All Saints’ College is proud to be the only West Australian school, and one of only nine schools across Australia, whose students were issued with the Australian Learner Competency Credential (the Australian LCC) last month.
This new qualification aims to enhance the learner’s ability to thrive in further education and future employment, by focusing on complex competencies such as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, active citizenship and agency in learning.
Resulting from ASC’s partnership with the University’s New Metrics research, the credential is designed to complement existing measures of domain-based knowledge and skills, such as school reports, NAPLAN and the ATAR.
Enterprise Professor Sandra Milligan, Executive Director of Melbourne Assessment, notes the new credentials will help students prepare for a rapidly changing future:
“Traditional metrics of learning and schooling success report what a learner knows about a particular subject or topic, or what they can do under timed, high-stakes tests or examinations. But to thrive in a modern AI world, students need to be able to demonstrate more than that. They need to be collaborative, build and maintain connections, act ethically, be entrepreneurial, be critical thinkers and reflective. Such qualities are what this new credential is all about.”
All Saints’ College Principal, Ms Belinda Provis, said:
"The current credentialing system in WA schools focuses on the very important measures of academic achievement - marks and grades - as it has for decades.
"We know that, for young people to thrive in a world and a workplace of rapidly evolving technologies, a future characterised by volatility and uncertainty, surrounding those scholastic achievements and measures is the need for students to develop a set of capabilities or complex competencies such as critical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration and active citizenship.
"Our new credentials, and the underpinning learning design and assessment of complex competencies, offer our students the opportunity for ‘next generation’ approaches to teaching and learning that see capabilities measured and valued alongside scholastic achievement.
Over time, learners and teachers can use these assessments to support, with a deliberate focus, the development of these important capabilities, growing their ability to have a positive impact in the world.
"As a learning community, we have committed for many years to preparing students for the innovation age, through our programs and pedagogies. These new credentials provide a vehicle to further recognise and value this important work, and ensure that there is a keen focus on both understanding and developing the capabilities that are essential to success in the modern workplace and in life."
More schools are expected to take up the opportunity to credential their students next year.