Lance Holt School

- published, October 2009

School profile

Lance Holt School, a small independent primary school, is an inner city school in the heart of Fremantle. There are 100 students and eight teachers.

School website: www.lanceholtschool.wa.edu.au

Kathryn Netherwood, Principal

I have spent more time reflecting on what an Asia-literate school is and why it is important for my school community. I also find that I need to devote time to increasing my knowledge and understandings of Asia and would like to attend an Asia Education Foundation (AEF) study tour of Asia.

As my understandings have improved so has my capacity to share with others. The resources provided through the Leading 21st Century Schools: Engage with Asia project (the L21CS project) are very helpful. I am now much more aware of these resources and am able to share this knowledge with other teachers.

I believe the project is very valuable. We are just at the beginning of our school engaging with Asia and more time is required to put the process in place.

Getting started

Our school is at the beginning phase of introducing studies of Asia and languages into the school so we began with two teachers attending an Access Asia professional learning program on ‘Making connections with an Asian School’. The teachers reported back to the whole staff on the process and benefits of developing a sister-school relationship with an Asian school. These two teachers will take a lead role in developing the link and have the support of the other teachers.

We devoted a whole-staff meeting to discussing the L21CS project processes that inform us how to embed studies of Asia in the school curriculum. This was followed up with a visit from the Western Australian Studies of Asia Advisor to share with the staff the idea of what an Asia-literate school looks like. She also explained the resources that are available for teachers in curriculum planning.

Teachers found this to be most helpful as they could see that the L21CS project processes could be readily incorporated into the way the school makes its curriculum decisions.

Finding out the current situation

We undertook a curriculum audit and found that there was no overall whole-school approach to studies of Asia. Some year levels did not include studies of Asia in any learning areas. We discovered too that we lacked resources for teaching studies of Asia and needed as a staff to engage in professional learning in this area.

Outcomes

Teachers found the Asia Scope and Sequences for English, SOSE and The Arts to be of excellent value for the purpose of planning and seeing where studies of Asia could be easily introduced.

The L21CS project's Tool Kit Modules have been very useful in planning and undertaking professional learning activities for staff with the support of the Studies of Asia Advisor.

We have purchased new curriculum resources chosen from a list of Asia-focused books for students and teachers supplied by the Advisor.

The next steps

The L21CS project’s processes will be the stimulus for learning about how we will engage with Asia in the future. Significantly, our teachers have undertaken to include studies of Asia in their classroom programs and have made a commitment to develop a sister-school relationship with an Asian school.

An evening is planned for early in 2009 for parents and the school community to discuss the reasons to become an Asia-literate school. We will share some of the projects and programs we have planned for studies of Asia.

Staff will be encouraged to engage in professional learning through the studies of Asia professional learning program.