Great teachers are the key to student well-being and academic learning

As a school principal I recall the little ones first days at school when there was a fair bit of crying and wanting to go home with mum and/or dad.  Great teachers eased them through this and they set off on their school journey with confidence because they were immediately nurtured by the teachers and felt safe and cared for.  Today I took my young granddaughter to pre-school which she loves.  We played with some small plastic toy creatures before it was time for me and the other parents to leave.  One little girl was sobbing on her mother's shoulder and the mum brought her to the mat where I was interacting with my little one.  The crying stopped as the interest in the toys took over and the mum gave me a nod of gratitude.  This is what reminded me of the first day at school blues.

Just the other day I was also reminded of the exuberance of youngsters when they find something that ignites their curiosity.  I spent the day with my granddaughter who is 4 and one half years old.  She wanted to search for insects and observe what they do.  Off we went and captured all sorts of creatures in our observation jar.  We looked at and discussed them.  I am gradually teaching my granddaughter what characterises an insect but didn't raise this when the majority of creatures captured were snails.  We let the snails loose and watched through a large magnifying glass talking about what they looked like and how they moved.  Of course we freed our subjects at the conclusion of this interactive time.  It was golden time.

Learning is a brilliant thing and the best teachers are constantly attuned to the wonder of it. This wonder is not only to be had with live subjects like insects but I experience it all the time with mathematics from the youngest students to the halls of university lectures in statistics.  I recall a wonderful stats lecturer who spoke with excitement about the parsimony of certain statistical formulae that had their roots in calculus. It was for me the switching on of a light.  I could do calculus problems as a final year secondary student but never experienced the wonder of what they were really all about.  It took a great teacher to open this door.

I am privileged to experience the wonder of the research outcomes of our scientists.  It never ceases to thrill me when I come across another wonderful discovery.  These are Crick and Watson moments. I know that great science teachers immerse their students in such wonder.  I am weird but as a student organic chemistry was a big new world to me and my interest has never dimmed.

I am privileged to experience the richness of words that the best wordsmiths put together in literature and in the great orations.  The hair stands up on the back of my neck when I am reading a book and come across another pearl of sentence and paragraph construction.  Recently I sent to my journalist son a line from a book on the Middle East set around 1917 and the struggles of the various powers and nationalities for control at that time : the author wrote:  "Those acorns of misunderstanding which become the great oaks of prejudice."  My son's response was that he wished he'd written that.  Great teachers will create for their students this wonder in the words and I was lucky enough to have two of the best literature teachers that ever trod the classroom.  I was even luckier when as a teacher I worked with them as colleagues.

I was and am no giant brain so full credit to the great teachers who broke through for me and gave me moments of unforgettable wonder.

As school principals it is worthwhile working hard to be leaders who inspire our teachers about this wonder in learning.  It is an exercise of reinvigorating the teachers, assisting them to marvel at the richness that is their profession and feel good about the skills that they daily demonstrate and the positive influences that they have.


GD

No Australian Viewers

I can't seem to get Australian viewers of this blog.  Either the subject matter is rubbish or I am an IT incompetent or both.

I'd love to know if anyone out there has some advice on my audience issues.


GD

Being an Australian Independent Government School (IGS)

I've just read a report on an IGS by an Education Department central office review panel. Such periodic reviews by central office are a requirement of the IGS contract.  The reviewers set out to critique the school's self review system.  In order to respect the independence of the school it seemed to me that the reviewers were hesitant to set the context of the overall organisation of the school and then within that context to make their comments on the school's self review process.  There is no point in reviewing a school's self review process if the school is not well organised.

Being well organised for me as a principal is that the school have a comprehensive School Development Plan (SDP) that covers the key elements of an effective school over a chosen duration like 3-5 years.  Within the appropriate elements of the SDP there should be embedded explicit school effectiveness criteria.  In the report I read there was regular mention of the schools' Business Plan (BP) but no convincing comment on how comprehensive it was.  The BP was probably some form of an SDP.  I can't warm to the BP nomenclature as the sense that a school is a business just doesn't resonate with me.

The SDP elements for me are:

1          1. The mission statement

2. The goals/aims of the school

3. The school leadership organization, inclusive of distributive leadership.

4. The organisation of the school for learning – staff/student configurations or class structures

5. The curriculum and standards moderation, inclusive of NAPLAN testing.

6. Core principles of best practice teaching and student learning processes as applied in the school.

7. The teacher driven assessment program to ascertain student learning progress in the subjects/learning areas of the chosen curriculum and the associated data bases of student records, inclusive of NAPLAN testing and data bases.

8. The NAPLAN assessment program: processes and practices.

9. The role of teachers and administrative staff in monitoring the outcomes of student learning from the prescribed curriculum to provide conclusions about the overall effectiveness of that learning across the school.

