Featured in Education Review this month, Mater Dei Primary School in Toowoomba share their journey of lifting the educational standards for the 420 students at the school. Following is an extract:

Going from good to great isn’t necessarily easy. When something is going well, often there is no impetus to do it even better. “Why bother, the results speak for themselves? Our students perform well above norms.” In these circumstances, it can take a conscious effort to entertain possibility, shift practice and do things differently. Despite this, Mater Dei Primary School in Toowoomba, Queensland, made the deliberate decision to move from good to great. 

In 2017, the school committed to a three-year “visible learning lighthouse project". Informed by John Hattie’s seminal meta-analysis of what works best in education (Hattie, 2009), the project formed the basis of a re-evaluation of practice. Enabled and supported by the Toowoomba Catholic Schools Office (TCSO) and facilitated through Corwin Australia, the three-year project has now embedded practices that illuminate possibilities for all.

Essentially, we:  

• Prioritised strategically for time, people and money
• Facilitated staff selection of impact coaches
• Established broader teams of key influencers
• Established localised baseline data on effective teaching and learning via a) student voice b) teacher perception and c) collective teacher analysis of lessons and classroom practices
• Identified student and staff behavioural dispositions essential to productive learning
• Integrated the dispositions into a) school behaviour support processes and b) staff individualised reflection and goal setting
• Refined teacher practices through a) consistent integration of high yield strategies and b) development of “Hub” spaces for collaborative data analysis and formative teacher planning
• Developed an illuminating Possibilities Learning Framework which reflects the interrelationship between teachers, students and the curriculum premised on a) learning dispositions, b) learning process, c) action/impact cycles and d) school culture
• Celebrated our collective efficacy

As a school community dedicated to moving from good to great, we are not content to remain where we are in this journey.

While we recognise we have come such a long way in the last three years, as with any effective learner we continue to set goals and articulate our next  steps. With changes coming in the Australian Curriculum, we will be renewing the cognitive verbs each year level uses in their LISC and ensuring teacher clarity with changes. We are also further developing our Taking Action Cycle template to include greater rigour, and using it in new contexts, such as with our school board.

Finally, as with anything, the rate of change is not uniform. It’s important that we ensure our whole school community is walking this journey together and that no individual or group is being left behind. Building our  accountability to ourselves and each other in this way will continue to ensure our school genuinely illuminates possibilities for all. 

Read the full article via Education Review