Michelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

 The following podcast is brought to you by the School and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.  

Welcome to our podcast, 'Small school, big impact bite-size strategies for leading curriculum'. Today I'm joined by Wendy Robb, and our focus in today's session will be on embedding Mathematics curriculum in your school.

I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and the waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories, and we strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

We are focusing on embedding curriculum that plan for learning, that is underpinned by the syllabus in our schools. I, like many of you always find inspiration stories and ideas from colleagues. We hope that anyone listening gets an opportunity to walk away with an idea or two that you could use or adapt, as well as experiencing some moments of affirmation that you are on the right track.

I get to be your host today, Michelle Tregoning, I'm leader of K to 12 initiatives, which is a really big team that encompasses STEM enrichment, Aboriginal Education, effective teaching practices, professional learning coordination, and also school and system leadership, where this project sits alongside other projects like, support for transitions, middle leaders, higher levels of accreditation and support for small and unique schools. And it's here inside small and unique schools that the idea for a teaching principal podcast was born. Something developed with teaching principals for teaching principals, and for me, who's never been a teaching principal, but every now and again dreams of becoming one.

And today I get to spend some time with an old maths friend and colleague. Not actually old as in to date us, Wendy, but rather to date the length of time that we've gotten to cross paths and learn together. Wendy is currently in the middle of an excursion, which is something our teaching principal colleagues would understand really well. Be it on your way to the Brewarrina fish traps sleeping at Bourke High School, paddle boating along the Darling. But in addition to that, Wendy, what school are you currently working at and where have you been?

Wendy Robb, Teaching Principal, Girilambone Public School

 Thank you, Michelle. Currently I'm working at Girilambone Public School, which is about 45 kilometres northwest of Nyngan in the Central West District of New South Wales.

My background initially started as a Mathematics high school teacher. I was fortunate to be the primary math specialist for five small, rural and remote schools, and they were Wanaaring, Louth, Girilambone, Hermidale and Marra Creek.

I had a fabulous time because I got to do what I love and it also afforded me the opportunity to venture out to Wanaaring as relieving teaching principal and I obtained the substantive and spent nearly four years out there before venturing back to Girilambone and closer to family.

Michelle

Thanks, Wendy. That's why we get along well, it's in my heart too. So, in talking about mathematics, being at your heart, today's focus is to get some tips from you around things that you are doing at your school.

I feel like you have a slight geographic advantage in embedding Mathematics simply because you have the lovely little triangle between Nyngan, Jerry and Hermidale, for anyone who wants to go spy that on the map, it's pretty cool. What are some things that you are on the lookout for in the teaching and learning of mathematics, including in your own teaching?

Wendy

I think the lookout is to make it realistic and relevant to the context you're in. There is little impact happening if you cannot connect it to the children's lifestyle and what is every day for them. So, it does become a lot of thinking outside the square or opening things up like at the moment with certain aspects of farming life, we are currently in the district stripping wheat, perfect different times of the year poses different aspects and direct links to the syllabus.

I think it also has to be in a fun aspect for the children, and depending on what your focus and what your data has given you, I've been fortunate that I can draw on my personal experience. How many right turns did it take you to get to school today? Or how many grids did you happen to go over? Did you cross any rivers?

So, your directional positioning is completely in your hands with the children, along with area of crops and volume of water you've got to order for cotton, and it's just a myriad of discovery, but knowing your context and knowing your students is vital.

Michelle

 I think one of the lovely things about that, Wendy, is that that's just so applicable no matter where you are working. So many years ago, I started the school year and my teacher had told me, I have a year six class, so it was a big school in southwest Sydney, and the students had said to me, oh, we're really nervous about, you know, you being our teacher. I had already sort of started playing around with doing some work in Mathematics outside of the school, and I'd sort of come with a bit of a reputation to the students and they were really nervous that I was their teacher, that I loved mathematics, that they didn't really understand it and that that wasn't going to be a great year for them. But one of the things that they we're all really interested in was sport.

We had the school photos and for hours on the day that the sport photo was being taken, the children were missing, not missing, they were they were well accounted for. They were out getting their photo for the soccer team, for the cricket team, for the swimming squad, and it made me realise that it was a really good opportunity for me to tap into this environment where they felt really comfortable and use that as the context in which I could then start to stretch them in the Mathematics.

 And this, it's exactly the same thing that you're doing here. You're looking for where the mathematics is in their day-to-day lived experiences and helping them make the connections and then the relevancy to their learning. Because what you would understand better than I, with your background as a Mathematics teacher Wendy, is that mathematics is like the language of the universe. So it's everywhere. It's just finding those opportunities that are there with you in your context and your space to help drive the students into their learning in Mathematics.

I wondered if in thinking about embedding curriculum, if you've had any specific changes to your pedagogy over the last couple of years as you've worked as a specialist in primary Mathematics and then with the movement into the new syllabus.

Wendy

 Definitely a shift in pedagogy. The eyes wide open scenario of just constantly looking at the opportunities, not just in our environment, but through teaching through PL that you go, oh, I can try that tomorrow. I think the biggest shift in my pedagogy is utilising two main aspects.

The number sense aspect, where we look at some form of number sense each short, sharpish. But I have found the attitude towards Mathematics shift dramatically through just that. Because when I first started the journey, that was the first thing I looked at with staff consultation was embedding that. We just started small. We only are a small staff, so you don't want to overwhelm, but we went, right, let's just focus on number sense. Our data was telling us we needed to work in that area and we went, how can we do this without overwhelming the students? So we agreed for a period of time and we found once we had shifted and started the embedding phase, this one seemed to be smooth transition. Staff were confident in doing it. They had the opportunity to play with the students. They were in the maths with the students, and the students could see them and their reaction like, I have played the game place value for on and off of the last three terms. I have yet to win one game. Like I would've played this game probably a hundred times and I have yet to win one.

So it's a very big running joke at the moment because I don't often win any of these games. Now, if that means, and I don't deliberately lose, please, but the children are keen to play me because they still want to keep the students winning streak. And if that enthusiasm towards me losing is helping them learn, I'm okay for that.

When we first started the journey with my staff, the embedding of that was, simple, easy, and we've seen, it wasn't instant results, but we've seen the shift and it's like great. The pedagogical shift that I've done a lot more around is number talks, and I've worked with a variety of staff across schools in regards to it, and we've done some coaching cycles.

I think my expectations at the time after the previous experience of embedding was, yep, this is right. We are going with this and it'll be all good. However, upon reflection and looking at things, I just had to step back as a leader and go, well, yes, I'm keen, I'm knowledgeable. How are my staff? Where do they sit in this space? And we had to pivot.

We engage in coaching cycles, which whilst yes, there is an impact, a student, there is a huge impact to staff and building staff capacity in there. I participate in a coaching cycle and they are looking at my mathematical goals and my pedagogical goals for that session. Providing them that scaffold has helped enormously.

