JOHN HATTIE: The study we did a couple of years ago, on this, there's two reasons. One, it's either that teacher wanted to turn you on to their passion, their love of a subject or that teacher saw something in you that you didn't see in yourself.

When you bring those two things together, that's the essence of brilliant teaching. I ask all the viewers to think of their best teacher and hardly ever is it because they did Maths or English or Physics or Phys Ed. It was they turned you on to the passion and that is obviously not measured in NAPLAN but that's one of the things I want extra - how do we make schools inviting places for kids to want to come and learn?

One of Hattie’s final sentences resonates strongly in the context of Clarkson. It was posed as the following question:

How do we make schools inviting places for kids to want to come and learn?

This is a peculiar question given that Clarkson’s driving framework is essentially an answer. We are all familiar with the 5 P’s (People, Places, Programs, Policies and Processes) and the I-CORT model (Intentionality, Care, Optimism, Respect and Trust) which lay at the centre of school decision making and vision at CCHS.

Perhaps we already have an answer to this question which is even being asked by the most highly esteemed education researcher in Australia (and perhaps globally). The great question we must now ask ourselves is this – how effectively are we wielding what we already possess in our hands?

For more information on the Invitational Education ethos at Clarkson, please read the following article by John Young published in the summer edition of Principal Matters titled Inviting Student Involvement.