Mrs Lynette Fahie is the skilful director of our Arts and Music Department. She is an accomplished choir and concert band conductor with 25 years of experience teaching music to students in secondary schools.

During the last week of holidays, Mrs Fahie presented to hundreds of music educators from around Australia.  She shared knowledge gained from her experience and study towards a Master of Education at a national conference in Perth. 

During the last week of the school holidays, I presented at the Australian Society for Music Education National Conference. I held a session on ‘Visible Thinking in the Secondary Music Classroom’.

Visible Thinking (VT) is a flexible and systematic research-based conceptual framework. Developed by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, VT aims to integrate the development of students’ thinking with content learning.

Students immersed in a VT environment regularly listen attentively to others ideas and are generally more supportive and tolerant of their peers.

VT encourages teachers to put thinking, rather than content, at the centre of their practice and to develop teaching and learning programs that reflect this focus.

Secondary Music classrooms can employ VT routines to promote student engagement with aural, theory, composition, historical and performance content.

I employ strategies from this approach, in my teaching of ATAR Music for the WACE and delivery of a Certificate III in Music Industry (Performance).

Attending and presenting at the conference was a great experience. I really enjoyed meeting teachers from around the country and sharing ideas.