I think the biggest thing was reflecting on the students' attitudes towards maths because as soon as you say you're a Math teacher, ‘oh, I didn't like that subject’ and we’re shifting it, I know a student started on the journey about year two, hated maths, didn't like it. There was a farmer out landmarking their sheep and he said, ‘oh, I've got so many sheep and so many sheep, and how many is that?’ And she turned around and said to him, pointed the finger saying it apparently, and went, ‘ah-ha, I'm not doing maths, it's not school today’. So it was like, hmm. And just to see the growth in a couple of years with her has been enormous.

She's now in year six. Loves it, will ask the harder, ‘Okay, what's the next one?’ Thrives on that pushing and yes, while it's taken a few years to get there, she's now someone that has, the appreciation for maths and the want and the thirst and the curiosity, and I can't help but think it has something to do with the shift in the pedagogical practices because I don't see any other way that she would've got to the liking of it if we didn't dabble in different things to find that fit.

Michelle

 Thanks, Wendy. As I'm listening to you today, I'm writing myself some notes. Some of these things in terms of thinking about embedding curriculum, be it Mathematics or other things, they're almost evergreen.

We meet people where they are at their point of readiness, whether that's your students or your colleagues. You create some sort of shared vision. Together, you are willing to adjust and adapt based on feedback from the group of people. We use coaching cycles. We bring the kids into the secret world of teaching with us and share with them the things that we're learning so that we can model what learning looks like for them, and then pay attention to things that are sometimes harder to see, like how people think and feel.

To colleagues across New South Wales, we're calling in 'Ignition idea'. What's one thing you think that a teaching principal could use to light up their school tomorrow?

Wendy

Reflecting on this question, which took a bit because I have several ideas, but I think it's just small steps done well, and to pick up the student aspect of it, it has to be around hooking them in.

So, I just think small steps done well, both with students and with staff, and with your pedagogy and looking at your curriculum. Then foster sustainability of it and the embedding nature. But with our students, if we're not getting them to like Mathematics, we are going to constantly be pulling them along.

And I think sometimes you have to step back to build that and foster that love of Mathematics and that opening of the eyes to it's around us and it is our universe and how we can connect with it.

Michelle

 I think I'm going to add a third one. Because you know you live in a beautiful area, which is about the magic triangle, Wendy.

For me, one of the biggest shifts, had such enormous impact for my students was when I learned about this idea of the magic triangle. Whenever we're teaching kids about a new concept or skill in Mathematics of really strong connections between what the actual thing is, so what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like, ensuring that that magic triangle was in place, what a big difference that made in teaching.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences.

We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]

FMichelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

The following podcast is brought to you by the School and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.   

Welcome to our podcast, ‘Small school, big Impact bite-sized strategies for leading curriculum’. I'm joined today by Hannah Crawford and Erin McShane and our focus in today's session is embedding English in the curriculum.

I would like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and the waterways where we work and live, I'm joining from Gundungurra Country today. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, song lines and stories, we strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

As mentioned before, today we are focusing on embedding English in the curriculum, and we're going to listen to some stories from two different colleagues across the department.

Hannah Crawford, who is one of our teaching principal colleagues, and Erin McShane, who's part of the curriculum team. Two very different, unique contexts that will provide us with some interesting insights and examples that we can reflect on, learn from and get inspired by.

I'm going to hand over to Hannah to introduce herself. She's a teaching principal at a lovely little school, not too far away from Tamworth. Over to you, Hannah.

Hannah Crawford, Principal at Niangala Public School

Thanks, Michelle, lovely to be here today.

I feel very privileged to be part of this. I'm teaching principal at Niangala Public School, which as you mentioned, is in Northern New South Wales, near Tamworth and Armidale. We have 12 students currently. It's a beautiful little school set, rural and remote, very agricultural area.

We split our school into two classes, mainly K 1 and 3, 4, 5 are all in together.

Michelle

 And I know when we met last week, you told me that you had about 12 students that come from about 7 different families.

Hannah

 Yes, yep. So there's lots of sibling rivalry at recess and lunch time. Yeah.

Michelle

 And Erin, would you mind just sharing me a little bit about your role in the department?

Erin McShane, English Adviser Primary

 Sure. Thanks Michelle. So I am one of the English KLA advisers in our K to 6 English curriculum team. I'm very excited to be here today to discuss embedding English.

Michelle

 Hannah, we know one of the things that you have a really strong and almost relentless focus on in your school is the use of the teaching learning cycle and ensuring that that's really implemented well to support students in their work.

Hannah

I think what's really interesting about a small school and being a teaching principal is that you're in the classroom, you are very much the coalface of the learning that has to happen. That's what I really like about being a teaching principal, is the teaching part. It enables you to really work together as well, so you can implement change much faster and monitor that much more than you probably could in a bigger school.

So we're really about that core business, and we've found that if we just follow that teaching and learning cycle really well, you are managing to improve the kids' outcomes and I think you can identify where you need to make change a lot faster. So we make sure that we are getting lots of data, but we are using the data. That's my big thing, that there's no point in getting the data if we're not actually going to use it. That's how we've embedded it, because that makes it sustainable.

One of the biggest changes from the old syllabus to the new syllabus is the vocabulary. So we've found that if we can help kids build their vocabulary, it helps them be able to access language and then English as a whole.

Michelle

 And that's always such an interesting point of reflection, I think, is when we get new syllabus, or other things that change, is looking at what are the specific things that it's guiding us towards shifting and enhancing in our own practice for the students too.

So Erin, we might draw from your expertise, to talk a bit more about what are some of those shifts that we should be paying attention to in the vocabulary expectations in the new syllabus.

Erin

 So when Hannah shared how her school recognised a shift in the new syllabus, it really caught my attention. The new English syllabus places a much stronger focus on vocabulary, not just treating it as an isolated focus area, but seeing it as a, a key part of learning across all focus areas, within the syllabus. Vocabulary supports our students oral language, boosts their reading comprehension, and also strengthens their writing skills.

So when the K to 6 English curriculum team reviewed the research and evidence supporting the English syllabus, it became really clear to our unit writers that even if vocabulary is explicitly mentioned in only one or two content points within a unit, the teaching of vocabulary can and should be carefully woven throughout a unit.

This means using a clear, intentional approach to vocabulary instruction, such as carefully selecting key words, explaining their meanings in depth, exploring how they're used in different contexts, and helping students consolidate their understanding over time. It's really important to understand that vocabulary teaching isn't something that happens in isolation. It's integrated throughout the learning to support students oral language, reading and writing skills.

From an English syllabus perspective, vocabulary is a foundational pillar that runs through the entire curriculum, and it's really exciting to see how schools like Hannah’s are embracing this focus on vocabulary, making it a central part of their teaching practice.

