Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders, past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we are talking about the department's new practice guidance resources for supporting all learners and in particular, those learners with additional needs.

The practice guidance has been developed by educators for educators. Those educators who developed those resources are with us today in the form of Jen Mathwin-Raymond the Manager of Practice Guidance, and Rhoni McFarlane, the Director of Inclusive Teaching and Learning. Welcome to you both.

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: Thank you.

Rhoni McFarlane: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: So, first of all, I guess the main question is what are the practice guides and what are they for?

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: They're actually very practical, basic learning strategies that anyone, no matter whether they're an early career teacher or a later career teacher, can pick up and learn something from. They're written by teachers for teachers and they are the sorts of things that might have been put into place today, or they can certainly be put into place tomorrow. So that is the focus, it’s something that is achievable. It is not reliant upon funding. It is something that anyone can pick up and do tomorrow.

Dale Atkinson: In my hot little hand, I have a white binder that says ‘Practice guides for learners with additional needs’ and in front of me on my laptop on EDi I have the page for practice guidance. Can you tell us how these two things work together and what teachers should do to get their hands on the resources where they need to get their resources?

Rhoni McFarlane: I think one of the challenges that we face is that teachers are really busy and the fact that we've produced practice guidance in two formats means that when a teacher needs a really quick response to something and to try something, they can go to a fact sheet.

But when they want to do that deeper dive and really develop an understanding of what's behind potentially a child's need. They can go online and look at EDi and explore deeper, click onto links that will take them to more information if you know they're seeking it in their own time. I think the readiness of having the practice guides in the hands of teachers via the fact sheets in schools and then the longer version online allows for them to engage at different levels at different times. That's around language as well.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, and it's really beautifully compiled on EDi, it's all together in a really easy to navigate, easy to find space, and I think educators out there are going find this to be an incredibly useful and easy resource to use. So where did the initiative for the practice guides come from? What was the background of that?

Rhoni McFarlane: Yeah, I'd love to take credit for this, but I've only been in the role for three months. It's sort of multifaceted. Our previous executive director, Carolyn Crosser-Barlow, had a conversation with an old friend who happened to be a teacher and she was expressing at the time the frustration that she had with not being able to meet the needs of a young person that she was struggling with in her own classroom and just wish she had something in hand to be able to rely on, to inform her of some approaches she could do in the classroom.

And then I guess emerging out of that was a piece of research that the department requested that really highlighted ways that we could be working to have greater inclusive practices. And one of those key elements was practice guidance. Like how do we make sure we get really evidence informed approaches in the hands of teachers in classroom? And that being one lever for a really important practice.

Dale Atkinson: When we look at schools and the profile of students in schools, one of the things that teachers are always trying to do is meet that individual student at that point of need. But the difficulty can be very diverse environment with lots of complex and competing demands on your time as a teacher and as an educator, is understanding who that student is, but also what the specific plugins that might help them. So what are the role that these have in helping bridge that gap that you might have as an educator?

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: One of the things that each of the guides will outline from the word go is that every child's an individual. Many of them come with a specific learning need, but others will come with a complex range of learning needs that are all interrelated.

And so it's important to look at the guides and say, maybe match the two guides or three guides together and then think to yourself, okay, so knowing my learner as well as I do, how can I actually cherry pick the bits that will work the best for this particular child? And try and see. And if it doesn't quite work, then go back and try some others.

Because the practical nature of the way in which we've laid them out and the fact that they're written by teachers, for teachers, then there is always something else that you can give a go and something that will meet with success. Maybe a little bit of success initially, but then we build onto that.

Dale Atkinson: So this is something that's really going to, I think, come alive if you're using this in a team sense with the rest of your colleagues, isn't it, that you can bring these down off the shelf and have a real kind of, granular discussion about how you can help individuals and children.

Rhoni McFarlane: Yeah, I think it's one of the things that we've been talking about with the team is really how do we know that this is actually having an impact? And one of our measures is actually how teachers are talking to each other about the strategies and how they're implementing them, so that I know that, you know, my colleague in the next room has tried some strategies from one of the practice guides, they can talk to me about how they've worked and then I might be able to say, oh, okay, well if you've used that approach, I might be, you know, willing to test that as well. And then we can compare and say, well, if this worked for me but it didn't work for you, you know, maybe we could tweak or maybe we could try another strategy.

I think that collegiality in a shared experience of having the same evidence-based research in front of us with strategies that we can both apply, but again, individual students so they can work in some context and not in others.

Dale Atkinson: Now, I know you've been engaging a lot with teachers, leaders out in the field. What sort of influence have they had over the development of the guides?

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: Well, they were quite pivotal, of course. One of the things people will often say to me is, how did you choose the topics for the first 16? And we've got another, a range of them on the go. Basically, we asked pretty much everybody, so we asked teachers when we met them out in the field.

But we also put together very early in the piece a practice guidance board, quite high-level people, but we also put together a reference group of teachers, leaders, practitioners, people from support services, and we said, what do you think is needed at the moment? And then we sort of prioritised. And one of the priorities that you'll see as soon as you pick up the guides is there's quite a significant number of topics that are around the provision for autism.

And that worked out quite well because it is quite topical at the moment. We do have a number of children, for all intents and purposes, we're trying to meet their needs, but they're quite complex and so, I certainly have had great deal of feedback from people saying that that was really helpful and they certainly have been applying them.

Dale Atkinson: What's something that you guys have really enjoyed about this process of developing these guides?

Rhoni McFarlane: From my perspective, I just love when we can create a product that's really valued and needed, and if you can deliver something that is going to help a teacher in their core work, that's ultimately the win, right?

I was recently in a forum where I had the privilege of hearing a young man speak about a year 10 boy who's autistic, and he was talking about his experience as a young person and, and a mixed experience about his learning environment. And he talked about a teacher who tried and then tried something else, and then tried something else again until he found something that worked. And what was the most valuable thing that this young person described was not the fact that they had success in their learning, but actually that their teacher believed in their success and that they kept trying. So for them, they felt that they were valued.

And I think we all want to be valued. And how we can express that in the classroom is by trying and not giving up, but keep persisting and finding ways to reach the young people in our classroom.

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: Every child deserves to feel a sense of belonging that this is their place and that they have a right to be there and they're respected and valued.

And if we can do anything to support that, then I reckon we're on a winner.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, and I think these are incredibly powerful tools in terms of helping that to happen. Now you mentioned that these are just the first suite. The plans are already underway to broaden the offer. What if teachers are out there and they're looking at these and thinking, well, that's great, but I've got students who need X. How do they get in touch with you and what should they be telling you?

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: It's at the bottom of every practice guide. You click on there and let us know. Just send us an email and say, look, I like this bit about it, or maybe you could expand on that bit, but also could you then start talking about developing something on, whatever.

Dale Atkinson: So you guys are the real face, the real people behind the behind the email address. That's great. We will include a link in the show notes to where it lives on EDi, so people will be able to access that, who are listening to the podcast, but it's a brilliant resource, both in hard copy and on the web. So well done. Thank you very much.

Jen Mathwin-Raymond: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: And we're also joined by Andrew Gravestocks who's the principal at Ceduna Area School. Andrew, how are you?

Andrews Gravestocks: Good, thank you. Good.

Dale Atkinson: Hey, Andrew, you've been involved in developing some of these resources. Can you tell us a little bit about what that process was like?

Andrews Gravestocks: I was really pleased to be asked to be part of that working party, to look at the practice guidance for learners with additional needs, because I think sometimes, we haven't done that as an education department. We've constructed those types of guides without a very wide variety of people to consult within different circumstances.

So having people from remote country schools, city schools, but different educators with different experiences and support services. And looking for what is best practice outside of our system has been something that has been really unique for me to be part of. And I think it's, it's really added to the depth and the value for schools.

And I think the other part for me too is that it's really been upfront from the beginning that this is the first iteration of the guides and that they will evolve and change as more information and that becomes so that ultimately staff know they can go this resource, and it will be the current up to date, best practice information that the education department has.

Dale Atkinson: Can you tell us a little bit about your school?

Andrews Gravestocks: Yeah. So Ceduna Area School is in the far west of South Australia. We're about nine hours from Adelaide. Pretty diverse student population and community. Lots of different people move in and out of the space, given how west we are. High Aboriginal population and a reasonably high population of students with disabilities. We tend to have kids who can't access special schools and stuff nearby as well. We've got the two special classes on our site, but probably the level of disability within them is above what you would normally find in a special class.

Dale Atkinson: That presents some reasonably universal challenges across the public education system, which is what do you do as a teacher in terms of meeting each of those students at their individual point of need? And I guess the question that you guys are trying to answer with the practice guidance is, how do we service these kids?

Andrews Gravestocks: We've put a lot of effort into working with our support services group who are based in Port Lincoln, but we've got that four hours of distance between us and them. So we're really seeing the practice guides as being a really key component of what teachers can look at in the first instance, talk about, but then it can be that reference point for support services, teachers, leaders, students, parents, this is what the best practice is saying for your child. And then we're trying those things and then we can keep working on it from there.

So, you know, through the use of technology, we can be actually working on what the best way to support a child in their education is. With the guides as well, on a more regular basis and, you know, hopefully more timely and a better service for all.

Dale Atkinson: Particularly, you know, Ceduna Area School, but a lot of schools are dealing with an enormous breadth of issues among their students.

And it can be difficult as a teacher to understand the nuances of various different challenges that students may have. So something that provides a bit of clear guidance around the specifics of need is incredibly useful, isn't it?

Andrews Gravestocks: It certainly is. And I think the other part that is really helpful for that too is that it's, it's online so staff can access it anywhere, anytime, even if they've got, an inkling that this might be something they're thinking in their professional judgment, a student needs to support them. They can go and have a look, and they're almost, you know, we're going to be in a better place to be able to work with other agencies and families and the student themselves ultimately to support them because teachers have got that quick go-to, they can go to. And they're not too long, they're not too complicated and it's got where to go to from there for supporting other supports as well.

Dale Atkinson: Is it also useful in terms of teachers and leadership engaging with parents of children with these needs?

Andrews Gravestocks: I believe so. You know, having not done it yet, but I think we can put that on the table and say, here's what the practice guides are saying. What do you think and feel as a parent, would this support your child in their learning? And that will be a real, as I said, a really good focal point and a reference that we can use with families and staff. So where it can all be on the same page and hopefully working together as best we can.

Dale Atkinson: And what does it look like from the point of view of a leadership team or teaching teams?

Are these the sorts of things that you will get together as a group? And this, there's a nice thing about talking to you while you're actually physically out in a school, because the bell just went off in the background there, which is lovely.

Andrews Gravestocks: Yes it did, its end of lunch. Yep.

Dale Atkinson: What does it look like in terms of, you know, groups of teachers or a leadership and teaching group, how are these useful and how are they, how will they be used, do you think?

Andrews Gravestocks: I mean, we are very much at the infancy of that process, but we were going to begin tonight, even at our staff meeting, looking at the positive behaviour for learning classroom practices and can we get teachers to, you know, have consistency, coherence, and clarity around that practice for kids in our classrooms. And so this document does give us that opportunity to have that conversation.

Dale Atkinson: Well, thank you very much for your time, Andrew, and good luck making use of the practice guidance.

Andrews Gravestocks: No worries. Thanks Dale.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome to teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And this year I'm joined by a new co-host by the name of Georga Tyson, who we have pulled out of Largs Bay School, Georga welcome.

Georga Tyson: Thanks Dale, it's good to be here.

Dale Atkinson: So tell us a bit about your background. Why have we gone out and drawn you out of your school? What are we getting from you today?

Georga Tyson: Well, I've been teaching for the past 20 years in a few schools across South Australia, including some valuable experiences in my hometown of Whyalla, I've taught in a number of schools across metropolitan Adelaide. And at the moment I'm at Largs Bay, as you said, and I 'm in a unique role there as a specialist NIT teacher, taking kids for functional grammar and, and writing, which has been amazing. So I'm working with kids from R to 6

Dale Atkinson: Well, it's great to have you thank you very much for agreeing to join us this year.

And I think we'll have some, some fun adventures together. And the first of our adventures is today and we're at a Norwood International High School. Now for a lot of students returning to the classroom this year has been a fairly substantial challenge. I think it's safe to say we've had a staggered start. We've had COVID there's been a lot of unsettling activities nationally and internationally with flooding the situation in the Ukraine. It's a lot for any child to digest. And on top of it, Is the process of being a child and being a teenager. So given all of that, we thought the first podcast for 2022 should focus on student wellbeing and in particular, how our teachers can support students to be mentally well and to be prepared to learn when they come to the classroom.

Georga Tyson: And how lucky are we Dale to be here at Norwood International High School and this new facility, which is really impressive. I have to say. We acknowledge that we're on in the Eastern suburbs of Adelaide on Kaurna land. We pay respects to elders past, present and emerging. We're speaking to Shaun Walsh, director of wellbeing for learning and Lucinda Yates, a student wellbeing leader at the school. Welcome to you both.

Shaun Walsh: Thank you.

Lucinda Yates: Thank you.

Georga Tyson: What has the start of 2022 been like for both of you and the school community?

Shaun Walsh: Where do we start? Where do we start? It's certainly, I think it's going down in history as one of the most unique years that education's ever faced. Our school has nearly 1700 students in it. We've gone on to a one campus model. Prior to that, we had a middle school campus down the road and the campus we're on now was, currently that was the senior school. So we've had the complexities of 1700 students aged from around 11 years to 18 years of age, finding their niche areas and their little market spots within the school and accessing online learning right from the get go. So that's been a challenge.

Lucinda Yates: Bringing in year seven and eight new cohort has been particularly challenging. So at the start of the year, we had a lot of parents waiting out the front and there's been a lot of changes in regards to kids coming to school, leaving school, with the addition of masks, some kids have never seen our entire faces. So it's, it's quite difficult to make those connections sometimes as well.

Dale Atkinson: What you're describing there is something that a lot of other schools are experiencing, but you perhaps on a larger scale, which is students having to settle in, in a number of different ways facing a number of different challenges, like you say the seven to high school thing is creating some issues. You've got issues around the patriation of kids from two campuses into one, you've got the backdrop of of COVID and all those sorts of things. So what are the strategies that you guys are putting in place to kind of address some of those big issues for kids?

Lucinda Yates: So we started some of these last year. So for five of our year levels, they hadn't been to this campus at all. So our year twelves are the only cohort who have been on this campus. So we started by doing a transition day. At that point we didn't have all of the facilities open so they just did a walk through. It was about, you know, transitioning them, making sure that they were aware of where everything is having, just having a look generally. And then we also had the, have the addition of the new house systems. So we're trying to bring in a lot more community and relationships with staff and students and build up a connection to school. So we have a new house system. We have four houses. We recently, we previously had three and then we embedded things into our connect curriculum, things like a Kahoot quiz, every Thursday, a fitness Friday. so going out into the yard and just really getting them to think about wellbeing and things that make them healthy and connect to school.

Georga Tyson: Is this space that we're sitting in now, this wellbeing hub is this new to the school or was this at your previous site as well?

Lucinda Yates: Yeah, so the entire kind of wellbeing web is new to the school. So previously we did have a director for wellbeing, but it was, he, he was based on the middle campus. It was just one wellbeing leader on the middle campus, one on the senior campus. So there was no kind of group approach to wellbeing. We were separate. We met regularly, we did case management together and we worked very much as a team, but in terms of the support, it was just very separate. And so having now we have the director for wellbeing here. We have three wellbeing leaders. So we deal with two year levels each and then we have kind of a whole community approach up here. So we did previously work very heavily with the year level management and now we're able to separate that and go you level management deals with academics, attendance, behaviour. We are very much about wellbeing and the whole person approach.

Dale Atkinson: What sort of difference has that made in terms of how you're able to support the kids?

Lucinda Yates: It makes all the difference because yeah, we're able to support each other as well as supporting the students and if one person's workload is too much we're able to kind of separate that and say, hey, this has come up, is anyone available to deal with it? And so we have one person that's based here for every double lesson so then if students do come up and they're experiencing a heightened state of awareness, we're able to deal with that on the fly.

Georga Tyson: As I was coming in today, I saw a student coming in, actually, and, and I thought what a welcoming space. They'd just brought themselves in to catch up with one of your colleagues, I think.

Shaun Walsh: And it's great I think having three or four of us up here, because if a student can't find a connection with that person that's allocated to their year level, it means that they can go and work with another person sort of thing and I think that that's really important. I mean, the whole value of, it's not therapeutic, what we do, but the whole value of that relational safety and that connection to, to someone in your site is really important. So the fact that they, every kid in the school would have someone that they could come and connect with on some level is, is, is really great.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That's amazing. Isn't it? I mean, I think like what I'm hearing from you and what I can see around here is that there's a, there's kind of a multi-layered approach here, where, you know, the overarching strategy is to create a sense of belonging for the kids and to create a real sense of kind of wellness in the space. But then there is, you know, resourcing there's, there's a really kind of intense focus on being able to support kids in, in like the acute circumstances that they might be facing. Is that, is that fair to say?

Shaun Walsh: Yeah, definitely you know, and I mean, I think it, and it's, it's brilliant in the sense that we have a principal that sees the, you know, the measurable value of having a wellbeing focus within her school and our focus is not just on our, our students. It's also on our staff and particularly at the moment with everything that's happening around, you know, staff coming out on COVID leave and all sorts of things, you know, we've tried to make as much focus as possible on making sure that our department's most valuable assets it's teaching an SSO and support staff you know are a huge priority alongside of our students too.

