The Hawkesbury Learning Journey - Connecting to Country and Culture through High Expectations and Clear Learning Goals
The turtle motif is an integral part of the Hawkesbury High School’s connection to Country and Culture and its learning journey. The mural was painted by the school’s Aboriginal students and it consists of six long neck turtles – one for each year group – representing progress, innovation, connectedness, collaboration, creativity and growth, while also acknowledging that we are learning on Darug land. The turtle motif effectively captures the school’s focus on Caring, Learning and Connecting that is at the centre of everything we do. As the six long-neck turtles move along the Hawkesbury River towards the central meeting place, they grow in size and complexity to capture the social, personal and intellectual development of our students from Year 7 to Year 12.
Hawkesbury High School is focusing on evidence-based teaching and learning practices that are proven to have the highest impact on student achievement. These high-impact practices are implemented within the context of developing a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy, valuing every child as a learner, meeting NESA HSC minimum standards and syllabus requirements that clearly identify the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes students are expected to develop at each stage, and outcomes and content students are expected to know and do.
At Hawkesbury High School teachers work collaboratively to develop stage Learning Achievement Descriptors (LADs) – teaching, assessment and evaluation tools that explicitly identify learning intentions and success criteria to help students understand where they are as learners. Stage Learning Achievement Descriptors define learning as a continuum and assist teachers and students to become expert at diagnosis, intervention and evaluation of learning goals and achievements. Learning Achievement Descriptors are used to identify learning intentions which are integrated into teaching programs. The effect and success of learning activities is evaluated through student assessment and evidence of student learning. Stage learning descriptors also provide a clear focus for formative student feedback as they clearly identify explicit improvement criteria.
Whole school collaborative strategies include a focus on Management of Learning which teach students organisational, time management and study skills; written response scaffolds such as WALU (at paragraph level) and The Hawkesbury Learning Journey (at text level); use of ICT such as Surface Pro devices that facilitate immediate formative feedback and collection of work samples; BYOD for students, and the Google Classroom learning platform to provide students with learning resources and help improve communication between teachers, students and parents.
The Hawkesbury Learning Journey uses the metaphor of the Hawkesbury River to emphasise that learning is a progression, that students can be at different points on their learning journey, and that different students may choose different destinations along the river, depending on their learning goals.
The journey starts near the origin of the river, marked by Pitt Town, and continues through Cattai, Lower Portland, Wiseman’s Ferry and, finally, Brooklyn at the mouth of the river. Each stage of the journey adds a layer of complexity on the continuum of learning, with different stages of the journey linked to key skills and capabilities aligned to ACARA literacy and numeracy progressions, NESA syllabi and the Australian Core Skills Framework aligned to the HSC minimum standard. From gaining knowledge, to critical thinking, to synthesis and evaluation, the journey down the Hawkesbury River visually represents a roadmap of learning for all our students with clear learning goals that guide them to their learning destinations.
Walu is a Darug word for “chin”, but also a word that means “where are you going?” Walu is also the name of the long neck turtle that guides our students down the Hawkesbury River on their learning journey. W.A.L.U is a paragraph writing scaffold that guides students and helps them move from knowledge through to analysis and interpretation to deeper understanding of a topic or idea.
WALU guides students in the process of engaging in critical thinking by bridging the gap between knowledge (summarise) and higher order skills (interpret and synthesise). The main steps and skills in WALU are:
1. What is the main point or idea? (summarise)
2. Analysing evidence that supports the main point or idea (analyse)
3. Linking the evidence to the main point or idea (explain)
4. Understanding how the evidence develops or enhances the main point or idea (infer or interpret).
As Walu swims down the river, it shows our students skills required for higher levels of literacy and numeracy achievement, critical thinking, problem-solving and abstract thinking as they progress on their learning journey.
Similar to PEEL, WALU emphasises our respect for and connection to Country and addresses the potential over-simplification of the last step in PEEL (L) which frequently sees students regress to a lower order skill when they link back to the main point. The last step in WALU (U) encourages students to demonstrate understanding of the main point or idea by showing how evidence helped them develop that point or idea – effectively guiding students to go further and conceptualise rather than go back to the main point.
