Transcript National Partnerships School Forum − 2011



Running the Gauntlet.
Clint Eastwood Style.
Getting the job done
against what ever the odds.




Warm Up:
Engage: E 5 Model.
2 minute Turn & Talk.
Discuss situations at your school where
you’ve had to run the gauntlet & having to
make tough decisions
 The
WMR Blueprint has
empowered the school
leadership to effect significant
change.

Some will see similarities in our presentation to
their own path, perhaps offering some reassurance.




Deer Park North is much like any other
disadvantaged school.
We have our fair share of challenging
students.
Many of our students will not have gone to
kinder before starting school.
Many of our families struggle to put food
on the table – school offers a breakfast
program every morning between 8.30 &
8.55am






We have a high proportion of ESL students
(Approx 60%).
A significant number of single parents.
A high proportion of SLD students (Severe
Language Disorder)
Employ a full time Speech Pathologist.
From the Playroom to the Classroom Kits.
(school readiness, responding to 1/3 of our
students not having been to kindergarten)
Our SFO is around .74




For all intents & purposes we felt that we had
a hard working staff.
A well organised school with various support
programs.
Hardly a formula for poor performance.
Our most recent review has been the
‘Continuous Improvement Model’.


School Data was nothing startling though
showing some signs of improvement.
We needed to rethink on the gradual, though
slow improvement.




The gap between our support programs & the
requests/needs of our staff was getter wider.
Becoming increasingly difficult to plug holes.
Leadership discussed best way
to move the school forward.
Visited High Performing Schools
Bellfield – John Forrester.





90/90/90 document influenced decision to
streamline school curriculum.
Swimming restricted to Year 2 students.
Years 3/4 & 5/6 alternate going to camp
Secondary transition programs restricted to
the two local secondaries.
Needed to have a greater focus on Literacy
& Numeracy with fewer distractions.

Essentially we needed to approach 2008 with
a greater commitment/focus on
‘Building Teacher Capacity’.

A fair mountain to climb.




Regionally appointed coach. (A welcome initiative &
a real plus for our school).
Proved confronting for many.
Needed to establish a profile as to which teachers
does one allocate a coach, i.e.
* the first year graduate
* the team leaders
* the teacher in most need of support
* the teacher who was enthusiastic about being
coached
* Spread across teams
Too valuable a resource not to maximise potential.

‘Breakthrough’ – Fullen, Hill/Crevola.
‘Precise’, ‘Personalised’
&’ Purposeful’
‘In the dark all schools look the same, it’s not until one turns
the light on that we begin to see the real difference.’
Introduced ‘Literacy Walks’.
 Established protocols & visit focus.
 Staff involved helped to create list of
observable behaviours.
 This proved challenging
for some.



Principal Coaching Program: If I was going to
ask our teachers to accept being coached
then I needed to be prepared to be coached
myself.
Discussed managing change,
dealing with personal limitations,
changing school culture &
dealing with difficult people, etc


Decision to train a school based coach
to compliment the regionally
appointed coach. (2008)
Not altogether successful as at that
stage we didn’t really know what we
wanted and who could best fulfil the
role.





Saw the need to develop an Assessment
Schedule as a result of a 2007 audit.
Wanted consistency across the school.
Needed a workable timeline
We questioned value of certain assessments
& time factor.
Developing our knowledge of
‘AS’ ‘OF’ & ‘FOR’.


December 2008: Leadership planned
our 2009 Curriculum Days.
Strong emphasis
on quality PD and the
‘Building the Capacity
of our staff’.




Decided to advertise a full time Leading
Teacher coaching position - Teaching &
Learning (Literacy). Training required.
Proved to be a challenging exercise with a
very limited list of applicants. (We got lucky.)
Also trained a staff member in Numeracy.
Quality Coaches - Challenge for all schools.
Faye Bolton – 1st day of the
school year 2009 - Focus on
Literacy overview and
more specifically: Spelling
Investigations & Interactive Writing

Consultancy work was
extended for an additional 4 days
throughout the year moving from a spelling focus
to reading & ‘just right books’
Prediction
 What makes sense? (Not sounding out)
 Decoding
 Story Grammar – Problem/Solution
 Top Level Structures - Cause/effect,
Problem/solution, Compare/contrast,
List-like
 Investigations

 Becoming
a ‘Values based
School’ involving staff,
students, school council &
the broader community.




