I want to make clear to you what learning looks like at Danebank in the Senior School. What learning looks like both in and outside the classroom. In a word I want to share with you our culture.
At Danebank we believe that every single student can learn to be a powerful learner
Each of these beliefs guides us as a senior school but they only mean something if they are woven into the fabric of everything we do. If they are embedded and part of our culture. Our beliefs flow into everything that we do, forming our culture.
When a girl walks into our green gates, they are walking into more than just beautiful grounds, buildings, a philosophy of learning. They are walking into our culture and what happens when you enter an environment with a strong, exciting and compelling culture? It rubs off on you and you begin to adopt it as your own and I think, even more beautifully, you begin to contribute and rub off on the culture as well. Therefore, we work very hard at maintaining and developing our culture into something that we love and we know that your girls will love too.
So let’s explore this culture a little more.
Students are brought into a culture of learning, where they are directly and indirectly modelled on how to be the best learner they can be. We know that aspiration, the desire to learn, is one of the best indicators of success.
Our culture grows a confidence and aspiration among our students that
Students are explicitly taught and modelled how to develop and use the characteristics of a learner, for example:
We call these things “dispositions” or “learning muscles” … the characteristics that make someone a good learner.
Why is this important? Because we know that:
Our learning culture focuses on both looking inward and outward. We believe that learning not only happens inside the classroom but also outside of it. Our girls learn through a range of opportunities to apply their learning to the outside world. What happens in the classroom is extended and connected outside of it.
So let’s start by considering what goes on in the classroom. Key to who we are is that every girl is known, we have small class sizes meaning every teacher knows how each girl is progressing in her learning, knowing if she needs additional support, more encouragement or further extension.
One of the most obvious ways that we do this is through our comprehensive study skills program which runs from Year 7-12. Every girl is explicitly taught how to study effectively. Why is this important?
Well, a 2022 research study examined the impact of highlighting text whilst reading it on student learning. When students highlight as they are reading, what do you think it did for their memory?
The answer is: Helped them remember a little bit more, but understand nothing more.
It’s interesting isn’t it, students simply highlighting doesn’t seem to do much.
However, what the study also found was that with an hour or so of explicit instruction from a teacher on how to identify and highlight the main ideas instead of just supporting information, student memory and comprehension improved significantly.
Here's another one for you, in an experiment involving students in Year 7 which compared two study techniques, either cramming in a single session or dividing their study across three short sessions spaced 1 week apart. What did they find?
The answer is: The spaced revision resulted in better test scores, and had a significant impact on long term learning.
In both experiments, spaced revision not only produced higher test scores than did cramming, but it also improved long term memory for those students.
We do explicit study skill development. For three weeks of every term, students in Year 7-12 are explicitly taught how to be organised, how to study effectively and how to prepare for exams.
They learn how to:
This builds even more deeply our culture of being reflective learners who have the skills they need to thrive. We also know that this reduces stress and anxiety in our young people who can often find school work too much to handle.
Knowing every student means knowing when they need a little extra help and when they need stretching. Our classes have built into them high quality differentiated instruction, ensuring that every student is growing and engaged in rich learning experiences.
Our existing Gifted and Talented programs provide:
We also offer a wide array of Co-Curricular opportunities to stretch our gifted and talented students like:
These opportunities all offer different ways for our girls to strengthen their learning muscles, to build confidence, resilience in the face of challenges and a growth mindset.
We are also currently laying the groundwork to launch a targeted Gifted and Talented program at Danebank in the Senior School. This will follow the model of our Podium Ready Program created for our elite athletes.
This new Gifted and Talented program will further enrich the learning of our highly able students who will be supported and nurtured in their personal growth.
While we know that learning comes from inside our green gates, we also know that they need cultural, academic, social and political experiences that can only be found out in the world to help them see that their world is a big place, filled with diversity. That diversity of experience is crucial to their development. Students are offered a diverse suite of learning opportunities outside of the classroom that help them to look outward, to be servant hearted, community minded and to find and grow their voice.
We want our girls to be insightful and sophisticated, understanding the grey areas in life found only in real world experiences. This helps to shape their voice and find confidence in what they have to say, knowing that what they have to say is valuable and can influence our world for the better.
So we offer these experiences:
These all culminate to foster a broad and complex understanding of the world.
Finally, student leadership is a core aspect of learning at Danebank. If you remember when I said that our learning looks not just inward, but also outward? We emphasise developing young women not only with a voice but with the skillset to use it to influence others. Learning to influence and apply their learning outside themselves to the benefit of others is core to our Christian foundations.
Some of the ways that the girls can be and grow as leaders includes:
There really is so much that happens in the Senior School and I could go on, but I won’t. I want to leave you with something a bit more personal to me about what I love about this place.
It wasn’t long after arriving at Danebank a little over four years ago that I experienced what makes this place special. And ultimately what sold it to me was seeing the young women this school helps to produce. It was upon speaking to articulate, thoughtful, kind, thankful and inspirational young women that my wife and I decided to send our own daughter here. It is a place with an exciting and hope filled culture where learning in all its varieties is valued and developed.