Silver linings: How PLC Sydney made the most of remote learning

PLC Sydney Principal Dr Paul Burgis chats with Junior School students.

The coronavirus induced transition to remote learning presented a huge range of challenges to schools and families, with many parents fearing that their children would be disadvantaged by the disruption.

But at PLC Sydney, it was far from a bad experience. In fact, “it was a great win”, says Principal Dr Paul Burgis, thanks to swift action and a lot of hard work.

PLC Sydney Principal Dr Paul Burgis.

By the time NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the closure of schools as part of the non-essential services lockdown, PLC Sydney had already taken classes online.

“We started on the Thursday before the premier made it official on the Monday,” says Dr Burgis.

“We decided when the curve really took off that we would try to avoid having a case and look after our staff [who] were particularly vulnerable because of adult-to-adult transmission.”

Using Zoom video conferencing software for lessons and Google Classroom for homework and assignments, the school of almost 1400 students didn’t skip a beat. Even the technology cooperated, with PLC Sydney encountering far fewer problems than anticipated.

The hardest part was keeping students engaged with learning, especially in the early years.

“For years 3-12, it worked really well. We were primarily concerned for the young ones,” Dr Burgis says, “they need more assistance.”

To provide that, PLC Sydney employed a “multi-modal framework” with lots of activity-based learning and problem solving tasks, supplemented by explanations and individual follow-up, he says.

“Power Up Wednesdays” allocated a day every week to creative, physical and wellbeing projects to help students cope with the emotional burden of isolation. A competition to “Walk Around the World” saw the girls collectively take enough steps around their homes to get to Florence, Italy; while the “Portrait in Isolation” project challenged students and staff to express their feelings in a self-portrait. The evocative results are now on exhibition at the school.

Year 9 student Emylene Kuoch’s self-portrait for PLC Sydney’s Portraits in Isolation exhibition.

“We also did a living history project, where students wrote their experience of working at home to pass on to future generations. One of the museums in Sydney thought it was a great project and they’re going to do something with it,” he adds.

“I’ve been really impressed by how calmly the girls have gone about things. Across the whole school the students have been fantastic. We haven’t had any increase in wellbeing issues; if anything slightly less.

“I want to pay tribute to the teachers for that. The comment from the students was that the teachers were really there for them.”

Positive outcomes from remote learning can be felt throughout the school, Dr Burgis says. Zoom has worked so well that they’ll be incorporating it permanently for classes at PLC Sydney’s Jindabyne-based Winter School. Boarders stranded overseas and in country NSW have been able to return to school virtually, and taking P&F meetings online has tripled attendance.

Year 12 student Helena Law’s self-portrait for PLC Sydney’s Portraits in Isolation exhibition.

Parent information sessions have gone digital too. Dr Burgis describes PLC Sydney’s inaugural webinar for 130 prospective parents as logistically challenging but ultimately successful.

“I presented, one of our vice-captains spoke and we did a virtual tour of the college. Our executive were all on standby to chat. Parents typed in questions and I answered as many as I could and the executive were all typing away answers.

“We got quite a few enrolments so I think we did okay.”

As constructive as these past few weeks have been though, nothing can replace the social aspects of school, Dr Burgis says.

“Students really missed their peers. After a while, working from home becomes a bit like Groundhog Day, every day follows the same pattern. Face to face we read the nuances and enjoy the physical company of others.”

Remote learning has many advantages but it’s exhausting in the long term and requires heavy lifting from teachers, students and parents to make it work, he acknowledges.

“I’ve really appreciated how the staff, teachers and executive have come together really well to make sure the learning worked. That’s been tiring though. This is normally a long weekend with a professional development day but we’ve given the staff an extra day off. They’ve been working hard and they’ve just done a huge professional development task on the job.

“We’ve been really grateful for the support of the community and because of that it’s worked well.”

Beyond School: Pymble Ladies’ College setting girls up for career success

Agenda setter … Pymble Ladies’ College principal Dr Kate Hadwen.

It’s well known that women climb the corporate ladder much more slowly than men and rarely reach the same heights. Motherhood is often blamed for impeding women’s career progression but it seems that the difficulty lies elsewhere.

