Staff Professional Learning and Development Week

Northside Christian College commenced the new year with a series of professional learning and development days for staff. This program provided an opportunity to complete training, plan curriculum and review policy and procedures in preparation for the 2021 school year. Our College Principal launched the week with a discussion about the College’s theme for the school year, which is “Stand”, based on Ephesians 6:13.

The College’s New Staff Induction Program was facilitated at the commencement of the Staff Preparation Week. Northside Christian College recognises that effective induction is critical to ensuring that staff can contribute to the College’s Vision and Mission, are aware of their legal obligations as members of staff of the College and can undertake their work roles quickly and effectively. Staff were provided with briefings on a range of policies including Occupational Health and Safety, Emergency Management, Child Safety, Behaviour Management, and a range of other policies and procedures. New staff were also provided with briefings on the College’s Model of Teaching and Learning, flipped learning pedagogical model, Understanding by Design, and Rubicon Atlas. The College is committed to providing induction to all new members of the College staff.

All staff were provided with opportunities to engage in professional learning opportunities to meet ongoing compliance requirements including completing training in First Aid, CPR, Mandatory Reporting, and Anaphylaxis e-training.

Staff at Northside Christian College engaged with a series of flipped digital video policy briefings in the lead up to a day dedicated to discussing scenarios related to College policies.  Flipped policy briefings at Northside provide staff with an opportunity to review the policy information at their own pace and repeat it as often as they deem necessary. This has effectively moved the content component of the lecture ahead of the briefing time, which frees staff to engage more actively in discussions, scenarios, and reflection. This has allowed staff to connect more deeply and personally with the topic at hand. The flipped briefings have also provided an opportunity for part-time staff at the College to engage more readily with policy briefing content.

The teaching staff also participated in a session on the Teaching and Learning Strategic Priorities for the College for the year ahead, which provided an opportunity to reflect on the teaching and learning during 2020, including remote learning. Faculty teams were provided with scheduled time to collaboratively plan the curriculum in preparation for the 2021 school year.

We are grateful to have an opportunity to collaborate at the start of each school year to ensure that we can deliberately work towards our mission of “Transforming lives through Christ and the wonder of learning.”

Michael Bond, Deputy Principal / Head of Secondary School