Great Scot May 2020 Great Scot 159_MAY 2020_ONLINE_V3 | Page 7

continuous improvement; Changing workplace –
flat hierarchy and culture, identity and routines in
self managing teams; Protecting workers not jobs;
Ethics (mention was made of Prof Peter Singer
(’63)); Innovation; Sustainability and the circular
economy; Alternative finance – block chains and asset
tokenisation; Social purpose and competition; and
Unknown unknowns and Black Swans.
In an educational context, I suspect much can be
grouped into four themes: Personalisation, Diversity,
Enterprise and Sustainability. Working amongst the
leadership groups of the School, over the coming year
we will consider,
• Personalisation: how might technology,
including AI, better improve learning
relationships and outcomes in a Scotch context;
and how might we better match the interests
and talents of individual members of staff to
those of individual boys?
• Diversity: how might we better engage with,
learn from and serve communities and agencies
beyond our immediate bounds?
• Enterprise: how might we better prepare boys
for the densely connected low hierarchical
environment of wealth creation and the melding
of social and economic enterprise?
• Sustainability: does a circular economy have
opportunities at Scotch? What are we planning
under the theme of sustainability?
In addition to these key programming themes,
we will be continuing our close association with the
Australian Childhood Foundation, in this, the middle
year of our three year accreditation as a Safe School.
In line with our master plan for campus development,
we will be bringing current works to fruition in the
ongoing pursuit of our educational strategic intents.
The Keon-Cohen Dining Hall and St Andrew’s Square
will deliver a marketplace of interaction at the heart
of Scotch life surrounded by 12 House Home Rooms.
English will move to its new home in the Lithgow
Centre, further fuelling identity and belonging, as,
similarly, the Language department occupies the
top two floors of the Language and Culture Centre.
Continuing the theme, the new home for OSCA and
Archives, and the new Scotch (Uniform) Shop, will
open along Morrison Street.
The end of the year will bring the completion of
the first round of projects from the Teacher Action
Research and Career Development Programme
launched at the start of 2019. Education will be
provided for boys, staff and parents on the impacts
and uses of technology, including presentations by
American educational and clinical psychologist,
Dr Adam Cox.
We will further advance the Scotch Educational
Reading Group, established at the end of last year
under the guidance of Director of Research, Teaching
and Learning, Dr Peter Coutis, to discuss seminal
education research articles. Partnering with the
Crescent School, Toronto, and Dr Michael Reichert,
and supported by the International Boys’ Schools
Coalition, we will further develop the recently
launched International Special Interest Group on
relational teaching and learning, which connects
interested schools into clusters to share expertise and
advance their relational teaching practice.
In the Junior School, focus on development themes
of Embracing difference and An attitude of caring for
others will be given structure with the introduction of
a Peer Support model involving all boys from Prep to
Year 6. Alongside the ongoing rolling out of the iPad
programme across Years 4-6 and further development
of offerings in science and technology, there will be a
major literature focus on the creative power of poetry.
In the Senior School, new structures and positions
relating to operations (Dean of School Operations,
Stephen Kong), boys (Dean of Students, David
Brown) and the Middle School (Deputy Head of
Middle School, Rob Blackmore, supporting Head of
Middle School, Katrina Stalker) will be honed and
bedded down.
Elsewhere, there will be continued emphasis on
boys’ voice (including the website Newsfeed facility),
and respectful relationships; a Staff Experience and
Engagement Survey will be developed and a new
sports uniform will grace ovals, pitches, courts and
rivers at home and away.
Of the many seeds for thought of my time at
the Judge Business School, one that continues to
resonate is economist Dani Rodrik’s proposition
that we can have at most two of national identity,
globalisation, and democracy. I put this to the boys
in an Assembly early in the year, following it up at
another by suggesting that in their immediate lives
they could, perhaps, see national identity as their
desire to be part of a group they feel has characteristics
that distinguish it from others; globalisation as their
desire to move between and connect groups for mutual
advancement; and democracy as their desire to protect
the needs and advance the prosperity of the many,
while understanding that this often necessitates doing
likewise for the few or the one.
The connection of the intimate, personal reflection
of an imagined world, with all we observe and those
with whom we observe it, rests at the heart of a liberal
education, as does, perhaps, any progress with Rodrik’s
conundrum.
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