Thought Leadership

Rigour must reflect all the results that matter for high school graduates today. The results that matter in the 21st century go beyond traditional metrics because today’s graduates need to be critical thinkers, problem-solvers, and effective communicators who are proficient in both core subjects and new, 21st-century content and skills. These skills include learning and thinking skills, information- and communications-technology-literacy skills, and life skills. These are skills that are in demand and will have an enormous impact on their future prospects.

You might have seen the acronym LEAP in the school bulletin and wondered what it was. Literacy Extension and Acceleration Project is THS’s thriving program for students receiving literacy learning extension run in an active, workshop format where students respond to creative writing prompts, share their work and critique their peers.

We often think of science in terms of complex names, properties and equations, hours spent in laboratories conducting boring experiments and then painstakingly memorising for exams. Must it be this way though?
 

At THS, we value learning as a community, and from each other. Kids Teaching Kids day is a perennial favourite amongst our students, but did you know that our teachers teach, share and learn from each other too? Many students were tickled that their teachers became students for a day during our most recent Professional Development Day on March 18.

The seminal psychologist Lev Vygotsky believed that people learn from doing and social interaction. Part of that process of learning and getting good at something is learning from one’s mistakes. But when people are taught to always aim for 100 per cent at tests, mistakes then become reasons for stress and anxiety. In some cases, this emotional response greatly impedes learning. 

To drive student interest and motivation in learning history, THS has adopted a board game approach to teaching and learning where students acquire knowledge through role-play and simulation where they actively participate in complex decision-making and strategic thinking.