Julie Atkins

 In 2015 I was invited to attend a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Rome and Assis.  It was a great experience and a great opportunity to build relationships,  that I will never forget.

On my pilgrimage, everyone had different reasons, hopes, and expectations.  However, for me I believe it was the spirit that was working for me to be able to go.  At that stage, I had been acting as a REC at St Agnes when the call went out and I was not able to apply.  However, within a short period of time I had been made permanent and there were still spaces available so I applied.  I put my faith in God and I was open to the spirit, knowing that the spirit would guide me.

I was really nervous about going as I only knew a couple of people and I was really new to the position.  At that time I wasn’t comfortable with being uncomfortable.

On pilgrimage we were encouraged through different activities to get to know each other, we sat on the bus with different people learning about each other’s lives, hopes etc.   We had to sing daily prayers on the bus – I can sing, but not in tune – I was concerned about when it was my turn.

In my leadership position at St Luke’s being uncomfortable now is normal – every day is different and at times we never know what to expect.  But people are the constant, and building relationships with others is key.

It was in the people that we traveled with that we saw the face of Jesus.  Seeing the tears of joy in Fr Chris’s eyes at the Jordan where Jesus was baptised, spending the evening in song on the Sea of Galilee enjoying each other’s company, walking with each other on our pilgrimage – the qualities of humour and joy were present.

I see my vocation as a mother and a teacher, nurturing others, listening to others, trying to help others to be their best selves, helping them to flourish at the same time as myself, but also bringing people together.

Relationship building in a Catholic learning community is significant.  The pilgrimage taught me the importance of sacramentality in the everyday moments such as sharing meals and being present to one another – this really resonates with me as I started my teaching career as a TAS teacher – food tech and textiles, I would always talk to students about the Eucharist as we came together over food.  In my leadership I still try to do this, I try a couple of times every term to bring the staff together over fresh scones – you can’t go wrong!!  In an attempt to build community.

The pilgrimage has also taught me the importance of making RE teaching real, giving students real-world situations that students can relate to, and attempting to reach the head, the heart, and the hands of each student in front of me.  On pilgrimage, we had mass on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in a place called Tabgha – meaning seven springs.  In this Mass, we heard from the Gospel of John 21:1-22 where Jesus told the disciples to “cast out your nets”.  At this place where the seven springs meet the water is slightly warmer and algae form more readily for this reason.  These algae becomes the fish food which would explain the haul of fish caught. This helped to inform the head, to make it more real but at the same time develop emotion to speak to the heart.

Being there on location hearing the scripture brought it to life and then coming home it sparked something within me making me want to go out and share it further with staff and our students.

If I hadn’t gone on pilgrimage the reservoir that feeds/nourishes my vocation would have remained dry.  However, through pilgrimage, that reservoir was filled beyond full.  As a result, the overflow has continued to renew elements of my leadership 

On pilgrimage, the intimacy and simplicity of our time of prayer and worship has had a profound impact on my liturgical leadership at school.  In my present context at St Luke’s we have a vastly diverse student population where we have approximately 52% Catholic students with a lower percentage practicing.  The pilgrimage taught me the power of simplicity and intimacy for prayful experiences that offer transcendence to a spiritually diverse congregation.  For example – Fr Chris saying mass at the river Jordan, at Shepherd’s field just outside of Bethlehem, and my fellow pilgrims singing “Gentle Woman” in the beautiful Church of St Anne just inside the Lion’s gate in Jerusalem.  These opportunities for prayer were simple, with all of us together, with the spirit within and around us guiding us on our way.

I remember quite clearly – before we left Israel for Rome, Fr Chris talking to us saying that we have had our mountain top moments, but we are people who live in the valleys and we need to figure out how to incorporate our mountain top moments into our everyday lives.  I can now see that life is a pilgrimage and I look for the Mountain top and cherish those moments.

I lead Faith and Formation in a school where we are truly a Catholic school for all,  and at times I struggle in the valley as a faith-filled leader trying to share the love of God.  When I reflect back on some of the mountain top experiences from pilgrimage like visiting and celebrating mass at the Basilica of the Transfiguration at Mt Tabor – I think of Fr Chris starting mass with “it is wonderful for us to be here!” from Matthew 17:1-9 – this inspires and reminds me that my role in leadership is to assist transformational moments of Grace within my School community.

