I’ve been lucky to see Prof Robinson’s leadership talk too. It’s on the money. Apparently effective schools have leaders and teachers who are courageous enough to initiate the difficult conversations about learning based on evidence. I’m glad Greg is modeling such conversations in an open forum. Seems like a good way for a principal to lead the learning within and for their learning community to encourage teachers to share their own practice just as openly.

I personally am no longer waiting to see a Parramatta Diocese leader engaged in the global dialogue. Here’s one Greg prepared earlier. What better way to encourage teachers and leaders to do the same?

Can’t wait to see it.

Fingers crossed eh.

Leadership: strong effective leadership from people who are experienced in classrooms is essential. The leaders need to be at the ‘coal face’. They need to be with the children – not as a token gesture but in a meaningful teaching capacity from day to day. This enables for effective and genuine goals to be set for the school that will improve student outcomes.

Improvement of student outcomes can be monitored in many different forms and it is the responsibility of the leadership within the school to ensure that teachers have the tools and management systems that provide a means for effective assessment and monitoring of student outcomes which enable for the planning and implementation of meaningful learning experiences.

Relationships: Integral to the operation of any school are effective, trusting and informed relationships between all stakeholders of the school. This includes parents, students and the wider school community. A school community is built on trust where questions can be asked and answers given; where the ability to care for one another’s development, understanding and social adjustment is nurtured; and where communication is viewed as an essential component of the operations within the school.

Communication of student achievement is paramount in ensuring that the children know their work and effort is valued and appreciated. This in turn allows parents to celebrate the work of their children and to acknowledge, with the assistance of the teacher, where the next step lies for their child.

Student Engagement: I have seen positive changes in student engagement within my own school due to the independence given to the children – particularly in the upper primary years. Students want to learn. They are interested in the world around them. The pedagogy with which they are involved within the classroom is the key component to effective student engagement. If the students are motivated through projects which involve differing degrees of independent responsibility along with explicit teaching (of the basic facts) within a structured learning environment there will be very few opportunities for disengagement. It also allows students to value the contributions made by their peers therefore having a positive effect on student-student relationships.

Learning Spaces: The space is important – it always has been! In an environment that values learning; monitors student progress; is structured and planned; has clear guidelines and limits for the students; and is well resourced (again the responsibility of the leadership within the school) students will succeed.

Much of what is discussed within the comments on this post is dependent upon the leadership within schools. I believe that the system is working toward developing leaders who are able to develop effective and current pedagogies whilst considering the very nature of their own school communities and learning environments. This is about putting the children first – and developing the capacity of teachers to ensure that effective teaching that has depth and credibility is the priority of the professional learning within the school.

This is no easy task. And as an educational leader perhaps it would be easy to fall into the habit of ‘old’ and just manage the school – but that is not why I became a teacher and is certainly not why I have chosen the leadership path I have taken. My job is my vocation and I certainly would not muck around with the very foundations of my beliefs about learning and teaching if I did not see the merit and effectiveness that I have been fortunate enough to witness in my own school around engaging, trusting and structured pedagogies.

What was evident is that schools are engaged in a journey together committed to de-privatising practice, increasing collaboration and celebrating this innovation. One of the really exciting things emerging is the peer to peer learning in schools which I have been able to share over the last year.

I expect we’ll see greater innovation over the coming years. Our focus still remains though supporting good teachers and building capacity to ensure we deliver on our strategic intent.

It seems that when we talk about open spaces, our focus can be on the wrong thing- people seem to think the driving force behind opening our learning spaces is the physical room. This is not how it should be. Instead the focus – and the conversation- should be about students’ learning and the most effective way to teach for that learning. The research is conclusive – it is what teachers do in learning spaces that will have the most significant positive impact on student learning( Hattie,2003; Robinson, 2007; Ludwig & Gore, 2003)

When we talk about buildings and open spaces, we obviously do not have a shared language – some reasons for this could be too many memories of “open plan” classrooms in the 70’s that were unsuccessful, or fear of the unknown and trying to imagine what these open spaces may in fact be like – which then can lead some to visions of cavernous unstructured spaces, housing large numbers of students rather than rich learning spaces with purposeful and dedicated areas that allow students to engage meaningfully with each other, appropriate resources and their teachers. It might be that opening up our classroom spaces is challenging to staff who are used to a traditional culture of schools that rewarded teachers who were satisfied with working alone. We must develop a shared understanding of deprivatisation so that we can engage in a meaningful dialogue.

Staff working in shared learning spaces ie spaces where more than one teacher is responsible for the learning, are building and sharing their professional capacity and expertise so that they are better able to meet the needs of the diversity of students who are in their class. Individual students in these spaces can have their needs better met because they have access to more than one teacher and one teacher’s thinking about the learning that is happening in this space The students benefit from more than one style and approach to learning and from the individual and collective expertise of the teacher/s in this space.

Co teaching, the practice of having two or more educators in a learning space delivering or assisting in the daily lesson, is becoming more common in our schools where teachers are always striving to find the best ways to deliver instruction and meet the needs of a larger variety of students. Co-teaching can be done in several ways, and can range from a second teacher simply visiting the classroom to see what instruction is going on, and to assist anyone who seems to need a little extra help, to team teaching, in which both teachers plan, deliver and assess the student’s work.http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Co-Teaching.

There are other advantages for students of the co teaching model. For instance, with the current government requirement to report on student learning against an E-A scale, teachers work collaboratively to unpack curriculum outcomes, critically reflect on teaching and learning experiences and identify appropriate and equitable assessment strategies. The logical step next is for teachers to work together in the learning spaces to implement the differentiated learning opportunities that best meet the identified needs of children across a grade or stage. When teachers work together to actually deliver the learning programme we can ensure that the programme for the entire group of students is cohesive and of the best quality.

When our conversation shifts to be about the best way to meet the needs of all students, we are on the right track. Our conversation will then be about the flexible teaching arrangements that you speak of Mark, flexible student groupings and utilising the skills of our teachers and expert specialists to address the students’ learning needs exactly where they sit along the learning continuum. We will be able to have a substantial conversation about the things that really matter, based on the findings we have about the best ways for our students to learn and the best ways for we teachers to teach.

Your post has certainly stirred the possum – so to speak – about the value of research in schools although the “Open Spaces” debate seems to be on a little off tangent from Viviane’s presentation.

I am currently building “flexible spaces” so that students needs might better be catered for – in different size groupings. There is lots of OECD [PISA] information to suggest that Australia has a small between school difference when looking at student outcomes. What the infomation suggests we do have is a larger between class difference in the same school. Therefore our work as leaders, as Viviane suggests is to improve teachers instructional capacities.

Flexible spaces brings teachers understandings and in some cases misunderstandings about various instructional strategies out into the open and allows us the chance to build capacity in an atmosphere of trust and respect. Improving teachers instructional capacity improves student results.

Thanks again for the reminder about the work of instructional leaders in schools.

If this project is not to be compared to the 1970’s all I ask is what processes have been changed to ensure this, my concern is that the environment you are describing would require an enormous amount of structure to be effective and the fact that one year my son was given a choice to sit on a special mat in the corner if he did not wish to participate in class activities, then the following year participation was not much better. Both of these teachers were young and clearly did not have the experience to cope, this behaviour was modified the following year with thanks to one incredible teacher and amazingly continued, my concern still remains as to how these not so experienced teachers will cope in these situations.

Hopefully Mr Whitby will make the effort to come to the school and clarify what you describe as misinformation to the people that are after all paying for this education.