Values, Mission and Curriculum Statements

Brigidine Core Values

As a Catholic school within the Brigidine fold of schools, Killester is committed to fulfilling the Brigidine Core Values. For further description of the work of the Brigidine order in Australia, please visit their website at www.brigidine.org.au

Mission Statement

Killester College has as its distinctive mission the provision of Catholic secondary education for young women, who are drawn from the diverse cultural and economic backgrounds of the Springvale area. We value the diversity of our students and strive to develop the whole person. Our motto, 'Strength and Kindliness' links us into a network of other Brigidine schools signifying that we belong to a large community.

We will try therefore to:

• Create a school community which is clearly based on the values of Jesus.
• Nurture Christianity in the Catholic tradition.
• Appreciate one another's differences and individual worth.
• Work co-operatively to develop responsibility, self-discipline and adaptability.
• Maintain a school environment in which enthusiasm, joy and simplicity are valued.
• Offer educational experiences that develop creativity, initiative and a love for learning.
• Provide opportunities for leadership that enable young people to make a contribution to their environment and their world.

Curriculum Statement

As part of its mission Killester College aims to offer educational experiences that develop creativity, initiative and love for learning.  The curriculum will provide a broad education to assist students in understanding the world in which they live.  Underlying our curriculum is the belief that teachers need to explicitly develop in our students engagement, assertiveness, resilience, and a positive sense of self and be cognisant of gender issues and the spirituality of our students.

As a result, curriculum at Killester has four purposes:

• To develop knowledge, values and skills
• To engender a love for learning for its own sake
• To contribute to the information of citizens who are aware of their role as members of a community and democratic society
• To prepare our young people for further study and/or the workplace

Killester develops, organises and delivers its curriculum through subject departments and through many extra-curricular learning opportunities for students.  In order to achieve the above purposes, the following principles are to be used in all of the above learning areas.

• The spiritual and religious enrichment of our students is a priority.  The development of values and spirituality should be fostered across the curriculum, in addition to the formal Religious Education programme.
• Literacy and numeracy skills and strategies will be explicitly taught and developed across the curriculum.
• All students will be encouraged to strive for personal excellence.
• Curriculum should provide students with opportunities to develop their creativity.
• Critical thinking and problem solving are essential in all aspects of learning.
• The range of intellectual needs of students will be catered for in both differentiated curriculum strategies and in the provision of special programmes.
• Learning technologies should be a basic tool intergrated across curriculum.
• The curriculum will prepare students for the VCE, provide career education support and assist students who wish to undertake other post-compulsory education pathways.

The Curriculum Statement is an umbrella statement under which individual domain-specific statements will be developed.  Further, this statement sits alongside the school Mission Statement and the Brigidine Core Values.  Related Killester policies will be consistent with this statement.