10. The state at any one time of student well-being across the school student population and the effectiveness of the monitoring of this #1 priority school effectiveness criterion.

11.Communications within the school.

12. The representation on and role of the School Board and the role of the P&C.

13.Parents the school and the learning of the parents’ offspring.

14. Written and oral communications with parents, with the main area of communication being the school reports on student progress with their learning.

15. The infrastructure of the school as being appropriate to student learning – included new structures, maintenance of existing structures.

16. Student population predictions and the concomitant staff and infrastructure needs.

17. Staff recruitment procedures in terms of the needs of the school teaching and learning program and staff induction programs.   

18. Roles of non-teaching staff who support in the classrooms and the administrative clerical staff.

19. Budget processes, inclusive of evaluation of efficiency and effectiveness of budget decisions as applied to facilitate the student learning program.

20. Occupational health and safety procedures.

21. Staff welfare, inclusive of procedures when staff are performing below the core standards expected in the school.

22. Best practice teaching and the related staff professional development.

23. Maintenance of and respect for the symbols that are part of  the culture of the school, such as the uniform, the school flag, the school song, the traditional award trophies and ceremonies that define the school.

24. Relationships with quasi government assessment bodies appointed by the Sate or territory. This applies more to secondary schools and the need to meet tertiary entrance requirements.

25. The Myschool website requirements.

26. The Annual Report.

For each element there would be a statement about its purpose, how it was to be organized, how it was to work, an itemisation and costing of any resources needed and a set of strategies about how to evaluate the effectiveness of this element of the SDP. The timeline over the 3, 4 or 5 years of the SDP would show which items were up for evaluation in the particular year.  Elements 7, 8 and 9 focused on student learning would be in play week by week as they are part of the ongoing learning program.  Element 10 would be evaluated regularly according to a manageable schedule.  Element 9 would be  organised around the school processes for reporting to parents, to the School Board and to any external authorities as required. 

1    

The School Effectiveness Criteria for me in order of importance are: 

Criterion #1 My School Respects Me Every Day  (Aligns with SDP element 

                                                                                                    #10)

Criterion #2  My School Helps Me To Be Fit And Healthy And To Feel Good

                           About Myself (Aligns with SDP element #10)

Criterion #3  My Teacher(s) Talk To Me Personally Each Week (Aligns with SDP element #10)

Criterion #4  My School Helps Me To Learn How To Learn (Aligns with SDP element #6)

Criterion #5 My School Makes Sure That As I Progress I Don’t Develop Gaps

                           In My English Language, Mathematics And Digital Skills

                           Learning (Aligns with SDP elements #s4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Criterion #6  My Child’s School Gives Me The Opportunity To Be Part Of My

                            Child’s Learning (Aligns with SDP elements 12, 13, 14)

Criterion #7  My School Cares About Me As A Staff Member And Has

                           Reasonable Expectations Of Me (Aligns with SDP elements

                          #s17, 18, 21)

Criterion #8  My School Was Rigorous In Taking Me On (Aligns with SDP

                           element #17)

Criterion #9  My School Gives Me Leadership Opportunities (Aligns with

                           SDP element #3)

Criterion #10 My School Relieves Me Of The Stress Of Severely Disruptive

                             Students (Aligns with SDP element #21)

Criterion #11  We The School Staff Accept Responsibility For Keeping Up To

                              Date (Aligns with SDP element #s6 and 22)

Criterion #12 Our School’s Budget Spending Is Focussed On Improving

                             Student Learning  (Aligns with SDP elements #s 15,16,19)

Criterion #13  We The School Staff Are One With The School Board (Aligns

                              with SDP element #12)

Criterion #14 Our School Has Reassuring And Necessary OHS Procedures

                             (Aligns with SDP element #20)

Criterion #15  Our School Focuses On Change That Improves Student

                              Learning (Aligns with SDP element #s 9, 15, 20)

Criterion #16  Communication Works In Our School Community (Aligns

                              with SDP element #11)

Criterion #17  Our School Respects The Traditions Of The School Culture

                             (Aligns with SDP element #23)

Criterion #18  We Laugh A Lot In Our School (Aligns with SDP elements

                              #s10 and 21)

A Special School Effectiveness Criterion:  Our School Has An Effective

                                                                  School  Development Planning Process

 I place this effectiveness criterion separate from the listing in order of importance.  It reflects everything about the school and deserves its separate positioning.

For me the key features of an effective SDP are:

·      It covers the main elements describing the school as listed above.

·      The elements of the SDP align in large part to the criteria for school effectiveness.

·      It ensures that all staff, parents, the School Board and the students had appropriate opportunities to contribute to the development of the SDP.

