Warrnambool College

School profile

Warrnambool College is a government secondary college located in Warrnambool, a provincial city on the south-west coast of Victoria. It is a Years 7–12 college with 950 students and a total staff of 135 including 65 effective full-time teachers. The college is committed to assisting students to become successful and informed global citizens. It has developed an Engage with Asia policy stating that ‘to prepare students for living, learning and working in a global world, we need to provide students with experiences to enable understandings and knowledge of our nearest neighbours’.

College website: www.wblcoll.vic.edu.au

Mary Pendergast, Principal

We recognise that our students, as they enter the world of work, will require knowledge, skills and broad cultural awareness in order to operate effectively in an increasingly globalised world. Our student demographic is essentially monocultural and we recognise our responsibility to ensure that students are exposed to international and global perspectives through their learning activities.

Our language programs, international student program and sister-school relationships give us a solid base on which to build. My participation in the Leading 21st Century Schools: Engage with Asia (L21CS) project has given me the motivation to engage School leaders and teachers in processes enabling us to take a more holistic and systematic approach to the incorporation of studies of Asia into school programs.

It has been an important vehicle for me to consider ways of consolidating our programs and including new dimensions designed to develop students’ awareness of Asia and their connections to it.

View video of an interview with Mary Pendergast at the 2009 L21CS Forum

Getting started

Seeing a way forward

I am now in my third year as principal at Warrnambool. Over many years, activities with an international focus have been adopted. Relationships with schools in Japan and Indonesia have been fostered. Student exchange programs, study tours and World Challenge expeditions have been conducted. The international student program, albeit with small numbers, has been an important feature of the school. Importantly, the school has offered French, Indonesian and Japanese to students thus providing opportunities for linking language learning with the development of cultural awareness.

I recognised that we had a good base on which to build a more substantial internationalising dimension into school programs. The impetus for doing so came from my involvement in the L21CS project. Importantly, the project has given me access to high-quality resources, professional learning opportunities and the capacity to network and share with other Principals. I recognised that significant support was available to me in my role of leading change processes and developmental work in the school.

Engaging School leaders

I was acutely aware of my role in assisting School leaders to understand the importance of embracing studies of Asia and engaging students with Asia. The National Statement for Engaging Young Australians with Asia in Australian Schools (the National Statement) and the 2020 Engage with Asia DVD were important resources for me in the initial stage.

Following a presentation to staff in which the seeds of change were sown, I commenced regular meetings with the LOTE, SOSE and English faculty heads to assess our current situation and to begin planning the way forward. The key to these meetings was a collective acceptance of and willingness to share leadership responsibility for preparing teachers to incorporate studies of Asia into their teaching and learning programs. It was decided that, at faculty level, teachers would audit their programs to identify the areas in which Asian content was included and to explore possible ways in which units of work could accommodate studies of Asia.

Establishing an implementation team

Discussions with curriculum leaders led to the establishment of a cultural literacy professional learning team with the responsibility for overseeing the incorporation of studies of Asia and local Indigenous history into the college curriculum.

I was particularly mindful of teacher workload and the demands of a range of other key school projects. Accordingly and importantly, we made it clear that we would strengthen Asia-inclusive curriculum by embedding it into current programs rather than adding new content.

In adopting this stance we understood that change was evolutionary and based on a recognition that we should build on our strengths and achievements. It also meant that we could use our present planning and professional learning infrastructure to best effect.

Engaging the school council

I presented the 2020 Engage with Asia DVD to school council members. This prompted significant discussion and a positive response to my proposal that we should expand our school vision to include an Engage with Asia policy. As a result we have now developed a policy which draws on the National Statement. It focuses on the importance of Asia-focused programs and activities for preparing students for the world of work, and an outline of the strategies for incorporating studies of Asia into school programs and activities.

A commitment to developing the policy also led to the inclusion of studies of Asia in the college’s four-year strategic plan and our annual implementation plan. Doing so has formalised our approach and is symbolic of our collective commitment to embrace studies of Asia in a coordinated way. School council has endorsed this approach.

