Greg Whitby

  • Please suspend your judgment

    Please suspend your judgment - Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta...
  • Staff Development Days

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta If you’re a working parent, then you probably dread the note from school advising of a pupil free day, especially when those days fall before or just after school holidays. In today’s world, the demands on families are...
  • Time for selective schools to go

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta NSW Minister for Education Rob Stokes recently set the cat amongst the pigeons when he announced that there would be no new fully selective schools built in NSW. He argued passionately that every child needs to be viewed...
  • It is not all about STEM

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta Last month, NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes suggested schools needed to avoid the over-promotion of STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) above other areas, cautioning against following education ‘fads’. The comments were controversial because they were at...
  • The two sides of social media

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta These days it is rare to find a teenager who doesn’t have at least one social media account. It is usually more than one. Clearly, social media is no fad. We are only at the beginning of what...
  • Discipline and punishment are not the same thing

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta In 1998, Tom Herner, an academic working in the area of supporting students with challenging behaviours, wrote this: “If a child doesn’t know how to read, we teach; if a child doesn’t know how to multiply, we teach;...
  • Parents are key partners

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta Schools strive to deliver the best outcomes for students. However, schools sometimes miss a golden opportunity to do even more for their students when they fail to engage parents as partners in education. We know that parent engagement...
  • The school parking dilemma

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta Not that long ago, it was the norm for children to walk to school, catch a bus or train, or get a lift with another parent. Today, more parents are choosing to drive their children to school and...
  • Is there a right way to learn?

    Weekly Column from the Executive Director of Schools, Diocese of Parramatta Most of us went to school at a time when the only way to learn your times tables was to memorise and recall by heart. We call this type of learning – rote. Just recently NSW Education Minister...