The King's School annual reports 2010

Educational Support ServicesOne of the great strengths of The King’s School is its capacity toadd value to a student’s education. Nowhere is this expressed morecomprehensively than in the School’s Educational Support Services(ESS). This unit is staffed by five colleagues whose role is to giveenrichment to those students who need a little extra help with theirlearning. Some of the advances made by students, after they havebeen helped by the ESS department, are nothing short of miraculous.Overseas TripsThe academic program of The King’s School is enriched by overseastrips and by a language exchange program. Several Senior Schoolstudents studying German and French attend Schloss Salem in Germanyand Tivoli in Bordeaux, France, in order to enrich their linguistic skills. Inaddition, language students in Years 8 and 9 travel to New Caledonia inorder to practise their French.The Primary Years’ ProgramThe King’s School Preparatory School continues to run the Primary Years’Program (PYP). The PYP is an enquiry based learning system developedby the International Baccalaureate Organisation. At its heart is thestimulation of interest so that a student is motivated to learn rather thanhaving to be driven to the fountain of knowledge by his teachers. Thecreative activity witnessed within the Preparatory School bears testimonyto the effectiveness of this program. Nowhere is this more evident thanin the Year 6 Enterprise Program which sees boys in Years 6 undertakingambitious building projects including making fully operational dunebuggies, speedboats and engaging in a variety of other creative exercisessuch as writing books and designing high tech recycling initiatives. It issmall wonder that the Preparatory School’s results, as measured by theNational Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests,are outstanding.Conferences At King’sG20 ConferenceEarly March saw The King’s School hosting the G20 Conference. TheG20 is made up of 20 leading schools from around the world such asEton (UK), Deerfield Academy (USA), “Bishop’s” (South Africa), the DoonSchool (India), the Geneva International School (Switzerland) and theRaffles Institute (Singapore).The purpose of the G20 is to give support to iconic schools in theirtask of leading educational change in their respective countries. Itwas a privilege for The King’s School to host the G20 and to run aconference that featured presentations in the NSW State Parliament,NSW Art Gallery and by several prominent educational thinkers suchas Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, and the State Minister for Education, theHon. Verity Firth.National Boys’ Education Conference10-12 October 2010There are not many schools that are able to run national conferences,but over the last decade, The King’s School has run the National Boys’Education Conference. This year’s Conference attracted speakerssuch as Dr Michael Gurian and Dr Adam Cox, both from the UnitedStates, together with some local expertise, including a marvellousConference dinner speech by Mr Kevin Sheedy AM, the well-known AFLcoach and mentor of young men.One of the features of the National Boys’ Education Conference wasloaning each of the 380 delegates an iPad on which they could giveinstantaneous feedback on the speakers and workshop presenters.This was an educational first and has emboldened conferenceorganisers around the world to engage with this sort of technologyin order to increase the level of connection between delegates andpresenters.Australian Boarding Schools’ Association Conference,Canberra – 26-29 September 2010Although not responsible for running the Australian Boarding Schools’Association (ABSA) Conference in Canberra, The King’s School playeda major part in the Conference. The Chairman of ABSA, is provided byKing’s, and its most significant researcher is Mr Brad Papworth. Mr Papworthis studying the effect boarding has on academic advancement andon the social development of students. This PhD project has attracteda federal government grant of several hundreds of thousands of dollarsand is generally recognised as the most significant piece of research intoboarding being undertaken anywhere in the world.