Smarter schools national partnerships

Sustainability

AISSA is successfully meeting its commitments under the National Partnership, and in some key areas substantially exceeding the milestones.

The major AISSA activities that successfully impacted on the teacher workforce during 2011 were the AISSA Leadership program and the AISSA early career teacher programs. The extensive Leadership program’s structure of programs, each with a series of high quality keynote addresses and workshops, often with on-going practical components, was strongly supported by school leaders. AISSA has been careful to shape the program based on the needs of leaders in the sector, with a core purpose to build leadership capacity within independent schools to support ongoing school improvement.

The SA Catholic sector has been conscious of learning from the models being implemented in all three of the Smarter Schools National Partnerships. In particular, in the case of the Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership, the effectiveness of consultancy support direct to teachers is being enhanced by the provision of professional learning to school leaders, to build their capacity to mentor teachers across the various stages of their career development and to manage whole school change in terms of community engagement and curriculum.

The express requirement for principals’ deep engagement in their school community with reform strategies and clearly visible, active leadership of learning are being featured in professional learning for all current and aspiring principals.

Consistent with the sector’s long-standing commitment to capacity-building, significant investment of the sector’s own resources will need to be directed towards these emerging priorities, just as the historically productive partnership between Australian Government agencies and the SA Catholic sector will continue to be important.

The Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership reforms in the government sector are both ambitious and consistent with DECD strategic direction for improving educational outcomes for students experiencing disadvantage. Limited facilitation funding meant that in 2011 DECD built on programs with a track record of success, which have been actively sought out and supported by DECD teachers, leaders and school communities. This feature of the Improving Teacher Quality initiatives has the potential to provide long-term sustainability of the programs and the outcomes achieved.

Sectors have taken up opportunities to share their learning from implementation progress during 2011. For example, several presentations featuring aspects of the SA Improving Teacher Quality initiatives and programs were made at the Australian Council for Educational Leadership Conference in October. As well, sectors have supported the participation of teaching colleagues in regional and remote areas of the state through a focus on increasing access through information technology, such as the development of online resources.

Section 3 – Communities Making a Difference

Overview

The Communities Making a Difference (CMaD) National Partnership (known nationally as Low Socio-economic School Communities National Partnership) continued to consolidate and expand implementation activity throughout 2011 in all three schooling sectors. This included:

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  44 teachers, schools leaders and school support officers participating in the in-school specialist support in five schools in the Independent sector
  
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  11 new schools joining twelve schools continuing their participation for the second year in CMaD whole-school strategies in the Catholic sector, with a collective total student enrolment of almost 8,000 students
  
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  the expansion of the Innovative Community Action Network (ICAN) targeted student support model into all of the State’s 12 government regions supporting more than 8,000 students through local school – community partnerships with other government, non-government and community agencies
  
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  more than 1,100 students involved in the Aboriginal student mentoring program across 54 government schools, including in two new regions, both outside the metropolitan area
  
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  an additional 182 principals participating in the 14 month Principal as literacy leaders program and regional leadership consultants support provided to more than 250 government schools in regional South Australia (including 110 CMaD identified schools).
  

School improvement through whole school review processes, with the goal of sustained improvement in student educational outcomes, is a critical feature of implementation activity for this National Partnership in South Australia. Sectors are drawing on academic models and current research to best guide and support schools communities in developing and implementing their improvement plans. Each sector has developed a strategic approach and methodology to support this work specifically tailored to the differing circumstances of schools in their sector. For example:

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  Seven CMaD National Partnership independent schools have been developing comprehensive school improvement plans following the AISSA Schools Review and Development team undertaking diagnostic reviews in these schools.
  
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  leadership teams from all 23 Catholic CMaD schools worked with Professor Michael Fullan on managing school reform and planning improvement strategies in their schools. Establishing professional learning communities, visiting other schools and professional networking are also essential elements of supporting school review and improvement
  
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  diagnostic reviews were conducted in a further 63 government CMaD schools with a specific focus on opportunities and strategies for improving literacy teaching and learning – in particular identifying the ‘difference that makes a difference’ for each school community.
  

With the introduction of the Australian Curriculum in future years, school leaders and teachers from CMaD schools have been participating in professional development to increase their understanding of the Australian Curriculum and to strengthen their learning and teaching programs. South Australia is also implementing a new SA Certificate of Education for the senior secondary years.

As the implementation of the Smarter Schools National Partnerships progresses, sectors are capitalising on the strategic connections between the three National Partnerships (and with other initiatives). For example, providing high quality and relevant professional development opportunities for principals and aspiring principals to strengthen school leadership capacity to lead educational reforms has been an important strategy introduced by all three sectors as part of the CMaD National Partnership as well as the Improving Teacher Quality National Partnership.

Increasing parent engagement in student learning and building effective school-community partnerships has also received attention with a two day statewide Aboriginal Parent and Caregivers Conference being held and several innovative projects commencing.

The following parts of this section provide further insights and detail into the extensive range of strategies and activities being implemented and the wide reach of this National Partnership across South Australian CMaD school communities.