By Mrs Louise Wallace-Richards, Assistant Principal Teaching and Learning

Regular readers of the Bulletin over the past four years would be well across Radford Secondary School’s engagement in a three-phase project led by Dr Shyam Barr to teach our staff about what self-regulated learning (SRL) is, why we need to teach it to our students and how to teach it. When Dr Barr was seeking a venue to launch his new book about SRL educate to self-regulate, Radford College, under the auspices of the Radford Institute, was happy to offer our Morison Centre to host the event.

The Radford Institute was first started under former Principal Phillip Heath as a concept to promote the sharing of ideas across a range of issues. More recently, we have reinvigorated and relaunched the Institute as an education and school improvement research centre. The aim of the Institute is to support teachers to translate learning and research into practice. This is achieved through a number of means, including:

• Provision of high-quality professional learning to teaching staff linked directly to achieving the SS Strategic Action Plan,

• Research into improving teaching practice at Radford College’s Secondary School,

• Sharing practice with colleagues of Radford College and other independent schools in Australia,

• Sharing practice with pre-service teachers through practicum experiences, and

• Building partnerships with other institutions of learning and experts including other Secondary Schools and national and international universities.

The event was a great success, with attendees from a variety of institutions, including the University of Canberra, Catholic Education, Association of Independent Schools, and a variety of leaders and teachers from Radford College, Canberra Girls' Grammar School, Burgmann Anglican School, Dickson College and Bonython Primary School, two of the other schools Shyam has worked with to encourage the teaching of SRL to students.

Professor Deborah Pino-Pasternak from the University of Canberra acted as the master of ceremonies for the event and during the evening interviewed myself, Ms Amanda Hawkins, Deputy Principal of Bonython Primary School and Ms Margaret O’Donnell, Mastery Learning Record Project Coordinator of Dickson College, about our experiences with SRL over the past few years. It was wonderful to hear the positive experiences students are having across the ACT with learning SRL.

Many thanks for the success of the event must go to the University of Canberra for, as Shyam expressed “contributing both human and financial resources to help this important conversation about SRL take place . . . and, of course – supporting an ongoing research agenda in this field.” Thank you also to The Book Cow for their pop-up bookstore, Mr Jason Golding, Acting Assistant Principal Curriculum for his excellent bar tending skills and Mr David Burcher for his assistance with the AV set up for the evening. Finally, and most importantly, to Ms Kelly McMahon, Mr James Rogers, Mrs Ali Dunne and Mrs Lisa Baker of the Secondary School Admin team for their organisation to ensure the event was a success.