2015 Executive Director drops in on students during Catholic Schools Week

Greg Whitby enjoying a class at Mary Immaculate Primary, Quakers Hill

To coincide with Catholic Schools Week, Executive Director of Schools, Greg Whitby visited St Joseph’s Primary, Schofields and Mary Immaculate Primary, Quakers Hill to meet with students, staff and school leaders this week.

At St Joseph’s Primary, Greg met with teachers, Roslyn Earl and Katie Bates, to get an understanding of the issues and challenges facing teachers. 

In the Year 3 classroom, students shared how using iPads supports their learning and discussed the different Apps and how they use them in the classroom.

Greg then met with the school leadership team – Principal Cheryl Brown, Assistant Principal Joanne Delvecchio, Religious Education Coordinator Leanne Farhat and Coordinator of Learning Trevor Atkins – to talk about the work of using data to improve student outcomes and strategies to improve teaching..

Greg said that he was very impressed with the outstanding commitment of teachers and leaders at St Joseph’s.

‘We need to find more support for teachers to enable them to find time and ways to work together, collaborate, plan and analyse the data they’re collecting so they can meet the needs of each students to improve their learning,’ said Greg.

At Mary Immaculate Primary Greg met with Principal Paul Devlin before touring a number of learning spaces. Greg spoke to Year 4 students to ask what they liked best about school and students responded enthusiastically with ‘learning new things’ being the most popular answer.

The students told Greg about the fun they were having with poetry and read some of their recent work.

Moving onto the Year 5 learning space, staff and students showed off the beginnings of a very impressive igloo made out of plastic bottles as part of their learning unit on Antarctica. 

Talking to teachers, Greg spent time getting to know them on a personal level and listening to their stories.

Catholic Schools Week provides an opportunity for Catholic schools to showcase what happens every day in our schools and invites the community in to experience teaching and learning at its best.

Greg Whitby talks to students at St Joseph's Primary, Schofields