Hannah

 One of our kindergarten students in his writing. He wanted help to write, the sentence stem that I had was, ‘when I grow up I want to be…’, and he said, ‘I want to be a submarine pilot [laugh] so I can take people down to see the Mariana Trenches [laugh] or trench’. Actually, I got in trouble because I said trenches and he said, no, it's just one trench [laugh]. So yes, the use of vocabulary is so important.

Erin

 And then there are the high leverage possibilities with an intentional focus on tier two vocabulary. When I was in my school as an AP C&I, the students just absolutely switched onto it, they grabbed it because they could already see it was almost instant. I've seen this word, I can read the word, but now if I really understand this word. I can use it in my oral language. I can understand the text I'm reading better. Or our big aim was to see that translation into their writing as well.

The confidence that the children have to be walking around using a, a tier two word or they would see us on the playground, then they try to use that word. That was the focus in context and it was just really lovely and then even as a teacher, you're like, oh, I think they might understand this because they've used it in a different context. They've used it outside the classroom and when you have like a laser focus on one component of the English syllabus, it's really that mindful of, okay, are we still engaging with this? Are we now enacting it and are we actually going to now be embedding it? If they're starting to take risk in their classroom or try new things and then they're sharing it with each other or taking it into other classrooms, I think they can be little hints of, okay, I think we are definitely now enacting this shift in our pedagogy, and are we now going towards that embedding?

Michelle

Hannah, Erin's now got me thinking, we've mentioned pedagogy a few times as we've been talking today, and I wonder if there's anything that has been an intentional focus in the shifting of pedagogy. You might talk about that in relation to vocabulary.

Hannah

 I think our biggest change would be the meta language that we use, it's teaching the kids the language so that then they can reuse that language and not keeping it a secret. So this is what we're learning, this is why we're learning it, this is why you need to know it, and this is how you use it.

We don't want things to be a surprise for them, and I think that is also you asked earlier about how do we know that we've embedded it? I think when the students are using that metalanguage and the terminology that we want them to use and understanding what it is, I think that's when you know that you're on the right track.

Michelle

 Erin and Hannah, you and I could sit here and talk about all of these things for a very long period of time. This teaching principal podcast is meant to be short, so I'm thanking you both so much for being here today, Hannah, in particular, we know it's really hard when you're a teaching principal to find times. We're so, so grateful that you managed to meet with us today and share some stories with colleagues across New South Wales.

We wanted to end the session today with an 'Ignition idea'. And what is one thing do you think, Hannah, that teaching principals could use to light up their school tomorrow?

Hannah

 I find this a very difficult question, but Michelle, I think I'm going to steal something that you taught me many years ago or a few years ago, not age ourselves too much.

Michelle

 Thank you. I appreciate that [laugh].

Hannah

 It was when, when you're stuck or when you're having a problem, don't let it get all overwhelming. Just do something, try something. If it doesn't work, change it, tweak it, start somewhere. Do something and work from there. Don't let it get all a bit overwhelming and yeah, it's kind of fun. It's good to go on a learning journey and make the most of it is to just jump in, have a go. If it doesn't work, you try to just change it.

Michelle

 That is good. I didn't, I can't claim that advice, Hannah, that came from my friend's dad, who one day I was like, you know, stuck in a spiral of indecision and he goes, Michelle, whatever you do, just don't do nothing.

Hannah

 Yeah.

Michelle

 What about you, Erin? Anything for you that you think, here's just one thing that you could have a try tomorrow?

Erin

 Let's keep what's working and choose one thing to refine in light of what we have learned. It's the idea of, we've taken on some valuable new learning and to really integrate it into our teaching practice.

It's important to consider how we might refine one aspect of our approach. Uh, sometimes we can come across so much exciting information and new strategies. Our teaching practice can start to feel a little bit crowded. So as we reflect on our craft, we can consider what is one particular aspect we might choose to refine or adjust to make space for these new ideas.

Making thoughtful changes allows us to focus on what truly supports our students' learning, rather than feeling overwhelmed by trying to do everything at once.

Michelle

 I've got one that I'll share too, that you both made me think about today, which was when I started learning Beck and McKeown's work on vocabulary development. They talked about this notion that one of the things that you can do to help build tier two vocabulary for students is this idea of teaching in the parentheses.

So a little thing that you can do tomorrow is start thinking about what are the words, or the meta language or the phrases that we want to help build for students in any syllabus area that you're working with. What do they already know as an anchor point? And then teaching the parenthesis, so it might sound like this.

Say a student understands the word confused, but you are wanting to expand their vocabulary. You might say, ‘oh my gosh, that would, he looked very discombobulated’, you go, ‘that means he felt confused’. And then you keep going, so little teeny tiny thing, very useful for Mathematics. Anyone out there who shares my passion and joy as well as for helping with English, History, Science, PDHPE, anything that you like.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences.

We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]

Michelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.   

Welcome back to our podcast, small school, big impact bite-sized strategies for leading curriculum. And our focus today is a session on engaging with the new syllabus. I'm going to introduce you to not just one, not just two, but four amazing teaching principals who are working around in the Armidale network.

Before then, I would like to acknowledge that I am coming from the lands of the Gundungurra people today, and I'd like to pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge songlines and stories. Part of our work in the Department of Education is to strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

So today we are exploring how we can engage with a new syllabus, and to do that, I have wrangled, not just one willing person, but four willing people.

Dani Clyde-Smith, Principal at Rocky River Public School

My name is Dani Clyde-Smith, and I'm principal at Rocky River Public School.

Rocky River Public School is a TP 2. We have about 38 students at the moment, and we're located 4k out of Uralla in a beautiful rural setting. And our class makeups, we have a K–2 class and a 3–6 class, and we work really closely with groups. Stage two and stage three, we break up for English and Maths and other targeted programs.

Jenna Walsh, Principal at Kelly's Plains Public School

I'm Jenna from Kelly’s Plains and we're 10 minutes out of Armidale in a rural location as well.

We've got two classrooms, K–2 and a 3–6 and we've currently got 28 students and a learning support teacher who works closely with targeted intervention, small group tuition students as well. We've got a high cohort of students who are neurodivergent with two SLSOs currently in supporting those students to help us get them through the curriculum as well.

Sarah Harper, Relieving Principal at Kingstown Public School

I'm Sarah Harper, I'm relieving principal at Kingstown Public School, and we are a very small school, we have 10 students currently, and we're about 70 kilometres from Armidale. Kingstown is actually part of the Namoi network, but because of how close we are to the other alliance schools, we've actually worked with them for quite a long time now.

We also have a K–2 and a 3–6 for our literacy and numeracy, and then most of our students come together, so it's a multi-age setting for the CHPS, KLAs.

