At Trinity we value every student, welcome every student, and design meaningful learning for every student. We create personalised education and a learning environment that prioritises individual growth from whatever point the student begins, from Preparatory’s Pre-K to the Senior School years.

Mrs Deborah Williams

Academic Dean
Deborah Williams

Particularly, we value his growth in four main areas:

  • capacity for deliberate engagement
  • skills for deep learning
  • disposition to embrace challenge
  • expanding repertoire of what he knows, understands and can do

Therefore, Trinity’s learning curriculum is designed to teach not only content, but also skills such as reflection and self-assessment; our reporting is designed to provide consistent feedback not only upon mastery of knowledge, but also upon engagement behaviours; and we encourage a student’s responsibility for his own learning progress by giving him precise next steps.

At Trinity, we seek to normalise a culture of learning from mistakes as an opportunity for personal growth. This means we encourage boys to embrace challenging opportunities, to choose the more difficult options, to seek feedback for improvement, and to identify what they can do today that they could not do yesterday.

This approach to learning is grounded in the seminal work on Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck (Stanford University). Dweck’s work proved that students with an orientation towards learning through mistakes could achieve superior results on a range of cognitive tests, including Mathematics.

She summarises her research like this: a mindset for challenge and effort plus a willingness to embrace feedback equals ongoing academic improvement.

Our approach is further supported by the work of Professor Andrew Martin (University of New South Wales), whose research indicates that external engagement behaviours often precede internal or intrinsic motivation: that is, we can choose to behave in ways that promote engagement regardless of the way we feel.

When we choose to take on specific challenges, we learn how to master our minds when they sometimes tell us we can’t do something. We don’t have to be the best at what we choose to take on, but we all will benefit by tackling the challenge.

Growth is the foundation of robust education and lifelong learning; growth is a key focus when a boy is learning at Trinity.