At Thornlands, we pride ourselves on our innovative approach to ongoing professional learning. Through observation and feedback from each other during what we call 'WOW' (Watching others work) sessions, our teachers are able to learn and benefit from the collective expertise of each other and in turn this allows us to break into TNT (Thornlands Inquiry teams) to further reflect, share and inform our understandings of our key foci for the year.
Our Thornlands Inquiry teams (TNT) are released from class throughout the year to work with the Head of Curriculum to identify, through the use of data, where, what and who we need to focus on in order to deliver the best possible learning opportunities for our students.
Recently, in their Thornlands Inquiry Teams, teachers participated in intensive literacy professional development around the core 'thinking skills' identified through the Australian Curriculum. Known as Cognitive (thinking) Verbs, understanding and teaching students this language explicitly, is crucial to their learning success and our teachers have fast become experts in helping their students to apply and decode these important thinking processes. The Queensland Curriculum & Assessment Authority (QCAA) recently released a suite of resources (See below example) to assist teachers and students through the learning journey and to provide the crucial prompts required for students to really feel confident about their understanding of Cognitive Verbs.
In addition to our TNT's, last Monday, in order to further consolidate our learning around thinking skills, staff were also treated to further professional development delivered by Patricia Hipwell, author of multiple highly successful teacher resource books including 'How to write what you want to say' for primary school students.
Pat has fast become a fantastic collegial friend to the staff at Thornlands and we feel very lucky to have been able to tap into her wealth of knowledge and to hear her echo and consolidate a lot of the ideas and concepts we as a school have identified as being worthy of the curriculum spotlight in 2021. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Pat as she really does have a commanding knowledge of literacy and this 'expert' level of understanding is largely at the forefront of our approach to everything we do at Thornlands!
