Student Engagement

Guiding Principles 

Student Engagement at St Joseph’s College is guided by the following principles: 

1. Student engagement processes should empower staff and students to live out The Joey’s Way, built around the college values of Compassion, Respect, Endeavour and Dignity.  
2. The safety of students and staff is paramount. All processes must uphold the principles of student protection as outlined the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Student Protection Processes and Guidelines
3. Processes should be restorative. Its focus must be on developing, maintaining and restoring positive working relationships between individuals as a fundamental expression of the Catholic Identity of the school.
4. Processes should maximise high quality teaching and learning.
5. Processes should be sustainable. Teachers and leaders have greater impact when they work proactively to maximise student engagement in learning. While this reactive process is necessary, it cannot be the primary focus of teachers’ and leaders’ work.
6. Processes should be clear. During periods of heightened emotional stress, staff must be able to enact this process quickly and safely.
7. The process should be transparent, centralising the classroom teacher in problem-solving student behaviour throughout. 

Data Utilisation 

At St Joseph’s College we believe that student engagement can be measured using four metrics. These are attendance, GPA (Grade Point Average), literacy and numeracy and anecdotal behaviour information. Utilisation of these data points both in isolation and in combination with each other allows us to engage in meaningful, solution-focussed discussion to maximise student engagement.  

We remain conscious, however, that objective data never tells a student’s whole story. There is an imperative, therefore, on us as educators to put faces on the data. In particular, we are guided by the work of Fullan and Sharratt and their book entitled ‘Putting Faces on the Data’ (2012).  

More Information 

Read our Student Engagement Guidelines here.

Read our Student Behaviour Support Policy here.

References: 

Sharratt, L. and Fullan, M., 2012. Putting Faces On The Data. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage.