Village Innovation earns Redeemer recognition

Redeemer Lutheran School has been awarded membership in The Educator’s Innovative Schools List for 2020, adding to the school’s success in the Australian Education Awards program. Redeemer is a finalist in the Non-Government Primary School of the Year category, to be determined on 26 November. Last year, Redeemer won the national award for Innovation in Learning Environment Design, for its Upper Primary Centre.

“This award recognises the significant research, hard work, contemporary and best practice teaching and learning by Redeemer staff,” Redeemer Lutheran School principal Andrew Kelly said earlier this week, “The innovation award also acknowledges how our building program and master plan align award-winning facilities development with our innovative new Village Learning teaching philosophy.”

“In a nutshell, Village Learning starts with the maxim, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, and sees our Redeemer community strategically develop every child from the age of 3 at Early Learning through to the end of their primary school journey. To be more specific, we develop the whole child via 7 pillars of learning, which match perfectly with our International Baccalaureate methods. Redeemer develops every child on the pillars of an inquiry and growth mindset, differentiating learning for how each child learns, growing their agility and ability to speak up on what they are passionate about, their wellbeing and ability to collaborate with others.

“Our unending dedication to wellbeing expands further again in 2021, as we have appointed an excellent, dedicated new Student Wellbeing teacher to attend to the wellbeing of all Redeemer students.

Redeemer started aspects of Village Learning during 2020 and launches the philosophy in full at the start of 2021. For instance, 2021 Reception students will move into the school’s new ‘Discoverer’s Village’, adapting the best design features from the award-winning Upper Primary Centre in age-appropriate ways for Reception children, driven by Village Learning philosophy. Later in 2021, year 3 and 4 students move into the ‘Creators’ Village’ while the upper primary students already enjoy the ‘Innovators’ Village’.

“Soon after that our year 1s and 2s will move into the Connectors’ Village, as we complete the full redevelopment of the school to provide the best 21st century learning environments.”