TV

Narrator  00:00:05 Brisbane South State Secondary College is a shining winner of the 2024 educator 5-Star Innovative Schools Award. Join us as executive principal Kirsten Ferdinands and Deputy Principal, Kristin Lynch talk about their groundbreaking initiatives and vision for the future of education.  

Kylie Speer  00:00:24 Hello and welcome to The Educator TV. I'm Kylie Speer and joining me today is Kirsten Ferdinands Executive Principal and Kristin Lynch Deputy Principal at Brisbane South State Secondary College. Brisbane South State Secondary College has been named as one of the winners of The Educator 5-Star Innovative Schools, 2024. Welcome to you, Kirsten and Kristin, congratulations and thank you both so much for joining us today. 

Kirsten Ferdinands  00:00:51 Thanks, Kylie. I'm really excited. It's on behalf of the college. It's always wonderful be to be acknowledged for some amazing things that we are and when we're acknowledged for an innovation in in Education Award Absolutely, is something that we're excited by and will continue to strive for.  

Kristin Lynch  00:01:06 Hi, Kylie, thanks so much for having us today. Really excited to share some of our work from Brisbane South State Secondary College. 

Kylie Speer  00:01:14 Well, firstly, Kirsten in 2023 members of the leadership team co designed a research based culture rubric that describes the leadership attributes and behaviors of all staff. What does this entail, and what effect has it had across the college? 

Kirsten Ferdinands  00:01:31 Yeah, thanks, Kylie. It is what we call our unique culture here at Brisbane south and we were very intentional when we began the school around setting a really clear vision for what our college could be, not just in name, but certainly in the way in which we, we lead education, the way in which we we work around the whole child and the whole student, and professionally, what does that look like for us? So even within the school vision around the new standard and education, the new standard is far more than just a brief around that the architecture is new and a new build. The new standard is the way in which we approach education, the way in which we approach the way in which we work collaboratively. But we're aiming for that unique culture. People will be familiar with the term a traditional culture, authoritarian culture, and then we even unpacked, what does it mean to be a performance culture? What does it mean to be a learning culture, but we're striving as a college to be unique, and what does that mean? That actually means that we're doing things that have never been done before. So what are the actions and behaviors that are expected of all members, not just of our leadership and team, but of our whole staff in how we work, so how we work collaboratively, how we work to always be looking for how we we develop the next steps or the next steps in learning. But equally, it's around putting the student at the center of everything that we do and how we we enact that every day. 

Kylie Speer  00:03:00 Kristin, the college was one of 50 schools within Queensland to pilot the GP in schools program across 2023 24 in partnership with UQ healthcare. What impact has this had? 

Kristin Lynch  00:03:13 So the impact of the GP in schools pilot has been really great at reducing barriers for families and for students to access the GP service. So as you can imagine, sometimes when we ask or we work with families to investigate some health needs for their child, there's often a significant weight to access a GP or other specialists alongside that process, and what it's really done is allowed our GP to work really closely with families in a really timely manner, reducing that time barrier that's often there, and supporting them through that process as well. It's also allowed our students to really be able to have the opportunity to take responsibility for their own health needs, and they do have access to the GP when they need it, as they're heading into the senior school, which has been fantastic as well. Also having a GP on site has meant that they are one of our staff, and it means that they are able to build relationships with the students and build relationships within our community, which really just takes down the barriers of, you know, the scariness of going to a GP, talking to someone about your health, and really making that a normal process and a really accessible process. So it's been a really fantastic addition to our school community. 

Kylie Speer  00:04:37 Kirsten, the college has also recently been accredited as an International Baccalaureate school. What does this mean for the school going forward? 

Kirsten Ferdinands  00:04:46 Yeah, Kylie, it's really another exciting piece in what we've done, and certainly in terms of what was always our strategic vision, in terms of our education brief, about what's possible for public education, not just in question. Queensland, but Australia, and certainly internationally, because the International Baccalaureate program, not just a diploma course, but where we have now been accredited to also deliver a career pathway course for students, allows all students coming into our college through a public education to access a global curriculum and to create that global student who can access education and pathways beyond our school, our state and our country. And it talks about being an, you know, global perspective, and a student with an understanding beyond just the normal curriculum areas. And we're very excited, because what it will actually deliver for our students is multiple pathways to choose a way in which they want to learn a curriculum in which they feel best suits their needs and suits the pathways of choice. And we feel that our students are going to be exceptionally successful with this pathway, and we can't wait to be part of that broader IB global school partnership starting next year. 

Kylie Speer  00:06:07 Kristin, you are a full service community school with an integrated focus on academic achievement, health and well being, Youth and Community Development and Community Engagement. How has this boosted student learning, and what benefits does being a community hub offer outside of a formal classroom setting? 