Curriculum planning and implementation

Leaders working together

A key factor in implementing studies of Asia across the curriculum has been the capacity, willingness and enthusiasm of faculty leaders to plan, share and review progress together. Their collective commitment and energy has had a significant impact on faculty teams in the planning of units of work across year levels and faculties. Each leader models a positive ‘we can do it’ culture within their teams. They constantly reinforce the need for collective planning, sharing and ownership of ideas and practices. The Asia Scope and Sequence documents developed by the Asia Education Foundation (AEF) available through Curriculum Corporation have been useful resources for them in this work.

Links

Teachers working together

Teachers are being challenged to look at their current programs and encouraged to incorporate Asia-focused activities to assist in meeting the learning requirements as specified in the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) framework. The outcome of working together at faculty level is the development of units of work for classroom implementation.

This has led, in some instances, to replacing previous Eurocentric content with Asian content. An example in SOSE has been the inclusion in the Year 8 SOSE program of Japanese mediaeval history content rather than the traditional study of the European mediaeval period. It was recognised that concepts such as power, relationships, rule and feudalism could be explored just as easily in the Japanese context. This significant step represented a break from tradition and did require an expansion of teacher knowledge and a review of library and other resources. Students responded very well to the planned activities which proved to be very engaging.

In other instances it has led to the development of specific units of work with an Asian focus. In Year 7, for example, a unit of work on Australia's Asia-Pacific neighbours has been developed. Pre-testing of student knowledge was conducted prior to commencing a research-based approach to learning about Asia and followed up with a post-test, which clearly demonstrated broader factual knowledge and understanding by students.

In the English faculty a key entry point for embedding Asian content has been to re-examine the texts used for study at the different year levels. An audit of resources linked with the school commitment to incorporating Asian content, has led to the purchase of class sets for study purposes (for example, the Fortune Cookies anthology written by Christine Harris), and discussion by teachers about how these can be used in the classroom.

Using external experts

We have also explored the use of external experts to support the inclusion of Asia-focused learning activities in the English program. Simon Higgins author of Moon Shadow (and skilled in Japanese martial arts) has visited the school and a class set of his book has been purchased. Alice Pung, a noted writer has been engaged as an author in residence to conduct workshops and presentations for students in Years 9 and 10 and for Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) students.

Year 9 (PhoenIX) integrated program

An integrated unit of work is being developed for Year 9 students. The unit is organised around a global studies theme. With a particular focus on the Pacific Rim, students have been engaged in research and skills-based inquiry projects designed to enable in-depth study of issues in Asian countries and their impact on people in those countries and beyond. The outcomes of this unit will be shared with colleagues participating in the Korean study tour of which I am part.

Other curriculum areas

Curriculum leaders for The Arts, Technology and LOTE also work with teachers in their teams to incorporate Asian content in their programs. Through regular meetings of all curriculum leaders it is possible to identify ways of integrating the learning activities of students across curriculum areas.

What has become important for us in the implementation process is the steady building of an expectation that we will embed studies of Asia over time routinely into school programs. Initially the focus has been on developing effective practices. With modelling from our school leaders this is happening. In a very real way the development of our Engage with Asia policy and our commitment to formalising approaches to developing an Asia-inclusive curriculum for the college has come out of our commitment to action planning on the part of teachers as they work at faculty level and across year levels.

Connecting with other schools

Warrnambool College is linked with Brauer College, a neighbouring secondary college, in a joint project to assist in incorporating studies of Asia into our school programs. A successful application for an AEF grant has given us the opportunity to purchase resources and to release teachers for planning and professional learning. This is providing us with the opportunity to share learnings around common objectives and to discuss plans for joint activities.

I have also introduced the L21CS project to all principals in the Warrnambool Network Schools. Together with the Principal of Brauer College I will continue to inform them of our progress and to discuss possible ways of working together.

Next steps

With an Engage with Asia policy in place and explicit references to studies of Asia in our strategic and annual implementation plans, we have a mandate for continuing development and documentation of units of work that are Asia-inclusive within and across faculties and year levels. We are committed through our cultural literacy professional learning team and faculty leaders to the development of a coordinated and systematic approach to studies of Asia.

We will continue to expand our Asia-focused teaching and learning resources to strengthen our programs.

I recognise the need for high-quality group learning and planning time and will explore ways to bring teachers together to review what we are currently doing and to share and celebrate good practices.

In addition I want to explore the possibility of supporting teachers to undertake overseas study tours.

We will continue to work with Brauer College to strengthen studies of Asia in both schools.