Join us for Episode 12 of the Flinders podcast series, Uncharted Waters: Conversations with the Principal. You can listen to this episode and others here.
In this episode, we hear from Flinders’ Head of Analytics and Academic Performance, Greg Blanch who has been on staff at Flinders since 2015, previously as Head of Curriculum. Prior to joining Flinders, Greg taught in Cairns for many years and admits he enjoys fishing in croc-free waters here on the Sunshine Coast!
In conversation with Principal Stuart Meade, Greg gives an overview of the College’s ‘Learner Profile’ project, a major initiative in the Secondary School that involves every student across Years 7-12. A Learner Profile helps to identify a student’s skills, strengths, and interests, as well as highlight potential barriers to learning.
The College’s main aim through this project is to make students aware that excellence in learning and life isn’t solely about exam results and ATAR numbers, but also about building personal character and competencies, and contributing to a better world.
As Greg explains, students are currently at the beginning of the process to develop their own Learner Profile. At Flinders, the process is student-driven and involves a number of stages:
- Complete a series of surveys to identify skills, strengths, and interests, as well as highlight potential barriers to learning
- Analyse the qualitative data and set goals to further develop strengths and improve weaknesses
- Choose which of Flinders’ vast array of co-curricular clubs or teams to join that will help in achieving these goals and developing new skills.
The Learner Profile focuses on the ‘Six C’s’, also known as The Flinders Traits, which are the essential 21st century skills of Collaboration, Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, Citizenship and Character.
To learn more, please read this article.
And to hear Greg and Stuart in conversation about Learner Profiles and more, listen here:
- (0:24) Greg, please share your experience in education.
- (1:10) What does your role involve as Head of Analytics and Academic Performance?
- (1:10) What is your role? Head of Analytics and Academic Performance
- (1:58) Please explain how we are working to value-add to students’ academic performance here at Flinders with the Learner Profile project.
- (5:10) How does the College collect data to develop the Learner Profiles? Please explain more about the surveys that students complete in the following focus areas:
- Emotional intelligence
- Ethical behaviour
- Preferred team roles
- Global citizenships
- Personality types
- Critical thinking dispositions
- (6:38) What is the feedback from students?
- (7:20) Where to from here? What are the plans for this project?
- (8:25) How do parents learn more about the Learner Profiles at Flinders?