·      The SDP is cast over a suitable time period such as 3-5 years so that targets 2, 3, 4 years ahead can be set for each element of the SDP as appropriate.  In any particular year of the duration of an SDP some elements will have development objectives activated and other elements will be in a status quo situation.

·      The SDP has built into its requirements an evaluation agenda for finding out whether it worked as an SDP.

All of the above on the SDP and the School Effectiveness Criteria is explained further in my treatise on school effectiveness which is at the draft #4 stage.  In this treatise I have set up an example of a working SDP for primary schools.  The SDP process is vital also for secondary schools.

GD

         

Semester 1 2016 draws to a close

I guess you are somewhat weary and needing a break.  I am sure this is true of your teachers.

I hope that your staff members can take time to refresh ready for semester 2.  A vital part of this is for them to spend prime time with their close loved ones and their friends.  These relationships are far more important than any job.  I have a sense of hypocrisy in saying this as I was a workaholic. Reflections about my working life contain painful regrets of how on many occasions I let work commitments dominate.  Fortunately my family were more than patient.  Every day I am grateful for a long suffering wife and we are now enjoying the lesser pace of retirement.

I am concerned about mounting reports of school staff, including principals, being attacked by students and parents.  My entreaty to view the work done by Kambrya College is worth following up.  Kambrya College processes provide insights into how to deal with this unfortunate problem through a vibrant student wellbeing program.

Note also how Kambrya teachers were willing to put their classroom approaches to the test and make significant changes to improve student learning.  Very brave and very professional of these teachers.

Good luck for semester 2.

Enough already!


GD

Kambrya College

To my principal colleagues, if you have not already done so, go to 'abc iview' and watch the three episodes about Kambrya College.  It is inspiring.

Kambrya set out to lift its rating across Victorian schools from very low to whatever it could achieve. The changes were made in three main areas:  teaching skills, a focus on student wellbeing and a lift in academic performance outcomes.  They worked in conjunction with the University of Melbourne Graduate School of Education guided by Professor John Hattie.  The improvements astounded me.  My deep love for my profession was bolstered by what I saw.

This College loved its students even through periods of misbehaviour by some.

All hail Kambrya College.

Enough already!


GD

Student wellbeing : part 2

Hullo to my fellow principals.  I'm still posting away.  Hope it helps.  If not let me know if it is a lot of garbage and I might desist.  I have a thick skin.

What follows is information on student wellbeing from my small treatise on effective schooling.  The treatise is meant to be an easy read and offering practical suggestions.  It would probably cause academics some concern as it is not referenced to a plethora of academic papers.  The story is being told by Tom, an eminent educator,  to a writer who is to put it all together, so please bear with me.  SDP refers to School Development Plan. Tom and his writer are on Tom's boat moored in a quiet estuary.  In Student Wellbeing part 1 I and already posted the top priority school effectiveness criterion:

Criterion #1 My School Respects Me Every Day  (Aligns with SDP element  

                                                                                                    #10)

Considering the work for each syllabus prescribed for a particular year, as in the Australian National Curriculum, Tom in his treatise on school effectiveness identifies within each age cohort the Panthers who will complete the work for their year level in less than the academic year and require extension.  Then there are the Jaguars who will need the whole academic year to complete the work for their year level.  Finally there are the Leopards who will not complete the required work for their year level within the academic year.  Tom mentions the Leopards below.

                                                                         *** 

Tom reassured himself that his explanations of each of the school effectiveness criteria provided hints as to the content of the documents each school has to show how things are expected to happen within that school : school policy statements if you will.

Tom's second criterion for school effectiveness is:

Criterion #2  My School Helps Me To Be Fit And Healthy And To Feel Good

                           About Myself (Aligns with SDP element #10)

Tom was convinced that what the school did in nurturing the physical and social growth of its students was vital.   The curriculum learning areas of physical and health education and the performing arts provided considerable opportunities to achieve such nurturing.  This is not to decry the value of the arts of drawing and design but Tom believed these to be more specialised and dependent in the areas of painting and drawing on innate talent.  He had taken some criticism over the years for this view and felt somewhat hypocritical when he admired a painting or a sculpture.

Tom had observed during his time working in schools the swelling of pride and joy of students who had just been part of a school play or performance. He well remembered the primary school that each year put on a major performance for the parents and the wider community and the  large number of students who were involved.  He saw the beaming on their faces when the audience cheered and clapped their performance.  He marvelled at the annual School Spectacular screened each year by the ABC network and could see the efforts and extensive student involvement numbers within each contributing school.  He knew of Leopards who just blossomed as performers with a great boost to their self esteem.  Here was a curriculum area made for developing a sense in students that they were respected within their school community.