Georga Tyson: Which is really that whole school approach. Isn't it. And that's what the experts tell us is the best way to support mental health and wellbeing is with a whole school approach. And we understand as well that the wellbeing engagement collection, the survey data has been a big part of forming that whole school strategy. Can you tell us a little bit more?

Shaun Walsh: Oh, look obviously like every school, the WEC data, all form attendance, you know wellbeing, referral data, all adds to our vision and where we, where we see that we need to drive our supports. I think the 2021 data highlighted things like connectedness, school belonging, motivation to achieve, and students actually knowing who they can go and talk to and what they could talk to that person about, whether it be academic challenges, whether it be wellbeing challenges. Obviously things like bullying and keeping themselves safe and keeping their friends safe as well. So, I mean, obviously that data formed the focus for 2022 in relation to the way the program was structured, in the way the resourcing was structured, the staffing levels and what the teachers would actually be delivering in that, around, you know, the, the child safe curriculum, anti harassment, bullying programs, but also it drove where teacher training needed to be invested as well to make sure that the teachers were armed with the resources and the skills needed to actually deliver the programs and support the kids in their classes.

Georga Tyson: Connect program, does that take place where maybe in the past it would have been your home group?

Lucinda Yates: Yeah, we also had a look at the structure of the role of the connect teacher as well. So we worked with our staff around being mentors and not so much just the teacher that stands in front of the class, so when we say, where do you go to for support? We not only say the wellbeing team and year level teams, but we say very much that that connect teacher is someone that you can go to if you need to talk to someone, and if you need support in any area.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the interesting, that you kind of touched on Shaun is like in a school of 1700 kids that will have vastly different backgrounds, how do you make sure that you provide kind of a differentiated, kind of personal support to the kids that meets them where they are?

Shaun Walsh: There was a massive amount of work that went into the transition for the year six's coming into seven and the sevens into eight. And I mean, I've only been in the school eight weeks, put my hand up and say that, but I was blown away in that sort of initial week, zero time when we came back together just at the learning community leaders, how they just knew who their kids were, and they'd worked extensively with the primary schools in the lead up through the transition programs. So that sharing of information and not just with students from six to seven and seven to eight, but also within the school itself. So the eights moving into nine. And I think the structure of the learning community leaders has actually meant that the handover of information is quite spectacular for a school this size, but also the fact that everybody knows something about one of the students in there in their cohort of kids, in their class sort of thing, there's always information and the learning management system as well, we use Day map, we put a lot of information and maybe not highly sensitive, but a lot of sort of, you know learning information, but also wellbeing information about students on that. So it's a ready tool for teachers to access if they've got a student that they're a bit concerned about.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, right. Is there like, is there a way that you guys kind of foster nice interactions between the teaching and the staff to kind of share that information? Is that a formal thing or do you kind of just do it on a kind of one-to-one basis.

Shaun Walsh: It's a mixture. I think it's a mixture. Yeah. I think we get you know, you'll have, you'll have really switched on staff who will come and say, look, I'm really concerned about this student in my class. I've noticed that their attendance or their looking a bit sad or a little bit under the weather today. Obviously the learning community leaders track attendance data and that's in a school I think one of the biggest indicators that something's not quite right for a student is looking at that data. So obviously we flag students in relation to those that are the ones who, even if they're approved absence, you still start looking at the mount up and think maybe something's not quite right. So obviously, you know, the wellbeing leaders in, in consultation with the learning community leaders will connect with families, will connect with students and almost create that, I guess, a team around the child approach in, in relation to sort of making sure that that child is supported.

Lucinda Yates: It kind of comes naturally as well with our leadership team. So we've got the different levels of leadership teams. There's exec, then there's wellbeing team. Then there's the different management teams of the senior and then the middle. And then there's the curriculum leaders. And then, of course there's the year level teams. So the learning community leader will work very closely with their year level team. And we would work very closely with the teachers that have those high level well-beings students in there. But I think just the, the leadership structure, the way that they all work so well together kind of bleeds out into the general staff as well.

Dale Atkinson: Yes. So got to be a real big kind of culture piece for you guys.

Georga Tyson: Who do you turn to for support?

Shaun Walsh: Each other, each other, each other. I mean, even though I've only been here eight weeks, I feel like I've worked here for a very long time and I'm very blessed and fortunate to have an amazing team that I get to lead. But certainly, you know, we all bounce off each other and if one is in crisis, then we're all there alongside that person. Obviously accessing external supports, like incident management team, the SWISS team, our own private networks as well outside of school. I think they're all the things that we amongst ourselves promote, but also promote them amongst the staff too. And as I said earlier on we, we, you know, one of my passions is staff wellbeing and we've really started to work on that sort of thing around, you know, how do our staff look after themselves and what's their window of tolerance and you know, how much time do they spend outside of the window of tolerance and you know who is their trusted colleague or their trusted person that they can just purge when they need to sort of things. So they've got the opportunity. Sometimes that's us, you get the kids purging at you and sometimes the staff purging, but that's the nature of the job that we've chosen to do.

Georga Tyson: Along with the pandemic, more recently, we're seeing mages of record-breaking floods in Eastern Australia, and the war in Ukraine, how do you help students deal with these, with understanding these events that are happening in the, in the broader community?

Shaun Walsh: It's about establishing, not just about individual events, but a culture of safety and connection. I think that any, any natural disaster, anything globally that happens, and I mean, we have a massively diverse student cohort from many different backgrounds and cultures. So you don't necessarily know, at the time who's being impacted by what's happening around the world. So, you know, through, through our, our language that we use through our you know, our our sort of, you know, commitment to young people through our leadership, as Lucinda's already mentioned, it's around our core value is safety and diversity, and actually making sure that every student that comes through our doors as much as we possibly can with 1700 feels safe and that they've got someone they can connect to. Our teachers, I mean, I had the opportunity to walk around to the classes a lot and you watch the very topical discussions that happen in the morning connect and during extended connect time and things like that, and there's a real culture amongst the, amongst the teachers that have talking with kids about what's happening around the world and actually unpacking it and giving them probably that educated view rather than just what they read on social media or what the, you know, the media itself is barraging at them as well.

Dale Atkinson: Now Shaun just finally, before we wrap it up, you've been in a number of different settings, so you've, you've spent a fair bit of time in the Southern Behaviour Centre leading that up, you've been in Willunga High School. What are the differences and similarities between, you know, places like that, which would be perceived, I think, to be very different to, to Norwood International. What, you know, what's the experience across those sites?

Shaun Walsh: When I won the job here, people said, oh, eastern suburbs you'll have no behaviour issues. I scoff at that because we have our fair share of, of students with challenging behaviour and, and who will test the boundaries but that's adolescents. The similarities is, is kids are kids. They bring with them, the complexities they bring with them, the joy of coming to school. There are lots of kids here and there's lots of kids at Willunga and there were lots of kids at the learning centre who found a sense of comfort and joy in actually attending school because it's a safe haven for a lot of our kids, you know, sort of thing. And I say that sadly, and I don't mean that, but you know, they don't necessarily get that at home. I would say that probably, I notice here families are in the whole far more proactive in seeking external support for their children than I've experienced in previous schools. When you do talk to a family, they'll say, look, we've been to the GP, we've got a mental health care plan. We've got them connected with a psychologist. I would say this area particularly has highlighted to me that there are more services, I think as well, because I think maybe financially people are able to pay for things more than they necessarily might be able to do in some of the southern areas as well. Not to say that there weren't amazing families at Willunga or through the learning centre as well, but I just get the feeling too, because we're closer to the CBD, there's a lot more option for families to sort of shop around for supports and they might in the southern area.

Dale Atkinson: So there's issues of capacity, engagement.

Georga Tyson: In your role over that period of time, have you had to have more connection with outside agencies then than before, or.

Shaun Walsh: Definitely. And especially the last three years at the learning centre, our role was really to be, I guess, the intermediary between schools and support services. And I'm a huge advocate of support services, schools, building relationships, setting up effective student review teams. That's one of my goals here for us to work on developing those relationships, accessing services through the department, like the HEI, like complex case review group, the SWISS team, they're amazing, and the incident management team, even though we report and we have incidents, I've always found when I ring them, they've always been a wealth of information, and if they haven't been able to answer a question, they'll always get back. So it's about reaching out because you can't do this job without establishing those relationships and accessing what our department actually has on offer.

Dale Atkinson: That's great, Shaun, Lucinda. Thank you very much for your time. This has been a great chat just to learn how you're going about it here at Norwood International and the challenges and the, and the programs that you've got in place to overcome them and really actually pretty inspirational.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on Teach.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome back to Teach the podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education. And today I'm joined by Roy Page, who is Principal at Heathfield High School for a bit of an informal chat about the year in review. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of these details, Roy, but it's what about 800, 900 students about 90 staff?

Roy Page: That's right. And we'll expand to about 1,050 next year with the year sevens coming into high school.

Dale Atkinson: It's a pretty exciting time. So we're just talking to one of the leaders just about what it's like to be a leader in a public school. And just to look back on some of the things that have been achieved and look ahead at what's being planned for 2022. Just the first question 2021 was supposed to get easier after 2020. Right. What happened to that?

Roy Page: Well, look, you know, it's that ever changing pandemic called COVID and of course, for us, a lot of anticipation about new building works. We of course started the year with the infamous falling crane. So I went from a high to a low, quite early in the year, but there's been lots of things to celebrate. And I look forward to getting into those through this conversation.

Dale Atkinson: You touched on the building works, but let's talk a little bit about the complexity of the school that you lead. So you've got 800, 900 students. You're going up to a thousand next year, 90 staff, you've got 9 VET subject areas. You've got a $13 million capital works project underway as the leader of all of those various different strands. How do you stay across it all?

Roy Page: You've gotta be able to have a strong team around you and trust, I guess, the delegation of your leadership structure, to be able to carry out really important functions and with their support and having really clear, I guess, vision and school improvement, planning processes in place. It's that support that enables you to keep across it. Cause if you didn't have that, it would be extremely difficult to keep across at all.

Dale Atkinson: So at the start of 2021, what were the goals that you set yourself as a school and as a leadership group.

Roy Page: Well, we're always about building the capacity of everyone in the site. And so from a curriculum perspective, that was about really trying to engage with the curriculum resources from the DFE this year, and trying to incorporate those into what were our existing unit plans, taking the best from the DFE and adding value to what we already did. And then I think also, we've had a really long term focus now for the last three years on high grade achievement.

So Heathfield's a category 7 school and our community rightly so has really high expectations on us. And we have therefore high expectations on ourselves and the students to meet their potential. And so meeting that potential really looks like using VET as a pathway. Students this year, 14 of them got apprenticeships before the end of the year, which was our highest ever. And then we're on track to probably get our best SACE results ever. And so we're really excited by that and we're excited that our curriculum, but also our pathway conversations with students led by leaders and home group teachers is really supporting students to make the right choices on pathways earlier.

And we're starting to see dividends from that in terms of first choice university entry or out to work then into a pathway that there's passion in. And then that success that we're seeing within apprenticeships from school.

Dale Atkinson: At the time of recording were a couple of weeks away from those SACE results coming through, which you've referenced there. What have been the challenges about, particularly in that senior secondary to keeping the kids on track in the kind of COVID setting that we've had in the last two years now?

Roy Page: I've been really impressed with the resilience of the students because we hear a lot of airplay around young people not having resilience. And what I, my observation in the last 18 months is that our students have had bucket loads of resilience and have been, I guess, in partnership with us around raising any concerns they might have around the external environment and how that might impact on their learning.

So, you know, for example, once the crane fell over, there were year 12 classes in corridors, in halls and in outdoor areas. And, you know, they put up with that for, for three to four weeks and were really on board with the school going through the right channels to say, hey look, you know this is working for us, but this isn't, what can you do to help us out? And so I was really impressed with that maturity and the fact that they still had the focus, even though they might have been unsure of what it meant for their future. There still was a focus on the future and doing well.

Dale Atkinson: So I guess there's a correlation there, between the key skills, I guess, of leadership and what you're trying to build in, in your students, which is adaptability and resilience, is that right?

Roy Page: Yeah, absolutely. And I think student leadership is really important and the school has a long history of that through it's big brother - big sister program, where we have 48 students from year 11 and 12, who sit next year in year seven and eight home groups for the full year.

And they're working through with the youngest students around the challenges of going through a secondary school and what they need to do to build that character in each year, those year 11 and 12 students put their hand up and apply to become a big brother - big sister, cascading that experience down and building the capacity of the student body over time.

Dale Atkinson: And how's that going to continue when you introduce your year 7s to high school next year?

Roy Page: So we've just expanded the program. So instead of having what would have been 25 big brother - big sisters next year, we've got 48. And we actually had more people applying for those roles, than we needed to place. So, and so I guess there's a legacy of giving back to the community. That's built into the culture of the school, which is fantastic.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's also about sort of more rounded development of your students as well. So you've got the academic pathways, but you're also trying to make them good corporate citizens.

Roy Page: Absolutely. And I think one of the real successes and highs of this year has been the development of student leadership through a range of different avenues. So we've been partnered with Melbourne University, SASPA and across sector project and Learning Creates Australia on how do you actually improve student agency across the school site. And the partnerships with other schools we've worked with Glenunga and looking at their excellent work on the learner profile register.

We've tapped into work that was done at Craigmore High School some years ago on building student agency around curriculum and assessment. And so we've taken the good work from other schools and really tried to use that, to inform what that means for us and how are we gonna use that and that's been really successful. And I think one of the things that we've been asking through these pilot projects, particularly around the development of student capabilities, is if we get that right, then the sense of belonging in school increases, the achievement is there, but we then end up now with a well-rounded situation. And I wouldn't say it's embedded yet, but we're getting close to it.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's really exciting stuff. You spoke a little bit earlier about the $30 million capital works project that's going on at your site. Has managing or helping to manage those big projects been an area of personal development for you as a leader?

Roy Page: Absolutely. You know, it was an opportunity to upskill other leaders in the school, particularly the business leader who took on a real project management role, and that's been challenging for all of us, because there are a lot of moving parts and knowing the responsibility and accountability for where certain decisions lie and who you can influence in that situation has been an ongoing challenge.

Dale Atkinson: So do you think you've deepened your understanding of how the departmental systems have worked for you as a leader?

Roy Page: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the support there from whether it's capital works or year seven transition to high school. There's always been people monitoring behind the scenes and getting on the phone or setting up meetings to try and assist when he could say things, you know, and particularly during the crane incident could be unpacked or, you know, support could have been provided to the school.

Dale Atkinson: So one of the things you've been doing this year alongside a very big leadership role in a very sizable school, is working a day a week at the central office helping to shape the policy and providing sort of frontline experience to the decision making process here at 31 Flinders. What have you learned from that experience and what value do you think you've added?

Roy Page: What I've learned is that our system is massive and that creating change systemically is very complex work. And if it was easy, we would have done it yesterday. And so understanding how every person within Flinders Street has the same aspiration and vision as we do in schools. And we all want that vision of a world-class education for all our kids that, you know, any student going to school in South Australia has got as good a education, or if not better than anywhere else.

So I think that that's something that I've learned is that the centre has the same and is driving that, aspiration and everyone working here has that vision as well. So the value then of being a part of the reform coordination team, I think has been to just provide a school-based lens to how we maybe receive information or process policy ideas that come into schools and how we might interpret something or how it could be packaged differently to support implementation in schools.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the things that our Chief Executive Rick talks about a lot is increasing their kind of permeability , in central office with, I guess, a greater sharing and shifting of roles and relationships with schools and the centre and people moving in between the two, the experience that you've had. Is that something that you would recommend to other leaders and teachers to come in and get a sense and provide their experience internally?

Roy Page: Yeah, I think it's an absolute value add that we can all have, and there are lots of different places teachers and leaders could do that. You know, so you've got the full range of roles that we have within schools could be influenced certainly in the centre and taken back into schools.

And I know that there's certainly an appetite for that model of people coming into the centre, doing a bit of work, and then going back into schools to try and take that permeability or which is really information sharing backwards and forwards into school because obviously any change that is systemic by the time it's embedded in schools can take a while and any action or strategy that can kind of shorten that timeframe for the benefit of students is obviously a good idea.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. An incredible experience. Speaking to you, it's been very mutually beneficial. I think a bit of a change of gear - you got any advice for educators in terms of how they unwind or should unwind over the holidays coming up?

Roy Page: Yep. Turn your emails off, make sure you put the out of office reply. I know a lot of people do that. Personally, I find, unless I go away, it's really hard to switch off, which now that we've got open borders at time to actually leave the area, so to speak, so that you're out of contact in a different, complete physical context certainly helps me to unwind. I find that unless I go on a holiday somewhere, I find it hard to actually switch off. So that will be my plan over the holidays.

Dale Atkinson: I think it's probably double for you. You're also married to a principle, which I think begs the question. When do you to actually get to see each other?

Roy Page: Generally between 7:30 after the kids go to bed and 10:30 on the couch where we both have our laptops continuing to, generally, we don't, we're not working because you're not very productive at that time, but it's usually talking about things that have gone on in the school day and you know, how would you do this? How would you do that? But yeah, it's generally that time. They're just between the witching hour of 7:30 to 10:30 at night.

Dale Atkinson: I think you both probably deserve a bit of time away, somewhere, very different. And this is an ambitious question to ask a father of small children, but what, if anything, have you got on your holiday reading list?

