Our Mission
At Edcellent Education, we reach the needs of every student through a patient, process-driven approach because we recognise that students bring unique experiences and have particular requirements in learning.
At the same time, by communicating the integration of areas of study at IB and VCE EAL and standard English, we are able to better accommodate students by inspiring a holistic understanding of texts, issues, speech and comparative study.
The process of assimilating areas of study and linking them to contemporary parallels builds appreciation, critical thinking and strategic life-skills.
Five Objectives
To educate and evolve the whole person
To develop critical and contrarian thinking as a primary life-skill
To generate and engage creative pathways as a means of building self-esteem and identity, in order to empower discovery
To enable empathy-as-life-skill investigation through the acceptance of liminal and non-binary perspectives
To inspire curiosity and connection with the contemporary and historical world
As parents, teachers and students, how often do we ask ourselves these questions:
Why am I doing what I am doing?
How often do we find joy in what we do?
What am I really learning?
Education in the 21st century has, sadly, shifted the attention of many of our students, parents and teachers to a regimented result-driven learning and teaching process. At school, students are given every opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills, yet many struggle to form an authentic understanding of the content taught. The problem lies in the way we perceive knowledge and skills as educators. We fail to recognise the value of knowledge as a process rather than an answer. As a result, we become accustomed to a result-focused pedagogy that yields little or no lifelong success, joy or fulfilment.
From a passionate educator’s perspective, I believe that success comes from a patience-driven process that focuses on the authentic and purposeful engagement with the content. It is through communicating and nurturing one’s mental agility; one develops passion for, and an insight into the subject learnt. The value of learning becomes pivotal to personal growth beyond the academic sphere. My dedication to developing a process-driven pedagogy has led me to found Edcellent Education as an educational hub. Edcellent is inspired to empower individuals to pursue self-awareness and lifelong learning, through cultivating creative and critical thinking skills as a primary life-skill.
From the perspective of a VCE English teacher, with fifteen years in the job and a career in theatre directing, playwriting and film-making, the challenge is to ensure that students are inspired to actively perceive the integration of areas of study, as a means of making sense of the subject and its application to the world, both past and present (film study embodies an obvious crossover to the analysis of visual content in argument analysis). In addition, high achievement and human empowerment often require the opportunity to reach beyond conventional wisdom, as a means of generating unique and personal, but no less credible responses. It is the ability to think, to have empathy, and to walk into a potentially hostile room to present a point of view that are arguably the most important life skills VCE English imparts. As a passionate advocate for and active participant in the construction and presentation of the English language, it is clear to me that the fight for the preservation of language is at a delicate evolutionary stage. Those who can communicate the life skills of speaking, listening, reading and writing will be empowered to inspire future generations.
Language is obviously amongst the most profound and necessary of the forces that shape our lives and thought. Language, as has so often been said, is power. A critical examination of the ways in which it is constructed and used is essential, both as a defence against the blandishments of bogus ideas and as a source of intellectual pleasure in itself. This pleasure can be a stimulus to intellectual curiosity and achievement, and perhaps even to a more empathetic identification with its manifold users. With thirty years as a teacher and researcher, Dr Hoy is a communicator who has a passion for and a pleasure in language. His aim is to inspire his students to share that passion and pleasure - firstly, so that they can improve their grades but, more importantly, for the enrichment of their lives and thinking.
Claire is passionate in engaging students in the study of Shakespeare through imaginative and physical engagement with the work. It is her firm belief that dramatic texts need to be encountered dramatically: via physical, verbal and aural learning. As a professional, classically trained actor, the unique angle Claire offers as an educator is the ability to unlock and expand the learning and comprehension of Shakespeare (and other dramatic texts) from an internal perspective, encountering the characters, themes and worlds of the plays at an intimate and detailed level. The depth and breadth of knowledge students gain from this mode of study enhances both thinking and writing skills, and leads to insightful, original essay, SAC and exam responses.
‘The study of Shakespeare is not only the most viscerally immediate way to encounter the English language, but also vitally important in building empathy, intelligence, compassion, confidence and power of expression in young people.’
Claire