A school improvement journey: St Monica’s Wodonga
Hundreds of TFE members tuned into my session in late August 2021. If you haven’t see it yet, you can catch up here. While I tried to tackle as many of your questions in the session, we couldn’t get to all of them. Please see my responses to a few key questions below.
If you have more questions feel free to add a comment to this blog post.
Q. What assessments do you use?
We use the following assessments.
Sounds Write screener and segmenting and blending assessment
Castles and Coltheart 2nd Edition (CC2)
Phonological Awareness Skills Test (P.A.S.T)
Morrison and McCall Spelling Scale
DIBELS Data System that target sounds, letter ID, word accuracy, segmenting blending, fluency, comprehension among other things.
For writing we split our assessment into writing TRANSCRIPTION assessments and writing IDEATION assessments. We have established school wide level expectations on both as success criteria and working towards moderating these to refine accuracy and information to inform teaching.
Q. Given the swap to a low variance curriculum and the strong literacy leader, how much staff input was considered?
Q. Was it mostly top-down and how did the teachers react? What level of input did the staff have to the vision, was it co-created?
There is often a large amount of debate about co-created vision versus imposed visions and things being ‘done to’ staff. For us, we collectively identified the need to improve and put the emphasis on our school leaders to research evaluate and validate the way we needed to move forward. In my experience, there is a massive need for the school leadership to own the responsibility of generating a vision and embedding in that the shared values and beliefs of the school.
As a staff we collectively value good academic outcomes for all learners.
In line with that value and shared belief, the leadership team has established an action plan and vision that can help us bring that value to light. In this example, the input from staff comes in the values belief and vision development. Our staff were heavily involved in this space. Our responsibility as leaders was then to honour that vision with a plan and outline of ways to make those aspirations a reality. When presented back to staff it was in the framework of:
‘Because you said you wanted…. We are going to ….’
School leadership needs to own the responsibility of generating a vision and embedding that within the shared values and beliefs of the school.
Being a new direction, the change was top-down. We accept that it is our responsibility as leaders—and in my opinion, for all leaders—to be accountable for such changes. As the journey continues, we are vigilant about reflecting, gaining feedback and measuring impact, and adjusting our journey as required. But we remain aligned to our vision and values.
Our staff helped create our ‘why’ and that shared understanding drives our culture and supports us when things are tough. This is hard, but we are doing it because we believe the outcomes will justify the process.
Teacher reaction and responses to change are always varied and evolve at different rates. To ask how do you deal with the negative responses, to me suggests that you just want compliance. I think the ideal outcome is understanding. People can disagree with a direction, but with a comprehensive understanding of what that direction really is, they will often accept it. With time, they can also begin to find value in it for themselves.
Teachers’ reactions and thoughts are the single best source of information for leaders when implementing change.
If your staff are frustrated by the change, you should be asking:
Why? What is missing? What don’t they understand?
If they do not say anything, and suggest they will blindly follow, you should be asking:
Why? What is missing? What don’t they understand?
Each staff response is valued and valuable to enable collective buy-in. As a leader, those reactions will ultimately be the measure of how well you are leading.
The final point I would make regarding those who do not want to make a shift in line with school change is this… At some point there do need to be some lines in the sand and some firm outcomes that people need to work towards.
If we truly value the individual, we should respect them enough to be honest and support them into moving into the spaces in which they want to be.
As a school we need to be committed to supporting everyone to work towards those expectations, but there does need to be an acknowledgement from individuals that they have the will to move in the school’s direction. There will always be those who do not agree and are not willing to make change towards the agreed direction.
As leaders, we owe it to those staff members to help them “act in” to our visions, or help them “act out”. That can sound harsh, but if we truly value the individual, we should respect them enough to be honest and support them into moving into the spaces in which they want to be. Teaching requires too much of us to be locked into positions where we have a fundamental misalignment of philosophy and practice. The only outcome that occurs there is disgruntled staff and negative impacts on learning.
