23 February 2024

Students in Catholic schools will benefit significantly from a change in how reading, writing and mathematics are taught in Melbourne classrooms.

Yesterday, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) launched its Flourishing Learners position statement, Vision for Instruction, which embeds a refreshed and system-wide approach to achieving teaching and learning excellence.

Executive Director of MACS, Dr Edward Simons said: ‘Our newly released Vision for Instruction strengthens our commitment to providing an outstanding education for all our students across the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

‘It is the culmination of years of global research on how students learn best, along with studies and analysis of the most successful teaching methods, developed with input from teachers in our own schools.

‘Our Vision for Instruction has twin fundamental goals: excellence and equity. As a key part of our MACS 2030 strategy, this approach will help us achieve our vision that every student is inspired and enabled to flourish and enrich the world, regardless of their background or circumstances.’

Dr Simons said that years of declining performance in OECD PISA results meant that outdated approaches to teaching and learning need to change. The evidence now at hand supports explicit instruction methods as the best way of teaching children the knowledge they need to flourish.

‘These measures have clearly shown us that our education systems can be much more effective at educating our children.

‘The 21st century skills our children need to have, including social skills, are fundamentally reliant on a solid foundation of literacy and numeracy. That’s why we’ve formalised our pedagogical approach to act as a guiding beacon to our staff, and provide the clarity and resources they need to promote excellence and equity in all our schools.’

Director of Learning and Regional Services, Dr Mary Oski said that MACS teachers and leaders will be supported to implement Vision for Instruction.

‘Our educators are dedicated to providing all students with fundamental literacy and numeracy skills, ensuring their active engagement in society while fostering lifelong learning, which is why MACS is committed to providing teachers with the highest quality knowledge-rich curriculum and evidence-based teaching practices.’

MACS is the largest Catholic education services provider in Australia, educating around 115,000 students across almost 300 schools, and employing more than 16,000 teachers and support staff.

Media contact: Matt Kelly on 0439 833 053 or makelly@macs.vic.edu.au

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