Tim Tarrant, Principal at Kentucky Public School

I'm Tim Tarrant, I'm the principal at Kentucky Public School. We have 26 kids. We have a K–2 and a 3–6 room. We are in a rural setting about 10 minutes south of Uralla and we are very fortunate to be a part of this amazing Thunderbolts Alliance group.

Michelle

Excellent. Well, thank you and welcome to the Teaching Principals podcast, and I not only love the name of your alliance, it sounds very cool to me. I feel like it could be in Marvel, maybe it's the next episode in what happens there, but I think there's a couple of really unique features of the Thunderbolt Alliance, apart from how great it sounds that are probably equally as interesting and much more meaningful in terms of learning outcomes for the students in our communities that we care for.

And I thought I might ask you to talk a little bit about one of the unique features of you all and your network, and that is that you've all previously to being principals, been assistant principals, curriculum and instruction across one school or multiple schools in your areas or in other places in New South Wales. And to me that would seem like that would bring huge benefits into the role of teaching principal, and I wondered if you could talk a little bit about what you see as some of the benefits of having been AP C&Is and now leading schools as teaching principals.

Jenna

It was the professional learning opportunities that we got given when we first went into the role as AP C&I and being an AP C&I for small schools, I guess and it was one day a week, which was a challenge, but we made it work and they gave us the leadership skills to be able to manage ourselves in those spaces and delivering high quality curriculum in literacy and numeracy, and providing that targeted support to those students or teachers in that space. So that's helped me, I guess, in my journey now being a principal to help my colleagues. And the students I work with in such a little space, and knowing that sometimes you feel isolated, but in an alliance, we've got each other and we've got each other's back, and we've got that commonality and common language already that we can use and thrive off each other.

Sarah

I think a big part of the AP C&I position is that learning to take on something within a school and how that's going to look and where you start and all of that process that comes before you even introduce something new.

And then obviously, the modelling that then happens from you as the person that becomes that almost expert and practicing what you preach is so much what we do then in that principal role and all of that was established through instructional leadership and through AP C&I.

Tim

And we saw the value of being the lead learner, taking that into a principalship and always wanting to improve every day. And I suppose knowing that when we wanted to implement things in our previous schools, we had to have a bit of a roadmap. We needed to know where we were going to end, and then backward map, what were going to be the obstacles, what were going to be our successes, and then learning to work with a diverse group of people. So, if we're across schools or in a bigger school, we had all that diversity of people that are beginning teachers, experienced teachers, teachers that are, you know, stage 3 all the way down. So that helped immensely in our roles.

Dani

Yeah, I definitely think we have a strength as a collective, the four of us, in terms of we are instructional leaders. As a teaching principal, you are, as Tim said, the lead learner in your school setting, and you are modelling that high quality teaching practice. We needed to be able to demonstrate that we know what we are doing, so, coming from the AP C&I roles, we understand the syllabus and we know how to break it down. And the curriculum reform has been quite overwhelming for, especially in small schools where we are balancing many things at the same time. It's quite a complex setting, so having that confidence that we can navigate the syllabus, we understand how to map the syllabus, we know how to put that into practice, we can make sustained changes throughout our schools, is really powerful.

Michelle

Thank you, and I think for me, one of the things that I'm learning through this podcast is actually just how special the role of the teaching principal is in terms of what it affords you to be a lead learner. Do you know that one of the other teaching principals that we spoke to recently talked about this idea of that you can be standing with your staff leading a session on ‘here are the changes coming up in the CHPS syllabus’, and then you walk straight into your classroom and respond to those changes in pedagogy or content knowledge, and that it's not an additional ask for you as teaching principals in your schools to go find a classroom, to get yourselves on class, that you are already embedded and entrenched in the work of the school and the work of the teaching, and what an incredible opportunity that creates for you as lead learners in the school.

I wonder whether I could ask you to share a little bit about how you are now working with and thinking about the CHPS syllabuses, and what are the steps that you're taking, or how are you working with those syllabuses across your community to help your teachers engage with those.

Jenna

At Kelly's, we just took a deep dive straight in all four at the beginning of the year and over those staff development days, we unpacked them all. I had them all printed out, outcomes content and laid it all across a classroom floor and see what we could actually fit together, what themes we could fit together, going across K–6. And you know, some days all K–6 are together and how we can still keep curriculum moving without putting some blockers in place or kids missing out.

And so we unpacked it all as a staff and then looked at, or what could we do first? What could we do next? And taking a slow dive into one particular area at a time. And we did that through walk learning. And so each of our CHPS areas are identified in a learning space through K–6, where the kids can actually go and investigate, problem solve, and unpack some of the content in there prior to us teaching explicitly in an afternoon session.

And then we took on some PL as well, which was a deep dive into the CHPS syllabus, and it was here in Armidale, which gave us a little bit more information around why we've changed, how they've changed it, what are the impacts going to be, or how to deliver it within school. As an alliance coming together to share that with everybody so that we are lessening the workload on each other.

And this term, teacher and I decided that we really liked each deck, and why don't we put that into our kitchen garden program? So, we've taken that on and really immersed ourselves into that syllabus and that space. We've put in trail cams so the kids can actually witness and observe the impacts that animals are having on our plants that we're going to eat.

So, we're harvesting some of our plants and the insects or the bugs, and we thought that the rabbits were actually eating some of our herbs. Well, no, it's the magpies. So, what are we gonna do for these animals and birds? But so they're actually immersed in that sort of thing and we've taken on something that we are passionate about and we've got that skillset in that. And I think that's something that you could probably take a curriculum area that you've got a whole staff on board with and dive deep into that, that you're familiar with before, dabbling into the others maybe. Yeah.

Michelle

And that process, Jenna, you know, you can take a girl out of mathematics, but you can't take the maths lover out of the girl. You know, so that that process where you were talking about of, you know, laying out the syllabuses and then looking for similarities and differences is a really neat reasoning activity, right, where you’re then finding these common threads that become the most common sense place to begin.

Sometimes I think when new syllabus come out, and particularly when there's so many of them, it can feel really overwhelming of where to start. But finding those common threads can provide a sensible place to start and maybe even sometimes a more confident place to start. I'm gonna ask you guys to finish with what the podcast is calling an 'Ignition idea', which is, what's one thing you think that teaching principals could use to light up their school tomorrow? Jenna might go first.

Jenna

I guess looking at CHPS and what we've gone through, don't expect it to be perfect the first time and stay open to the fact that I can go and change this, I can tweak this to engage my students. I can interpret it how I need to deliver it to the students who I have in front of me. And reach out to your small school colleagues or another school close by 'cause they're willing to help. There's people willing to share and help. It's not gonna be perfect straight away, but be open to tweaking, changing, exploring.

Tim

I think mine would be staying the course, because there's always things that pop up. We had issues throughout the year that we had to navigate, but we all stood behind this initiative and we, we pushed it with our staff. We are now seeing the benefit of it, and we are just about to have our planning date for next year, and we’re gonna build on the success. So yeah, staying the course is mine.

