Education is not just about preparing for assessments. It should prepare our students for work and life.

The media often report statements such as “education hasn’t changed since the 1800s”, “school is not relevant to life” and “teaching is just focussed on assessment”. I believe education today has changed significantly, it is more relevant to life, and it is much more than just assessments! However, we still have much work to do to ensure the relevance of education.

Our Goal

An education at Santa Maria College aims to not only prepare our girls for the world of work but also for life. We want our girls to see how their learning is relevant to their lives today, to their future lives and to a changing world of work. We want to ensure they have the attributes to be young women who can make a difference in society.

Santa Maria College Vision

This year the College has been working on a vision, a vision that Connects Learning to Life. We want to ensure our students are equipped for the future and that our teaching and learning provides our students with the skills they will need.  Our staff, under the leadership of Simone Sawiris, Deputy Principal Teaching & Learning, have been collaborating and identifying the critical attributes our students need. The attributes we have identified, and are committed to developing in our students are below.

As parents, we hope you will see the development of these attributes in your daughter from the time she commences at the College until graduation.

Our Connecting Learning to Life attributes will be incorporated into many different aspects of College life. These attributes will be identifiable throughout our:

• Academic programs,
• Co-curricular programs (especially through our Service program),
• Enhanced learning programs (Seek7, Explore8 and Strive9), and
• Camps, tours and immersion programs.

Why These Attributes?

Who knows what future jobs will look like. One thing I am sure of is that for many of our younger students, the future jobs will look vastly different by the time they graduate from university or complete a TAFE course. Here are some examples from an article I was reading on The Top 10 Jobs in 2030.

1. Trash Engineer
2. Alternative Energy Consultant
3. Earthquake Forecaster
4. Medical Mentor
5. Organ/Body Part Creator
6. Memory Surgeon
7. Personal Productivity Person
8. Personal Internet of Things (IoT) Security Repair Person
9. Flight Instructor
10. Commercial Space Pilot

Consider how many of our Connecting Learning to Life attributes will be useful to our girls in taking on one of these future jobs? We believe many.  By developing these attributes, in our girls, we believe we are preparing them for a bright future.

Today our staff are participating in Learning Area-based Professional Learning.  They are focussing on developing their skills, knowledge and understanding of making stronger links of learning to life. In the next few weeks, we will showcase some of the great opportunities our staff have been involved in.