Roy Page: That's a good question. I was looking at Steven Pinker's book, which I've got for awhile, which is, I think in called Enlightenment, which is basically, it's been on my list for a couple of years, but there's a lot of statistical analysis in there saying that actually today's time is the best time to have ever lived in history and given that we, I think at times at the moment have a quite pessimistic view of the future. This book provides quite a lot of counter-arguments to that, which I think is really important as a school leader to be, I guess, optimistic for the future, both for young people and for our colleagues.

Dale Atkinson: There's probably never been a better time to have some sort of reinforced optimistic messaging.

Roy Page: Yeah, absolutely. Because there was something that I ended the year 12 graduation talk on a couple of years ago when COVID was just coming out, was actually guys, you know, you've got to understand that the media that's going on around, and we tend to pick the most negative stories. Actually, there's lots of positive stuff going on and it's about paying attention to that as well.

Dale Atkinson: Is that going to be the same message to the kids this year?

Roy Page: It was, and it was also that being a young person in South Australia, there is lots of opportunity. The other message was refine the uniqueness within yourself that whatever your result says about you, it was just, I guess, a reflection of a point in time achievement. It's not you as an individual, but more around their experience over the last five years and how they improve their ability to think relate to others is actually going to have a much bigger impact on their future than their ATAR.

Dale Atkinson: I think there's something in that for all of us. Roy Page, thank you very much for your time.

Roy Page: No worries. Thanks very much for asking.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome back to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education,

Monique Miller: and I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport Primary.

Dale Atkinson: In September, we expanded our suite of curriculum resources to help you prepare classroom learning for students.

We added new units for Health and PE, Technologies and the arts, and we added extra year levels for English, maths, science, and HASS. Today, we're going to hear from the teachers and curriculum team who have made these ready to use classroom units of work, and we're going to learn how they can help you plan for your 2022 curriculum.

Whitney Schultz is the curriculum manager for primary mathematics and Henry Johnson. Is the curriculum manager for secondary science. Welcome to you both.

Whitney Schultz: Thank you.

Henry Johnson: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: So, first of all, you've been building these units of work over the last year, year and a half. What are they, how do they work?

Whitney Schultz: So, within each learning area, the curriculum is broken up into eight units. So every year level has eight units, these are organised by concepts, true to the Australian curriculum. And then within the units, you'll see a sequence of learning, which is a sequence of the overall concepts within the unit, not individual lesson plans. And then you'll see a suite of resources, including PowerPoints, word documents and PDF documents.

Henry Johnson: And also one of the reasons why we've done the units of work is to help teachers translate the Australian Curriculum. Uh, sometimes it can be a little bit ambiguous and we're tracking the nice South Australian contexts and also practical ways to embed literacy and numeracy into your teaching.

Dale Atkinson: So let's talk about the Australian curriculum because it's a beast of a document, right? Like you go onto the website and it is just page upon page of information, which is broad. It's very high level. There's so many different ways of interpreting it and moving from that Into actually standing in front of a classroom of, of students and being able to understand what it is that is going to be able to translate from the Australian Curriculum, into the teaching for these kids. That's a daunting task, particularly if you're a new starter, that's the work you guys are doing, right?

Henry Johnson: Yeah. Correct. And like you said, with the new starter, a new grad teacher, these units of work provide the resources so they've got the confidence that they're embedding an authentic curriculum, and they're not missing anything.

I'm speaking on behalf of science here, but I think maths follows suit. It’s such a conceptual narrative that we need to ensure the students receive at each year level to build upon their knowledge and their, and their prior work. So yeah, having these units of work, it really puts an emphasis on that to ensure that continuity.

Whitney Schultz: And I think being an early career teacher as well is a seemingly endless list of challenges. You're dealing with parents, you're dealing with behaviour, you're working out how to set up your classroom and all the nuances that come with it and taking that load off teachers to give them a planning resource that has really been done for them is going to make their life a lot easier. I think back to my early years in teaching and how long I spent scrounging around on the internet for some resources to use, um, that weren't actually best practice resources, but you can be rest assured that what we've developed is based on research and evidence and is the best fit for our curriculum and our students.

Dale Atkinson: Is that the kind of experience that you've had Monique, you're obviously a year 4 teacher earlyish. How many years now?

Monique Miller: This is my third year.

Dale Atkinson: Third year in. Is that an experience that you also felt like early on that there's an overwhelming amount of information that you've got to try to deal with?

Monique Miller: Yeah. Those first years, um, these resources weren't available. So just trying to find any, anything and everything that I can get my hands on to make my life a little bit easier. You know, I'm already starting to think next year I'll be moving to a different year level. I've been pretty comfortable where I am. So I think these resources are going to be awesome to expose myself to a new curriculum that I'll be teaching. And it's, it's got everything that I need for that year level.

Henry Johnson: I think going back to what you were saying, like you're looking for resources on the internet. As we all know the internet's very, very vast and not all the resources on there, are hitting the required curriculum either. So it's yeah, so another, another reason as to why we should be looking at these units of work and seeing what we can embed into our teaching.

Dale Atkinson: So, how do teachers actually use these things, like what is it? That's in front of them and how's it apply to the class?

Whitney Schultz: Well, if I was starting to plan for my year, I might be working with my professional learning community in my school and working out, uh, what sequence or approach you want to take, to planning our year. The units are sequenced from one to eight in a logical order. So you could very much pick them up and go straight from unit one to unit eight, or you can rearrange them based on your school's needs. So if you're doing some kind of, um, whole-school event, let's say a market day or a fete, for example, you might strategically embed a HASS unit alongside a mathematics unit that focuses on money and data.

There are, of course, some certain prerequisite units that need to come first. So your place value in your number units. You'd want to be making sure that you're doing those early on in the year to set students up for success for the following concepts. If I was opening up a unit of work, um, it really depends on what kind of learner you are and how you tackle them.

If you're a visual learner, I’d jump straight to those PowerPoints. Um, particularly in year 3/4 maths, we've made the visuals really strong. So have a look at how those concepts unfold visually and then pair it up with the unit plan and all of those teacher tips, misconceptions, alerts, adjustments, et cetera, that can support you in delivering.

Henry Johnson: Yeah. And I think for science it’s slightly different in secondary science. Um, from what Whitney was talking about with primary maths. We still have eight units of work per year level, that doesn't change, but the way you can do those units of work is entirely up to you. Some schools might only have one or two science labs, so you can't be doing, you know, you can't have 10 classes during the same science experiment, logistically it won't work.

So we have written them that they can be done in any order. And it's important to note that you don't have to do them prescriptively. It's open for you to adopt and adapt, and how you see fit given your site. Um, for example, your site might have a beautiful ag area so you might want to teach body systems through using animals that you've got rather than what we have we have in the units. And that's perfectly fine.

Yeah. It's good to read them to get a few ideas. And also that conceptual narrative that I was talking about before that really comes through heavily in the unit. So it's important that you do read the units to it. You don't just take bits and bits and pieces because it works as a whole, not just individually.

Monique Miller: Where you guys have sort of catered for different sites, knowing that all schools have different resources and access to different things. So people can get in there and access what they can use for their site and potentially use something and not the rest of it. So, it's really awesome the way that you've made it accessible for all school sites and teachers.

Henry Johnson: That’s a big tick.

Monique Miller: We've talked as well, really a lot about early career teachers, but it's not just for early career teachers. Someone more experienced can definitely get their hands on these and use them?

Whitney Schultz: Yeah, definitely. And we know that teachers are doing amazing things out there in their classroom. And, um, we're not out there to reinvent the wheel of their already fantastic practice, but we are here to offer something that may compliment their current planning and their current units. Even with our experienced teachers, they just don't have the time to keep looking for more and more resources online and, and plan this kind of work. So we've done the heavy lifting for them and it might just offer some new ways of teaching that they weren’t previously aware of.

Henry Johnson: Whitney and I we’re experienced teachers and we found that managing and helping writing these units that we thought, ah, okay, I've never thought about teaching this concept like that before using this context. it's a nice way to self-reflect on your own pedagogy. And so I feel that's where experienced teachers can get a lot out of these units by just reading through them and saying, okay, they’ve done this a bit differently. Why have they done that? Then they can look at the evidence behind why we have put that in place in our units. And yeah um, like Whitney was saying it's just really complimenting they're teaching.

Dale Atkinson: So is this something you’d sort of recommend maybe groups of teachers that are at a site or partnership level, getting together and maybe discussing the units and how they might apply for, for their work?

Henry Johnson: Yeah for sure. I really recommend, um, looking through these as a faculty and looking at your year and what you've got planned and seeing where you can fit these. And also again, you've already might have something great that you use on site already. It might be like a STEM week or something that you may be doing or a science week. So you might want some different units around those types of times, but yeah, really getting down and looking at these units and how they can be placed across your site.

Whitney Schultz: I might just build on that as well. If you're working with teachers across your professional learning community, you might choose the resources to use, to support some observation from cross class observations.

So you might choose a task throughout the units and use that as something that your team can really plan to and think about how would you adopt and adapt in your context? And then go and observe one another and reflect upon what are the key, high impact strategies throughout this task. And how can we continue to plan with this kind of model in place.

Very much we're about adopting and adapting to what the units offer. They're not prescriptive, although there's a certain sequence of learning that needs to take place. Teachers can certainly adapt to their own contexts. Um, we do get a lot of feedback saying, Hey, if I was teaching this lesson or this concept, I would do it this way and that's fantastic, but we've really had to pinpoint, well, how can we make this general and accessible for a statewide audience? And then teachers see themselves in the work and be able to adapt from there.

Dale Atkinson: What do you think the things are that you’ve personally learnt from the experience of building these resources?

Henry Johnson: Yeah, good question. Um, I personally learnt that I wasn't as good a teacher as I thought. Like I was saying before, um, these units give you opportunity to self-reflect in your own pedagogy and in the science units, it's very concept heavy as it should be, not content heavy because it's the concepts that we want students that after year 10 science, we want them to carry forward with them, not the, not the content itself. So I reckon that's what I really learnt is, you know, teach to the concept, not content, that's that's imperative in science.

Whitney Schultz: I've learnt a lot about the research that underpins a lot of these mathematical concepts and how to go deeper with it. So writing the units of work, um, in years, 5, 6 and 7 for maths, I felt almost a little bit like a fraud at first and what I was writing I had never taught anything that well, but that's just because I simply didn't have the time to plan to that extent and to research and to read or those, you know, those name dropped researchers and books and things that people mentioned throughout professional development.

I had the time to sit there and read the whole chapter and then make those decisions based on what the research said and how the concept should be structured and embedded to avoid misconceptions in the learning.

Monique Miller: That's really the great part about it. We've got people who are working hard with the time to find all these resources and really get deep with the curriculum, making sure that we're provided with everything that we need. So it's really awesome. What's something you've put in your own learning areas, work that you think teachers might find particularly interesting. So, um, Henry you’re in secondary science. How about you?

Henry Johnson: What I'm particularly interested in and I know other teachers are as well are the contextualisation of the Aboriginal science elaborations. So what we've done is we've put at the forefront, this Aboriginal science elaborations, where we look at the Aboriginal ways of knowing, understanding and where we can, we've put a South Australian context as well. So we have another curriculum manager, he works closely with the nations groups around the Adelaide area, where we look at the knowledge that they hold and how we can implement that into our units of work.

Whitney Schultz: I'm really proud about the way that the year 3/4 mathematics units in particular make the mathematics really visual. So we've adapted a model called the CPA model, which stands for concrete, pictorial abstract. So we've made sure that students have the opportunity to really go deep with a concept, use concrete materials, see in a pictorial representation before moving to the abstract concepts to really deepen their understanding.

So throughout the PowerPoints, you’ll see some really strong visuals of what those mathematics concepts actually look like, which I think will support not only student understanding of mathematics, but teachers as well.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's interesting. And, and have you both been in touch with teachers out in the field, have you got a bit of feedback on how they've received these units over?

Henry Johnson: Yes. We've had several teacher focus groups. The teachers range from having a couple of years’ experience to your HALTs and Cat 1 schools through to Cat 7 schools. So we do get a range of feedback. And we also work with seconded writers who we grab from schools, um, for a term. And again, they come from a range of different Cat schools and as well as experience themselves. So these are very much written by teachers for teachers.

Whitney Schultz: Yeah, throughout the writing process um, keeping in touch with teachers has been really important to make sure that it reflects what teachers need in their classrooms. So earlier this year, I had a small group of teachers who I worked with and touch base with, who were implementing some of the draft work in their classroom and giving feedback.

And they were able to see that their feedback was applied directly to the units. Um, we've obviously also had our teacher reference groups and, um, presenting at Educators SA to teachers, um, even across our Catholic sector as well, who are really excited to get on board with the units. Mostly from first look at the units people say, wow, the heavy lifting has been done for them. And there's things that they don't have to worry about now because they know that it's been done to a really high level and they can focus more on supporting their students.

Monique Miller: It's really great that testing, reflecting and improving is all sort of happening um, before they're published.

Whitney Schultz: I might just add on that as well after all of our units are written we'll be going through a review process. So it doesn't stop there. We'll keep continually refining and improving the units as we go.

Monique Miller: If teachers have any questions? Where do we go for those?

Henry Johnson: Uh, so if teachers, do you have any questions, I can give an email address, but it's pretty long winded. So if, when you go onto EDI and you go to the units of work, it's just at the bottom of the page, but for people that want to know it, education.curriculumdevelopmentdirectorate@sa.gov.au.

Dale Atkinson: Beautifully done. And we'll have that in the show notes too. So just check that out online. Thank you both for joining us, Whitney and Henry. Yeah, that was a, it was a great chat. And obviously we are coming towards the end of the year. So if you haven't already taken a look at the units, please do so in preparation for 2022, it's terrifying that that's the year that's coming up. So thank you both very much for your time. And, um, Monique, thank you for your time.

Everyone: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome back to Teach the podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today we're talking about education in the country with a man who's spent a fair bit of the last 12 months touring our regions to develop our first ever country education strategy, that man is  Luke Fraser, the director of Government Relations and Policy. Welcome to you Luke.

Luke Fraser: Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: Can you explain why it is that we are now looking at doing a country education strategy?

Luke Fraser: I think for us, we've got a bold vision at the moment we're getting after world-class, but we know that depending on the settings and depending on where you are and what's going on, there needs a specific focus.

So, so we know that even in the country, when we say countrywe've got isolated schools, we've got regional hubs. There's a lot of different nuances to what happens in the country and so what we've decided is that we need a point of view on, on, [00:01:00] on how to support, um, the particular challenges, the particular opportunities that occur in the country when it comes to teaching and, and education and care. So we've kind of gotten after that and we want to make sure that we've got a particular focus to our strategic direction in the country.

Dale Atkinson: One of the major parts of developing this strategy was going out and meeting with the principals, meeting with teachers out in country areas, talking to governing councils and other representative from the regions. And what were they telling you about the pinch points for them specifically as a country or a regional school?

Luke Fraser: I think the interesting thing is all of the perspectives are different. So we spent time in the far west, we spent time in the, in the sort of mid north places like Lower Eyre Peninsula, regional hubs, like Mount Gambier, but also the Riverland and Southeast and so forth. And so it's good to take those different perspectives because the regions are different. But when you start to break down the differences in perspectives, students told us a lot about three things, continue to resonate every time. And that was the wellbeing of their peers um, particularly they're really hot [00:02:00] on the career opportunities that they can or can't see.

And then the, the subjects that they love to learn, particularly as they're going through SACE and starting to decide about their future. When you talk to leaders, it was, you know, there was heavy emphasis on workforce challenges and so forth. And, and that seemed to resonate through our Aboriginal support staff as well.

And then parents talked to us about kind of different stuff, like, like ICT enablers and how do they connect with their schools digitally. So the perspective really matter when you're doing a piece of work like this, because they are all different.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So the, the individual issues at a site level are unique, but there is some sort of key themes that kind of came out through the research work. And I'm just going to go through the three main goals that you've identified in the strategy, which are, um, number one, quality leadership and expert teaching in every country, school and preschool. Number two is better access to digital infrastructure, student support services and business admin systems for country schools and preschools.

And number three is access to quality learning and career study and training [00:03:00] opportunities for country, kids and young people. So we might go through those just, um, just one at a time and, and have a look at, um, how are we going to address those. Issues that have been identified out there. So the first one around quality leadership and expert teaching in every country, school and preschool, what's going to be the approach in terms of helping to support that out in that regions?

Luke Fraser: One of the first things that we saw as a big opportunity is really strengthening the, kind of what we call the sort of pipeline of, of teachers that come into school. So we know that a lot of teachers get their first start, you know, in country regions, but there's a lot of work that can be done to strengthen that.

So. So we're going to be as part of this strategy, we're going to be working with the universities in particular, to make sure that when teachers, uh, are in training with the universities that they're getting to do practicums that are for the right period of time so that they can immerse themselves in the country.

We'll also be reducing barriers. So we know that some of our best and brightest teachers that are studying. They might not, um, take up practicums in the [00:04:00] country because let's say they're working at IGA on the weekends. And actually it's, it's a cost burden for them to come and do that work for a decent chunk of time.