Michelle

I have just always found teaching such an incredibly interesting thing to try to get working for kids in classrooms, and that when you see that learning like what a source of joy and nourishment that is in the work, and in fact how much fun you can have along the way. I hope you guys have had some fun with us today. For our listeners, we managed to wrangle Jenna a little while ago, and it was just three minutes or so before we started recording that we brought in Dani and Sarah and Tim since they all just happened to be together we thought how nice to hear from the whole of their community of practice.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]

Michelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.

Welcome back to our podcast, Small school, big impact bite-sized strategies for leading curriculum. In a moment, I'm going to introduce you to not just one, but 4 amazing teaching principals who are working around in the Armidale network.

I would like to acknowledge that I am coming from the lands of the Gundungurra people today, and I'd like to pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories.

Today for the Teaching Principals podcast, I've got Jenna from Kelly's Plains, Tim from Kentucky, Sarah from Kingstown, and Dani from Rocky River, who together form this incredibly exceptionally cool sounding thing called the Thunderbolt Alliance.

One of the things I've thought about in learning about the Thunderbolt Alliance and the work of you all across your 4 schools is the community of practice that you've set up, and I wondered if I could ask you to talk a little bit more and share with colleagues across New South Wales the way that you structure your community of practice, and more importantly probably why, these things take time they take effort, they take a lot of strategising. What is it that you see in the benefits of that way of working that gives you the motivation to push past barriers that you would otherwise face?

Dani Clyde-Smith, Principal at Rocky River Public School

Moving into this alliance, the schools are already working well in terms of organisation. So things like the athletics carnival, the swimming carnival, coming together for those shared days, and the schools recognise that because it lightens the load when we come together and we work together to do those things, as well as allowing our students to compete and work with the greater body of students, which is wonderful as well.

The 4 of us have come together and recognised we had that shared priority where we wanted to take that to the next level, and we value that collective efficacy. We realised, yes, we commit time into meeting, into talking about our strategies, our ideas, what's our data showing us in our schools, and bringing that all together to create these shared priorities.

But what we realised is that actually pays off tenfold because we're actually lightening each other's loads by working together. And what we're doing is much more powerful in terms of lifting student outcomes across all 4 of our schools.

We did recognise that many small schools are geographically isolated, we’re all very different contexts, of course, but you often get really siloed. You don't have your stage team meetings where you go and moderate your work writing samples and things like that, so suddenly, with the 4 of us working together, we've built that.

We have those groups across stages where we can collaborate and share ideas, and we're just really seeing the value in sharing those priorities. I think what we've seen over the past year is that you've gotta take it slow and it's not straightforward. We had all these, great ideas and yes, we are in the classroom and we are trialling them and testing them as well, as we lead our staff through the syllabus implementation and we've had a specific focus on explicit teaching, we've honed in on LISC learning attention success criteria, and how we're implementing that in our classrooms, and it's been quite a journey this year.

We are doing it slow because we really want to embed this practice across our schools, and it is about creating change that has high impact and sustaining that and building on that, so we've recognised working together, doing it slowly and really responding to the schools needs is actually having a higher impact.

Sarah Harper, Relieving Principal at Kingstown Public School

And we've done that also, when we started to plan that, we thought about what we want. We wanted to come together for a joint curriculum venture, I guess, as Dani mentioned. We did it for other things, extracurricular activities, and when we started to plan that out, obviously there were barriers around location and we've used things like technology. We've had video recordings of staff to try and overcome some of those barriers.

And this year we've really opened the doors for staff to become confident and comfortable with having other people from other schools into their classrooms to show what they're doing and receive feedback on the great things that they're doing and some extra ideas as to how they can move forward and improve.

It's exciting to see how we can take that a step further and start to look into the other KLAs. Because it has been more of a numeracy and literacy focus this year, but the inquiry cycle of coming up with a shared purpose, a shared reason for doing this, and what we would like to see is the outcome, providing professional learning to make sure that the staff are upskilled and know what to expect and are capable of being able to put things into practice and having those points where we touch base, we have observations, we have the feedback round, we come together.

We actually finalised our last LISC observation on Wednesday for this year. Really exciting to be able to have seen every single school and how they're doing things in their school setting and what we could take and apply into our own school settings.

Michelle

I wonder if you could share some, just a highlights reel of some of the things that you've noticed in terms of the growth of practices or understanding at your own schools, in the students or in your colleagues as a result of the communities of practice and the cycles of inquiry that you've gone through and/or anything that you've picked up from your colleagues that you’re like, ‘oh, this is an idea that I'm gonna think about how I could implement that into my context’.

Jenna Walsh, Principal at Kelly's Plains Public School

Yeah, so from my context, probably the same across when we first started LISC, some teachers were, I guess just making it as a checklist and maybe only referring to it once, 'cause they see it in the unit and it's just there and it's not something that you keep going backwards and forwards with.

And when you ask the students ‘what were they doing?’, they're like, ‘oh, well we're just doing this’. And you know, couldn't actually articulate their learning in a particular way. And from now on. And I know that it being embedded within all our schools, every child can articulate exactly what they're learning. They're able to give each other feedback. They can give their teachers feedback on what a good one might look like, and the teachers are using it throughout their lesson. It's not just a beginning or an end. It's actually embedded throughout.

The learning intentions are visible in the classrooms. They're being referred to constantly, and the students are seeing success because they know it's not a, a secret, you know, teacher business of what we're actually going to do. They know exactly what's in front of them. They know why they're doing it and what it's there for.

Tim Tarrant, Principal at Kentucky Public School

And staff feeling more comfortable with the whole process. So it's not a, we, you know, we do this learning intention and go through the success criteria. It's more evolved, so we, we come out with new ideas for ways of implementing it. We might not start it right at the start of the lesson, so it's more intentional than just doing it. So it's actually has a lot of purpose and we can play with it to match and suit what our kids need and what the lesson needs.

Jenna

And I think the way that, because Dani and Sarah were the drivers of this at the beginning, and I think the way that they presented the professional learning and set it up and we had an agenda, we had lists of questions for staff to give feedback to each other to lead that conversation.

So, there was tuning protocols around all of that. So, everyone was aware and could recognise each other's strengths and what they could take away, what they can put in. And, you know, we've spoken lots about the visuals or the, how we deconstruct.

Dani

There was a really lovely moment. As Sarah was saying, we had our final teaching rounds that we're doing for our year 3–6 staff on Wednesday.

That's where we initially presented this professional learning at the start of the year with our, as a collective on staff development day. And some teachers were apprehensive and rightly so. It felt like there was a new thing coming in. It was gonna be, this is adding to our load.