Q. How do you ensure low variance across classes/school?
Low variance practice for us is all about process, system and protocols around how we address and deliver the curriculum. We set out our intentions for each area in a curriculum sense, and create benchmarks in a skill and outcome sense. This provides a guide for teachers and a target to which they should aim. Maintaining this for us involves team based planning where areas come together to align on progress and outcomes.
Leadership staff then lead check-ins around data and student development in numeracy, reading, writing, RE and SEL. An important part of this process working depends on feedback cycles and observation rounds to allow for open dialogue regarding progress for students, consistency of practice and accountability to the curriculum.
Q. Do you have a Reading Fluency program at your school?
Yes and no. Our first wave of teaching is our priority and we address fluency deliberately via our EDI frameworks and developing effective routines in each year level to lower cognitive load, allowing a focus on fluency.
We do utilise Reading Pathways in our intervention space as a process to support reading fluency skills.
Q. As a University student, there is a still a big push for the use of the inquiry approach and for students to lead all learning experiences.
The identification of the teacher training gap and the science of learning and reading is a massive issue for our system. Even the concept of “best practice” being variable raises issues for me.
If we are to use the Science of Learning to maximise all students’ outcomes, inquiry-based approaches cannot be our primary mode of instruction.
So to answer your question, I’ve provided some context below.
When we are talking about learning, we know that:
Brains basically learn in the same ways.
Reading brains can be developed more effectively and efficiently using certain instructional methods, as opposed to others.
Ultimately, if we hold those two things as facts and accepted truths, then we have to accept that there are ways of utilising certain instructional practices to maximise learning.
Inquiry, or more broadly constructivist approaches, hold that motivation and engagement are required to generate learning: “Kids cannot learn stuff, if it isn’t focussed on their interests, right?!”
The movement towards these approaches was well before my time, but I believe such approaches emphasise that our ability to learn is tied mainly to creating authentic opportunities that develop knowledge and skills. This natural view of learning does apply to what is now termed “biologically primary knowledge”, and includes the knowledge we gain in order to walk and talk—By being around others that do it, learners develop the desire and passion to learn these skills.
However, we know that school learning is focussed on elements that are “biologically secondary” and we do not develop that knowledge in the same way. Motivation and engagement are not reliable as the catalyst for learning such knowledge. But that’s not to say that students’ motivation and engagement is unimportant.
On the contrary, we know from our Science of Learning journey that students’ motivation and engagement can actually be a bi-product of successful learning experiences: Kids feel motivated and engaged when they feel successful! That’s how we know that we are on the right track. Our students become motivated and engaged because they are learning, and much more so than when inquiry-based learning was our default pedagogy.
Q. How do you draw the line about what is best practice when it changes so often?
The Science of Learning will continue evolving. That’s what Scientists do: they develop and challenge the known science. However, the fundamental knowledge of what we know now about the way people learn is not actually changing anytime soon. What might be changing is the world around us, and the challenges that new generations will face. So, how we use this scientific knowledge to inform our instruction will change according to the context and other variables. However, we must remember there is a body of science on cognitive development and learning. As educators, we are well served to come back to these principles and ideas frequently to determine the way forward for any learner.
We know that as the science evolves, we will harness this new knowledge to adapt our teaching, and work to ensure the success of students as they journey from novice to expert. That is the work of teachers at our School, and I should think any school.
Jack Neil is the senior leader of learning and teaching at St Monica's Primary School in Wodonga Victoria, a catholic school in the Sandhurst diocese with around 520 students currently enrolled. St Monica’s are 18 months into their Science of Reading and Science of Learning journey, and approaching 12 months of Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) practice.
Catch up on Jack’s webinar now.
A school improvement journey. In this practical and reflective talk, Jack Neil will explore an example of how to initiate school change towards the Science of Learning, and how to lead in a new space. Jack will emphasise that key to leading change is embracing teachers as your greatest asset.