Building the Evidence Base for Improved STEM Learning

Cerdon College

A systemic Catholic girls’ school in Merrylands, a suburb of Western Sydney, and part of the Catholic Education Office Parramatta Diocese. The school’s vision statement is titled “Aspire to great heights”. It includes a focus on “a dynamic and diverse curriculum which extends beyond the classroom” and “a quality education to prepare women to make their place in an ever-changing world” (Cerdon College, 2019, para. 14).

(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, (ACARA 2021, March 18).

  • TEACHING STAFF
    91.0
  • FTE TEACHING STAFF
    79.5
  • NON-TEACHING STAFF
    22
  • GIRLS
    1093
  • ICSEA
    1038
  • LBOTE
    83%
  • INDIGENOUS
    1%
Cerdon College logo


In recent years, Cerdon College has established a reputation for STEM leadership and learner engagement with STEM. This status was reflected in publicly available data, and was used to identify and profile the school as a suitable case study.

Cerdon College location map

The College's engagement with STEM is multifaceted and includes:

  • School-university partnerships, such as involvement with Macquarie University.
  • The 2017 establishment of a STEM makerspace facility.
  • Increased participation in post-school science and engineering courses (Vernon, 2016).
  • 2018 involvement as a pilot school for solar panel installation, which the principal believed would “enhance the existing STEM curriculum within the College and encourage a change in students’ ideas regarding electricity usage” (Catholic Education Office, Parramatta, 2018, para.6).
  • Promoting a wide range of extracurricular STEM clubs, such as science club, coding club, Lego club, and robotics club.
  • Active and regular participation in STEM-related excursions or competitions, such as the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF), the Aurecon Bridge Building Competition, Science (EES) Camp, Women in Engineering Camp, and National Computer Science School (NCSS).
  • Rich assessment tasks involving complex STEM challenges, such as the building of drones.
  • In-school “Science and Engineering Challenge” and #GirlsProgramming workshops, and out of school Science and Engineering Challenges.

What is distinctive about the school in relation to pedagogy, assessment, curriculum and equity?

STEM at Cerdon College was viewed by teachers, students, and the principal, as multifaceted, authentic, integrated, and complex.

STEM was integrated with key shared beliefs that included:

  • the notion of 'failing forward', that is, failure is a necessary part of the learning experience;
  • that both curricular and extracurricular opportunities should, however difficult they are, be open to all students;
  • that teachers and learners can, and should, learn in partnership;
  • that no one approach can work for all students at all times; and
  • that stable leadership fosters trust and supports long-term change.

PEDAGOGY

Current practice and planned changes

With the curricular and extra-curricular opportunities open to the girls and significantly higher rates of graduation into STEM-related university degrees and careers, Principal Trish Baker believed that students at Cerdon see their education as a vehicle for opportunity in different forms. She described the need for STEM pedagogy to be open-ended and multifaceted. She also referenced classical thinking on relational and dialogic discourse as a key pedagogical focus, observing that “Aristotle and Plato actually possibly got it right in most ways and we discount them now. But that discourse that’s happening all the time is really important, and it’s not a one-way discourse ... it’s hearing everyone’s ideas but making sure that they also have the chance to grow professionally”.

She believed that the school should continue to foster strong teacher-learner partnerships predicated on honesty and trust, observing that students readily teach her about difficult STEM challenges; such as one student teaching her how to program a drone successfully. However, she was open and transparent with students about her failures when trying to undertake these and similar challenges: “Sometimes I think it does the kids good to see that we’re prepared to fail and we can’t do what they can do well, and I think it’s that ability that actually helps them”.

The teachers believed in progressive, student-centred pedagogies that involved strong teacher-learner partnerships, authentic problem-solving, and tangible links between the curriculum and the ‘real world’. They shared the principal’s view of there being no one-size-fits-all approach and that successful pedagogies required experimentation, consultation with students, and learning from failure.

ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING

Current practice and planned changes

The school embraced assessment that is ‘real-world’, situated, hands-on, and authentic. Their iSTEM course in Stage 5 was evidence of this, with assessments often involving complex STEM-based design challenges incorporating skills and knowledge across STEM disciplines. Trish commented that assessment can be “what you want it to be”. She argued that teachers should not use a perceived rigid assessment regime as a reason to constrain their students’ learning: “The assessment system is—how should I say—it’s as liberal as you want it to be”.

The teachers’ views on assessment appeared to reflect Trish’s pragmatic approach to ensuring it is integrated, authentic, and engaging while developing skills that can be used beyond the classroom. They also demonstrated a vision of assessment that was interdisciplinary and empowered learners to use skills from one discipline area in another, being aware of the implications this had for assessment planning.

For example, one teacher (formerly a designer working in industry) summed up the value of skills that are developed across traditional subject boundaries: “On a school level I would also say to the girls, particularly in Art, what can you take from your other subjects that you can bring to visual arts? And I think that, you know ... History, Geography ... all those things, you can bring it to art and to artwork. Stop thinking about it as just one point of view”.

CURRICULUM

Current practice and planned changes

Curriculum was viewed broadly at Cerdon, and encompassed a formal STEM curriculum that included separate disciplines and the Stage 5 iSTEM course, in addition to a wide range of extra-curricular options. Trish viewed curricular and extra-curricular learning as integrated and interdependent. She also saw curriculum-based change as an essential building block in STEM learning success, noting that her early work at Cerdon – a school that did not previously perform well in STEM – involved “years on assessment policy getting them [changes] ingrained moving forward ... and looking at the curriculum and getting it right ... and really challenging students”. Evidence of a challenging curriculum was attributed to the reduction in lower-stream STEM classes, and an increase in higher-stream classes.

Teachers at Cerdon shared a strong belief in literacy and numeracy as curriculum foundations for success in STEM. Beyond this, they viewed the STEM curriculum as ideally being rich in hands-on, industry-relevant, learning opportunities. They accepted the importance of STEM opportunities being available from Day One in Year 7 and appreciated the work of teachers in feeder primary schools preparing students to be STEM-capable. Rather than seeing it as an add-on, they viewed extra-curricular STEM opportunities as essential to the core curriculum at the college.

Beyond literacy and numeracy, teachers saw a marked departure over the last ten years from finite, self-contained disciplines to more complex interdisciplinary STEM. Some recognised there were observable changes in terms of better-prepared primary students enrolling in Year 7, meaning that STEM initiatives could quickly gain traction. For example, one teacher reported that “now that the kids are coming from primary schools with that [STEM] knowledge in their skill base, we’ve realigned our Year 7 Technology course so that our kids are better-challenged, such as through our building projects using a Raspberry Pi (processor keyboard)”.

Read more about curriculum practices at Cerdon College here.

EQUITY

Current practice and planned changes

As a Catholic girls’ school in Western Sydney, Cerdon draws students from a diverse community that includes families from varying socio-economic backgrounds. With an ICSEA score of 1038, the school is under-represented in the top quartile in the distribution of socio-educational advantage (SEA), while being over-represented in the lower-middle quartile (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, 2020). 

To ensure high equity for all students, Trish believed that diverse curricular and extracurricular opportunities were essential. She admitted that the school was sometimes overzealous about providing opportunities—“we probably run from the opposite extreme and say, look have a go at anything”—but that this position ultimately leads to more underperforming students being successful. In terms of the Stage 6 curriculum, for example, Trish described the process as encouraging students to take challenging HSC courses while having “an escape hatch”– an option to move to lower-level options if necessary, without strong feelings of regret. Trish acknowledged that equity is also about working on parents’ attitudes, noting that “some of the parents don’t like us challenging the kids”.

What role has leadership played in the school's STEM journey?

Trish critiqued the pervasive culture that she saw outside of the school, of short-term, “heroic”, results-driven leadership decisions, suggesting that while it was possible for a short-term- thinking leader to “disrupt” a school culture, often little consideration was shown to embedding change “and making sure that it is a substantive part of praxis within the school”.