And so we had a couple of really beautifully experienced teachers who differentiate for their classes so well, and they do such a good job, but previously hadn't had the chance to collaborate in this way.

And in that group on Wednesday, their feedback was, this is a full circle moment. We were in that classroom again where we did that PL at the start of the year. And then coming back to now the comment from one of the teachers where we can actually see how this works. Like I wondered, ‘how would you use this?’. Like the LISC board over there, ‘how is it being referred to?’. ‘How is this not adding to the load?’ You know, we can see the kids were using the meta language of the syllabus, to provide feedback to their peers about, ‘I'm really looking forward to using paragraphing in your next part of your piece of writing’, because that was a part of the success criteria.

We've had that moment where I think we're realising the impact this is having across our schools. We're really proud to see that not only, you know, in our data, but from anecdotally from staff feedback and our students as well.

Michelle

And you guys are making me wonder now if, well, quite a few things actually. One is that idea of how sometimes that shift from that emerging sort of attempt to have a go at a new pedagogy or a teaching move in order to support students, to then it becoming increasingly like, precise and sophisticated and intentional and targeted. They're often like the smallest of little tweaks.

So, one of the things that I learned in terms of sharing learning intentions was when I first started working with them, I would often accidentally be talking to kids actually about what they were doing. So, we are learning to, count to 10, or we are learning to, you know, combine 2 digit numbers or something, which is more of like what the outcome was, right?

And when I like learned this little hack of talking about we are learning that, or we are learning how or we are learning when, and just shifting that little word made me be able to help articulate like what the underlying concepts were or the underlying skills. So that, the doing part landed in its good place in the success criteria and the learning intention could focus really clearly and firmly on the learning.

But I'm gonna ask you guys to finish with what the podcast is calling an 'Ignition idea', which is what's one thing you think that teaching principals could use to light up their school tomorrow.

And to help. I'll give you an example, and Tim, you actually made me think about it just before. One idea that I picked up on over time was to move away from this idea of like a learning intention and then it’s associated success criteria, almost feeling like a tick and flick, you know, that you do at the beginning of the lesson and you move on. And one little thing that I started to do that started to like, really like light up learning in my classroom was using that learning intention and the success criteria as regular touch points throughout a learning episode so that I could always like anchor it back.

So, from whenever point it was introduced in the lesson, it then became this really critical anchor for discussion and then always addressed again as we closed out that period of time to support students. So that would be one little ignition idea that you made me think about, Tim, that I would share with colleagues across New South Wales.

Sarah

I think you have to do it as the leader. So the leader, it has to be, you have to practice what you preach, I guess is, is what I would say. We made sure that each of us were as much a part of the observations and the, the rounds that we did as everybody else.

Everybody was accountable and we were doing everything at the same time and had those high expectations of ourselves as well. And so you cannot ask staff to start to look at this if you are not also prepared to be in there and doing it with them at the same time, doing that heavy lifting.

Dani

Absolutely. Look, I think just thinking through the lens of LISC and what we've been talking about in terms of that explicit teaching practice and for the CHPS syllabuses specifically as a collective, we did look at how we were using LISC.

So, with the CHPS syllabuses, something that has come out of this inquiry cycle this year has really been find that, what's the skillset you're trying to develop, through the geography content or through the science unit for the term? What's the conceptual learning? What do you want them to get by the end of that unit? By the end of the term?

We will have, you know, some of our schools will have K–6 students learning in the same room. We've got across 2 stages in one room. So what, what do we want them to get? What's that foundational learning, which that new syllabus is really good for clarifying the skills that they need for each of those areas and embed that in your LISC and have fun.

Michelle

I feel like that's such a great point to end on is have fun, right 'cause it's such a privilege to get to be part of supporting students along their way towards whatever it is that they're gonna do in their lives.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]

Michelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.

Welcome to our podcast, small school, big impact: bite-size strategies for leading curriculum. Our focus in today's session is enacting a new syllabus.

I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

Today, we're exploring a few ideas to support enactment of a new syllabus. These sessions are like reaching out to the brains trust, not because any of us think we have it all nailed. Usually it's the opposite, but because together sharing ideas that can be used, improved, and innovated upon all helps build our collective understanding.

I am for those of you who I've not met before, the leader of K to 12 initiatives, which spans a really big portfolio including STEM education, Aboriginal education, professional learning, coordination, effective teaching practices, and school and system leadership, which is home to the small and unique schools team. Which is where the idea for this teaching principals podcast emerged.

Trying to find willing teaching principals, one of whom I've got with me today, who we can persuade into recording a conversation with us that we can then share with colleagues across this vast landscape of New South Wales. Giving you all a chance to tap into conversations that might offer you a new idea or some affirmation at a time, and a place that works for you.

So today, we wrangled Bianca Rhodes, who gets to work in the gorgeous little village not far from Grafton, where B's husband plays the bagpipes in the Jacaranda festival that takes place every spring. And when she's not listening to that magic at home, she's TPing it up with about 72 students near the river at Grafton.

So Bianca, I'm gonna hand over to you to tell us a little bit more about your school.

Bianca Rhodes – Principal of Ulmarra Public School

Thanks, Michelle. Yes, we're very lucky here in Ulmarra. We sit in beautiful Yaegl Country on the northern coast of New South Wales. I'm a very proud teaching principal. I have been in the role for five years now and my school, Ulmarra Public School, we've got 72 students as you mentioned and we run stage based classes.

So I've got a Kindergarten, Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3 class, which is fantastic. I've got a range of teachers here. I've got some very experienced teachers. I've got some highly accomplished lead teachers, and one or two teachers that are quite new to teaching as well.

It's a beautiful place to come to every day.

Michelle

I wonder, in thinking about Enact, could ask you to share a little bit about some of the processes that you went through in the Maths and English work. Because my bigger question is what's been the same and different over time, how you're addressing the CHPS syllabuses compared to how you might have addressed enactment of Maths and English might be really neat just to share some of the work that you and your network have done in particular in the enactment of Mathematics and English.

Bianca

Absolutely, yeah, Michelle. One of the resources that my AP C&I use a lot is actually the websites under each phase and those reflective questions. They're perfect for me as a teaching principal because they are at both levels in which I operate, therefore teachers and then therefore leaders as well. So that guides my thinking and my planning a lot around where we're at.

So, when we were in the enact phase of the English and Maths syllabus, we set up through our Clarence Valley community of small schools, a couple of communities of practice which were really beneficial for the staff.

So, we had a community of practice operating for teachers. So, K–2 staff, 3–6 staff because our K–2 staff were a year ahead of our 3–6 staff when units of work was released. So, they were fantastic because they provided the staff with an opportunity to really delve in and have a look.