So we're going to be funding a lot of those barriers that exists to make sure that when they're making a decision about coming to the country, it can be one that's based on a good experience in a decent chunk of time out there. And they can make that decision either way. But when they do make a choice, when they're thinking, 'Yep, I think I can come out and work in the country.' We've got a secondary program that we're kind of building that's going to be about the transition between when they decide that they're going to teach in their penultimate year in the country and then kind of really making that a smoother transition. So we're going to be looking at things like part-time work, but they can do in a country school where they can start to bond to a particular school, making sure that there's onboarding supports for them.

And you know, where, where are they going to live all these kinds of things when they're making the big leap we want to make that smoother for them. So we'll we'll invest some time and funds and effort into, into that process so that, you know, they're not just kind of lobbying in and, and sort of, [00:05:00] um, landing and, and it's, and it's a tricky, tricky time.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. I mean the essential thing, I think that was relayed in this process is that to capture some of these younger people as they go out there at age 20 21, 22 for their first teaching experience that really they've got to be part of the community and help to form those connections and bonds quite early. That's right. Isn't it?

Luke Fraser: Absolutely. And, and, you know, if we can make that easier and smoother for them, a lot of our great principals and, and great teachers out in the country have kind of found a life out there and they, and they just love it. They wouldn't come back to the metro for quids. So, so we want to kind of just make that easier so that they can settle their roots in the country and enjoy it.

Dale Atkinson: So onto the second aim of the three goals, one of the things we're looking at is better access to student support services. And I know that there's some issues around particularly things like psychological support, speech therapy, which may not be particularly well serviced in the regions that we're looking to address as well.

Luke Fraser: Yeah, absolutely. This was one of those things in our work out in the country is just loud and clear [00:06:00] how much pressure on our teachers, when some of those supports for students with needs aren't available or aren't coming quickly enough. And so, um, we're alive to that, and we heard that call and, and so one of the pieces of work we're going to do at the moment, we've just started to recruit at the moment.

Actually, some people who are going to be working, um, particularly in speech pathology and psychology, which the two of the pain point areas and doing more telehealth in that area for the country. So, we know that just like our teachers and our sort of allied health practitioners, it's a struggle for our allied health people to get good people and keep them out in the country as well.

But what we think is going to be really helpful is to increase our telehealth, which will help us with reach because we might not always be able to get out there every time to do psychology work with students or so forth. But tele health is one of those things that's, that's better than nothing. So we're going to be focusing on that to make sure that there is somebody there that can support a particular student and, and support the teacher to support them with whatever needs they have.

[00:07:00] The other thing that we're going to be doing in, in this sort of, um, what we call the triple S space or the student support services space is investing in a, and we're just going through it with procurement now um working with private providers. So we might not be able to get our, um, psychologists out to a particular region, but there might be private providers that can and do work out in those areas. So, so leveraging the private sector. To make sure we've got better rates and better quality in the service that we're providing.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's one of the most important, powerful things. I think particularly out in the regions, that's going to be a bit of a game changer for a lot of the schools. One of the things that COVID 19 has taught us is just how much digital access is such an essential service for everything. We've had seven. We've been lucky, actually. I think we've had seven statewide remote learning days since the pandemic began but if anything, that's highlighted the need for quality systems. And it has been over the years, a disparity of access to digital infrastructure in the regions. Now the SWIFT program to connect schools to [00:08:00] fast, reliable internet services is, is part of the piece of the puzzle. But you've identified something else as well for, for country schools?

Luke Fraser: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think we've made brilliant gains in sort of getting high speed internet to all of our schools now. And that's a big increase and a big boost for our schools, but then that's not really worth much unless you have good internal infrastructure, cabling, servers, these types of things.

And so one of the things that we've noticed and we've started to do work in our ICT team has been going out to some of our schools and they do what they call a health check. But what that actually means is specialists in ICT infrastructure will go out and look at what's going on in terms of the internal infrastructure and they'll make an assessment.

And then, and then we basically negotiate and, and fund that infrastructure to be built up to a world-class standard. And it's made huge gains already but what we're doing through the country strategy is accelerating that work. So we've got guys out there at the moment that are doing what we call these health checks.

So they'll be out to our schools. They've almost been to all of our country schools now um [00:09:00] just taking a look at what's going on. By the end of this financial year, we're going to have upgrades to all of our internal servers and so forth. And that's going to mean that the speed of our internet, the access that kids get to work digitally and our teachers get to work digitally as well is just going to be a huge boost for us. So really proud of that work is happening right now.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's going to be a lot of exciting applications that, uh, that come out of that. And I think that's partially linked the digital access to, to the final point, which is around how we broaden curriculum options for the country kids, how we make pathways more available to them. What are some of the steps we're going to be looking at there?

Luke Fraser: That's a really important one. And it kind of cuts through the main thing here, which is how do we support the students to, to learn the things they love to learn. And so one of the things we sort of came across in in our, in our work and it's happening in other jurisdictions as well in country areas is, is the idea of local curriculum delivery across a given.

Yeah. We know that the workforce challenges remain and we're looking to solve those, but in the interim, there's really innovative work that's happening in patches, around [00:10:00] schools, working together to make sure that, you know, if a student wants to study, um, science in for their SACE they can access a, a teacher in a, a neighbouring country school. Um, and they can do that as part of their normal studies at their school. And so that's been work that's kind of already starting to happen and has happened in patches and where we're doubling down on that and making sure that we're going to work in sort of supporting that. So, so I think the department needs to play a role.

So there's kind of. You know, there's a lot of support that can be provided to make that happen in terms of coordination of the work. And then sort of some of the more nuanced work around sort of teaching and learning and practice. And so we're going to kind of get in and sort of support the local delivery that occurs in patches.

And then start to talk about the good practices happening because everyone's kind of doing it differently, some works some doesn't work. And so we're going to kind of put a spotlight on that to make sure that the offering across a given area or a particular student is there so that they can study the things that they want to, they want to learn, but also do it with teachers that are [00:11:00] highly skilled in that area, that teaching in their own discipline that they love what they do.

Dale Atkinson: It is exciting sort of right across the board really. And I guess one of the things that's really important is that, and I'm holding in my hand a lovely glossy brochure setting out what the country education strategy looks like, but this is not going to be sort of a static kind of piece of work that actually country perspectives are going to be something that is going to be built in more broadly to policy direction and policy development within the department. Can you explain how that's going to work?

Luke Fraser: One of the great things that we've been able to do through as we've developed this work is really bring the right voices to the table will be at some of our students.

We've been working with the rural youth ambassadors, for example, who've had had a lot to say and been really impactful in how we've thought about this, but also some of our country leaders and people that are passionate about country education. So I think what we're going to be doing through this is setting up a country education reference group that can support that department.

We've got a big reform agenda that we're getting after. So we we're doing work in VET we're doing work in, in improvements to work force, lot of different [00:12:00] areas where we're going after system level impact and country needs to be at the table in that pursuit of how we do that. And because of those nuances and differences in how country education operates.

So, so we'll be setting up a country education reference group. That's going to be talking to our people who are leading reform, be it policy or practice, and that'll be a continual voice. And I think that's going to be the real game changer as part of this strategy is making sure that we're thinking about when we're designing, how we operate, making sure that we're paying attention to the voices that matter in the country to.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, as part of this, we've created a dedicated country education section on the website. Um, and there'll be some information in the show notes about how to access that, which includes links through to the country education strategy. You can go there and find a bit more information about what Luke and his team have been doing over the last 12 to 18 months.

It's a very exciting space. There's going to be a lot of things rolling out over the next three years. It's a seven year strategy though. So there's going to be some pretty broad horizon stuff that's, uh, that's going to be coming through. So stay [00:13:00] tuned over the next few years to see, um, the announcements in some of these programs that are going to be rolling out.

So Luke, this is exciting work. Thanks for your time. Good luck.

Luke Fraser: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome back to Teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education today, we're in the state's Innovation Hub at Lot Fourteen, where a few hundred students from around 20 schools are learning more about career options in the defence space and cyber industries.

We've just launched the department's new student pathways website, which is a key piece of the puzzle in terms of raising the visibility of vocational pathways for our students and helping them to plot their way toward a career that matches their passions. Joining me today to talk about that website and the department's refreshed approach to vocational education is executive director for student pathways and careers, Clare Feszczak, and alongside her is a man who wears a lot of hats.

But in this instance joins us in his capacity as a member of the South Australian Skills commission, Dino Rossi. Welcome to you both.

Dino Rossi: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: So, first of all, the last 18 months for the Department for Education, we've delivered a fairly [00:01:00] significant change in our approach to vocational education and training. Clare, give us the elevator pitch on what you and the team have put in place and the motivation behind it.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah, South Australia is taking a nation leading approach into pathways, career education, and motivating students to think about careers post school. So the last 18 months to two years, we've been working on the VET for school students, policy reforming VET within schools. So it's the highest quality it's actually aligned to industry need.

And it creates a pathway that students can start within school and then complete post-school and get into their career sooner. As part of that, it's been the development of the website, which you've mentioned Dale has been launched today, and we've been very excited about the website. The website really gives students an idea of all the possibilities and helps them to understand the world of work and understand what it means to actually have a [00:02:00] job in certain industries and what's required to actually prepare for work post school.

Dale Atkinson: One of the key things that stands out for me, and as a guy in his early forties, was that for us careers education and the understanding of where vocational education and training could take you was extremely limited.

My career's exposure was probably, um, you know, a couple of half-hour sessions with a bloke who was normally the geography teacher. And you talked a little bit about I don't know there was a, there was a tick box on some things that you might be interested in further on, and then they gave you some subject options and that was pretty much it. You were left to your own devices. So this is really about recalibrating, a lot of that and giving students a lot more agency in making their decisions. Isn't it?

Clare Feszczak: Certainly is. Yeah. So this is about, um, really inspiring students to think about their interests and what their passions are. It's certainly not about locking in students to a particular career. We know that students will have multiple jobs, multiple careers, multiple industries. So it's [00:03:00] really about them understanding what they enjoy, what industries they might be interested in and then exploring those opportunities as much as possible through career events or through tours of different industries or through work experience or even volunteering.

And the research shows that the sooner students do that and get involved in those kind of things, the more informed they are so better informed to understand what the options are. And I think one of the challenges today is that there's so many options available. You know, we, we live with that. You can be anything, you can do anything. And in many ways, that actually is quite overwhelming for young people. So by giving young people, the agency and the opportunities, making it easy for them to explore all these options, it helps them to hone in on what they're really interested in.

Dale Atkinson: An interesting thing, I think is that the website effectively is a product that's flown on from an awful lot of other work around essentially linking those [00:04:00] vocational pathways with the areas of study. Um, and the areas of training that we know will, will get them into jobs or get them into careers where there are job opportunities.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah. So vocational education and training is a great way to actually learn technical skills. That industry value. Vocational education and training in schools gives students the opportunity to start that workplace training as early as possible. We know that vocational education and training is designed by industry for industry. It creates a real feel of what it's like to actually work in the job and what we've done with the development of flexible industry pathways, as part of this reform, we've worked with industry to say, okay, what is the vocational education training?

What are the the skills, what are the industry certificates that young students in school need to actually enter into your industry? So the flexible industry pathways, as part of the VET reform really provide that pathway [00:05:00] to areas where we know there's jobs and we know that industry actually value students coming in through that route.

So it's actually quite a significant change in the way that VET's delivered in schools in the past. It's a pathway that industry endorsed that leads to jobs in South Australia. And the important thing with this reform as well is we actually want to keep South Australians in South Australia for young people to see that there are opportunities and how to get to these job opportunities is really important to us.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That might be an opportunity to bring Dino Rossi in on this conversation a little bit, because I guess in your role with the SA Skills Commission and externally, as I mentioned earlier, you wear a lot of hats. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do, and a little bit about how that's helped Clare and her team to, to shape the conversation around developing those tips.

Dino Rossi: Yeah, sure. So first a little bit of my background. So I did come through a trade. I finished year 12 and took the pathway to do a trade. I'm an instrumentation tradesman. And very, very proud of it. As I mentioned to someone today, I still pay for my, for my license, [00:06:00] even though I don't practice it and haven't done for many, many years, but subsequent to that, um, yeah, then I, uh, continued training, ended up doing a Diploma of Information Technology at TAFE, um, have worked in the IT industry pretty much my entire career, and then subsequently went on and did higher education in business management training as well as, um, some research as well.

So, um, you know, my career very much started as, as being an apprentice and then growing through that apprenticeship, looking at further opportunities and where that apprenticeship could take me and what the skills offered. And now I find myself enjoying a variety of different roles, mainly focused around industry partnership.

My role today on the commission I'm chair of the industry skills council on the commission, which covers technology, cybersecurity, creative industries, and business. And my role is to inform and bring together industry and to inform industry of what the various options are available for them to be able to secure new, emerging talent and to work with the department. and work with Clare and her team on how we can [00:07:00] create those opportunities for students and not just students, but also for their advisors. And when I talk about that, I'm thinking of parents I'm thinking of career advisors, I'm thinking of their peers. I'm thinking of teachers and helping inform them of what these options are because often they simply don't know.

You talked before about some of the challenges that vocational training has had. So let's just say over the last 20 years. And that hasn't just been from the perspective of students as Clare shared, it's also being from the perspective of industry. Industry has lost contact in some ways there's a lot of industries out there that don't clearly understand the opportunities for them in partnering with vocational training to secure the next emerging talent that can be used for their industries.

Dale Atkinson: And it's a, it's such an important role. So we're at Lot Fourteen today. And I think the listeners will be able to hear a fair bit of work going on in the background and construction work and the important thing about Lot Fourteen is it is an innovation hub. It is a space where, you know, new careers are being created new [00:08:00] industries are being created. How important is it in a workforce and employment environment where you know, there are so many emerging jobs that there are so many changes in workforce need that we are linking up the schools with the industry, with the education and research institutions. How important is that?

Dino Rossi: It's unbelievably critical. If I, if I lift this up to start with and talk about South Australia, firstly, it's an exciting time. It is really exciting. So you mentioned Lot Fourteen there's also the Tonsley district. There's also Mawson Lakes. We've got the defence sector really starting to emerge really strongly. We've got space emerging. We are attracting a lot of international organisations right now into Lot Fourteen and they are excited to be here. That means talent. We need to continue to grow our talent pool ensuring that all of our educational institutions from vocational training to university research institutions are tightly linked with industry, industry informs the education institutions or what it needs out of emerging talent.

[00:09:00] Um, so that linkage is unbelievably critical. The other piece to that, that I would add as well. It's also incumbent on industry to do that. Um, so if industry is looking at needs talent, it can't just simply point a finger over at an education institution and say, oh, you're not giving me the talent. I want. Now's the time to engage with them, which is what we're doing to ensure that, I use the term a lot, but this emerging talent that's coming out has opportunities. And doesn't, you know, doesn't meet the needs of industry.

Dale Atkinson: I guess that's one of the key functions of the website, Clare is really essentially acting as a shop window for students, but also there's a need for the industry to bid into that isn't there, that they have a role in terms of making themselves visible and available to kids.

Clare Feszczak: Yeah, that's right. The, the opportunity with the website is, as you say, Dale is for the students, but also for industry employers too. And we hear all the time that industry and employers do want to connect with schools, but actually don't know how to, and the website, gives a means of, uh, industry and employees actually posting opportunities and being been able [00:10:00] to contact over 500 different schools in the state and promote those either jobs or even industry-based projects that students could pick up as part of the curriculum and part of their timetable.

So the website certainly is aimed at students and families but also industry and employers, and there's an industry employers section on that website, which we are heavily promoting with, with employers to actually have a look, see what you can do and then post your opportunities.

Dale Atkinson: Let's talk a little bit about the additional functionality that sits in that website because it's really been built with students in mind to make them able to see the opportunities that are available, but also to record some of their experiences and to be able to create a portfolio of skills and activities that they can then use as they transition into work.

Can you tell us a bit about those?

Clare Feszczak: So the website is the first for, for South Australia, and I think it's probably a, um, a world leader in terms of bringing different components together. The website has a [00:11:00] couple of places where students can actually register. The first is the world of work challenge and this is a self initiated student part of the website, where they can actually go and discover different experiences and log the hours that they've been involved in those experiences.

When a student reaches a hundred hours, they actually gain a certificate. That certificate then is verified by their teacher in their school or the career advisor in the school. And that contributes to a profile for the student that then when they do apply for jobs, they've got a certificate of experience, which gives them some credibility with future employers. The world of work certificate also automatically goes into a, a CV builder which is on the website. Another area of the website that's specifically designed for students and the CV builder is a template for building a CV. The CV builder is, has been designed in line with [00:12:00] LinkedIn. So we all have an LinkedIn profile, we're familiar with that technology. The CV builder is LinkedIn for school students without the social media and the connectivity. It's a safe place for students to actually think about what a CV looks like and start to build their CV and use their experiences that they've gained through the world of work challenge to populate the CV, the CV then can be downloaded and it can be customized and it can be sent off to employ.

Dale Atkinson: It's a really active and living thing. And I know it's going to develop over the coming years as the industry gets more involved in terms of ah posting things up and as, as the kids start to engage with the world of work challenge and other things like that. So it's a, it's a really powerful tool, uh, in that regard. So I think it's great. So I guess, uh, the question I have for both of you and I'll ask you separately is. Where next for, for the VET team, where next for the way that industry and the sectors engage with, with education, Clare I might start with you.

Clare Feszczak: So this is just the start, so we're very [00:13:00] excited to have the website and to be launching Flexible Industry Pathways for 2022, but really it's the start of bigger, bigger things. What we are aiming for is every student has a career plan with multiple pathway options. Career plan is developed with the student based on all their experiences, based on the discovery and the use of the website and their world of work challenge and, um, students are then setting themselves up for something post-school, which is meaningful for them.

