Excellence centre to aid schools

Jon Hart and teachers celebrate a new Centre for Excellence.

Bruce Thomas

COFFS Harbour now has a Centre for Excellence, paving the way for schools to improve teaching quality.

Coffs Harbour Senior College’s (CHSC) Jon Hart gained a Highly Accomplished Teacher standing on the North Coast, providing the catalyst for the school’s recognition as a Centre for Excellence.

The Centre for Excellence is not an educational facility. It is more a cluster of initiative, ideas and information to better local public school practices and teaching strategies. In addition to the CHSC, the cluster includes Toormina, Orara, Jetty and Woolgoolga high schools.

Mr Hart said the schools would work together to improve education by pooling resources and knowledge.

“Next term we will have days where teacher representatives from the school cluster will come together to discuss to improve results,” he said.

“Another part of the program is allowing university students who are studying education to shadow teachers, preparing them through practical sessions in the classroom.”

Rhiannon Calvert is studying a Graduate Diploma of Education in Secondary Science and has been shadowing a chemistry and physics teacher one day a week for the past six weeks.

“These practical sessions have given me insight into how theory can be related to a classroom atmosphere and how a teaching plan and syllabus is put into action,” Ms Calvert said.

“You see classroom dynamics, behavioural reactions and management first hand and it takes away the fear of being in front of a class.”