Reduced our Values list from 9 to 5.
Came up with a School Purpose Statement.
Unpacked the school values and completed
what our values Respect, Honesty, Trust, Care
& Responsibility actually looked like for
everyone.
Launched each value at our whole school
assembly by way of a play/performance that
included people from all sections of the
school.

Implementation of the Assessment schedule.
We wanted to establish a more consistent
approach across the school, believing…….
“ If you want to measure
change, don’t change the
measure!”



Moving the critical mass.
Earlier signs that our graduate teachers &
new staff were falling into an existing culture
instead of using the opportunity to create a
new one.
Saw this as a real concern.
‘Behaviour unchallenged is
behaviour condoned.’


High Performing Principal Program
(Unfortunate title – should
‘all’ get to experience other
systems.
Application was based
around a 6 day Data Wise course at
Harvard University at Cambridge in
Boston.



Program proved to be motivating, inspiring &
re-ignited some needed passion.
Led Workshop - ‘Consultancy Protocol – Tall Poppy
Syndrome’ (A question of Changing a School
Culture)
On returning - Introduced ‘Data Discussion’
meetings - 1 on 1 with teachers.
(School Data Folder - Greater accountability).




Unpopular decisions needed to be made.
Not renewing Leading Teacher positions.
CGU Work Cover Claims against me/
Appeals/ Conciliation.
Calls to Conduct & Ethics/AEU
re holding firm on roles for
individual staff members
reluctant to embrace change.
Restructure of our leadership team.
Two Assistant Principals. ‘Curriculum’ & ‘Daily
Organisation/Well Being’
 Two Leading Teachers – Literacy & Numeracy
Coaches.



Preparation for the 2010.
Some 15 of the 21 classroom teachers either
moved rooms or were newly appointed to the
school.


Used to renovate and create spacious
open design classrooms.
Created large learning centres for 4 of
our year 5/6 classes.






Strategic allocation of roles & greater role
clarity.
Roles linked closely to Strategic Plan/AIP
Performance and Development Staff
Information folders - Revised Framework .
Introduced group reviews.
Individual and team goals aligned with AIP.
Meeting schedule having a greater focus on
PD.




Hit the ground running for the beginning of
the 2010 school year.
The majority of our people have embraced
the change with our more junior staff leading
the charge.
Classes restructured to include straight
preps.
A very different feel around the school.


You can be old(er) but still very valuable .
Whilst I think our junior staff has led the way
in embracing change positively, there are
some very positive signs that our more
experienced staff are doing the same.

Staff having high energy levels & showing
enormous commitment & dedication.

Greater enthusiasm for learning.

Now have teachers aspiring to be coaches.

Terrific commitment to Regional E5Quip
program.

Most fortunate to have appointed a quality
Literacy Coach to work in 3/4 area.

Numeracy Coach (.6) working in the 5/6 area.

Intervention offered through 1.5 EFT R. Rec.

Regionally appointed coach (.4) across P-2.

Coaching across all levels of the school
deemed ‘intervention’.







Faye Bolton engaged as a consultant to work at the
school for 10 full days in 2010
Focus on explicit Literacy teaching strategies with
selected teams.
Faye plans/prepares with teachers at 8:15-8:50am.
Models a particular strategy (Sessions 1-3)
Opportunity for teachers to be observed/coached
by Faye (Session 4)
Feedback and discussion with teachers (Session 5)
School coaches involved – continue to implement
explicit strategies with teachers.






Coaching
Classroom Libraries
Classroom Environment
Independent Reading
Reading Conferences
Reading Data

There is still a lot of water to go under the
bridge and even perhaps one or two bridges
that need to be mended.
‘Bridges of Madison County’.

Regional Blueprint Perspective: ‘Engaging and
Orderly Learning Environment.



The development of our young Team Leaders.
Leadership Professional Learning Forum –
January 25th 2011
Reference – ‘Schools as Professional Learning
Communities’ by Sylvia Roberts & Eunice
Pruitt.
 Something
we will have to
monitor very carefully.
 Teachers are working harder.
 The accountability has increased
enormously for school leaders &
our teachers alike.

Importantly and like you, we are having a go
at trying to make a real difference.
‘To do the same thing is to get
the same results’.
 There
is much to be achieved and
much work to be done. We don’t
advocate what we’re doing will
work for every school.
 Ultimately
each school
decide its own destiny.
must

From Clint Eastwood
himself
and that is to do it.......
‘Any Which Way You Can’