So at this stage, the focus has been very much on VET and the flexible industry pathways, we'd see those expanding to be much more than just what they are now. So 2022 is an exciting year, but it's the starting year for this work. I think South Australian students deserve this. They deserve the best opportunities possible. And South Australia as a state deserves it too.

Dale Atkinson: And Dino where do you think we should be in five years from now?

Dino Rossi: Where we should be in five [00:14:00] years, um, where we should be, is having for me personally, right, and I think for my industry skills council, and my perspective is number one, have a really wonderful and exciting high-tech industry sector in this state. And we're sitting in the middle of it now and seeing that continue to grow and succeed. Number one. Number two, for our industries to provide really good and clear pathways and opportunities, right. For our emerging talent because that is the future of our state and expand on, I suppose it affects what industry pathways with actually flexible what I would simply call career pathways options.

When we talk about things like apprentices, when we talk about traineeships and these kinds of things, there's often a fixed perspective of what that looks like. Our work on the commission at the moment is challenging that. The new Act under the South Australian Skills Commission gives us a lot more flexibility. So when we start talking about things like dual traineeships, dual apprenticeships, hire apprenticeships, you [00:15:00] know, the notion of what an apprenticeship or a traineeship was or currently is and what it could be in the future. We're looking to challenge that because we think there isn't just one pathway for children, students to enter the, uh, the workforce. And there's not just one pathway for industry to engage in that. So we want to be able to provide flexible options for industry and flexible options for students that ultimately give us a really, really good base of talent in our state to support, for example, the emerging industries that are, that are growing so rapidly.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And I think, um, you know, one of the great things about being here today at the defence space and cyber expo is you can see so many parts of the puzzle together. You've got education, you've got sort of industry sectors. You've got people from the skills council, you've got politicians, teachers, educators, right across the spectrum.

And there's absolutely no shortage of passionate enthusiasm and, and interest in [00:16:00] making this work. And I think, um, one of the really great things within the framework, and the FIPS and the website and the work that you guys are doing together is we're really moving forward in a really exciting and, um, and great way. So I think we're going to be in a great spot in five years and even better as we move forward. So Dino and Clare thank you very much for your time.

Dino Rossi: Thank you.

Clare Feszczak: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome back to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education,

Monique Miller: and I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport primary school.

Dale Atkinson: This week, we've launched new and improved school and preschool improvement resources to use in your planning for 2022, they include refined school improvement, planning, handbooks, and templates.

Minor updates to the preschool quality improvement planning template, new scope and sequence resources, and units of work, digital literacy and numeracy guidebooks and better access to data for every teacher. These resources can support your curriculum planning.

Monique Miller: To find out how you can use the resources available to you. We're at Linden Park primary school in Adelaide's east, where they've put a big focus on improving writing.

Dale Atkinson: Deb O'Neill is the principal of Linden Park primary school. And Kane Watkins is a year seven teacher here. Welcome to you both. [00:01:00] Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, first of all, I mean, look, I'm going to start with a lazy assumption about Linden Park primary school located in the eastern suburbs, that it's got a big group of affluent kids. This is going to be an easy place to teach, but that's not the case is it? You have quite a diverse backgrounds of students. Could you tell us a bit about your school and your school community?

Deb O'Neill: So we are a very, very large primary school, the largest primary school in the state. We have over 960 students from reception to year seven.

We have over 70 different cultures represented and our English as an Additional Language and Dialect is, is up around the 70% mark. So we are very diverse. We do have a lot of students who have extremely high expectations and families that have extremely high expectations of their students, but also of the school. So it can be quite complex.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So we're not talking about a simple process of, of teaching, writing to a group of kids who are receptive and ready to rumble. Why was writing an area that your school decided [00:02:00] to focus on for improvement?

Deb O'Neill: When we looked at our data and analysed our data, we found that our students were scoring in higher bands consistently in numeracy and reading yet the same students were not scoring as much in higher bands in writing.

And it was actually going up and down depending on the year. And so when we looked at our NAPLAN data, and then we examined our PAT data, we identified that there were some gaps in writing. And those gaps we put down to basically, um, teaching. And so what we decided to do then was to improve and to work on our quality of teaching that we provided in writing for our students.

Dale Atkinson: And you have brought along your school improvement plan which is obviously the key tool that you're using within this process. Can you talk a little bit about your approach with it and how you've set it and how you're using that moving forward.

Deb O'Neill: So our school improvement plan is quite detailed and we use it as a roadmap for us. So we have a lot of staff engagement and buy-in [00:03:00] with the plan. Um, staff are instrumental in identifying what areas we need to focus on and then they're recorded in the site improvement plan. Staff are then are involved in reviewing that and doing constant checking and monitoring as to how we are travelling and refining the plan. If, if things aren't going quite well or things need changing, we refine the plan.

Dale Atkinson: What does that process of refinement look like? Cause I think as we're talking here, Monique's kind of nodding her head, which is obviously an experience that you have had yourself. So what does that process of refining and working with the teaching staff look like?

Deb O'Neill: Once we identify our priority areas. So for example, writing, we look at what resources we need to deliver that. And so one of our major tools, which I know Kane can talk about in a minute is around using the Brightpath assessment process. And also something we engaged in with our whole staff was a program called Writing Plus, which was a partnership initiative around the teaching [00:04:00] of grammar, functional and traditional grammar to our teachers.

So that those teachers actually knew the aspects of writing that we needed to teach. When we do our Brightpath assessment, we also do an analysis of which aspects of writing are going well. Um, from looking at the student work and which aspects of writing, we need more input and more staff training. And then we engage in another training cycle.

Staff are involved in keeping track of the plan. So they, they look at the targets, they look at the success criteria in their learning teams, and then they give themselves a score, whether they're on track or it needs attention or whether it's not on track at all. And then we start developing some programs and plans to achieve that criteria.

Monique Miller: Kane I'd love to hear how you're involved in that process?

Kane Watkins: Sure. So specifically with writing, basically all staff are provided with adequate training to try and upskill them so that they're better able to actually teach explicitly the curriculum. So the writing plus training and development that Deb spoke about was [00:05:00] one of those training and development that we all undertook.

And there's a strong focus there on functional grammar, which better enables you to actually direct student learning to key areas that are needing development. We also, we've done smarter spelling training as well, which is about the teaching of synthetic phonics as part of your language curriculum and the Brightpath assessment and writing tool as well. That plays a huge part of, I think, of our success in terms of just delivering the curriculum.

Monique Miller: And so important for the whole school to be on board, taking that same training and implementing it across from reception to year seven.

Kane Watkins: Yeah it just ensures continuity of learning across the site. But also I think it allows you or enables you to have those professional conversations and dialogues with colleagues that are really what, that, that that's sort of the foundation of what moves learning forward.

Deb O'Neill: So we engage in moderation in our year level teams. So all the year seven teachers would get together and look at different assessments, samples and do a, I guess, a cold score. [00:06:00] And then they discuss it and do some moderation, but we've also done moderation vertically, teachers from reception to year seven, each bring a sample of writing that they would consider a medium sample and then they share it amongst each other and they look at the aspects. And so there's a lot of that vertical as well as horizontal moderation. So we are all on the same page in relation to our Brightpath assessment.

Kane Watkins:Those conversations are really key. I think it keeps everybody on track and make sure that we're, we're all working towards the same goal. It also just makes sure that we're constantly checking in with the site improvement plan for making sure that what we're doing is true to purpose.

Dale Atkinson: And what sort of frequency are you looking at for those sorts of activities?

Kane Watkins:So the Brightpath moderation side of things, we do that in term one and term three, and that's hugely valuable. Term one more as a formative assessment tool. Um, term three, you can almost draw out some summative assessment as well in that, but those conversations are happening in the moderation process.

They're really what empowers us [00:07:00] to pass relevant and timely feedback onto the kids that we're working with. And it also enables us to have those conversations with the students when we get them looking at their own writing and using that same assessment tool.

Monique Miller: And you would use that to set goals and things they're writing, using those teaching points from the Brightpath

Kane Watkins:Absolutely so, um, the process typically is we'll actually as, as staff within our year level teams ,we will um, once the kids have sat the Brightpath reading assessment, we'll get together, then the school actually provides support for that as well. So we're released to do this, which is really valuable. We sit together and we'll actually cold score each of those writing assessments for all the students in our classes, we'll often have those conversations, collegial conversations around justifying why you gave the score that you did, um, which is hugely valuable as well, because it really gets you to think about what am I looking at here and, and on, on, um, on balanced view.

Exactly. Thank you. So once that process is done, we go back to the students. We get them to use the same assessment tool that [00:08:00] we use in Brightpath to assess their own work. And we do that without actually telling them what we've scored their paper at. And then we give them our score and them to have a look and compare.

And does the score match up, if it does match up that's fantastic. If it doesn't, why doesn't it match up? So just developing that metacognition around why have I got the score I've got, if I'm looking at what's the next step for my writing, I should be able to look at what's in my writing and the assessment criteria, and then identify this is what I'm doing now. This is what I need to do to move forward. So just trying to build student agency into the learning.

Monique Miller: Fantastic.

Dale Atkinson: As we record this, we're towards the latter half of the third term. So we've just had the NAPLAN data come back. We've just finished the phonics check for the year ones.

How's the data and information from those sources being used to kind of inform the broader practice across this area?

Deb O'Neill: Within our writing action in our site improvement plan. We've also had a strong emphasis on phonemic awareness and the teaching of phonics in [00:09:00] the junior primary, and also the teaching of spelling from reception to year seven.

So we've engaged with a whole school approach to spelling as well as, um, a junior primary phonics assessment. So our data so far has seen a huge increase in our achievement of phonics, where we have the majority of our students scoring well above benchmark in phonics. So scoring in 37, 38 39 achievement.

We also have seen a huge increase in our NAPLAN higher bands, achievement across years, three, five, and seven. I think a really important aspect of our plan and our planning processes that it is not a stagnant plan. It doesn't sit in my office. For example, the smart spelling we identified last year, that our spelling achievement wasn't great across the school.

So we really put a lot of effort and time. And as Kane mentioned, a lot of resourcing into skilling up our teachers in that area. We are seeing the results in [00:10:00] our NAPLAN achievement for 2021 with an increase from years, three, five, and seven, and also a higher band retention. In fact, a growth from years five to seven in higher band.

Dale Atkinson: I mean, that's so encouraging and motivating in many respects, isn't it. To be able to see the numbers. Reflecting the hard work.

Deb O'Neill: And it's also a really good point of celebration because our teachers engage with our plan. We're all on the same track. We all know what our goals are and what our achievement is. We now can go to staff and say, wow, look at what we've done. You know, this is amazing. And the students, as Kane said, the students are involved in assessing and evaluating their own achievement and setting their next steps in learning.

Monique Miller: You've already been looking at NAPLAN data, and I believe you're having regular check-ins and getting feedback as teachers about where to next. And what are your next goals?

Deb O'Neill: So we've [00:11:00] done an analysis of the aspects of writing from NAPLAN and identified that our spelling has increased, we still need a little bit of work on our cohesion. So that then is going to be the next step for us to analyse the different aspects of the writing data that we've got and develop some plans around, okay, is that, is that across the board? Is that a consistent area for development and is it reflected also in our Brightpath assessment? So we don't just look at one data source. We look at a few data sources and then say, well, what do we need to do as a school to move that on.

Kane Watkins:I would potentially just add to that as well, that where the NAPLAN is more sort of a, I think we use it more as a sort of a summative assessment tool. Um, and that's really what have we done really well. And now what are the areas that we need to sort of look to, um, improving the Brightpath tool is, um, probably more a formative assessment tool and that's ongoing. And that actually informs the pedagogy that's going on in the classroom as well, highly [00:12:00] individualised for each student which is fantastic.

Monique Miller: Have you been using any of the literacy guidebooks to support with your...

Kane Watkins:Yes. So I can talk to that a little bit as well. So our reading program in year seven, and I know it's used across the site as well, we've taken a lot of the pedagogy that's actually explored in the literacy guidebooks and applied that to the day-to-day interactions in the classroom.

So an example of that would be in reading. We have started using book club circles where there's again, high level of student agency, student led discussion. And the teacher really is sort of a facilitator in that group. Those conversations that the students are having between one another is another form of formative assessment where, um, you're able to sort of check in and see where are the understandings relative to this particular text and what can I do next to move this learning forward? What are some questions I could potentially ask to prompt student thinking a little bit further?

Deb O'Neill: Our teachers in the early years use the literacy [00:13:00] and numeracy continuum and to make that explicit with the children to change it into students speak, but to use it as I guess, setting goals.

So bump it up walls in a sense, but also for students to actually see the progression of their learning as they go. With the literacy and numeracy guidebooks we also use um, the high impact teaching strategies and so really important aspects of formative assessment. Uh, differentiation we've looked at at a whole site. So how do we challenge and stretch every learner at our school is I guess a little bit of our mantra.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, I guess the flexibility that sits within those resources to kind of take them off the shelf and plug aspects of them depending on the nature of issues that you're trying to deal with at a local level is reasonably useful too.

Kane Watkins:Absolutely. Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: So you've had a school improvement plan in place, Deb, since 2019. What would you say you've learnt and how's it evolving? What are, what are you planning to [00:14:00] do differently into the future?

Deb O'Neill: What I've learnt about improvement planning is that it needs to be really detailed. It needs to be student focused. So the success criteria needs to be what we would see students doing and that, that is developed and written by teachers. So in our next plan, we start with what our success criteria would look like. And then we work backwards from that. So, um, what we would see students doing, doing so therefore, what actions do we need to do based on analysing our current data to make that into a reality.

So we're just about to start our improvement planning process for the next three years. We've done a whole school reflection on our plan. We've identified some areas that we need further investigation in. One of them is numeracy, for example, in the early years. And so then we'll start working on how are we going to achieve that? What resources do we need to put in place? What training do we need for [00:15:00] teachers? And also how we share that with our community.

Monique Miller: Do you have any advice for teachers, schools and leaders when approaching their school improvement plan?

Kane Watkins:Yep. It needs to be a whole-school approach. So you need to work as, as a whole school community, but you need those professional conversations happening at sort of the grassroots level between teachers, but also with students.

I think that it sort of needs to be a cultural shift towards working together as a team and breaking down traditional barriers of working in isolation from one another. Not that that's here, but, um, If I were to give advice to any school, it would be that just embrace working as part of a team and, and, you know, sharing your ideas.

Deb O'Neill: I think any planning needs to be really refined and it needs to be simple. Like it doesn't need to include every single thing you do. You actually need to choose a couple of actions and do them well. And you'll see the spinoff. And then the continual looking at that, refining it, adding new things as it [00:16:00] progresses, um, is important.

So. Writing our plan when we wrote it in 2019, looks very different to our plan now. Our challenge of practice is still the same. However, our actions have actually become quite refined and quite targeted that way we can celebrate, because we actually know that we've achieved what we set out to do.

Dale Atkinson: It's been a great discussion and I think the thing that's really coming through for me is the focus around the planning that sits across sort of a cascade from, from a whole of site-based, um, kind of thing to a year level to individual classrooms and then laterally up and down. And it, it seems to be something that you've managed to get the whole kind of teaching community to buy into and the leadership to buy into.

And it's, um, it's really impressive.

Kane Watkins:It's a cultural thing.

Deb O'Neill: And what I'd like to see is us involving the students more in that. So bringing them to the table in the planning process and having them identify aspects of learning that we need [00:17:00] to improve on as a site and understanding what we're doing and why we're doing it. So that is our, I think our next step.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So the journey continues.

Deb O'Neill: Yeah, absolutely, never stops.

Dale Atkinson: That's great. Um, thank you very much to Deb and Kane for your time today and for letting us see your wonderful school. So keep it up, I think is the message. It sounds really encouraging. Um, so thanks for your time.

Deb O'Neill: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

Dale Atkinson: As we know from the last couple of years, September is school improvement month at the Department for Education. Our intranet EDi has a lot of helpful resources and they've been built because we've gone into classrooms across the state to show you how school improvement is being rolled out in schools from Barmera to Eudunda, there's planning, handbooks, and templates, literacy, and numeracy guidebooks, and tips on how to use the improvement dashboard and achievement profiles.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome back to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. It's been a little while as we've had a little kind of COVID related hiatus, which has prevented us from getting out to school. So we've slightly recalibrated the format.

We're talking to a few people from within the department, um, about some things that hopefully important to you and useful to you. Today, I'm in conversation with Claire Wood, who is the department's Manager of Literacy and Numeracy practice and we're talking about phonics. Now, the reason we're talking about phonics is that since 2018, we introduced a Phonics Screening Check in South Australia at Year 1 level. And we've done about 13 to 14,000 students per year for each of those last few years. The results have been pleasingly heading in the right direction, which Claire, you could probably take some credit and comfort in those [00:01:00] results as that's really good.

So phonics, let's talk a little bit about what it is. Now I am the father of a three-year-old daughter who has I think comfortably one of the most annoying educational toys imaginable, which was purchased for her by my mother, who is a teacher. And it is a soundboard, uh, with a number of noises, I think, designed to move her away from the Sesame Street style alphabet to perhaps a more sounds based program.

Now, presumably mum bought that for my daughter, for reasons beyond upsetting the tranquility of my domestic existence. What is the point of this thing? What is phonics? What are we trying to achieve with this?

