Building a School for the Future

"Schools in the information-rich, internationalised communities of the new century.will need to differ - in several fundamental ways from the schools which people were familiar with in the late stages of the twentieth century."

Headley Beare Creating The Future School (2001) p.24

How many ways would you like me to demonstrate that times are different from when we went to school? You know your daughter lives in a different world from the one you grew up in! Meeting her needs is our focus at MLC School.

While MLC is committed to being a school that acknowledges, respects and retains the best of its traditions, it sets its face firmly towards the future.

Twenty-first century learners need a new learning model to help them learn about learning.

Former and current students with Principal, Mrs Barbara Stone

This model operates from engagement and offers learners great flexibility in means. Broadly speaking, students need to be able to learn in teams, collaboratively, as a class, a section, a whole community or alone.

• Learners need to share learning experiences with their chronological peers and intellectual, physical, creative, emotional and spiritual peers, regardless of age.
• Learning experiences need to occur with their own teachers, other experts, students from other schools, other countries, on campus and off campus, in the city, in the country, interstate and overseas (even if only via computer).
• Students need to work within subject disciplines, across subject disciplines and on real and rich tasks, be they teacher directed, teacher supported/self-directed or totally self-directed.
• Engagement is being recognised as a critical factor in student achievement. So is teacher rapport and responsiveness. So is self-direction.

Reviewing our progress towards this goal we have refined our strategy at MLC to produce an approach to learning which will maximise the growth for every student as a whole person within the MLC School community. It may seem ambitious but we are looking to provide measurable gains (growth) intellectually, creatively, socially and emotionally as well as spiritually for every MLC school student.

Mrs Barbara Stone AM
Principal