Whether it’s with a plate of scones or a eucharistic chat over a spaghetti prac or through bringing witness to the RE classroom – the pilgrimage has transformed my capacity to bring light and freshness to live out my call to discipleship.

This year has seen the beginnings of the HSC stress at St Luke’s.  Not only students feeling the pinch but also the teachers who are focussing on NESA written courses.

Having been teaching at St Luke’s since 2017 I have been out of the loop for the HSC for a few years now.  In teaching Living Life to the Full and the current hybrid version of RE we are currently teaching, inquiry learning forms the basis, and it allows great opportunities for teachers to include creativity and also for students to use their voice and choice in determining the way in which to present their understanding.  Seeing students excel and become more independent in their learning has been fantastic to see, however as I am now getting back into the HSC I am finding myself frustrated with teaching to write for an exam. 

In teaching Studies of Religion I am teaching about the religions of the world in all their beauty, learning about foundational underpinnings and how they are expressed in different ways by their adherents to become a living breathing faith.  These religious faiths have been around for thousands of years in all their beauty and intricacies, the more I learn the more I feel I need to learn.  Yet, rather than spend more time getting to know the different faiths (which I see in a multi-cultural and multi-faith community as being paramount in building tolerance and understanding) we are having to teach students to compound their understanding into a specific amount of lines to suit a prescribed exam format.

I see the frustration on my students’ faces, some of them are gifted with writing whilst others struggle.  In talking with students they understand the content but it is in the writing where the struggles become apparent.  Students could produce some fantastic work given the content of Studies of Religion and given the context of the community in which we live, however, students would need to be provided voice and choice – would NESA be able to provide this??

We are being asked to teach creativity yet these final exams are so prescriptive – perhaps NESA needs to think about where and how creativity can be addressed in the HSC years and if writing in a particular way is necessary perhaps ensure it is REAL World and that the students will be able to apply the skills already developed to the real world. 

For now, we battle on to ensure we do the best for our students, but it would be nice if NESA was with us trying to bring the best out of all students, just not those academically gifted ones.

COVID 19 has certainly stretched our understanding of teaching and learning.  The staff at St Luke’s Catholic College have had to show flexibility in adapting to Connected Learning (our version of remote learning that not only focuses on teaching and learning for students but also the well-being aspects to ensure our students remain happy and healthy).  However, in a Catholic School formation also plays a significant role.  In thinking about this I found Bishop Vincent’s dream for the Parramatta Diocese

“My dream for Religious Education in the Diocese of Parramatta is that the students come to know Christ and to love his Teachings, what He stands for and to be inspired by Him in order to follow in his footsteps and to give witness to the values that he taught us and He exemplifies,”.

This has always played on my mind as the Leader of Mission, but as we continue through the Term 3 COVID lockdown this has been more so at the forefront of my thinking and in conversations that I have had with others  – In Lockdown how do we allow our students to know Christ and His teachings?

CEDP (catholic Education Parramatta Diocese) states on the website that:

“Our teachers share their faith and example with students making schools great places to grow in faith and learning.  Students flourish as they develop specific knowledge, understanding, skills and strong values.

This is so true.  On a daily basis in face-to-face teaching this happens organically, teachers form strong relationships with students which helps this to become common practice.  However with COVID the concern of not having the face to face contact as previously I wondered how this would impact students’ formation overall.  

In Connected Learning teachers have really drilled down on what is absolutely necessary for students to learn (my less is more approach) and have focussed on this to build students’ understanding and knowledge.  Our remarkable teachers have over the past 10 weeks led by example and have modeled our faith in many different ways including meditation and liturgy.