And this is really important, I think, Michelle, not delving straight into the units of work. We went back to looking at the syllabus, looking at the pedagogical changes in the syllabus and those core differences between the old syllabus and the new syllabus, so that I think there was a risk of us delving straight into the units and not having that prior work and not really building that prior knowledge and learning so that we can, it's almost like we were trying to ease the cognitive load of these teachers, right? And linking it to the other schemas that existed around learning and pedagogy before we jumped straight into the units of work.

So, they were really efficient and we got some great feedback from people around those. So, they weren't just focused on resource building, that was definitely a part of them, but they were also focused on improving the knowledge as well around those techniques and the syllabus documents.

And then we also led a community of practice for the AP C&Is in our Clarence Valley community of schools, and that focused on how they could support their teachers through these changes.

What systems and structures did they have already in their schools? They're questions that come directly from that enact website around the reflective questions. So those things, like what systems and structures do you already have within your school that can help support these changes in the syllabus and these changes in pedagogy as well.

So, the AP C&I had a slightly different focus, but when they were combined, they had a really big impact in our schools around those. AP C&I being able to support at the coalface, the implementation and the actual teaching, assessing and reporting of the new English and Math syllabus.

Michelle

And then as you've come to grapple with the CHPS syllabuses and the rollout of that, what's been different? If there's been any differences in the way that you're tackling enacting those syllabuses?

Bianca

So, we tend to approach the syllabus implementation in the same way here at Ulmarra Public School, and I know it's consistent across our network too. I always try and plan out the three phases of engage, enact, and embed.

So those overarching ideas are very similar for each syllabus. But then you're right, there are nuances that come in with the different ones. So, for us at the moment, we're still in the engage phase of the CHPS syllabus. The next steps will be enacting that and probably the biggest difference that we're looking at is contextualising that for our small school setting.

What that looks like, and as you know, there are small schools within small schools. So, a small school here in Grafton that might be K to 6, will operate very differently from my school, which is stage based.

So, we’re taking those scope and sequences at the moment, we're taking those key ideas and thinking about what they'll look like in the context of Ulmarra Public School.

The way we're supporting our staff remains the same though. We're still looking for those key things in enact that will be illustrations of practice that we can look towards, and that's where those explicit teaching strategies are coming in because they actually overlay beautifully across all KLAs. So that all will continue to be a focus for us, how we can put those in and using those great illustrations of practice that are there in the Department of Education websites.

And then thinking then about, some lesson observations, providing feedback to the teachers. That cycle of, let's have a go. Let's look at it, let's implement it. Let's take five weeks, do a lesson observation, get some feedback, and move through that teaching and like learning cycle again with it.

Michelle

It's, it's almost like you do like a mini situational analysis each time. Coupled with like cycles of inquiry or, you know, depending on which framework you use, plan, do reflect. Let's try some things around that and see what works, what doesn't work, and what we need to refine. And then let's figure out where we are next and it just keeps spiralling through.

And in a way you talked about how supporting cognitive load of teachers, I think structures like that, then also help in idea of that making connections part of explicit teaching too, right? Like you're then able to connect this learning that we're having here relates still back to this.

Bianca, as we come to conclude our session today, thinking about or sharing with us an ignition idea, what is one thing you think that teaching principals could use to light up their school tomorrow? You've probably given us about 32, but what's your final one?

Bianca

Oh look, the final one probably Michelle, is actually about the teaching principal themselves because it is really difficult, like we are in such a privileged position to be able to move from that hotspot of the classroom and having a play with curriculum, to then also leading teaching and learning and leading change in our schools.

But I think we actually have to make sure that we quarantine time for that as well, because we can fall into that trap of being stuck in that operational mode. And while there's definitely a need for that. And my own personal views on, I kind of like to look at my leadership in a continuum, and compliance sits at one end, and I understand that I have a responsibility for that and all of that but as far as I can sit at the other end, which is continuous improvement, that's where I like to sit because, and that's where I like my staff to sit with me as well, because then our work matters and it has an impact on student outcomes.

So that's where I think my ignition idea comes from today, is to quarantine yourself some time. For me it's great if you can timetable it in, if you can make it a day when you've got an office person in a SAM or SAO, even better, because then you're not answering the phones when they ring and those sort of things too.

And it's that real chance for you to focus on what's important, not what's urgent, because sometimes those urgent matters fill our day. But being able to have that weekly opportunity to sit down and look at those big reflective questions. Look at your school plan. Have a talk to your AP C&I if you're lucky enough to have them there on the same day. That's really critical, and I think it's something that we can owe ourselves to lock away that time, just an hour a week to start with, to really focus on those important things for our school.

Michelle

Thanks Bianca, and in wrapping up today then that's a really good shout out then to any of our teaching principal colleagues who have managed to quarantine some of their time to be able to tune in and listen to this episode of the podcast.

In wrapping up today, I'd really like to thank you so much for finding some time for us to share in a really short, brief format, just some of the things that you are doing in your school and with your communities of school to support your teachers, be they very new and into the space as you have, as well as some of our more experienced colleagues into some pretty substantial syllabus change and thinking about that from the perspective of what is it that we can do to really continue to uplift and deepen our practice and understanding to support the students in our care.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]

Michelle Tregoning, Leader of K–12 initiatives

 The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation.    

Welcome to our podcast, ‘Small school, big impact: bite-sized strategies for leading curriculum’. Our focus in today’s session is in enacting a new syllabus.

I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

Today we're exploring a few ideas to support enactment of a new syllabus.

I am for those of you who I've not met before, the leader of K–12 initiatives, which spans a really big portfolio including STEM education, Aboriginal education, professional learning, coordination, effective teaching practices, and school and system leadership. Which is home to the Small and unique schools team, which is where the idea for this Teaching Principals podcast emerged.

Thanks so much, Bee and I wanted to start with where I could ask you to share a piece of advice that your Director, Martin Gill shared with you. I really wanted to start there today 'cause I thought it was such a good positioning for the rest of what we'll talk about in terms of enacting syllabus.

Bianca Rhodes – Principal of Ulmarra Public School

It was an aha moment from me when Martin, we were speaking in a Grafton principals network meeting, and he just sort of brought it to the front for all of us as principals, teaching principals, high school principals, primary principals, that if your staff aren't looking at you at the moment and thinking, ‘that's the job I want, or that's the job I can do in the future’, then we really need to reflect on that and think about our own practices and our own wellbeing and how we're role modelling this really privileged position that we're in to be principals and specifically teaching principals too, because if our staff are looking at us and seeing us that we're overworked, overstressed working all the weekend, then we really need to sort of re-evaluate where we at and provide those fantastic role model for our staff so that, you know, it is aspirational stuff for them. That's where they can aspire to be in a few years time.

Michelle

Thank you.

I just want to emphasise or I think, or amplify what you are talking about there in terms of the role model of like the way that as a teaching principal, you're in this amazing position where you get to learn about syllabus and pedagogy. You get to talk about syllabus and pedagogy with your teams, and then you get to walk into a classroom and live and breathe it.

