Highly Accomplished and Lead Teachers (HALT) from Catholic Education recently travelled to Brisbane to attend the HALT Summit. Held over two days, the Summit provided an opportunity for our HALTs to work with leading thinkers, develop skills that equip them to lead and inspire other teachers and collaborate with other HALTs.

Attendees heard from keynote speakers, neuroscientist and co-founder of LME (Learning Made Easy) Global, Dr Jarred Horvath; applied social psychologist, Dr Helen Street and; Emeritus Laureate Professor John Hattie.

Dr Horvath discussed the stages of surface, deep and transfer learning and highlighted the importance of giving context to teaching. He stated that students need to practice in a variety of different contexts to improve their transfer of learning.

Dr Helen Street spoke of the need to consider student wellbeing as being more than a program and the importance of developing strong relationships in positive environments to encourage student motivation. She examined different ideas for creating positive spaces including seeking first to understand a student’s point of view, demonstrating safe behaviour, leaving stress at the door when entering the classroom, supporting respectful free speech and embracing mistakes.

The Sharespace session gave participants the opportunity to present their practice to other HALTs in a 15 minute discussion-based seminar.

Kathleen Garvie, Maths Coordinator at Merici College, Braddon, said that one of the highlights of the conference was the discussion held with teachers from all over Australia about best practice.

“Thank you to the Catholic Education Office and to our schools for supporting us so that we could attend the conference,” she said.