Thankyou to our Early Years parents who respectfully adhered to our request with co-operation for the smooth running of our Athletics Carnival in the “new normal” we are experiencing. I acknowledge how many of you were disappointed to miss out on seeing your child run, jump, throw and cheer their way through the day. We, too, missed having you there, but are very grateful for the support our community is showing towards the decision making our College has needed to take.

Learning is in full swing across the Early Years. We have recently rolled out our own College version of The Learning Pit. This tool was developed by educational specialist James Nottingham. We know that learning occurs when you step out of your comfort zone and yet many people are hesitant to take this step for fear of making mistakes or revealing weakness. Nottingham developed The Learning Pit to help normalize the journey. It helps to make our lessons more conceptually rich and thought provoking, making better use of questioning and metacognition (thinking about thinking!) Ultimately, this leads to deeper levels of understanding. You will see we have intentionally linked it to our Learning Dispositions and the 5 B’s that many students already know to use when they find themselves stuck – Brain, Book, Board, Buddy, Boss. We are grateful to have been able to access the creative genius of a special artist in our community, Mrs Jo Cuskelly, who was, herself, thrown into the Learning Pit as she helped to create this masterpiece! Please include discussion around the Learning Pit in your dinnertime conversations – this will assist us in embedding “The Pit” so that it becomes part of who we are at OLSCC.

Katrina Walton

Assistant Principal Early Years