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OUR
MISSION
We focus on creating an authentic, impactful and holistic teaching and learning experience through engagement, collaboration and application.
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Authenticity and Integrity

Authenticity

and

Integrity

Communication and Collaboration

Communication

and

Collaboration

Leadership and Empowerment

Leadership

and

Empowerment

Carlyn Kang

Founder of Edcellent Education

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.

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Kate

Kate King-Smith

IB / VCE English at Edcellent Education

Education, while an important part of student’s development and learning, has a proclivity to feel as if it has been shoved down students’ throats. Particularly in English, we place a large emphasis on the nitty-gritty details of syntax, essay structure and textual analysis while breezing past all the things that intuitively make literature and multimodal texts matter. Sadly, these things tend to also be the most fun and engaging aspects of English as a subject. My aim, as a teacher, is to encourage my students to fall in love with consuming media and literature in all its forms, just as my own teachers and mentors have taught me in the past. I want my students to learn to appreciate storytelling in all its forms from traditional written texts, to film, to plays, even to video-games. My goal for students is to allow them to grow in their practical understanding of texts within this very real world we exist in, rather than force them to limit themselves to a narrow understanding of art and artistic expression. Through this, they may learn to critically analyse and understand their texts in real-world contexts, producing long- lasting and profound memories that will help shape them into competent young adults.

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Leo

Leo Palmer

IB & VCE English Literature at Edcellent Education

Why IB?
As a classicist, I have a deep appreciation and understanding of the roots of Western literature, from its origins in the oral tradition of epic poetry, to the development of drama, history, and prose. Classics is also where the science of textual and literary criticism originates: the ability to carefully discern a variety of meanings, themes, and ideas from a given text, to read between the lines and to fill in the gaps of what has been left unsaid. These are the skills which the IB literature course has been designed to cultivate and nurture. My research has spanned the intersections of politics, religion, gender studies, comparative history, philology, linguistics, and more. I am excited to work with IB students in connecting literature to global issues and to explore how the written word can incisively engage with the world around us.

My teaching philosophy
Students who want to succeed academically must move away from habits of rote memorisation and towards independent critical thinking, especially when it comes to thinking about English. Students must be encouraged at every stage to show an understanding of a topic in their own words, and to pursue their own curiosity. My training in Classics has centred around the close analysis of time-honoured texts, with the aim of reaching interpretation through translation. The ability to translate canonical works from the original Greek or Latin opens one up to an endless array of interpretive possibilities that require discerning judgement and the cultivation of critical thinking. This same philological approach can and must be applied to all literature in order to reach an adequate depth of understanding. To be truly educated, I believe, is to possess the ability to formulate important questions, and to know how best to seek the answers.

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Toni

Toni Soh

Junior and Middle School English at Edcellent Education

The best thing about teaching in the Junior School at Edcellent is that it allows me to relive the many moments of wonderment I shared whilst analysing and reading books with my now successfully grown sons. Why wonderment? Because language is the only tool we possess to share each other's feelings and thoughts about our very unique and personal experience of being Human. This is why every piece of writing, whether it is from a child in Year 3 or an adolescent in Year 12 is unique. Novels and books are the only way through which we can have a glimpse of the inner world of the writers who created them. It is a wondrous place. Through words, we resonate with the harmony and contradictions, joy and pain shared by a writer. Using the same words, we tell the world what it feels like to be someone like us. It is through language that we do not feel alone. 

Having worked with students and parents from non-native backgrounds for 14 years, I have found that one of the greatest misconceptions about English and Writing is that it is about vocabulary and grammar, which is like saying Cooking is about meat and vegetables. True, these are the essential ingredients for any language user; and no one needs them more than the IELTS and University-level Foundation English learners I have taught for the last 20 years. Yet these are the very minimal requirements for any student who wishes to excel in their native language. Too often, students lack originality and critical thinking skills.

As a Naplan and Scholarship Test Writing Examiner, I have found that the best pieces of writing are the ones that demonstrate an imaginative, curious, wise, impassioned and compassionate mind. To cultivate such minds, Primary and Lower-Secondary levels students need to be introduced to the implicit messages and conventions of story-telling and persuasive prose. They need to experience deeply how words and syntax, imagery and figurative language are carefully weaved together to create a unique experience for the reader.  These skills are later honed and developed for the four Units of VCE English. Many of the VCE EAL students in my High School simply have not been exposed to these skills early enough, so it is impossible for them to do well. 

Luckily, these are skills all children utilise instinctively; all we need to do is to guide and inspire them. For many parents for whom English is not their native language, this is a daunting task. I am therefore honoured and privileged to share your children's experiences on their journey through books, ideas and the sublimely beautiful English Language.

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Dr

Dr Tom Hoy

Senior English Language and Literature at Edcellent Education

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.

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Mei

Mei Sng

IB English, Junior and Middle School English at Edcellent Education

We are all lifelong learners and education is a constant experience which accompanies us across all experiences. As a teacher, my role is to not just guide students towards academic success but also to mentor and motivate them towards becoming remarkable individuals. A teacher is not just an academic educator. Rather we embody all vital life-skills that our students will require to lead rich and fulfilling lives. Skills such as communication, social abilities, thinking processes and self-management are the foundations of a holistic IB education, and I strive for my students to display these in all areas of their lives.