A 2017 McKinsey report found that women are underrepresented in the corporate world from the outset with fewer female entry-level hires and greater barriers to promotion than men.

“The biggest gender gap is at the first step up to manager: entry-level women are 18 per cent less likely to be promoted than their male peers,” the Women in the Workplace 2017 report says.

“This gender disparity has a dramatic effect on the pipeline as a whole. If entry-level women were promoted at the same rate as their male peers, the number of women at the senior vice president and C-suite levels would more than double.”

Redressing this imbalance is one of the main aims of newly appointed Pymble Ladies’ College principal Dr Kate Hadwen. 

“I’d like to think we can start to better understand that and start to really work on it for our girls so that when they do get into their mid-20s and they’re at their first point of promotion, actually we can start to shift that needle a bit,” Dr Hadwen says.

“I’m really passionate about girls’ education. For me, helping young women, particularly in the workforce will probably be the tenor of my life’s work now.”

Dr Hadwen comes to Pymble Ladies’ College after four years as principal at PLC Perth. She’s worked in a variety of teaching roles at both the primary and secondary levels and taught in every state bar South Australia. 

She sits on several national boards, remains an adjunct research fellow at both the University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University and was awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research in 2011.

Improving young women’s career prospects is an eminently realisable ambition, Dr Hadwen says, and as principal of Pymble Ladies’ College she is well placed to see it through.

Research shows that single sex schooling is immensely beneficial for girls, especially in terms of academic results and engagement with STEM subjects, she says.

But it also impacts character development, Dr Hadwen says, citing a recent Australian study by Dr Terry Fitzsimmons that analysed “self-efficacy” — a psychometric term denoting self-confidence and resilience — in boys and girls attending single-sex schools.

“All the studies previous to that had said when girls finish school, their self-efficacy is lower than boys on average. His work found that actually, no, at single sex girls’ schools and single sex boys’ schools, when they finish Year 12, it’s the same.” 

She says that these results are probably because girls’ schools tend to explicitly teach leadership skills and provide an environment that is all “about developing strong women, developing women who have resilience, women who are future leaders, who understand what that looks like — to feel comfortable to be a young woman and to step forward confidently.”

Actively supporting girls’ wellbeing is an integral part of that, Dr Hadwen says. At PLC Perth she developed a world-leading health and wellbeing curriculum and dedicated wellbeing centre because “evidence shows that where schools have implemented a wellbeing program, there’s an 11 per cent increase in academic outcome,” Dr Hadwen says.

Girls are experiencing anxiety at “record highs” and technology, particularly social media, is exacerbating the trend while contributing to an epidemic of sleep deprivation amongst adolescents, she says. Parents often struggle to rein in their teenagers’ mobile phone dependency and need help, which is what led her to introduce a “no technology after bedtime” policy at PLC Perth.

The “wildly successful” initiative saw a whole of school pledge to turn off phones and other devices at bedtime. As a result, Dr Hadwen says that the girls got more sleep and no longer felt compelled to maintain a 24/7 social media presence. 

“When I announced it to the girls and the community, I was inundated; my in-box overflowed with messages from parents saying thank you,” she says.

Interestingly, reducing technology use also serves to increase self-efficacy in children. As Dr Fitzsimmons concluded in his report: “Overall, computer gaming and social media usage were identified as the greatest detractors from the development of self-confidence.”

There are many strands to supporting girls to succeed not just academically but for their whole life. As principal at Pymble Ladies’ College, Dr Hadwen says she is looking forward to “pushing that agenda” even further.

With approximately 2250 students, Pymble Ladies’ College is the largest girls’ school in Australia and, at 103, one of the oldest. It is also, thanks to its “long-standing history of excellence” very influential, Dr Hadwen says.

“What we do at Pymble sets the pathway for what other girls’ schools do. I think that’s a really unique position to be in as a leader of a girls’ school — to have that exciting opportunity but also that responsibility about where education for girls might go in the future,” she says. 

