Lyndhurst Secondary College principal Steve Phillips and Narre Warren South MP Judith Graley at the official opening of the year nine Inquiry Centre.
By Sarah Schwager
A CENTRE dedicated to year nine students has officially opened at Lyndhurst Secondary College.
Narre Warren South MP Judith Graley opened the Inquiry Centre last week, with local businesses also taking part.
The opening was followed by a show and tell and quiz night in which the students demonstrated some of their new learning.
The program was funded by $1 million from the State Government’s Leading Schools Fund.
Principal Steve Phillips said the 110 year nine students had benefited immensely from the open plan learning approach, which has been running at the school all year.
“It’s an innovative approach to teaching and learning for year nine students,” Mr Phillips said.
“They’re in an open plan learning environment with up to seven or eight teachers with them. It’s very much a team environment.
“They have an investigative topic for a term in which the kids spend two to three weeks on a topic in immersion then the kids negotiate with their teachers what further learning they want to take.
“This gives them the opportunity to go off and do their own research. At the end they report back and share their learning with the group.”
Mr Phillips said student attendance at year nine had really picked up since the program was introduced.
“Every year we do surveys. The year nine response has gone through the roof.”
He said schools as far away as New Zealand had come to look at the program.
In the last couple of weeks schools from Werribee and Scoresby had also come to survey the new teaching approach.
