Learning and Teaching Service Provisions

Learning and Teaching

The Learning and Teaching Team leads and supports schools to promote expert teacher practice. The team aims to build teacher capacity to address student variability through targeted teaching, ensuring an accelerated rate of progress for every student.

The work of the Learning and Teaching team is aligned to the Learning and Teaching Cycle. The team works with schools to ensure teachers have a deep understanding of:

· Planning: What students need to learn as set out in the Victorian Curriculum

· Teaching: Targeted teaching to cater for student variability

· Assessing: Knowing where each student is at in their learning

· Reflecting/reviewing: How well was the curriculum taught? How well did the students learn?

The team endeavours to develop expert subject content knowledge of the Victorian Curriculum. In addition, the team’s goal is to deepen teacher understanding of the developmental steps of how students learn as set out in the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority Learning Progressions in Literacy and Numeracy.

In the team’s work with schools the team promotes expert teacher practice through the implementation of evidence based teaching strategies. The team fosters collective efficacy within and across Diocesan schools and delivers differentiated service provision to individual schools.

Learning and Teaching – Secondary Pathways

DOSCEL works in conjunction with the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd (CECV) to provide planning, implementation, review and support for senior pathways and transition options for students undertaking:

· Vocational Education and Training (VET)

· Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL)

· School Based Apprenticeships and Traineeships (SBATs)

· Careers

· Workplace learning and other initiatives designed to cater for the diverse vocational needs of senior secondary students.

Policy development, advocacy and representation for all Catholic schools is undertaken in partnership with the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), the Victorian Registration Qualifications Authority (VRQA), Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) and other professional bodies in providing specialist pathways and transition advice to secondary schools, including information, updates and developments by all education and training administrators.

DOSCEL aims to facilitate best practice and maximise the opportunities for students to experience successful senior secondary outcomes and post-school transitions to further education, training and/or employment.

Whole School Approach to Positive Behaviour Support (WSAPBS)

DOSCEL's Whole School Approach to Positive Behaviour Support (WSAPBS) is a framework that enables the development of a positive, safe and supportive school environment in which students can learn and develop. The WSAPBS has been developed in the context of the teachings and beliefs of Catholic Social Teaching. The approach comprises of Universal to Intensive support and includes identified features that promote learning and wellbeing for all students.

With the support of DOSCEL facilitators, school team members work together to review, develop and implement processes and practices, to enable consistency and sustainability of whole school behaviour support, responsive to their specific context.

WSAPBS focuses on prevention, instruction and use of evidence based practices. The approach also supports schools to address legislative requirements and scaffolds the integration of other relevant resources and initiatives for the school community.

Learning Adjustment - Inclusive Education

The work of the Learning Adjustment Inclusive Education Team is guided by the Disability Standards for Education (DSE). The DSE enshrine schools’ responsibilities to provide every student with equity of access to enrolment, participation, curriculum and student support services. Students with diverse needs including those with physical, cognitive, social-emotional and sensory disabilities and their families/carers are the focus of our work within the Diocese of Sale.

The role of the Learning Adjustment Inclusive Education team is to build expert teacher practice and whole school approaches to providing excellence in education for every student. Areas of focus include: building the capacity of school Learning Adjustment Leaders and teams, implementation of the CECV Intervention Framework and professional development related to the implementation of the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data.

Learning and Teaching – Inclusive Education

New Arrival (NA)/English as an Additional Language (EAL)

Leadership and support is provided throughout the Diocese of Sale to support both refugee and migrant newly arrived students and EAL students who have a language background other than English. Support is provided to ensure that all NA and EAL students have equal access to the Victorian Curriculum by providing learning adjustments for students to optimise their learning of Standard Australian English whilst maintaining their first language. A supportive and inclusive education with a strong awareness of cultural issues is also a focus.

Learning and Teaching - Languages

DOSCEL supports Languages programs in schools and promote new initiatives through the CECV Languages Strategy (Speak Up! 2017-2019; Now We’re Talking 2020-22).

DOSCEL is committed to building teacher capacity through Languages Professional Learning Days and through the Multilingual Language Learning Communities that have been developed in the Sale Diocese: Western, Eastern, South Gippsland and Valley. These clusters provide Languages teachers with opportunities to share practice, implement projects initiated by Professional Learning and maintain their skills in the target language.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

DOSCEL works with schools to to identify and implement high leverage strategies to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and to improve educational outcomes. These strategies are implemented through the use of the school’s Learning Adjustment Strategy.

The principles and priority areas from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Strategy 2015 underpin the approach when supporting schools to create a school environment that is culturally responsive to their students and school community, with a focus on the applicable priority areas of the strategy.