Cause now Bianca, I'm gonna put you on the spot. We also know that there's pedagogies and practices that are almost syllabus agnostic, and I wonder if there's any stories that you have you could share, where you've picked up on some pedagogy shifts that span all of those different syllabuses, and it ties into this notion of a teaching principal being a role model.

Bianca

Absolutely, Michelle.

It's something that I think about a lot as a teaching principal, that we are really in that great position to be in the hotspot of the classroom, but then also leading to teaching and learning within our school as well, and how we get to ebb and flow between those.

And just thinking about that I had a funny experience when we were starting to introduce some student response system. We've been focusing on the explicit teaching strategy of checking for understanding, and one of the funny ones was choral response, actually. If I've put it to you, because my kids were just not used to it so I delved in in the lesson and asked the whole class a question and just said, ‘okay, everyone answer’ and they all just looked at me as if to say just say, ‘I'm not gonna call out, i'm not gonna do these things’.

And it was funny to share that in the staff meeting because then taking the step back and realising that we actually had to do some explicit teaching around gestures, thinking time, talking time, like here's your response. Teaching them all of those things before I tried to delve straight into getting a response about, I think it was a question about synonyms, you know, synonyms have the same or different meanings. So that was really interesting.

I just started teaching them choral response on days of the week and the date ordinal numbers. So we just went with a week of if yesterday was Tuesday, today must be and mean this is a stage two class, but still they got really used to the protocol and now we're flying with it and it's been implemented really well across lots of different KLAs and we've made it consistent K–6 as well.

Everybody in, all the teachers in the school are using those gestures and using the same language around it and so that's been a, a good example of, you know, in the trenches back to leading some change across the school too.

Michelle

You are now really making me think back on some conversations I've had with teaching principal colleagues in the past, Bianca, where we would like show up big screens related to NAPLAN data and percentages and start thinking about how is it that we can make sense of and use this data in terms of gathering information and insights about where the students are in their learning now, and then how things are progressing. If there's any sorts of assessment tools or way of collecting assessment data.

Bianca

Absolutely. So, I always think of a triangle when I come to this and it suits in two ways. It suits in the school excellence framework and the pyramid because student growth and performance sits right at the top of that pyramid, right in our framework.

So, I always talk to my staff and I always keep it in mind that we kind of need to climb the sides of that pyramid to get to the top. So, by focusing on the top, I don't actually know how we would do that, we're all planned for that. It's the planning for those sides that end up in the resulting of the top being changed.

And that's really contextual for a small school because I can have a cohort of 15 sit NAPLAN one year, and then the next year I might have a cohort of three, and so that's gonna skew my data like nothing else.

So, then the triangle comes back into play when we are looking at whole school data and data meetings where we really need to triangulate that with our own school-based data, what we are collecting, our formative assessments and our summative assessments, we link that back to NAPLAN and check-in. It's there for a reason it provides us with some really useful information, especially when we dig down to those individual levels of that and then we also really like to triangulate that within our Clarence Valley community of small schools too. By having those opportunities for consistency of teacher judgment across our schools so that the cohort of three kindergartens at the school down the road can bring in work samples and look at those sort of things and compare them with the cohort of kindergarten across our community of schools too.

So that provides us, again, with another really nice picture of the assessment of our learners and starting to think about the where to next for them too. So it's a great opportunity to think like a triangle.

Michelle, I'd be really interested in hearing from your perspective as overseeing unique and small schools, what your idea would be to ignite the teaching principals.

Michelle

 I like, I like being put on the spot.

I probably am gonna draw from two things that I think I've picked up from you, Bianca, and expand them a little bit.

One thing I think is just embrace the messiness of it. You know that anytime that I was brave enough to go, I don't really know what this is gonna look like in my classroom, but I'm willing to give it a go and I'll explain to the kids, it's probably gonna be a bit clunky while I figure it out, and I'll seek feedback from them. It always yielded really great outcomes, like better learning outcomes for the kids, stronger relationships with the students, better confidence in my practice.

So, one would be like, just embrace the mess and, you know, see how it goes and stick the course. You know, like don't give it up too quick, but also don't linger in the mess too long either.

And in that vein, I think you've mentioned a lot today, things like checks for understanding, and one of my biggest aha moments about checks for understanding was I thought I was doing them, and then I realized that actually I was waiting too long.

So particularly with the younger students, you know, I might do like almost like the equivalent of a three to four minute monologue before I would do a check for understanding, and now I've learned that I almost do it like a sentence or two at a time and just, even if it's little things, I get them to turn and talk to the person next to them and I eavesdrop.

Sometimes I get them to pick up their whiteboard and even try to write a sentence about it. Like you've mentioned, you explicitly teach the kids. Don't worry if you can't write the whole sentence. When you don't know the words or the sounds or how to represent 'em. Just do the line and we move on, you know?

But encouraging writing as a way of reflecting on their own thinking or sharing. Sometimes I'd get them to get up and do like four corners or what have you, so that I wasn't just always teaching from the waist up, but when I reflected, sort of had this bigger aha moment of check for understanding much more frequently than I had been.

And I think that's probably something that people could, uh, think about and have a go at too. It had a big impact for my students.

Bianca

Thanks, Michelle. I'm, I'm actually gonna take that ‘teaching from the waist up’, I just wrote that down.

The lesson observations that we did around checking for understanding a couple of weeks ago, one of the things that we need to tweak is our eavesdropping.

Michelle

Yeah.

Bianca

And you know, when the kids are turning and talking, they're engaged in that eavesdropping, in on that, deciding who they're gonna cold call to share back afterwards.

And I was like, yeah, that's a great saying, let's not just teach from the waist up, let's move around. Let's listen in. Let's do that too.

Michelle

Yeah. What I found with choral responses was that I realised that sometimes the kids were fooling me, so it looked like it was right. You know?

So, if I did things like carefully organised, having the students sit and turn and talk, it gave them a chance to practice the language, you know, to one another. But I could also be really strategic in where I was eavesdropping and listening in on to get a really accurate read of whether the kids were just literally paying me lip service and making sound, or whether they were, and my check for understanding was more accurate, I think, as a result.

Bianca

Yeah. And that goes back to that anticipating, like you were talking about before.

Anticipating which of those students you're gonna have to stand close by and listening carefully and then gives you the opportunity for that really quick feedback too. That might just be like a one sentence and correct that thinking.

Michelle

In wrapping up today, I'd really like to thank you so much for finding some time for us, to share in a really short, brief format, just some of the things that you are doing in your school and with your community of school to support your teachers. Be they very new and into the space as you have, as well as some of our more experienced colleagues into some pretty substantial syllabus change and thinking about that from the perspective of what is it that we can do to really continue to uplift and deepen our practice and understanding to support the students in our care.

Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.

[End of transcript]