Claire Wood: I think there are probably more annoying toys out there, but, and I think your mother probably did a really good job at choosing this toy.

Phonics is one of the six components of learning to read and to be a skilled reader you need all six of them and [00:02:00] oral language is the first one. So I'm sure you talk lots to your three-year-old and improve her oral language, then it's phonological awareness. Can they hear those sounds of languages are distinct you know distinctly.

Phonological awareness, I often describe it as that idea that, you know, when you're hearing somebody speak a different language you can kind of pick up the rhythm of that language without knowing where one word starts and ends. And of course we get we've improved children's phonological awareness as they go through kindy and school and they can actually distinguish the words from the, the sound.

And then phonics is the really important bit then. That we attach those sounds to letters because when you think about reading, what you're doing is you're just ciphering letters and letter strings from the book or the passage that you're reading and you're making it back into speech sounds. And so phonics is a really, really important part of learning to read, because if you don't know that those letters [00:03:00] represent a sound, you can't read. And so we called it a foundational skill. And of course, with phonic knowledge, you can lift the meaning off the page. So you can build your vocabulary. You can comprehend what you're reading and you can become more and more fluent because you can automatically read them.

Dale Atkinson: All right, with that in mind. What is the phonics screening check? What are we looking for?

Claire Wood: The phonics screening check we brought in three or four years ago. And, um, we brought it in because it's a really important screener, because if we're saying that phonics is a foundational skill and everything else really builds off and if you have phonics, you have freed up your brain space to learn lots of other things across the curriculum.

So when you think about how are children going with phonics. We usn't  to be able to know. And so in 2018, we decided to do a trial on how our children are going with phonics. And we implemented the check to see, could we improve the learning for the children at [00:04:00] the level that they're at? So it does exactly what the name says.

You know, the phonics screening check screens children, for their ability to decode. That means  read phonics in mind. So it's a very short check. It takes five to seven minutes it's done by the child's teacher. And the results are the most important thing, because what we want teachers to do is to act on the results that they get from the phonics screening check.

We have those, as you said, 20 real words. And you know, sometimes the children may have just memorised those words, they've heard them before and that doesn't really check their phonic knowledge. If it's just something that they memorise that word and they just say it, but the pseudo words or the nonsense words, you know, the non words that we have in the check, the 20 words, they really are purely checking their phonics.

And if you think about those pseudo words are really a great leveler because you don't have to have a huge vocabulary. You couldn't come from a literacy poor background, or you could have be a learner of English and everybody's on the same playing field because nobody's seen this word before and you're using your skills that you've learnt, the decoding skill, you've learnt [00:05:00] to read that word off the page.

Dale Atkinson: And so from that, the teacher gets an understanding. Gets a small set of data about that specific student. And what are they looking for in those numbers and how are they responding to what they see?

Claire Wood: Well, with teaching the Australian Curriculum, the students should be able to easily and comfortably read 28 out of 40 of those words and they possibly know more. And those that are struggling will know less. The first thing that you get is information about the pattern of your class. If you think about it that way, you've got a group of students who are probably fluent decoders, and they're the ones that are going really well. You've got a group of students that are developing decoders and so they're going at the pace that you've set for them, but you may have one or two that are struggling and they're the ones we're screening for. We're going to give them extra support if they need it. We want all children to be fluent decoders obviously. So that's the direction we want to head. So the teachers can have an opportunity to see the pattern of their class. And from that pattern, they can decide where the teaching needs to go.

Dale Atkinson: And what are the interventions that you're [00:06:00] looking at for those students who aren't quite at that standard that you would hope they would be?

Claire Wood: So the very first thing we ask teachers to look at is, is their teaching program, hitting the mark.

And we'd like them to think about what happens in their daily routine. Should they be doing more of something or should they be doing less of something? Or should they change something all together? We know that phonics is, is most effective when you do it frequently and often interleaved with other things, not just once a week or once every couple of days, but every day and maybe even more than once a day.

And so we often advise teachers to do more and we have a kind of a, a mantra that is don't teach  until they get it right, teach until they can't get it wrong because we're looking for automaticity. We want to really free up brain space for children so that they can learn right across the curriculum.

Dale Atkinson: That's an incredibly powerful sentiment, I think, um, teach until they can't get it wrong. So what about for those students who, who are in that space where they can't get it wrong? Who are performing [00:07:00] really well. What's the, what are the interventions in terms of stretching them to go even better? What are we looking at?

Claire Wood: Yes. Some of the teachers have been very pleasantly surprised to see that their children can do more than the expectation of the Australian Curriculum, because once you get to a certain level of decoding, you're kind of self-teaching. So of those children can be stretched with a whole range of new reading. They can be given materials in their, what we call the zone of proximal development. So those kind of materials that will stretch them just a little bit more and keep them up with their learning,  and we know that the phonics knowledge that you gain helps with your spelling and your writing. So all of those things can help with those children who are already doing well at decoding.

Dale Atkinson: Part of your work of you and your team has been to provide a lot of training to the Year 1 teachers and I think you've got about 1400 or so, who have gone through some level of training over the last few years, which is, uh, which is a really good achievement, but for those who are outside of that year 1 area. This is obviously still something that's incredibly important for students to learn. What's [00:08:00] available to teachers in other year levels?

Claire Wood: We have a whole series of best advice, papers for the big six and phonics being one there's a whole best advice paper on phonics, eh, it's also throughout all of our guidebooks. So it doesn't matter whether you're starting to build foundations or you're right up there at stretch. There's going to be something of that phonics in the guidebooks.

We have a whole series on plink. That's available for teachers of all levels and leaders as well to understand how phonics fits. So I would always say to people who are interested in this area, the first thing you should do is the plink course called literacy from the experts and Maryanne Wolf's particular uh, module is fantastic for, uh, giving you the idea of the neuroscience behind why we've chosen this direction. We know that the brain has to be rewired to learn, to read, and Maryanne is a very, very good presenter and she lead people through that understanding of why explicit teaching of phonics is [00:09:00] so important.

Dale Atkinson: That's awesome. And I would recommend that for everyone.

Claire Wood: I didn't even mention that of course we have two other plink courses directly for the phonics screening check as well. And as you already said for the year 1 teachers, we have those three differentiated courses. Those courses, although they are funded for year 1s we invite anyone who's interested to come to those courses.

And most of the leaders across the state have attended. We've also had, uh, teachers, uh, for reception and year two and a lot of high school literacy leaders who have had children coming through who clearly missed out on the stages of the phonics.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So it can really be picked up in and is useful at, uh, at any level.

The final question is obviously risks, uh, moving into slightly culture wars areas, because phonics sometimes is something that is used as a, as a bat to beat the teaching profession with a little bit on some of the pages of the Australian and, uh, and other newspapers. Um, so what are the misconceptions that exist around phonics and the teaching of it?

Well, I'd like to say we don't [00:10:00] have them anymore. I mean, you know, honestly, we've moved so far away from those misconceptions here in South Australia, and we've got, as you pointed out a thousand, I think it was 1,600 teachers every year, come to the phonics screening check, professional learning. And so that information has now disseminated across the state and we really have addressed all those misconceptions and teachers themselves can see the progress of the children.

And so they know that this is, um, it's just a furphy, it's just a distraction. Um, listening to anybody, learning to read or learning to do anything, first of all, can be, can sound laborious. You know, children sounding things out and then blending them together, can sound laborious. And during the training, we actually introduce our teachers to that feeling of learning a new code, you know, cause the alphabet is a code and you know the code so you can't unlearn reading once you know it. So we put them through a whole process of learning dingbats, you know, dingbats. So we [00:11:00] introduced them to a new code and we get them to learn it and it's quite funny to listen to them, very laboriously going, S ah,  D sad. Sad. And they feel that challenge that the children feel, but they also feel the satisfaction of getting it right.

And I actually did that myself and that's, you know, that's the beauty of phonics. The children get very independent very quickly. And so a lot of those old ideas that phonics is slow and laboured they go out the window once people understand what it's doing for your brain, it's rewiring it and helping you to read better.

Dale Atkinson: And that reward that comes through for those kids and for the teachers, it sounds amazing

Claire Wood: Yeah. That's good. That's good.

Dale Atkinson: Well, that's fantastic. And thank you so much for your, for your time today. Um, we'll put the link to the resources, including the phonics screening check explainer documents, uh, and those plink phonics  courses up in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening and thank you Claire very much for your time. That was amazing.

Claire Wood: Thank you.

Tara Budarick You know, I'm an Aboriginal person. I'm Ngarrindjeri. So it's an opportunity for me to give back to community, but also learn more about myself and my identity as an Aboriginal person. And so when you get to go to work every day and you're working with community and you can see what students are getting out of the program, it's absolutely incredible.

Dale Atkinson: Teach. Hello and welcome back to Teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education,

Monique Miller: and I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport Primary.

Dale Atkinson: Today, we're going to learn how Aboriginal students are fulfilling their potential in high school and beyond through a range of opportunities offered by the South Australian Aboriginal Secondary Training Academy or SAASTA. You may have heard of SAASTA before it provides Aboriginal high school students with a unique sporting and educational program.

Monique Miller: Fresh off their Santos Aboriginal Power Cup win, we've headed north to Para Hills High School, which [00:01:00] is on Kaurna land. We pay respects to Elders past and present. Just last month Para Hills High School made a clean sweep at the power cup, both their girls and boys football teams won. SAASTA students secured the curriculum excellence award, and one of their academy students Tamryn Walker won the award for best guernsey design.

Dale Atkinson: And it's a beauty. Uh, so there's lots to celebrate, with us today is Tara Budarick, the academy's specialist academy's coordinator and Nick Drury, SAASTA's school operations and VET coordinator.

Welcome guys. What is SAASTA?

Nick Drury: SAASTA is a senior secondary program. So it's a SACE based curriculum generally where students in 10 to 12 participate in what we call academies, uh, hosted in schools around South Australia. It's a culture based education program. So we use sport and health and all kinds of other things from around community to engage the students, but at the core of it, it's a SACE curriculum that gets students learning about their cultural identity.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's interesting. Isn't it? Cause I mean, I think like from outside of the system, the thing that's really [00:02:00] visible is like the football team, the netball team and the power cup, but there's so much depth to it as a program. Can you sort of go through how the two elements of those sort of the sporting and the academic interact.

Nick Drury: I guess we sort of touched on it before in the introduction that anything we do such as the Aboriginal Power Cup Santos, Aboriginal power cup that we recently did, it's really grounded in the education component first. So students do weekly curriculum in their line structures or come to an academy to do the program.

And that's an Aboriginal studies curriculum or an integrated learning curriculum. So again, SACE grounded, but the students need to complete certain tasks in the build up to a visit from Port Adelaide Football Club or in the build up to a carnival so, it's really that reward based program where we're going to ask you to put a little bit of effort in, in the classroom and the reward is the sporting component all those, those really fun things that we get to see. We try and make it fun in the classroom too. But generally that's the reward at the end of the day is that if we do all of the appropriate things, get our attendance up, get the work done in the classroom. Then we're going to reward you with really cool experiences like the football carnival.

[00:03:00] Monique Miller: I was wondering how many schools are involved in SAASTA

Tara Budarick So we have, uh, over 60 schools that are involved.  I guess we should talk about how SAASTA is actually made up and what our programs are. So the school-based academy here at Para Hills fits into one of the programs that we have, and that's our school-based academy, of which we have 22 across the state. So the APY lands have their own programs, but otherwise students across all the other areas of south Australia can access, uh, one of the 22 school-based academies that we have, and that's where our SAASTA head office staff provide curriculum support to schools to actually implement the program with their own staff and students.

Some of those academies, um, have students who come from schools in neighboring areas so that they can access the program and then we have our specialist academies. So we run 6 specialist academies at the moment where we deliver the programs and students apply and attend the out of school programs one day a week for the entire year.

Again, that's targeted towards students in years, 10, 11, and 12. Um, five of them [00:04:00] are sports-based so netball, basketball, soccer, men's and women's AFL. And then we have, um, STEM academy, which is obviously looking at science, technology, engineering, and maths, and it's a combination again of education and then the engagement with sports or, or the science component.

Dale Atkinson: So it's really, I mean, pointed toward helping kids complete their high school education and attain that SACE, isn't it?

Tara Budarick Absolutely. It is that very fine balance between curriculum and SACE or VET subjects and engagement to support people to our young people, to connect with culture, but also, you know, be really successful, in their education and, and SACE completion.

Dale Atkinson: Really interesting. And you sort of touched on this before we, we started the interview about some of the partnerships that have been formed with businesses outside of, uh, outside of school. So I guess like the VET pathways is really key for a lot of these kids in terms of being able to see what the opportunities are that exist beyond schooling.

Nick Drury: Yeah, definitely. So that's been a real growth process for us as well. So we started out in the VET space, really just doing the sport and recreation, which was a fantastic tool to engage, but also [00:05:00] teach some of those employability skills, transferable skills that can go across a lot of different sectors.

Then that sort of moved on to us then identifying that students wanted to look into those different pathways more and more. So diversifying our VET certificates to offer things like hospitality, construction, community services, maritime. So like really trying to diversify to make it more of an individual choice as to what you want to do. And then that's with the department's new policy that's sort of being implemented ready for next year. That's been another level of growth for our program to move towards to create what we've called the ACE program, Aboriginal Career Exploration. And that's really around starting at a year 10 level at getting students to understand what it is to be in the workplace.

So employability skills. Working really closely with the workabout team to try and embed some of that learning at an earlier age bracket, but also giving the kids a chance to work through some industry engagement activity. So they understand what it's like to be in different workplaces and start the conversations about where they [00:06:00] want to go.

Dale Atkinson: And what's the response been like from, from businesses out there?

Nick Drury: Oh, fantastic. People are jumping on board left, right and centre. So, I mean, it's, it's a building industry that people want diversity in the workplace and they're seeing not just that it's a ticket box anymore, that there's real value in having diversity in your workplace.

And I think we're sort of at the real ground roots of that, where, because we've got an access to such a variety of kids across the state, people are coming to us to say, well, how can we connect in so that we can really start that learning early, but then embed some young people into our businesses and our operations. They're going to stay with us for a long time.

Dale Atkinson: Really encouraging. Tara you sort of touched on this a little bit earlier about the diversity of opportunities across the entire state. Can you just talk a little bit more about the support for rural and remote students through the VET pathways?

Tara Budarick I feel like one of the key components of the program is connecting with the community that the students are living in.

So it's not just our amazing teachers within the schools that are pivotal to the program success. Um, it's about connecting with community organisations that are specific [00:07:00] to where the young people are living, but also, you know, the roles that Aboriginal people within the school, like our ACETOs play in, you know, connecting school life with home life and community life. And, um, really having that really holistic approach to making everything successful.

Monique Miller: And how does the Aboriginal studies module fit into that?

Nick Drury: In the school-based academies, if we look at that specifically, that's really the core subject that the students are doing. They will come in and there's four tasks that are part of a SACE subject at a stage one level.

So the students will essentially do three before the power cup. And then one of them will be based on some of the activities they do there and come back to participate back in their school. But all of those tasks are really wrapped around learning about Aboriginal history and learning, I guess, because we've got an all Aboriginal cohort, we get that real ability to learn a little bit more about culture and identity as well.

Bringing in Aboriginal people to deliver it is really central to that approach. So if the school don't have an Aboriginal teacher like a Tara that, you know, we can just place out the front straightaway, then they need to go out and they need to [00:08:00] engage with the community, engage with their ACETO and bring people in who have that relevant knowledge.

And get them to be delivering and co delivering in the classroom so that the students are learning about that sort of true history stuff, what their place in the community is and what positive role models have gone for them and use that moving forward. So that's really the core of the Aboriginal studies topic.

Dale Atkinson: But it's such a complete kind of package of, of educational options really, isn't it like, regardless of where the kids are, or like how engaged they are in various different paths of learning or what their interests lie, there's something that can really capture them.

Tara Budarick Yeah, I think when you see the students engaging in the program and they're in a room full of peers, um, who all have similar interests and experiences with education. It's really, really heartwarming to see students actually wanting to be engaged and you talk to primary school students and they, they know the SAASTA program and they aspire to be involved because they know that they can go into a program and experience success and just feel super connected to community and I guess the educational [00:09:00] process.

Dale Atkinson: Is that something you've experienced Monique with, with kids at your primary school?

Monique Miller: Oh, absolutely. Always looking for more opportunities and ways to connect with their culture. Yeah. So, so important. I was wanting to know a little bit more about the benefits of events, like power cup, which brings remote, rural and metro students together. And how does that benefit with peer to peer learning.

Nick Drury: It's really a community event at the end of the day, like the curriculum is obviously in the classroom and that's that real specific one-on-one sort of learning that they're going to do in the classroom with their peer group. And like Tara touched on before you've got cluster academy.

So you've got eight or nine schools coming together one day a week. So that's that sort of first touch point where they come together. And then from there, when an academy comes together with another 450 kids from completely across the state, that opportunity to come together and I guess, celebrate culture, celebrate their achievements.

And then football was just that, that real vessel, that across a lot of our communities in Australia that everybody's really heavily involved in. So it's just a really nice, [00:10:00] fun way to wrap it all together and get those experiences where they get to sort of talk about what they've been doing in their own schools and put it on show in front of everyone else.

So it's really important as that sort of hook to, you know, keep doing the work in the classroom. And then that's the really fun, engaging community experience that you gonna get to bring at the end of it.

