Leadership

Leadership Takes Responsibility    

School leadership teams identify the factors that influence the extent to which their school is ready to ‘learn professionally’ so that the quality of the teaching is improved or enhanced in its capacity to enhance students’ literacy knowledge and skills.

The Principal, Primary Learning Leader, Co Teacher and Support Teacher Inclusive Education are integral to the success of Good First Teaching and each have important roles to play that ultimately contribute to optimum learning outcomes of students.

  • Co Teaching Time and Planning Support
  • Professional Development (Weekly Collaboration with PLL)
  • Regular coordinated teaching conversations between STIE and Teacher
  • Whole School Professional Development – Key strategies/approaches
  • Centrally coordinated physical resources which includes access to quality literature of interests and reading levels

Reviewing and Monitoring Planning

The reviewing and monitoring of teacher planning in English is considered part of essential Good First Teaching practice in that it is a process through which teachers and school leadership maintain high expectations for students and provide their ongoing entitlement to knowledge, understanding and skills that provide a foundation for successful and lifelong learning.

All teachers of English at Our Lady of Dolours will engage in whole school planning. By the end of each term, teachers will have highlighted relevant aspects of English content along with identified aspects of the achievement standard. This occurs on the year level Line of Sight document which is located on the Staff Portal.

All teachers of English at Our Lady of Dolours will engage in year level class and student planning. This planning makes further sense of whole school planning and details:

  • The explicit parts of the achievement standard and content being taught and assessed
  • Pedagogy that makes the learning intent and success criteria visible to students
  • Daily practices and teaching and learning sequences supported by Gradual Release of Responsibility when teaching Reading, Writing and Oral Language
  • Strategies for monitoring, recording and responding to student progress

Year level class and student planning should be uploaded to the staff portal on a fortnightly basis and will be reviewed with feedback available to further build teacher capacity and improve student outcomes.

At Our Lady of Dolours, teacher leaders have regular conversations with students around five key questions that support the answer to the question, ‘How do we know all students are learning in our school?’ These questions are asked during Walk and Talks and were derived from the work of Lyn Sharrat.

Similar to the questions that are asked of students, questions are also generated to be asked of teachers in order to gather evidence of our teachers’ intentional teaching. Research suggests that teachers who accurately can describe their teaching and ways to improve will close the achievement gap amongst their students

The five questions of teachers about why they make the decisions they make, are asked regularly and support any professional learning and action necessary to ensure that all teaching is occurring at a competent or preferably high-impact level.

The five questions for Teachers from Lyn Sharratt are:

  • What are you teaching?
  • Why are you teaching it?
  • How are you teaching it?
  • How can you improve?
  • Where do you go for help?

The five questions for teachers are an essential Good First Teaching strategy for the teaching of English. The answers teachers provide to the questions facilitate ongoing feedback to school leadership and inform subsequent decisions that need to be made. All teachers can be expected to be asked these questions at least twice per term and be supported in their growth as high impact teachers at all times.

Ongoing Goal Setting and Review

As staff at Our Lady of Dolours immerse themselves into professional learning opportunities centred on Good First Teaching practices and strategies, shared professional learning goals will become more visible. The success of shared goals will then determine our progression through a process of ongoing goal setting continually focussed on building teacher capacity to bring about high expectations and the achievement of high standards in literacy for students.

We recognise that evidence provides the basis for ongoing feedback, reflection and further development. Collecting and reviewing evidence of our progression of learning will assist us in understanding our progress with respect to our shared performance. Importantly, evidence will allow us to identify any additional or different action that may be required in order to achieve future shared learning goals.

The image below captures the essence of our shared cycle of learning growth as we embrace and embed Good First Teaching practices and strategies.

Roles and Responsibilities

At Our Lady of Dolours School, the following staff have significant responsibilities in bringing about Good First Teaching in English, ensuring all students have access to high quality and evidenced based learning. These staff members provide the necessary leadership to teachers in shaping a path of success in literacy for all students.

  • Principal
  • Primary Learning Leader
  • Co Teacher
  • Support Teacher – Inclusive Education

The Principal, Primary Learning Leader, Co Teacher and Support Teacher – Inclusive Education work collaboratively to ensure all students have the best access to Good First Teaching in literacy.

Principal

The main role of the Principal is to ensure that Our Lady of Dolours School allows both staff and students to put literacy learning at the center of their daily activities. Such a healthy school environment should be characterized by the sense teachers have that they are part of a community of professionals focused on good first literacy instruction.

The Principal will create the necessary conditions that include:

  • Quality resourcing (both physical and human)
  • Access to appropriate release time to support on going professional learning
  • Access to relevant student learning data that support and inform ongoing decisions
  • A collaborative learning environment via professional learning meetings, co-planning, co-teaching and co-reflecting and review and response processes.

Primary Learning Leader

The main role of the Primary Learning Leader is to promote Good First Teaching practice and strategies into classroom practice. They enhance teacher effectiveness through mentoring and coaching, professional learning, collaboration and co-operation, thus enhancing teacher capacity to deliver improved literacy outcomes for students.

