Teaching and Learning

Welcome to the Teaching and Learning section of our website! Please browse and explore the various areas within this section which gives the visitor an overview of the philosophy and pedagogy that supports and facilitates learning at the School.

Barker College aims to foster within each student the development of the Christian faith in an Anglican context, while providing for each student a teaching and learning environment in which they might learn by observing the consequences of their choices, and which is conducive to the development of their individual gifts and capabilities to the greatest extent possible. The School also aims to enable each student to grow into a confident, independent, well-rounded and mature young adult prepared for active and responsible participation as well as for service and leadership in the community.

Barker maintains a strong reputation for excellent academic outcomes through the deliberate cultivation of a culture to support individual student achievement. The teaching staff is committed to the School’s academic aims and objectives and they work closely with students to support them in rising to the challenge in order to achieve their goals.  Students are also expected to support one another in achieving their personal best.

The School embraces the New South Wales Board of Studies’ curriculum as well as the Teaching for Understanding framework (which emanates from the best-practice research from Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) as the basis for developing a thinking culture to facilitate deepening of students’ understanding and relating learning experiences to real-life situations.

In addition to offering subjects important in preparing young people for future careers and for making positive contributions to society, our teaching and learning practice combines the best of tradition with strategies based on current research of the way in which  the brain functions and learns.

Dr Greg Cunningham
Director of Teaching and Learning