Tara Budarick I think because their involvement in the SAASTA, um, power cup is not granted or given automatically is they have to earn their spot through, um, their attendance, engagement and work completion throughout the semester in the lead up.

So when they earn their spot and they know that they're actually going to be playing in the team, They're super excited. And it really is a whole community event where families come along and the community organizations find a way to link with students while they're there as well, 500 students and all family members coming out to celebrate and to support really is super amazing.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it sounds like an incredible event. And can I ask you about your highlights? And I think there are a couple of very obvious ones. For both of you, what are the highlights for you over the last 12 months? What are the things that you really [00:11:00] enjoyed about the program and being teachers?

Tara Budarick So for me, it's more specifically with the specialist academies or, or being involved in an Aboriginal organisation or an Aboriginal program.

Because when I grew up, I grew up in a, in a community that was quite isolated and we didn't have many opportunities to connect with culture. And so I grew up doing Aboriginal studies via open-access as a year 12 student. And so then when I went on to become a teacher, I have specifically worked in Aboriginal schools because, you know, I'm an Aboriginal person, I'm Ngarrindjeri. So it's an opportunity for me to give back to community, but also learn more about myself and my identity as an Aboriginal person. And so when you get to go to work every day and you're working with community and you can see what students are getting out of the program, it's absolutely incredible because I know myself as a student, I didn't have that opportunity.

Um, and I really, really believe, and we have the data to go along with it that the outcomes for our students are, you know, so much higher because of their involvement in these programs. They're going on to aspire to higher education and, and transition to [00:12:00] university and TAFE studies or employment. And we, you know, slowly working away at increasing the outcomes overall for our young people, which is incredibly exciting.

Nick Drury: How do you go after that. So I guess for me I've been in the program for a really long time. So I've seen a lot of the change points in the program. And one that I'm really proud to have been a part of in the last six months is the ACE program that we spoke about before, I think it's, it's really getting us to a point where we're making it student centred, it's really around what's your pathway? What do you want? So you might experience 15 workshops in all these different industry areas. They're the most boring things you've ever done, but when you walk into that one workshop for an hour or two, and you're just engaged from the minute you're in there, and this is just me and you see the eyes light up and the kids come away and have those anecdotal conversations.

That's just so powerful for me to, to have those chats and see the looks on their faces when they say. I never even thought this was a job. I didn't know you could do that. And now this is I'm desperate. I want to do this. Tell me more, give me more like that's my highlights is when you say the looks on the kids' [00:13:00] face for that, you know, you're getting it right and that we're helping them get what they want.

Monique Miller: That's so wonderful. It sounds like they're in good hands and they're getting the best experience and they have got the connections with their community and yeah, it's really, really wonderful. That's happening here.

Dale Atkinson: So awesome to hear. So Tara, Nick, thank you very much for your time.

Monique Miller: And here we have Timothy a senior student from Para Hills High. Tim, can you tell us a little bit about what you do with SAASTA?

Tim Tuikaba: Uh, yeah, sure. We're pretty much given a wide variety of like assignments and stuff, but personally, um, one of the assignments that we've done was a Indigenous health issue where you have to research it and respond to it. And so myself, I did like a podcast and a petition and also had the opportunity to speak to Steven Marshall himself.

It was at an award event, a multicultural award. I went out and spoke to him and got some information. That's kind of like an example of how we go in and engage with the community and connect with other people and, um, kind of step out of our comfort zone's a bit.

[00:14:00] Dale Atkinson: I saw the photograph of you with, the Premier and then a little bit of the background on that. So the health project that you were looking at there is essentially around, um, the lack of dialysis machines in APY lands. Is that right?

Tim Tuikaba: Yep. Yeah, that was it. Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: And so what were the, what were the findings of your studies?

Tim Tuikaba: So I found that there was a bit of work being done at Coober Pedy so it was about, I could be wrong on this last one, which that goes like, oh, $5,000 or something being raised. It probably could be more, but, um, there's still quite a bit of, um, lack in other areas such as, uh, like Leigh Creek and other rural areas.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So it's a kind of a combination for you so you just sort of touched a bit earlier on the fact that you're an international Gridiron team. So obviously that's one element of the work you're doing alongside your studies. Can you talk a little bit about the sports element of what, what you're in involved in?

Tim Tuikaba: So I do you find SAASTA, I did play basketball for a little bit as well. So I did, um, I was a part of the specialist academy for basketball.

That was a very good experience as well. They provided these pathways where students could choose from so like sports, recreation. I'm really grateful that they provide all these opportunities [00:15:00] for us to choose from, and then you choose it and then they kind of tailored to what your interests are and how you want to learn.

Dale Atkinson: And so you're looking at potentially sort of health sciences yourself because you're in year 12 this year.

Tim Tuikaba: Yeah. Yeah. A bit of health sciences and sports. They've been really good at putting me in contact with people that helped me out with that. But a great example was Karnkanthi or Wirltu Yarlu at the University of Adelaide.

They've helped get me in contact with one of those guys.

Monique Miller: How long have you been part of SAASTA?

Tim Tuikaba: So I've been a part of SAASTA from year 10 until now. I do believe they're starting to implement a program called SAASTA connect. It's more of an entry into SAASTA.

Monique Miller: You can get those kids from younger years, kind of getting ready to get in.  How have you found your experience overall?

Tim Tuikaba: Overall I've found my experience really well. Definitely going to miss it for when I leave, like reflecting on it, I'm really grateful for having all these opportunities to connect with my culture as well as to be surrounded by other Indigenous kids and people that share the same culture with me, it's really [00:16:00] empowering and really motivates me kind of to, you know, like learn more.

Connect more with the students, as well as like power cup itself. It's like really great to see that many other students in the same position as you to come together and play the sport. And it's just really empowering, you know?

Dale Atkinson: So, so what would your message be to, um, you know, other kids 12, 13, 14?

Tim Tuikaba: Looking to join SAASTA or.. Yeah, I'd definitely advocate for them to join SAASTA and give it a shot. It's really fun. You learn not only about yourself, but more about your community, other communities, how to really put yourself out there and apply for jobs. Just being more socialable as well. It's really good.

Monique Miller: What do you love about your school and SAASTA?

Tim Tuikaba: I really love that my school's like really  cooperative with SAASTA. They understand that I'm going to be gone one day a week. They kind of tailor my not only education at school, but they take into account that I have other work from SAASTA and they're really like easy to blend the two together, so like equal efforts on both sides.

Monique Miller: Yeah,it seems like, you know, SAASTA is there to support your learning. So [00:17:00] therefore for them to be accommodating is super important.

Dale Atkinson: Thanks very much for your time, Tim, and appreciate you coming in. Thank you all for listening. We hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. Don't forget you can subscribe to Teach on Apple Podcasts or follow us on Spotify. If you're enjoying the podcast leave us a review. Uh, you can also head to our website at education.sa.gov.au/teach where you'll find our show notes.

Monique Miller: Catch you next time on Teach.

Dale Atkinson: Cya.

Natasha Paffett:: It helped that I felt valued with the skillset that I brought from primary school. And I had to continuously remind myself that I didn't have to let go of that and that I could hold onto those skills and still use them, embed them into my practice here in high school. And that they were still valued.

Sting: Teach.

Dale Atkinson:: Hello and welcome back to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson: from South Australia's Department for Education.

Monique Miller: And I'm Monique Miller primary school teacher at Westport primary.

Dale Atkinson:: We're four episodes in now and we would love to hear from you. What are you liking about the show?

What do you want us to discuss? If you've got any thoughts, send us an email at education.Teachpodcast@sa.gov.au.

Monique Miller: We're down south today at Wirreanda secondary school, it's one of the three pilot schools that welcomed to year 7s to high school in 2020, from 2022 year 7s will be part of high school for all public school students in [00:01:00] SA.

This move brings us in line with the rest of the country. Now it's a big change. So today we'll find out what's worked well for Wirreanda, what some of the hurdles have been and how they've overcome them.

Dale Atkinson:: Caroline Fishpool: is the principal of Wirreanda Secondary School. And Natasha Paffett: is a former primary school now year 7 high school teacher.

So welcome to you both. Thanks Dale. Thank you. So we came into this morning. I mean, there's still a little bit of a construction field vibe here at Wirreanda as you prepare for next year. Um, can you tell us a little bit about what's going on and a little bit about your school and what you're trying to achieve.

Caroline Fishpool:: So building wise, as you've walked in, we've been under construction obviously for the last 12 months.

And we've been really fortunate with funds coming into the school and also to increase capacity. So we kicked off this year with around 1100 students and we anticipate that will increase to a maximum size of 1300. So we've had a number of, um, building sites happening across the school, which has been absolutely fantastic.

And I think you know, ultimately teaching and learning wise the new facilities have really enhanced that work that [00:02:00] we've been doing as a school we see ourselves as a really, I think, unique secondary school. So we do say quite proudly that any student that arrives we can cater for really richly. So we are a complex site.

We've got 14% students with disabilities, 12% ATSI. We're a special entry specialist, sports school, one of two officially recognized in south Australia. And we obviously have an incredible disability unit and a special class program on site. It's a really rich culture as well that we have across the school and because of that and I think that's why we're also really passionate about bringing the year 7s into the school.

Dale Atkinson:: So you were one of the three high schools to put your hand up to be a pilot school for year 7 into high school. What's it like being the guinea pig?

Caroline Fishpool:: Being the guinea pigs been really interesting in saying that we wanted to be the guinea pigs. We were incredibly passionate, including myself as the principal that year 7s belong in secondary schools. Um, and you know, when certainly the rumblings had started a long time ago through the government that the year 7s were going to move, we were, as soon as it was announced, it was happening we made that jump and really put ourselves into the space that we want it to be considered to be a pilot.

So for us. You know, we'd launched into a [00:03:00] considerable change journey, which has been ongoing for the last six years here for us, with particular, with middle school transformation, and work we were doing in the senior school, the year 7s, were in essence, we felt the final piece of that puzzle that we want it.

Um, and hence, we went after it and we were announced as the pilot, which was really excited for the work we were doing.

Dale Atkinson:: And how's it feeling so far? We are just a little ways in, but you've got a bit of a flying start on everyone else.

Caroline Fishpool:: We have. Yeah. And we quite often talk about the fact that we've been in an incredible situation to be a pilot. We've been given fantastic support by, you know, different units of the department to actually make that leap and we've also done it with a few little baby steps. So think schools are raring to go and preparation mode at the moment to actually do that double cohort. And that's a really, really big step for schools coming into, you know, the move across south Australia next year.

Monique Miller: I'm curious how the year 7 students have been fitting in? The

Caroline Fishpool:: The year 7 students been an absolutely fantastic addition to our school. We expected that. And I think one of the biggest surprises that we've had in a really nice way is how they've [00:04:00] contributed to the community in that they're kids. And it's been a really nice addition to the school and around the place, but they've fit in really well.

Natasha Paffett:: And all of the other year levels have really embraced new students as well. We allocated a specific place around the school that the year 7s could go if they needed to have their own space and not many students actually use this area, majority of them have integrated into the whole school and all the other year levels have been playing with them.

And, and. And hanging around them as well.

Dale Atkinson:: Yeah, because I think that's one of the anxieties that, um, teachers and parents have about the move. Is that how do you transition kids who are younger into an environment where there are adults essentially, you know, you've got 17, 18 year old kids at year 12, what's that dynamic like?

And how do you smooth that out?

Caroline Fishpool:: We were really bracing ourselves when we were preparing to bring in that first cohort of year 7s about that, there was huge anxieties. We were being told about the little, little year 7s coming into a big secondary school in saying that when we actually took the year 7s in, they were raring to go to come into a high [00:05:00] school, they absolutely were. The anxieties I think that we then very readjusted ourselves with the approaches we had were from parents and particularly parents that didn't have students in a high school setting yet. So what we did do, and I think we've aligned it really well with our year 7 move is, and we do have a vertically grouped house structure. So obviously we have, um, 7s, 8s and 9s within the home groups together. And then we have 10s, 11s and 12s. But what we have seen is a restructure of our student leadership and some structures across the school where, um, our senior school students do work with our middle school students, including the year 7s. And I think the year 7s have really embraced that as well.

Dale Atkinson:: And are there ways like transitioning the year 7s in has created opportunities as far as the whole of school environment, set up. Is, is it something that's kind of really stood out as a, as an improvement that's happened?

Caroline Fishpool:: Yeah, absolutely. I think I talk about the for us as a school daring to dream really early on was important with our middle school transformation piece.

And that was because, you know, we're making improvements with our, you know, senior school outcomes and we knew that we [00:06:00] couldn't get them. Um, long-term unless we actually had the middle-school transformation piece logged in. And I think as well, one of the big things that we've seen is. Student leadership and the opportunities, because we did do a complete restructure across the board of what that looked like.

And particularly our year 7s and 8s within that piece, whether it's about student voice every day or student leadership have been incredible. And I think sometimes we, perhaps when we were planning for the year 7s , didn't give the year 7s enough credit for what they could do when they come in to the big school.

Monique Miller: Yeah, it seems like they've, they're adapting really well.

And they've got the support and you're making the changes that they need and ready for them.

Natasha Paffett:: From a curriculum point of view, for some of our NIT teachers with subjects that band from year 7 to year 8, it's really easy to say the progression, if you've got the year 7s as well. You know what they've done in year 7 and you can progress them through year 8 and so that's really helpful as well.

Dale Atkinson:: Yeah. So you're feeling that. Uh, in your own practice in the classroom, that you're able to kind of provide some continuity and, uh, and really picture and step out what's going to happen over coming years.

Natasha Paffett:: Absolutely and what's been [00:07:00] helpful for me is coming from the primary school perspective.

I can also see the progression of where they've come from and see where students are at from that progression as well.

Monique Miller: What did you do with your leadership team to welcome our year 7s?

Caroline Fishpool:: Probably a few different approaches that are happening as compared to what we did. So there's some schools, obviously leadership wise that are restructuring to come in.

Once we got them, we did kind of front-load and fund resources ourselves to bring that team in really early, probably 12 months before. And we had the year 7s. So we as a leadership team restructured some additional positions within that vertical group in system that I talked about, and particularly the complexity, like I talk about with a focus here with individual student growth.

Um, I think probably the really clear thing though, when we were appointing those leadership positions was a really clear focus on, um, that, you know, people weren't being hired to maintain the status quo was really clear when we went looking for people and built capacity within the site as well, um, that we wanted things done very differently.

Um, it we've been, you know, really successful within that. But I think developing that shared vision within that, you know, daring to dream piece in [00:08:00] middle school transformation was really key for us.

Monique Miller: And you're also saying that, um, having primary school teachers come in has been super beneficial. How many primary school teachers have you brought in and what value do they bring to the school?

Caroline Fishpool:: That's a difficult question to answer. So within the pilot, we did specifically bring into early on and we had some different processes within that. However, in saying that we've always been a school that's gone looking for primary trained teachers and tried to work with HR and how can we, we can employ them because I think primary teachers have got incredible skills that some secondary teachers don't have.

So it was really interesting when we talk about schools being really clear about why they want to employ primary teachers. We do, we want primary teachers. All of our current positions advertised. We've got 15 permanent positions that are all tagged with primary teachers can apply for these. So very deliberately.

You know, we talk about that middle school transformation piece, individual students, and being able to progress individual students with some agility in classroom practice. We've seen that primary teachers have got those skills. When I talk as a principal, what's one of the biggest surprises that we were not [00:09:00] expecting.

We had completely braced ourselves and organized structures around how are we going to induct people like Natasha, et cetera, into this very different environment. It's a big secondary school. It's particularly curriculum areas. As soon as we got the primary school teachers, we had to do a full 360 and readjust ourselves because we suddenly realised that it wasn't about inducting them into our school.

It was about them maintaining their skills and sharing that with the staff. And that was a big shift for us. With the process we had put into place. We had to do a full 360 and readjust ourselves. Um, to that, and I think we've managed to do that well slightly.

Monique Miller: Yeah. So how did you find that induction and the transition?

Natasha Paffett:: It was smoother than I thought that it would be Caroline and the team here put a lot of things in place and a lot of induction days in place. And so it was, it was quite a smooth progression. I also think that it helped that I felt valued with the skillset that I brought from primary school. And I had to continuously remind myself that I didn't have to let go of that.

And that I could hold onto those skills and [00:10:00] still use them and embed them into my practice here in high school, and that they were still valued. And I think that was really important. And for leadership here to show me that they were valued, I think that really helped me.

Dale Atkinson:: What's the mindset and the ways of thinking that perhaps is different between primary and secondary, that you've been able to bring across.

What are you bringing to the table? I guess

Natasha Paffett:: There's a lot of individual differentiation strategies that I have brought from a primary perspective and the use of, uh, of knowledge of what each student, the level that they're actually at and how you would differentiate and cater for those students. I think that that's a key element seeing the progression of learning, because you can actually see where they've come from.

And we've got some students at our school as many other high schools where they're actually lower than the year 7 level. And so for myself, I can see where they've come from and have that knowledge there, which I think is really helpful. Uh, there's a lot of key pedagogical strengths as well about how you conduct lessons. And there are definitely some strength in breaking up, uh, tasks and the way that, that things are delivered as well.

Dale Atkinson:: Money's nodding so much. [00:11:00] Yeah.

Yeah. It's amazing. Isn't it? There's so many complimentary skills and have you found that some of the secondary teachers are seeking you out and looking to you for some support with the, with the year seven level students?

