We want each individual Grimwade House student to be the best he or she can be across multiple learning dimensions – cognitive, emotional, spiritual and physical. We want students to be intrinsically motivated to learn and to want to do well. Therefore, we focus on delivering a pathway for each student, helping him or her to grow and develop across all strands of the curriculum, at a tempo and within a framework that makes sense to them.
Rather than necessarily comparing performance between individuals, we measure individual growth – the distance between where a child was and where they are now. Of course, traditional standards, skills and knowledge are important. These are firmly addressed but we also set learning goals for students so that every child is improving across multiple dimensions every day.
Within this context, we understand that different parts of each learning dimension will develop at different rates and have different trajectories for each child. For example, in the intellectual dimension, numeracy and literacy skills development may not be consistent with each other. A child’s interests, physical capabilities and social groupings will naturally change over time. This makes the pathway more complex but gives it a greater richness.
Rather than thinking about a child standing on a tape and moving through learning one step at a time, at Grimwade House, our philosophy is that learning is more like the weaving of a beautiful cloth where the threads are going in different directions and at different rates. There might be parts where the thread became loose and needed to be tucked back in (by applying additional learning strategies), and other parts will flow smoothly. Distinctive and unique threads may appear. These accelerations, hiccups and variations all contribute to the cloth of a person.
This translates to a classroom in which groups of children are doing different things in different places, in different ways every day. It means that our teachers need to be highly skilled at managing a classroom of this type. We require our teachers to display high levels of ‘teacher judgement’, to observe, analyse and assess individual student learning on a constant basis, and to plan and implement a complex set of learning activities, drawing in specialist support and advice where needed, weaving the cloth a little more for each child each day.
Our approach creates a certain culture at Grimwade House. Striving for success is important but we don’t just care about who has ‘jumped over a bar’. We care about each child and his or her journey. Effort is recognised and rewarded as is the achievement of ‘personal bests’.
Grimwade House is unapologetically unique, but the cloths we weave reflect the success of our approach and our culture.
Royce Helm
Head of Grimwade House
Introducing the ‘What does your child need today?’ library
The What does your child need today? library presents our views on contemporary educational issues and best practice relating to Prep to Year 6 teaching and learning. It provides insights into our philosophy and approach through a series of explorations.
You can view the library at mgs.vic.edu.au/grimwade-house