Meditation has been used in the School of Foundations K-4 since the school started in 2017.  Meditation allows the students to cut off from the busyness in their world and to focus on the mantra Ma – ra – nath – a meaning “Come Lord”, which is a prayer in itself.  Whilst for Early Stage 1 students meditation may only last  2- 3 minutes in total this is built up within our school where students in years 5-10 are invited to attend meditation at midday daily using St Ignatius Loyola’s Examen, where we are invited to reflect on our day and the moments in which we have seen and felt God in our days, and identifying where we can try and improve this going forward.  Meditation has been formative for our students especially in this lockdown period of Connected Learning.

During term 3 we have also provided opportunities for liturgy online.  Whilst a lot of time is spent learning online for our students we have reached out to our students, families, and staff for the Feast of the Assumption and a special liturgy for Father’s Day.  Our Mission team working closing with Deacon Tony Hobanhas provided formation opportunities for all parties involved in the Learning Community of St Luke’s to deepen their relationship with Jesus and come to know him more deeply.

Staff have also had the opportunity to participate in a Colloquy hosted by Professor Anthony Maher on the topic of God in our World.  These sessions are all well received by those staff who accept the invitation to attend.  It is important for our staff to continue their faith formation journey because as stated in Educating Together in Catholic Schools , 25 

Catholic educators need a “formation of the heart”: they need to be led to that encounter with God in Christ which awakens their love and opens their spirits to others so that their educational commitment becomes a consequence deriving from their faith, a faith which becomes active through love.

Formation really is at the centre of all Catholic schools and as such and sometimes without being aware of it we are all being the hands and feet of Christ.  We, meaning all stakeholders in our St Luke’s Catholic  College community, must all continue our faith journey because by doing so we allow ourselves and assist others to flourish in their own lives.

Term 2 2021 at St Luke’s, teachers for professional learning were given the choice as to what they would like to do.  I chose to attend 3 workshops conducted by Stephen Harris.  The topic Stephen was covering the skills and capabilities our students need for a rapidly changing world.

As with our Project walls at St Luke’s Stephen provided:

If

the focus is on the skills and capabilities our students need for a rapidly changing world,

then

we need to think through what those skills and capabilities might be,

which will lead to

working out how to integrate these into existing learning experiences and curriculum programs

This has provided me with some serious reflection on my practice as a teacher. 

As an RE teacher using the Inquiry process initially I would have said that YES we are moving in the right direction, are we perfect?  NO, far from it.  However, this would have been said without any thought as to Learner Agency.  In this situation I would say that learner agency is the power to act.  So my initial thoughts have been slowed as now I am thinking about how to make this jump from:

Control To Agency

Compliance To Choice

Mandated To Created

Given To Discovered

I will go into Term 3 trying to somehow let go of the control in the classroom, handing the learning more to the students – student Need to Knows will be my starting point!!

The challenge that Stephen set us will be in the back of my mind going forward as I can see the power for students to act on their learning.  I can try this in my practice but a further challenge will be to see this practice in collaboration with other teachers – as all of our teaching is collaborative it will be an added layer.

Stage 6 2022 – how can we apply 21st century skills to the already painful HSC.  Honestly, I do not look forward to coaching students as to how to write a response.  The HSC needs to provide Agency, Choice, Creativity and Discovery to make the learning more relevant for the students! 

I remember early in my teaching career I heard the phrase “it’s important to have an attitude of gratitude”.  This was said to a Year 9 group of students who were behaving poorly and really did need to wake up as they were presenting themselves as a group of egocentric, self-serving monsters.  And now that I am far more experienced, much has not changed.  We still seem to come across a lot of students who need to develop that attitude of gratitude.  GK Chesterton once said “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.”  A lot of what we see is people taking things for granted but what they really need is to identify the gratefulness they have for their life.

This year at St Luke’s in our Mentor Groups we are explicitly teaching the students gratitude.  We have Thankful Thursday where we ask students to think about what they are grateful and thankful for in their lives, school, each other, family, connections, and relationships just to name a few.

Sometimes in the busyness of the school term teachers can get caught up in the hustle and bustle and pressure of getting things done.  When what they really need is to stop, step back, and take stock.  We all need to remember that ‘Gratitude and attitude are not challenges; they are choices’ (Robert Braathe).

