Modern Schools and Learners

Parents send their children to school with the expectation that they will learn the core skills of literacy and numeracy. At Mueller we invest in a lot of resources in these pursuits and highly value these important skills for students. In fact, these remain a primary focus of most education systems, including the Queensland’s QCE system, however there is a growing acknowledgement that there is more to preparing students for life beyond school than reading and writing. The new QCE system acknowledges this and includes scope for students learning ‘21st century skills’. The skills are needed because “in order to be successful, they need to become lifelong learners and global citizens who create opportunities and are confident in pursuing their passions (Department of Education and Training 2016)

The 21st century skills which have been identified include critical thinking, communication, personal and social skills, collaboration, creative thinking and ICT. Workplaces in the modern world are reliant on their teams having these skills and it is important that we as a school provide students the opportunities to develop them. Whilst these skills have been embedded in the new syllabuses being adopted in Year Eleven and Twelve from 2019 they have been valued in the Mueller curriculum for a long time. Across many departments and subject areas these skills can be identified and experienced.

An example of these skills in action occurred just this week with the MUROC and Aerospace studies crew having the opportunity to showcase their 21st century skills at no less than the Ekka! The Mueller students were invited to take part in a Drone display for the department of Employment, Small Business and Training. The team involved students from the Primary school and Secondary school and involved not only demonstrations and a technical element but interacting with the public and even trying to teach the Minister how to fly a mini-quad! It is a hallmark of Mueller that students collaborate well together on projects such as these. Congratulations to Mr Banks, Mrs Chambers and the student team on the outstanding way they represented themselves and Mueller over the last week. You can see more details of their exploits at the Ekka on the MUROC Facebook page.