Education is not simply throwing a book, assessments, reports, or tasks at students and assuming they can grasp the meaning and complete the tasks. Education is a profound experience that influences thinking, growth, and personal development. With the correct motivations, approaches, and enthusiasm, all learners can achieve their learning goal, finding fulfillment and joy in their learning.

Education to be a social experience and I personally subscribed to the belief that we can all learn from each other. Every learner can bring something individual, interesting, and special to each classroom creating a rich and rewarding classroom experience. As a mentor, it is my role to facilitate and create this warm, safe and inclusive space. All my students should feel comfortable stepping into this space and sharing their ideas. Communication, collaboration, and teamwork are at the front of a student-centred approach and the value that each student brings into a learning space cannot be overstated. Fostering an open-minded approach in class helps ensure success for your students. By working together, we learn from each other and create invaluable connections of knowledge. Learners should be at the centre of every engaging, challenging, and exciting moment to fully demonstrate their strengths as well as their ability to shine.

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Benjamin

Benjamin Pittard

VCE English / EAL at Edcellent Education

For as long as I can remember, teachers have been taught that it was their responsibility to ensure that ‘no students fall through the cracks’. It was important that every teacher ensured that a student’s requirements for success were met so that success was an inevitability. Unfortunately, this was an ideology I never saw any school fully achieve. It was both a passion for academics and a personal mission to see this issue corrected that inspired me to seek out teaching as a profession. As a student, for every teacher that encouraged me and developed in me a joy for learning, there were almost twice as many that turned it into a chore. It is my personal goal as a professional educator to ensure every single student finds enjoyment in engaging with literature and sees the value of reading texts of every possible form. It is my firm belief that inside every student is a hobby or a passion that can act as the key to finding what keeps them engaged with learning. By incorporating these passions with real-world scenarios and the thematic concerns of their studied texts I believe that when the time comes for them to graduate, every student will be able to demonstrate the ability to apply their learning as fully informed and critically thinking members of society.

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Pauline

Pauline Malkoun

VCE English / English Language / EAL at Edcellent Education

Literacy is key to survival and success in our dynamic and evolving society. It helps cultivate critical thinking and understanding and opens up opportunities for growth and development. Our ability to communicate effectively is grounded in the foundational skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. It is a privilege in which I delight, to help students build these foundational skills which can set them up for success. Our world is shaped by the words we use to describe it; thus, it is imperative that we understand the nuance of language to help us navigate the world successfully. Once we develop competence and confidence in our language skills, we can achieve anything. My goal as a teacher of English is to help students become competent and confident masters of the language, so they can use this tool to help them reach their goals.

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Seanzel

Seanzel He

VCE English / EAL at Edcellent Education

Language is very much the core of existence. Through how we communicate, we can convey our own thoughts, affirm the feelings of others, and express our identity – all to confirm our own existence. This makes the study of English, and having a solid understanding of the language, a critical life skill. My teaching philosophy places a strong emphasis on the why something is expressed in a certain way, rather than simply unpacking content material to meet expectations. By prompting both myself and students to explore beyond the surface level, the aim is for students to raise their depth of understanding in the language itself, rather than a specific text. I strongly encourage all students, in the process of analysis, to be able to separate the third party’s persuasion from their own opinions, and thus formulate and maintain their personal ideas whilst being able to identify and emphasise with another’s approach. This ideal is subsequently translatable across all analysis-based topics and situations, instilling in students a valuable life skill that will purvey beyond the classroom.

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Josh

Josh van de Ven

VCE English, EAL, English Language at Edcellent Education

While English may not be everyone’s favourite subject, the skills one learns in English are those which are perhaps most valuable to leading a fulfilling and thoughtful life. Regardless of one’s career or interests, language is everywhere. We are constantly surrounded by language that attempts to move, persuade, or manipulate. Being able to navigate that language is essential, especially in an increasingly complex modern world, and requires much more than simple rote memorisation and being able to pass a test. A classroom should therefore be a place to foster a deeper understanding of language that extends beyond exams and assignments, enabling students to develop as free thinkers who are able to intelligently interact with the world around them. This is, fundamentally, what I believe education should be - a means of fostering curiosity, passion, and understanding, to prepare students for life outside of school

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Vanessa

Vanessa Francesca

VCE English, EAL, Literature at Edcellent Education

We live in a fast paced, ever-changing world, where change is a constant. In order to understand this world, we must be able to think independently, use our critical faculties, and adapt to change. This means that as an educator, my role is as much about instilling values and principles as it is about building skills. In order to be directed by our values and build skills when we learn, it is helpful to begin with a mindfulness-based approach that separates fact from interpretation. The study of text-based analysis in English and English as a Second Language can be a testing ground for the way we talk about shared truths in society. When analysing a character or a scene, we are building the skills and values we will bring to analysing a newspaper article or a problem to be solved at work or in the classroom.

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