According to a Buddhist Proverb “Enough is a feast”.  By choosing to be grateful and thankful we are showing hope for the future.  Our future as Catholics comes from Jesus.  It’s important to see that our God has provided our beautiful world, without God there is no hope, but knowing He is with us we have great hope for the future.  It is important to be grateful and to show this regularly whether it be waking up and saying thankful or going out of your way to show gratitude in your everyday life.  

So I pray…..

Gracious God,

in this busyness of my day, I sometimes forget to stop and

thank you for all that is good in my life. My blessings are many

and my heart is filled with gratefulness for the gift of living,

for the ability to love and be loved for the opportunity to see the everyday

wonders of creation, for sleep and water, for a mind that thinks and a body that

feels. I thank you too for those things in my life that are less than I would hope

them to be. Things that seem challenging, unfair or difficult.

In the silence of my soul, I thank you most of all for your unconditional

and eternal love.

Amen.

This term in Year 9 we have been studying a Learning Cycle that focuses on the importance of dialogue and encounter within the Catholic faith.  This has got me to do some thinking about the importance of dialogue in our everyday lives.  

On their first approach, our Year 9 students understood dialogue as simply conversation but as we went deeper we discovered that it incorporates so much more.  Dialogue needs to be a two-way process, both people, in turn, need to actively listen deeply to the other person and one person needs to be talking.  The person communicating needs to be acknowledged and feel that what they have to say is important.  The environment for the dialogue to occur must be safe and secure for those involved, making the environment conducive to successful dialogue.  And finally, going into the process of dialogue you need to be prepared to be transformed – in truly seeing the other for who and what they are we then have that moment of encounter where we are able to see Christ in the other.  By truly being present to the other we are helping them to flourish in their own lives.

In breaking the basics of dialogue down for students into simple terms I started reflecting about dialogue in my day to day life, at both home and work.  The importance of relationships I identified early on makes a huge difference in this process.  Those with whom you have built a relationship generally have more transformational moments and in those moments I feel I have seen Christ working through them.  Sometimes in relationships, you are trying to develop there is a hesitation to fully let yourself go and be open to transform, this obviously impacts the process but can, through dedication and effort can lead to successful dialogue.  However, unfortunately in life, there are always situations in which individuals are able to make their own choices to not listen and or communicate effectively which leads to both communication breakdown and relationship breakdown, but also this leads to the individual stagnating – not being able to transform or even being open to encounter.  As people “born in the image and likeness of God“, we all need to have the open mindset to transform because we were born for greatness!!  We were born to flourish and to live life abundantly!!

Through this learning cycle, we have identified how important dialogue and encounter is.  I have been told by one of my colleagues that “You need cheese and wine to flourish” but I now believe that dialogue and encounter is significantly part of the journey toward human flourishing.

The importance of looking after your own well being

2020 has certainly proven to be a challenging year, actually, I think this is an understatement!!

What started out to be another challenging year at St Luke’s Catholic College has turned into the challenge of my life so far!  

With the challenges that COVID 19 has thrown at the world, we have had to address and be flexible and take into consideration our own context, that of a K-9 setting with an onsite Catholic Early Learning Centre for 3-5 year olds.  Always our first concern is to our students and ensuring their safety and well-being, but as we are about to enter into term 4 of 2020 I now reflect and think about the staff and my own well-being.

There have been many changes made to timetable/lesson formats since March.  We started the year with 100-minute lessons, which with the onset of COVID became Connected Learning (using Zoom), to Daily Flow Weekly Routine (90 and 30 min sessions) with Wellbeing, to term 4 where we still have the Daily Flow and Weekly Routine (90 and 45 min sessions) with Wellbeing.  At all points along the journey, Teachers have been given additional time to assist them in the process.  As you can imagine a lot of change, a lot of flexibility, and a lot of potential stress due to these changes have been the result of a very hard year of teaching.

As a leader in this school, I believe I have needed to be an active listener to those around me, some colleagues have needed someone to listen to concerns, struggles and just to be used as a sounding board and a positive voice to prop them up.  With our strong focus on coaching within our school, we have been able to reach out to many staff members to ensure they feel connected and supported throughout this year and ongoing into the future.  I found initially that this was quite a positive experience but as time progressed I found it extremely necessary to ensure that I was consciously and proactively looking after myself as I started to feel stressed by different facets of my work while striking or attempting to strike the balance between work and home.

