Research is abundant with evidence of the rise in anxiety in children being linked to social media and smart phones, academic competition and pressure, changes in family dynamics, global uncertainty around issues of climate and conflict presented in a 24-hour news cycle. Parents spend more time working but also more time parenting (sometimes from a helicopter) than ever before, yet our children are not seeing the benefits. Our children have more stuff (and opportunities) but are often less happy. Added to this picture is growing uncertainty around the effects of AI on future employment, relationships and thinking.
The AI Loop in education is a situation where teachers create content or assignments using AI, students then use it to complete the work, followed by teachers then using it to mark the work! It’s hard to imagine a greater waste of time and resources. We enact widespread restrictions on the use of screens and phones (especially social media) in primary and lower secondary school, and strongly encourage our families to do the same.
We value the goodness, beauty, and truth of human experience. We want students to be learning through tangible hands-on experiences that are brought to them by staff that value the relationship with students above all else. Our Early Childhood offering starts with playgroup and continues through seamless transitions to 3- & 4-year-old kinder and Prep which remain play-based, providing the extra time children need to become ready for structured academic learning. From Class 1, primary students stay with the same class and teacher for the 6 years of their primary education. This fosters safety, security and builds relationships between students’ parents and teachers.
It is not until around Age 14 that the capacity for more complex abstract reasoning becomes accessible for most children. For this reason, the curriculum up to this point focusses on accessing learning through the children’s natural ‘feeling’ for the world around them and fostering interest, awe, reverence and gratitude for the natural world and for the many incredible stories that make up the tapestry of human history and the development of thought. Of course, literacy and numeracy are a huge focus of this age period but, it is taught through, within and connected to the context of actual human experience.
In Year 9, through our substantial Outdoor Education Program, students develop responsibility and self-reliance that they can take into the academic rigor of our Senior Years Program in years 10-12. In these years the development of critical thinking skills is marked, and it is a joy to watch the emergence of what more closely resembles their adult self. Opportunities for international exchange, leading into the International [CC1] Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) in years 11 and 12, expand our student’s worldview and further encourage them to begin to imagine how they may become a contributor to a kinder more understanding world.
We love that our students are active and involved in all the levels of community sport that Mansfield has to offer. We understand that education is not sport or a competition and neither is child development. It is not a race. Chasing grades seeking the approval of others is fundamentally different from developing an inner drive to learn, a willingness to be wrong, to fail gracefully and continue. We hope they develop a deep understanding that the people playing the game (either on the field or in the classroom) are vastly more important than the game itself and that our ability to connect with each other will determine the fullness of our lives.
Principal Glenn Hood