The Primary Learning Leader will

  • Meet weekly with each classroom teacher to facilitate the transference of Good First Teaching strategies and practices to classroom action. This includes the provision of feedback on planning and pedagogy.
  • Model high quality literacy learning and teaching in alignment with the individual progress of teachers.
  • Co-plan and Co-teach where appropriate
  • Support teachers in monitoring students’ literacy learning progress.
  • Provide professional learning and action learning within a collaborative learning context.

Support Teacher – Inclusive Education

The main role of the Support Teacher – Inclusive Education is to collaborate with teachers to analyse and interpret student literacy learning data and ask relevant questions to assist in the identification of, and response to, specific student learning needs.

The Support Teacher – Inclusive Education will:

  • Support teachers and co-teachers through guidance with differentiated literacy instruction and planning.
  • Co-plan, co-teach, co-reflect and co-debrief teaching and learning experiences with teachers, ensuring use of Good First Teaching strategies and practices.
  • Identify and promote proposed movement and improvement of students in their literacy learning.
  • Support teachers in monitoring identified students’ literacy learning progress.

Co Teacher

The main role of the Co-Teacher is to support the facilitation of literacy learning, working alongside selected teachers as equals, building joint capacity in relation to Good First Teaching strategies and practices.

The Co-Teacher will:

  • Co-plan, co-teach, co-reflect and co-debrief teaching and learning experiences with teachers, ensuring use of Good First Teaching strategies and practices.
  • Identify and promote proposed movement and improvement of students in their literacy learning.
  • Collaborate with teachers to ensure differentiated literacy planning and instruction.

Facilitate High Yield Strategies

  • Learning Walks and Talks as feedback about whole school progress
  • Maintain the conversations around Data Walls
  • Establish a Culture of Review and Response

Learning Walks and Talks as Feedback about Whole School Progress

Learning Walks and Talks are considered an essential Good First Teaching and high impact strategy in that they are a process for promoting growth in both teacher capacity and in student learning outcomes.

Learning Walks and Talks provide a way for the leadership of our school to purposefully and intentionally discern from students what our teachers have been teaching. The process involves six clear stages built around the use of five simple questions asked of students:

  1. What are you learning?
  2. How are you going?
  3. How do you know?
  4. How can you improve?
  5. Where do you go for help?

The information gathered throughout the process is non evaluative and non judgemental, but rather provides formative assessment for our school on how well we are going with the professional learning of our teachers. The responses gathered enable our school to think about what our next level of learning will be.                             
Learning Walks and Talks are held at least two times per week and focus on the goals of professional learning for our staff.

This video offers some more information about Learning Walks and Talks.

Five Questions for Students

Data Walls and Data Wall Conversations

The construction and use of Data Walls and Data Wall Conversations is considered an essential Good First Teaching and high impact strategy in that they offer us non static visual display of evidence of student achievement and growth.

Our Data Walls help us discern, through rich conversations between teachers and leaders, who and where our students are in terms of their achievement and progress and who the students of concern are whether that mean they are struggling of require extending. The focus of our conversations is purely about what we are we going to do to bring each student forward in their learning

It is through conversations around a data wall that opportunities for ongoing teacher professional learning emerge and the means by which students requiring a Review and Response approach are identified.

It is an expectation that teachers develop a shared ownership of our data walls by bringing evidence of student growth and achievement for whole staff or small group discussion at least once per term before moving students on the wall. Teachers engage with the data through a problem solving approach; asking key questions like:

  • What do we know about this student?
  • What else do we need to know?
  • What are we going to use as instructional strategies to differentiate their learning?

Guidelines for Analysing a Data Wall

Notice and Wonder Process

Review and Response Processes

Review and Response to Learner Needs

Reviewing and Responding to student learning needs is considered an essential Good First Teaching strategy for the teaching of all learning areas.

When a student is not progressing with intended learning or already shows they know the intended learning, the following should occur as part of a Review and Response approach:             

  • The classroom teacher brings evidence of learning to a meeting which is chaired by the Principal and includes the Primary Learning Leader and at least one other person with knowledgeable information in the area of learning.
  • In analysing the evidence articulated in the student learning data, the team collaboratively reflect on the instructional practice that could move the learning forward.            
  • Recommendations are made by the team and the classroom teacher decides on an action. The team agrees to evaluate student progress at planned future a Review and Response meeting.

More detailed information on the sequential process of Review and Response [pdf]

This process continues until the student displays satisfactory progress. Specific adjustments may also be embedded and sit alongside instructional practice.

A record of each Review and Response meeting is taken and copies provided by the team to the classroom teacher. These are also saved centrally and support the building of an ongoing student learning profile.

When a third or fourth Review and Response Meeting is required for a student, consideration should be given to a more intensive and targeted response with increasingly frequent reviews. A more specialised team may be developed to include the Support Teacher for Inclusive Education and external support agencies if necessary. Resources will be allocated in consultation with the Principal.

Checklist to support teachers with preparations for the Review and Response Process [pdf]

Review and Response Meeting Protocols [pdf]

Review and Response Meeting Record 1 [Word]

Review and Response Meeting Record 2 [Word]

Review and Response Meeting Record 3 [Word]

Review and Response Transition Meeting [Word]

Further information on the Review and Response Process can be sourced from the BCE kWeb.

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