Some great ideas to ensure you look after your own well-being may be basic and straightforward but when facing many challenges they may seem to escape you.  Simple things like ensuring you eat well and get enough sleep, and having a hobby something you are comfortable with that can distract you from your work when you need it (mine is crochet and knitting) helps to distract your mind.  Always ensure you do things you enjoy, learn something new, connect with friends, and help others.  All of these things help to distract you from the challenges and work to the positive to help so that when you need to focus directly on work this is able to be done with greater efficiency.

The whole idea of writing a blog plays with my head badly.  On the one hand, the whole struggle to figure out what to write about and secondly the insecurities that creep into my mind about my ability to write and who would want to read about what I do sets me up for a few days of anxiety.  I feel I then become the diversity student who requires a topic with sentence starters to begin.

I have found that working at St Luke’s Catholic College one has to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and writing blogs is one of those things that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  My process, or perhaps lack of sees me a week out from when my blog is due asking around for topics – Why?  Because who would be interested in what I do?  

I see teachers new to St Luke’s who are making their way through the maze of learning so many new things, who benefit from little suggestions that I make to improve their practice.  These teachers who are so new to this vocation take this little jewel of knowledge and use it to their best advantage.  I need to follow their example and grow in confidence.  We all need to bloom where we grow!!

The night before the Blog is due I start to feel the rush of adrenaline through my body – could be stress but I am going with adrenaline – glass half full!!  

I think it is time for me to get my head out of the sand and move from being the diversity student suffering from anxiety that needs to back herself and know that I do good “stuff” in the classroom.  

I know that Hope is not a strategy but so far in 2020 it’s been keeping me going.  My goal (not sure if it’s short term or long term) is to write a wicked blog!!  It might take a while, but I will get there!!

Most people think Religious Education is either dry and boring, or warm and fuzzy.  There once was a time in RE history that this may have been the case but with the implementation of the New RE Draft Curriculum in the Diocese of Parramatta this is far from the truth.  

Each learning cycle I have been lucky enough to work with I have been both surprised by the responses from students as well as the depth of understanding students have developed throughout the cycle.  All units begin at a surface level where students need to understand the basics of the concepts covered, focussing very much on the disposition of the head.  We then go deeper into the concepts to see how these different concepts etc affect the individual, groups, community and with this develop more of the disposition of the heart, students are able to use empathy to put themselves in others positions to feel the roller coaster of emotions that could possibly result.  Some learning cycles lend themselves to action, the disposition of the hand.  Looking at Jesus being a rebel with a cause, students had to be the rebels and identify a need in the local community – this resulted in students proposing and carrying out a toiletries drive for the Ignite Food Store and for the students who supported this event also benefited from the situation as they were able to participate in a mufti day and activities day.  In learning cycles where a physical action is difficult a reflection on the learning cycle linked to key aspects of student work has been successful eg. in a learning cycle about religion as a force for good and evil students looked at how human flourishing can benefit the common good for all – students were asked to apply their understanding of these concepts to their own purpose goal developed in Life Design, some powerful reflections resulted.  Following you will find a purpose statement with a Catholic Worldview from Lena Regin of Year 9:

My purpose statement is to connect with people and improve their well being so that I can motivate others to preserve their hope. I can achieve my purpose by giving hope to others during tough times. This will allow me to reach out to others as I want to provide the light for others in the dark and be apart of their journey. I strongly believe that everyone is beautiful because you are made in the image and likeness of God. I want to specifically help young teen girls to understand inner beauty and values which shape their identity. My faith helps me to be my best self in order to achieve my purpose because I want to decrease teen girls’ depression that is caused by the perspectives of society and beauty standards. My faith helps me to be my best self in order to achieve my purpose because I want teen girls to embrace their natural beauty and work on developing their inner values of love, hope, service, and forgiveness. I want to give them a chance to seek a glimpse of God’s love that can transform their perspective on life. This links to the Catholic Social Teaching of Dignity of the Human Person. We all have a common mission to accomplish and we are apart of God’s plan. We can not run away from our sufferings but rather work together in solidarity. I am displaying stewardship as I am taking care of teen girls and helping them with their well being, body image, and virtues. Life is about the journey, not the destination, our sufferings help us grow as an individual. I want to demonstrate hope as it is the action of not wasting our precious time. I want others to recognise that every wound will teach you to be strong and fight back. You need to compare yourself with who you were yesterday and not with celebrities or beauty standards. Therefore, my purpose is to remind others to be kind to yourself and take care of their precious life.  

