NSW Secondary Deputy Principals Association Inc.

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Building a School Culture of Personal Best
by Sue Vasilevska

Sue Vasilevska is current president of the NSW Association for gifted and talented children and is a past president of the AAEGT. Sue is a deputy principal in a NSW State disadvantaged school and has also been a deputy in a selective high school. Sue has worked as the NSW state gifted and talented consultant.

Her doctorate investigated why students from minority groups were under-represented in State run gifted and talented programs.

Sue enjoys teaching, presenting to parents and teachers and most importantly spending time with her family.

Building a School Culture of Personal Best

Our students are surrounded by examples of personal best in the form of sporting heroes, musical idols, business billionaires and academic achievers. Why then is it that some young people want to do the best that they can even in the face of adversity whilst others are content to get by?

My paper at the World Conference, revisited and built on the wide range of strategies to assist in developing a culture of personal best. One strategy is to explicitly teach students to plan for success. This is outlined below.

Within the classroom teachers can encourage students to write a learning goal for every new unit of work. This may be to:

• Increase their internet research skills
• Improve sentence construction or
• Ask two thoughtful questions each cycle.

Students can put these goals and the date in the back of their books and share them with the teacher. At the end of the unit the student reflects on whether they have achieved their goal, whether additional help is required or whether they should begin the planning of a new goal. Students need to be reminded that they are making progress and to accumulate proof of this.

• A simple KWL – ‘What I Know, What I Would like to know, What I have Learnt’ for each unit reinforces student progress and is an excellent way of sharing with parents what students have achieved.
• A reflective journal or learning log allows students time to reflect on and acknowledge what they have learnt in addition to providing invaluable feedback to teachers.
• Keeping a diary. Writing their homework, assessment tasks and exams in their diaries assists students to become organised. There will be little incentive for students to use their diary if homework is not checked consistently by teachers and families.

None of the above activities may take more than ten minutes to complete however the dividends for students who feel they are making progress can be enormous.

Page last updated July 2008