Tom dreamed of a vision in physical and health education whereby innovative physical education teachers established programs based on general physical fitness leading to good health for each student.  He was sure such programs were out there.  He visualised at primary school level daily physical education aimed at improving general fitness taking into account the physical attributes of each student.  As soon as possible in primary school and leading into secondary school, each student would be skilled to participate in regularly measuring and documenting (a mathematics and computer data management opportunity) their height, weight, core, arm and leg strength and aerobic fitness.  They would be shown how to calculate the optimum weight for height for themselves.  All of this was to be handled very carefully so as not to embarrass anyone.  The fitness programs would be interesting and varied and take into account the sort of impact exercises that might be suited to girls as a hedge against the later scourge of osteoporosis.

The personal fitness data bases designed to be built up over the student’s whole school life were to be secure and known only to the teacher(s) and the individual student.  At secondary school level this whole program could become very sophisticated and extend to developing attitudes of preventative measures/medicine to ensure good health rather than the reach for a tablet approach.

Part of the learning was about a healthy diet.  A caution was the area of obesity and how to assist such students without creating conflict with the family.  An ideal would be to involve the family if this were possible.  All parents would be briefed through various school communication channels about this program. The sensitive area of the school’s dietary recommendations would need to be handled with care so as not to offend families.   Tom knew that some schools would not go for this but he was stubborn in his resolve.  He did not want parents to be told what to do but wanted to be up front about how the school’s Physical and Health Education program dealt with dietary issues and physical good health.  Tom knew that there was nothing new in schools teaching about a healthy diet.  The five food groups had received a regular hammering over the years and parents were used to this occurring. This program was also to embrace the issues of body abuse such as drugs of all sorts.

It would also cover sex education according to the developmental needs of the students and facets about relating to other persons at a sexual level.  Built in here would be warnings about being trapped into abusive situations, especially the dangers that lurked on the internet.  At its very best it could also include education on gender matters such as homosexuality.  Overall the program was to be about developing a positive self- image in each student by giving them the chance to explore these matters openly and positively.  There would need to be a seeking of parental permission in respect of many of the areas that might be covered.

The health and fitness program coordinators would also be responsible for ascertaining the level of bullying across the student population and for developing programs to counter this negative activity.  The physical education staff would have an added responsibility to educate the rest of the staff so that they could support the bullying counter measures.

Thus for Tom a measure of the effectiveness of any school was to create and measure the success of such self-image developing programs.  It was a big responsibility for the physical education teachers.  They might need to coopt other relevant staff members such as the counselling staff.  Of course the physical education staff would have responsibility for sport, and student participation in such could be part of their data gathering as to how this assists them as developing individuals. Above all there would be no students fearing that their slowness or their general physical prowess would see them floundering at the tail of the field in any sporting event. It would be about personal fitness goals.  Having indicated this Tom was not one to shy away from competitive sport situations where there is a loser and a winner.  The participating students would need to be educated to deal with this reality.

Above all it was to create an environment where the young felt safe and cared for as they learned more in their journey towards being able to look after themselves as adults who had a positive self-image and sense of who they were.  This meant that the young had a sense each day that all was well emotionally and physically and that they had some control over this. Tom knew that part of feeling comfortable at school had to do with performances of various sorts from academic to physical and artistic, but more about that later.

Tom had observed effective teachers over the years making sure they interacted positively with each student each week.  Of particular concern to a teacher were the quiet students.  Some Leopards often worked hard at being inconspicuous because they found the learning tough going.  They may even have experienced what they perceived as a snub in the hurly burly of the classroom.  Tom well remembered a year 12 Leopard telling him how way back in year 4 he asked a question and received what he perceived as ridicule from some of his classmates.  This compounded his dwindling confidence in his ability to learn and he told Tom that from that day he had deliberately remained as quiet as he could and that he never asked another question. As a precaution Tom included in his thinking the next criterion of an effective school.

Criterion #3  My Teacher(s) Talk To Me Personally Each Week (Aligns with SDP element #10)

Tom firmly believed that each student deserved each week a reasonable amount of the teacher’s one to one contact in a positive manner.  He wanted teachers to weekly or fortnightly, depending on how many students they contacted each week, to have a quiet introspective time to reflect on the frequency and quality of the contact they had made with each student.  This way no student should fall through the cracks unnoticed. For secondary teachers who had weekly contact with large student numbers fortnightly was more realistic.  Another alternative was for them to review weekly their contacts for half the number of students with whom they had contact each week.

A teacher could easily have a photo of each student on their computer and date the introspective time and type in a comment or two about the student.  It is always assumed that the computer is as protected as it can be against outside intruders.  Student privacy is vital.  In the past this process was based on teachers having a card for each student and Tom mused that maybe this was still a safer way to go in terms of student privacy.

More later!

GD