Kristin Lynch  00:06:27 So the work we've done with our full service community school so far has really been focusing on one, setting up an integrated health care services on site at our college. So we've been working with the University of Queensland Health and Behavioral Sciences to make sure that we have a really broad range of expertise on site and through long arm supervision. So we have the GP, as we mentioned earlier, we've had social worker students. We've had counseling students, psychologists, provisional psychologists on site, sports psychologists, nutrition and diabetic expertise, and some psychology research students that have helped develop, you know, some research with some things that we're interested in, and what that's done is that it has enabled students to access that support on site, which is really rare for high schools to have that broad range, as I mentioned before, with the GP, it's really reduced the barriers for them to do that. However, what is unique about our model of full service school is that we are really focusing on a proactive response and approach to our full service school, so those health professionals are working with our teachers, alongside our teachers, to co design learning, co deliver learning on site, as well as seeing students on an individual basis. So what that means is, you know, they're in we've got expertise with our teaching teams when we're teaching health related things at school, and having those people you know co deliver that content and that expertise in group settings alongside our teachers as well, which is not only upskilling our teachers, but providing our students with really integrated health and wellbeing support and learning how to proactively manage that alongside what they're getting in their normal academic curriculum as well. We're moving into next year, having OTs, we've had physios before. We're looking at, you know, some exercise physiologists and things like that, who work on site as well. So that will continue to expand. But in addition to that, we're working on what does our community hub look like, outside that traditional nine to three sort of learning time. And how can we enhance the access to the community and reduce barriers for a range of different learning opportunities, whether that's health related, which is a big focus for us, or just some extra learning for parents, guardians, students that they are interested in, that might be, you know, micro courses beyond what the curriculum does, or, you know, something that they're passionate about at school. So we're heading into that phase of our school service, Community School, which is really exciting. 

Kylie Speer  00:09:12 Kristin, another of the college's Innovations has been go week. Can you tell us more about it and what you feel it as that was previously missing? 

Kristin Lynch  00:09:21 So our Go week concept is very similar to an O Week at university. So that's where the idea or concept came from. Go week is about our senior students moving into the senior phase of learning. So we talk about learning in our junior secondary phase at our college being learning to learn, and then once students move into the senior phase, we talk about leading learning and leading your own learning. So go week really is a boost for students to shift into their readiness about what how they're going to lead their own learning in senior school. It's an opportunity for. Those senior college students to really show their leadership and connect with everybody at the college. They have been working on leadership units where they put on a market day for the rest of the college. And that really invites our new students coming into junior secondary, our year sevens, for example, to embrace the college and connect with others, and it's been a really fantastic addition to the start of the school year, as our seniors have, we've moved into the senior phase of our schooling at our college. 

Kylie Speer  00:10:32 And finally, Kristin, you also host an annual student led conference. What types of topics and issues are discussed, and it doesn't offer teachers and parents an insight they would not normally receive. 

Kristin Lynch  00:10:46 So the student led conferences are part of our learner preneur program at our school, which is a really bespoke part you know, of the curriculum at our college. It's an event where the learnerpreneurs, or each year level, have an opportunity to connect with as learning partners with their parents and their teachers at the student led conferences. Well, during learnerpreneur The students really unpack who they are, how they connect with others, how they connect to their learning. They unpack their learning strengths and interests, their passions, trying to discover who they are as a person and where they're going to or how they're going to lead their learning in that senior college. So the student led conferences is an opportunity to share an E portfolio of work, and they share who they are, how they connect, or their global competencies, which is a huge focus at our college, and how they've developed those over the years, alongside their academic studies or their their regular curriculum, but also talking to their parents about how they can assist them with their learning, what they've learned about their learning, what their goals are moving forward, and what they're proud of. And it's really a massive celebration of a year's worth of work as the seniors getting to the senior college, it might be six months of work, but they talk about where they're headed. All of our students, sorry, all of our parents and our teachers all say that they learn something new about the student in that conversation, they say they learn something new about how to best support that student in that conversation, and they say that they find out things from that one conversation that they never knew before about that student, or what they're proud of. So it's a really powerful, powerful day in our community. It's a huge day of celebration that just brings lots of learning partners together to really make sure that we are setting up our students for success. Students have a really strong sense of pride in that day and what they're achieving, and year on year, as they are sharing that in their annual student led conference, they are just growing so much as a person, as human, and they're able to look back now that they're in senior school and say, Wow, look at look at where I've come from, and look at who I'm becoming and Where am I headed next. And it's a really strong support for our students around their agency, around their learning, but also setting up for what's next beyond school, and making sure that they are being equipped to be a lifelong learner as much as possible. So it's been really fantastic. That's awesome. 

Kylie Speer  00:13:26 I love the sound of a learnerpreneur. Well, congratulations, and thank you both once again for your time today, Kristen and Kirsten, it was so lovely speaking with you both. 

Kirsten Ferdinands  00:13:36 Thank you, Kylie. It's been fantastic. And as I listened to the buzzer students coming out for lunchtime just outside my window. I'm just going to finish by saying, you know, our school motto is Novo de serie Mundo. We are learning for a new world, and it's absolutely what we're doing. And I think the innovation in education award absolutely recognizes that. So thank you. 

Kristin Lynch  00:13:58 Thanks for your time. Kylie, really appreciated sharing some of the great work us and our teachers are doing for our student success at Brisbane South State Secondary College. 

Kylie Speer  00:14:07 And thank you, of course, to our viewers for watching the latest episode of The Educator TV. We look forward to seeing you again soon.