Philosophy Statement

Teaching is my passion and I wish to apply for a position wherever I am

needed within the greater Brisbane Catholic Archdiocese. Having grown up in
a small town, I feel passionately about regional students being able to have
access to quality education by faith-filled and enthusiastic teachers. My
burning desire is to see a students eyes light up when they master a concept
that they have been challenged with. In my planning and teaching, I design
learning experiences with academic rigour to challenge every student to reach
their full potential, documenting modifications and adjustments in my planning.
I believe in creating a sense of community in my classroom where every
student wants to come to school to learn and have fun. My faith is central to
my beliefs and upbringing and I model this whilst sharing it with the students
in my care.
My faith continues to deepen as I share it with children in my class and it is
important to me that children in Catholic schools get to learn about religion as
well as being religious.
At the centre of my philosophy and passion, is the students I teach. Every
decision I make within the classroom will be determined with my students
needs in mind and how I can further enhance their learning. My greatest asset
is my ability to work with disengaged and struggling students. These students
make me continually strive to better my teaching and myself so that I can
create an appropriate way to motivate and enrich their learning. It is my belief
that students work best with clear guidelines and expectations. This is why at
the start of every year my class and I will create a Class Covenant. Through
research and practice I have found that having the students create the
covenant themselves, makes it more personal and the students have more
ownership of the guidelines. I believe the Class Covenant is the link between
behaviour management, building a sense of community and sense of
belonging centred on the Gospel Values. Parents are the primary care givers
of the children and I will work in partnership with them to support the learning
of every student. I plan to work with the students and the parents to create
individual short and long-term goals. I will observe and learn from experienced
colleagues to enhance my practice as a beginning teacher and to learn about
the schools individual charism. Through these teachers, I will also learn
information about families so I can build rapport with all members of the
school community.
I believe that every student can learn given the right scaffolding and
opportunities. By making learning intentions of a lesson clear and specific to
students this assists them in gauging their own success and learning

progression. I plan to extend students knowledge, comprehension and

understanding through tailor-made lessons to suit students ability.
To enhance my teaching and to be able to further develop my pedagogical
practices, reflection will be a vital component to my development. I will reflect
on my lessons, have the students reflect on their learning and my units and
also discuss my teaching with my colleagues. As a life long learner, I believe
my pedagogical practices will continue to develop as I teach and learn new
approaches through further readings and discover from colleagues so that I
can gain more experience.
I am very familiar with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting
Authority (ACARA) documents and use them to plan engaging units of work
and learning experiences. My particular passion is to help students at risk
and believe one of my strengths is the way that I make adjustments in my
planning to allow all students to access the curriculum with support at a level
that they are able to have success. I believe my learning about teaching does
not stop at university. I strive to stay current by reading about theorists,
educators and clever ideas on websites, journals and webcasts. Reading
works published by researches like John Hattie and Lyn Sharratt, reinforce my
own beliefs about teaching. Good teachers make the difference and I plan to
be a good teacher to all of my students. I have chosen this career path
because in education because I witnessed teachers make a difference in
students lives and now I want the honour, privilege and challenge to do the
same.