Trish’s legacy of careful decision-making and long-term planning was evident in the changes that had taken place during her time. Although many of the STEM-related initiatives such as Lego clubs, coding challenges, school-university partnerships, and robotics clubs seemed to be separate initiatives run by individual teachers, they formed a part of Trish’s inclusive approach of encouraging students to be involved in activities of interest to them, and supported the belief they can succeed in areas where they may be lacking in confidence. 

Trish jokingly remarked that her leadership success was down to “employing well”, and that the teachers in the school represented the backbone necessary for supporting and expanding STEM opportunities into the future.


The teachers valued many aspects of Trish’s leadership style, including the stability of having her as a principal since 2006, her encouragement of risk-taking, the high expectations she had for students, and her support for a wide range of STEM opportunities. They also acknowledged that Trish held high expectations for teachers to develop, steer, and support STEM opportunities for their students. They felt she embraced any idea brought to her and preferred to see ideas implemented (and fail or succeed accordingly), rather than not implemented at all.

Philip*, a STEM teacher, described this process as Trish’s support “to put a helmet on, and know that if you crash, you’ll be okay the end of it”. He further explained that instead of encouraging staff to only come to her with solutions to problems, Trish said they should “actually come with a problem — if you’ve got a solution, do it”. “You know, it doesn’t need her... but you can come to her with a problem you cannot solve”. These values also appeared to guide teachers’ own leadership practices.

* All teacher names are pseudonyms.


Stability and carefully-managed change are two interdependent features of Cerdon's sustained school improvement.

The teachers interviewed were all active in their curricular and extra-curricular support for STEM. It was encouraging that they recognised Trish’s commitment to making STEM happen in many different ways, including financial support for resources and professional learning opportunities. Philip* explained that “Trish is very generous when it comes to resourcing professional development time and kids as well – very generous with how she manages the budget with respect to the opportunities for the kids and enrichment opportunities”, adding that much of the funding came through school-based, rather than external initiatives: “[if you] walk around the school and have a look, most of what we’ve done she’s done in terms of her own budgeting for those things”.

Trish held a view of STEM being inclusive of non-STEM subjects, and teachers were aware of the need for STEM-related meetings to include non-STEM teachers. Key to broadening STEM in the school was Melanie*, who had experience working in industry as a visual designer. She was instrumental in the push towards adding the, A, —or Arts—in STEM to become STEAM.

* All teacher names are pseudonyms.

Melanie* mentioned Trish usually followed any mention of “STEM” with “STEAM, acknowledging that the Arts are really important in that final stage of STEM”. Integral to this was Trish’s emphasis on design and the need for STEM students to be creative and innovative problem solvers.

Want to learn more about this school's STEM journey?

Download the complete case study report to read the full story.

PASL Case Study NSW FV

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Licensed third-party content (images):

  • Page banner image. Students working in the Science and Engineering Challenge. © 2019 Cerdon College Teacher, Patricia Baker (on behalf of Cerdon College). CC BY-NC 4.0
  • Image 1. Year 7-9 students LEGO club - examining the newly-built roller coaster. © 2019 Cerdon College Teacher, Patricia Baker (on behalf of Cerdon College). CC BY-NC 4.0
  • Image 2. High expectations and strong numeracy and literacy skills underpin STEM learning in the College. © 2019 Cerdon College Teacher, Patricia Baker (on behalf of Cerdon College). CC BY-NC 4.0
  • Image 3. Year 7-9 fine-tuning the roller coaster. © 2019 Cerdon College Teacher, Patricia Baker (on behalf of Cerdon College). CC BY-NC 4.0

Licensed third-party content (text):

  • Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2020, 8 October). My School: Cerdon College. © 2021 Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
  • Catholic Education Office Parramatta (2018, February 21). Sunny Side Up for Catholic Schools. © Cerdon College, Merrylands, Catholic Education Office, Parramatta.
  • Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation [CSIRO]. (2021). STEM professionals in schools. © 2021 CSIRO Australia. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.


References