Challenging assumptions through dialogue and research is key.  Students are always given the choice to choose the direction of the response they would like to make.  For example in Religion Vs Science students were able to argue for or against  – To what degree do the Creation Stories from Science and Christianity align to create meaning for Humanity?  In being given this choice students are able to provide deeper understanding due to the depth of content covered in class.  Students were aware that they needed to know what they were arguing and therefore research for both students and teachers was highlighted.  The amount of deep conversations/discussions covered in class has grown and the need to know your stuff has hit me, I have never been shy to say to students I will have to get back to you on that, but I am finding that the questions that students are now asking have identified a need for all teachers to be on top of content and concepts and how they apply to life – very different to Sharing Our Story.

As we are progressing with the new RE curriculum the one major thing I find myself providing feedback on is the fact that students are taking their understanding of the many concepts covered so far and are applying them in the next cycle and the next and so on. Students are using content and terminology used in one cycle and applying it to new contexts and situations, and most importantly they are applying them to their own lives.  I am finding that students just don’t learn it and move on it is going with them and they are reflecting and using it more – the results for me include a lot of AHA moments!!

Part, I believe of the success we are finding is due to setting high expectations for student work.  Obviously, if expectations are not set students will not necessarily meet them.  Students are provided the freedom to choose their own argument and value this choice and then through being provided with exemplar responses are aware of the depth that is required.  In saying this not all students are at the same level but by providing exemplars we see that even our strugglers are able to make gains in their learning.

Gone are the days of warm and fuzzy religion lessons and thank heavens the days of rigour and engagement are upon us!

St Luke’s Catholic College sitting in Sydney’s North West is a diverse community made up of 900+ students K-9 from very different backgrounds.  Bishop Vincent Long, the Bishop of the Parramatta Diocese in which St Luke’s is located, talks about Catholic schools being Catholic schools for all, not just for Catholics.  This is a message that is both refreshing and challenging, particularly as the Head of Mission.

To be an authentic Catholic school it is the faith aspect that sets us apart from other schools.  In having such a diverse school community the challenge is in meeting all community members where they are in terms of their spiritual journey.  This becomes more complicated with the number of students from different faith backgrounds.

In teaching Religious education all students receive instruction in the Catholic faith.  As many of our students are not Catholic different perspectives are welcomed. From my perspective, I ask students to share what their faith teaches.  If anything all students are asked to reflect on their personal spiritual journey, question their faith and hopefully strengthen their faith in the process – whatever their faith may be.  For those disconnected from faith I pray that my witness to my faith introduces them and leaves little spiritual invitations that one day I pray they take up.

As part of a Catholic school, liturgy plays a central role.  Within liturgy comes the importance of respect, reverence, and response.  These things become difficult when students do not have a background in the church.  Since the start of the school in 2017 liturgy has been evolving, every time trying to meet students where they are at.  In an attempt to reach students we are working with music in an attempt to meet the students where they are.

In the development of St Luke’s a school cross has been designed and plays a central role in the narrative of St Luke’s.  It is contemporary in its design and also the way in which all are invited in to the relationship with Jesus Christ. The narrative helps students and provides an invitation for them to belong to this contemporary faith and learning community. 

My dream for the students and staff in our school is that they know the story, can tell the story and can embody the story of Jesus Christ.  For those of different faiths, I hope that they learn about Jesus, question and learn about their faith so that their faith is strengthened in the process.  I pray that all students whatever faith background they have are formed holistically including as the Jesuits would have it, head, heart, and hand so that in the fullness of life each individual flourishes.