References

Women in the Workplace 2017 — Alexis Krivkovich, Kelsey Robinson, Irina Starikova, Rachel Valentino, and Lareina Yee, McKinsey and LeanIn.Org, October 2017
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2017

Hands up for Gender Equality: A Major Study into Confidence and Career Intentions of Adolescent Boys and Girls — Dr Terry Fitzsimmons, Miriam Yates and Victor Callan, AIBE Centre for Gender Equality in the Workplace, University of Queensland, 2018
https://bel.uq.edu.au/files/28153/Hands_up_for_Gender_Equality.pdf

Collecting Technology at Bedtime — Dr Kate Hadwen, LinkedIn.Com, October 31, 2017
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/collecting-technology-bedtime-dr-kate-hadwen/

NEGS riding high

Field day … For girls who love horses, there’s no place like NEGS. Credit: NEGS

Situated in picturesque Armidale, NEGS offers young women an excellent education in a healthy country setting.

Founded in 1895, the school’s 50-hectare campus is a vibrant mix of heritage architecture and new facilities, including state-of-the-art science laboratories, two undercover Olympic-sized arenas, a working farm, and a national-standard Equestrian Centre.

As an Independent Anglican school, NEGS offers a safe, progressive environment embodying Christian values. Its Positive Education ethos supports every student’s wellbeing so she can reach her own level of personal and academic achievement.

Amongst its proudest accomplishments, is the school’s outstanding equestrian program having produced national and Olympic champions.

 

Unique opportunity … NEGS hosts Australia’s only Polocrosse Academy for girls. Credit: NEGS

This year, NEGS has attained a new milestone, fielding its biggest representation ever at the Australian Interschools Championships with 10 students in the country’s foremost children’s equestrian competition.

NEGS girls will represent New South Wales and the Northern Territory, competing in every discipline: jumping, dressage, eventing, combined training and show horse riding, as part of the largest team in the national contest.

The school credits its recent appointment of Olympic Equestrian Imtiaz Anees as a driving force behind NEGS’ success. Since 2015, he’s been building on the school’s customised training programs for horse and rider to produce ever greater outcomes.

Working with fellow coach, elite equestrian Rachelle Hirst, Mr Anees has implemented a coach mentoring program to support all the school’s riders to realise their full potential competitively and recreationally.

“The selection in these teams is a credit to the hard work the girls have put into their riding to rise above the thousands of other students in their states,” NEGS principal Mary Anne Evans said. “It is also a testament to the dedication and commitment of our coaches.”

“A number of students come to NEGS with aspirations to become competitive riders on a state and national level, and NEGS aims to nurture their ambitions through our state-of-the-art training and fitness programs and extensive competition schedules,” she said.

Best of both worlds … NEGS offers cutting edge facilities in an idyllic country setting. Credit: NEGS

With Australia’s only girls’ Polocrosse Academy as well, riding sports of every ilk are championed at NEGS as are horse management skills and animal welfare.

Beyond sport, opportunities for extension and enrichment are offered in all subjects. Students in the Year 9 and 10 Scholars Program can study an area of interest in greater depth, working both independently on chosen projects and with teacher guidance. Where students need extra attention the school offers one-on-one and small group learning support.

Senior students can select from a broad range of academic and vocational subjects, providing a solid foundation for post-school opportunities.

An all-round education is central to the NEGS philosophy and the school has found that its keen athletes tend to bring the same discipline to class work with excellent results.

As the school says of its Polocrosse Academy: “Horse and rider fitness, health, welfare and resilience training sees the girls working together and individually before and after school. The structured schedule enables students to focus on their academic studies and grow as a player. Each student in the program has reported a marked improvement in their academic performance since commencing the training program at NEGS.”

As the saying goes: healthy body, healthy mind. At NEGS, girls are given every opportunity to achieve peak performance physically and intellectually.

To learn more about NEGS visit the Hills School Expo on Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10, 2017.

Staff from NEGS and many other independent schools serving the Hills area will be available to answer all your questions and offer you a deeper insight into their schools’ unique qualities.

This is an unrivaled opportunity to find the right school for your child.

The Hills School Expo
Where: Federation Pavilion, Castle Hill Showground, Showground Road, Castle Hill
When: Saturday, September 9 and Sunday, September 10, 2017
Time: 10am to 4pm both days
Cost: Free admission
Parking: Parking is free and plentiful at Federation Pavilion
Contact: Dorothy Willoughby on 0412 233 742