research to help us inform our practices and we are research driven in our decision and direction making.

The recent open morning was a great opportunity to showcase the school to prospective parents. It was a pleasure to talk about all the great things that are happening at Newington with people who are not yet part of our community.

Mr Benjamin Barrington-Higgs – Head of Lindfield Campus