Caroline Fishpool:: We all do, don't  we? I

Natasha Paffett:: I was really surprised when I first came in, how many people pulled me aside and were asking me for really specific ideas and the way that they would do things and telling me their situation and what their class structure was like and how I could help.

That's been fantastic for me. I think that people actually value the skills that I bring. And now as a leader, when I'm doing observations and things that I can also give them ideas, which they wouldn't have thought of before, because I can, yeah coming from a slightly different lens,

Dale Atkinson:: Which as a principle Caroline is incredibly valuable.

Caroline Fishpool:: Yeah, absolutely. Hence why, you know, within the current employment process, we have certainly opened all 15 permanent positions for primary teachers to apply for them because we are, we are still on the hunt for some [00:12:00] fantastic primary teachers to bring into the fold as well.

Monique Miller: Before we continue the conversation and answer some of the questions our listeners have sent through Dale, what is making news this month?

Dale Atkinson:: Did you know, our website is full of new look year 7 to high school information for school staff, students, and families. Visit education.Sa.gov.au/7tohs for details on everything from enrolment to student benefits, country considerations and job opportunities for teachers as well.

Also on our website, schools can access a new suite of bullying prevention resources, including videos and printable guidance to address peer to peer bullying, the topics cover diversity, online safety and protective physical environments that reduce bullying incidents. Guidance is also available for parents and carers, which is useful to share with your wider community.

Uh, we'll put the link to those resources in our show notes.

Teach

Monique Miller: We're at Wirreanda Secondary School today, the school welcomed year 7s to high school last year with us, is [00:13:00] principal, Caroline Fishpool:, and year 7 teacher Natasha Paffett:. So in terms of curriculum, were there any areas of the curriculum that challenged the year 7s moving into high school?

Natasha Paffett::  I think in terms of the curriculum, I, I feel like they were you know, ready for what we've got to offer here. However, some schools and primary schools in the partnership might not necessarily have as much technological use or access to the technology. And so some of our students coming into a school where they're using technology more frequently, um, might be a little bit more challenged.

However they've quickly adapted. The students are now across all of our, we use Google documents and the drive and Google classroom. And they excelled in all of those areas. They pick it up very quickly.

Monique Miller: Have you noticed that there's been any difference between year 7s to year 8s starting high school?

Caroline Fishpool:: Yeah, I think like I talked about, I think, which has been a really nice addition, the year sevens are kids. One of the main observations I made really early on was year seven's being in the, you know, even when, out in the yard, when you go out there and they're playing chase and they want to interact with people on [00:14:00] yard duty, et cetera, meant that year 8s then started to go, okay, we can be kids as well. I think there's always been really big pressure in that year 8 age group, where they come through to us and there's pressure to be a high school student.

You're a young adult. And I think that shifted the year 7s where they are immature. There's a real rawness to them, which we really like. That's meant that the year 8s have gone yeah. We can be kids as well. In saying that they're much smaller. We said really early on compared to what we're used to and they need breaks within their learning and certainly we've been doing that as a school with some professional development around our long learning blocks.

Dale Atkinson:: So you actually need to think about how they're learning and their developing brains.

Monique Miller: Space for growth as well. Yeah. So it actually kind of leeways us into, um, Vanessa's question from Coromandel Valley primary school.

She has emailed us asking how play will be supported at high school. She says, she believes that play has often been reduced too early and that age appropriate playgrounds and equipment should promote challenge, activity, and [00:15:00] wellbeing for older age groups, she sees year 7, joining high school as a great opportunity to make it available for adolescents.

So to what extent can we promote play through high school?

Caroline Fishpool:: Well, that's a question that we could talk about for half a day isn't it? That's a great question. And that's certainly something that we can talk about because I don't disagree with components of that question. We, um, very early on had our year 8 interdisciplinary groups doing some research around that.

So one of the things we were talking about before we had the year 7s here is do they need play equipment? There's two sides to that part of that, we were hesitant to put in young base play equipment because they come into high school and they want that high school experience. But we also completely embraced the fact here that kids need movement and play time.

So our year 8 groups actually did some research a year and a half ago and pitched them to myself and some other panel members. So they actually went out into our primary schools and did research with 5s, 6s and 7s coming through about what would those students like to see? There are projects that are now going to be done.

And there was a whole mixture of kids [00:16:00] talking about, we don't actually want little kids play equipment, but we do want some equipment. So some of the things that the kids pitched were obviously the good old handball courts and they are going to be rolled out, um, there was certainly some um, equipment such as adult type swings, et cetera, including for wheelchair access, which is applicable here at our school.

And there were also some areas pitched in regards to nature areas where students can sit et cetera, and some kind of ninja type adult recreation equipment. So we are certainly going to continue to do some work on recreational spaces, but we've made a conscious decision not to put primary school type play equipment in because they're in high school.

And I think students are coming into year seven seeking out that high school experience.

Dale Atkinson:: You've had the year 7s for, for just over a year now. For both of you, what have you learned? Is there anything you'd do differently?

Caroline Fishpool:: I think one of the things that we also learned was not to forget about the year 8s, particularly in that double cohort move come in to next year. So as a school we've really embraced and tried to celebrate with them that [00:17:00] they were coming in as not the youngest cohort. Ever, you know, that's the first time that that had happened with a year 8 cohort. So we've really tried to celebrate that fact and with the year 8s coming in with the double cohort of next year.

Dale Atkinson:: Yes. There's a few rites of passage, things that you need to celebrate as well. Isn't it?

Caroline Fishpool:: Absolutely. I think I was worrying about budget allocations and strategically aligning visions, et cetera, and all the year 7s wanted to talk about was graduation and jumpers. Rightly so, because when we talk about rites of passage, that was what was important to them.

So, you know, that was, I think, a good adjustment for me at the start to make sure that I was not just focusing on those big pieces systems wise, but also the stuff that mattered to the students.

Natasha Paffett:: Coming from a primary background, I've seen year 7 students who've been eager to learn eager, to be stretched, very energised.

And I was worried that coming into a high school setting that would be dampened a little bit. However, that's not been the case. These, these students are still extremely eager to learn and be stretched. They've got a lot of energy movement's important within classes and lessons, and that's [00:18:00] been fantastic to see

Monique Miller: It's so great to hear that the transition has gone so well. And because I have been hearing from people who were a bit worried and a lot of the teachers from my school, you know, they're so little, they're not ready. And a lot of the kids are stressed as well. But is there any advice that you would give to teachers and leaders about the transition to year seven from seven to high school?

Caroline Fishpool:: Transitions are a really important area I think. Natasha and I were just chatting about this this morning. I think some schools do transition really well, it's one of those schools then, you know, transitions, not a new thing. So, you know, there's lots of discussion happening at the moment with the year 7s moving in about transition and so some schools will continue to do what they're doing in saying that there does need to be a really shared understanding across the primary site sthat feed into secondary sites. And obviously some schools have a lot of schools that feed into them, but that shared understanding of transition and what it actually looks like.

And I think one of the things we really embrace and model here is that transition is not just that term 4 transition days, it's ongoing. Um, and for us transition is year 5s and 6s as well before they get to us in [00:19:00] year 7.

Natasha Paffett:: Routine is  key. When they're coming into a high school setting where there's a lot of changes and they've got different teachers, different subjects. Within your own subject I think it's really important to have some familiar routines because they've coming from such a routine based environment into the high school.

Dale Atkinson:: Is there anything that surprised you over the last 12 months, that's really knocked you back on your heels?

Caroline Fishpool::  I think how confident the year 7s are early on when we were trying to kind of gather some different information about what we needed to be prepared for that so it wasn't gonna catch us out. I think we probably didn't give the year 7s as much credit as we should have before they got to us about how resilient they are and how confident they are. As much as I talk about the, you know, them being kids and that rawness that we really love at this school with them coming into the community, that resilience and confidence we didn't probably give them enough credit until we got them and realised that that was the case.

Monique Miller: I can say, they're going to, they're going to smash it for all schools. They're ready. We can't finish our podcast without my favourite question. Uh, what do you love about your school? Natasha, do you want to start?

[00:20:00] Natasha Paffett:: Yeah. I love so many things about our school. Uh, one of the main things I love about our school is the passion of all of the teachers and the drive and the want for, to improve and success.

And that the focus is always around our students and how we can best support them. So I think that's fantastic. The other thing I really love about our school is the relationships that I have with so many of our students and we have some wonderful students. I think that really is what makes your day as a teacher to have those genuine connections.

Caroline Fishpool:: Yeah, I'll think I'm a bit biased, but I do love our school. Um, I think probably two of the things that I really love about the school is obviously community. Like we've talked about today and I think students and we're really proud to be a part of the Wirreanda Secondary School and Morphett Vale community in general.

Um, but also I think one of the things that that makes me really proud is that we're so future-focused and agile and we're constantly trying to with really clear purpose, get better at doing things. So, yeah, it's a fantastic school.

Natasha Paffett::  It is. It's an absolutely fantastic school.

Dale Atkinson:: It's so positive. And just what you said there [00:21:00] about being future-focused and agile, I think it really shines through, um, just your willingness to take on the challenge of, of having year 7 into high school. I think you guys have done an incredible job so far and, and listening to both of you, it makes me incredibly optimistic and positive about the transition next year. This is a huge thing for any education system to undertake and for any individual school to undertake. But, um, the way that you guys have gone about it and looking around here, the positive attitude and, and the great vibe in the, in the school is really just blows me away.

This is going to be a fantastic thing for you guys, a fantastic thing for the system. So that's great.

Natasha Paffett:: Primary school teachers give it a go. If you have any thought in your mind that you might want to come to high school, give it a go. It was a brilliant step for me.

Dale Atkinson:: Yeah, that's amazing. And that's, that's great to hear.

Thank you, Caroline. And also Natasha for joining us today. And we'll be back in just a few weeks time with another episode. See you soon.

Nick Kyriazis: He came up to me and goes 'man, this stuff is awesome, I can really concentrate on just teaching rather than trying to invent the wheel again'. And that's when I thought, yeah, well, that's exactly what it's for.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport primary school.

Now in this series, we normally take you to a different school each month. But today we've got a special episode that's taken us to the Education Development Centre in Hindmarsh in Adelaide's Western suburbs on Kaurna land. You probably know this if you've done any professional development in the city, if you've come to Orbis, if you've done your RAN training in the city, this is essentially,  where we are.

Why are we here today Monique?

Monique Miller: Today we're talking about something that affects all teachers. Curriculum. Curriculum is what we use to plan, monitor and assess student learning. [00:01:00] Here at the Education Development Centre, new South Australian curriculum resources are being developed that simplify the Australian Curriculum to support teachers and leaders.

Dale Atkinson: And we're joined by Alex Semmons. He's the Assistant Director of Curriculum Development with the department. Welcome Alex.

Alex Semmens: Thanks guys. Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: So tell us a little bit about your role, because you know, as with all these job titles, it can be a little bit opaque. So what is it that you do here at the EDC?

Alex Semmens: Uh, I guess simply my role is supporting our brilliant curriculum managers to develop, um, the advice that we're using to support all of our teachers and leaders across the state. And another big part of my role is connecting, um, with as many people as we can to kind of get their input and their support and their advice to make sure that these resources have the biggest impact, um, to supporting teachers and leaders and making sure our students get the curriculum that they need.

Dale Atkinson: So I was talking to one of my friends the other day, uh, who is a late career change, uh, going to teaching. So he started out as a lawyer did quite a bit of court work, and he's moved now into a, being a, an English studies and [00:02:00] a legal studies teacher.

He was talking about the experience of going into the classroom for the first time as being roughly akin to having a big trial case where you're standing in front of the judge, you've got an entire jury, you've got an opposition barrister. You've got media in the, uh, in the courtroom too. And he said the anxiety and the pressure that's on you to perform is really similar in the classroom.

So, how important is it to have a strong curriculum and planning tools in place as a teacher when you go into that court back slash classroom environment?

Alex Semmens: Yeah, it's incredibly important. I mean, there's the, all the research, you know, PISA, TIMSS, ACER they all talk about, um, making sure you've got a really visible, viable curriculum for the students.

And as important as that is, Um, the Australian Curriculum, um, can be quite complex, um, in many aspects. So, you know, having the support behind you to really know how all the elements fit together, um, how the three dimensions of the curriculum [00:03:00] can be implemented for each learning area. Um, having that level of support is, is, is critical.

Curriculum planning is a really difficult thing. So the resources are there to support schools and teachers and leaders to identify any gaps. Um, make sure there's no unnecessary repetition and providing that support so teachers really have the time to think deeply about the kids, um, the students that are in front of them.

So how do we take the Australian curriculum and how do we shape it? How do we really align it to the context and make sure that our kids can engage with it and learn and achieve in those high bands.

Dale Atkinson: It's interesting because ACARA has put out recently a fairly substantial review of the Australian Curriculum.

They've gone out to the public and said, look, what do you think of this? And, you know, looking through the media coverage, which kind of pulls out various different elements. The thing that kind of jumps out is the size of this product and the complexity of everything that goes into the Australian Curriculum.

Within that context. Obviously, teachers [00:04:00] need some support with the curriculum planning, um, and we've heard that within the department, which has led us to produce the curriculum resources that we have. Can you sort of talk us through, you know, what's being created and how that's being used?

Alex Semmens: Yeah. I think it's really important to know that and remember that all of our teachers are on a, kind of a different journey with their curriculum.

We have amazing experienced teachers that are super confident in doing just fantastic work. Um, we have teachers that are new to the profession, teachers that have come from a range of different backgrounds and a different experiences as well. So when we talk about the support that we're providing to teachers.

It's really important to acknowledge that, um, the wide range of teachers that are all kind of brilliant and doing the best work that they can. Providing these resources from the scope and sequence to the units of work. And then, um, the planning tools that really kind of a comprehensive package that will hopefully give all teachers and leaders an opportunity to really reflect on the curriculum work that they're doing.

And then also have some really kind of clear advice that's going to help move their work forward [00:05:00] as well and make life easier and make their time more efficient and more effective because it's just so difficult being a teacher and finding the time to, um, do everything you need to do to give the students the support they need.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, you talk about the scope and sequence documents. You know, if you're a teacher looking at this, what is it that specifically being provided how's that helping them in the classroom environment?

Alex Semmens: The feedback that we got from, from teachers across the state was there was a need there to make sure that the Australian Curriculum was accessible and easy to understand.

The Australian Curriculum is a great piece of work that's evidence informed and, um, you know, it's really robust and, um, helpful to our teachers, but the next layer to that was making it really obvious and easy to understand. So the South Australian scope and sequence documents, have taken the time to make sure the language is accessible, make it really clear what's thought at every year level, the key concepts and content and what to pay attention for, um, kind of stand out and taking every opportunity to kind of describe the elements of each learning area, the strands, the sub-strands and the threads, and make it visible, how those things work [00:06:00] together and connect.

We've also tried to bring as many kind of helpful elements into those resources as possible. So providing kind of a clear context statement about the learning areas and what's the essence of the learning area and breaking down the achievement standards. Um, as well and putting them all in one place. So any heavy lifting that we can do and put that into one piece.

So our teachers kind of have one document, can all be having the same conversations and, um, exploring the Australian Curriculum with real clarity when they're doing their planning.

Dale Atkinson: And I guess the piece that sits underneath that and the scope and sequence documents is the units of work, um, which are the doing, how do the units of work apply?

Alex Semmens: Yeah. So the units of work fit together to provide teachers with really high level advice for implementing each learning area at each year level. So a lot of curriculum planning has gone into that work. So all the units fit together and they provide that conceptual development and then really kind of targeted specific evidence-informed advice for teaching each learning area.

So what are the high impact strategies they're going to help our students learn the key [00:07:00] concepts and content for mathematics and science and HPE that are delivered in the most, um, supportive way, having that all in one place where teachers can feel really confident. That if they deliver those units, the way that they're intended, that the students who have, um, access to the curriculum, as well as the flexibility to kind of think about, well, what are my students really need?

Where are they up to? What is what's going on in my school and my site and how can I kind of tweak this and adapt it and shift it. Um, that really works for me and where I'm up to in my teaching and where my students are up to us as well.

Dale Atkinson: And I guess the final piece of the puzzle sits around, um, the support that's being provided around curriculum planning.

So if you look at the curriculum planning tools, what is it that teachers are getting from, from that product, which helps them to kind of deliver the work they're doing?

Alex Semmens: Well, I know the mantra of that work is, you know, how do you know and how do you grow? So, really helping, um, schools and teachers, uh, do a deep dive into where their curriculum planning is at, um, and there's four interrelated layers of whole-school learning area year level and [00:08:00] teacher.

And how do we know what we're working with? Really look at where we're up to and how are we going to implement the curriculum to avoid those gaps and repetition, and really provide the learners with the key concepts and content for where they're up to as well.

Dale Atkinson: The impressive bit about this work and the amount of work that's gone into it is that, I mean, this isn't something that's been generated from central office with us, just kind of thinking alright here's some great ideas, let's just plant these on top of the schools. I mean, this has been a very much a kind of grassroots built from the bottom up with schools and teachers involved, what are the benefits of having approached in that way?

Alex Semmens: It's just critical. There's no other way to do it. As I said, the advice is really targeted for every single learning area and it's written by teachers for teachers. So mathematics teachers, writing advice from mathematics to be used by their colleagues and I think the collegiality of this work is, is really obvious when you start reading through it, it's got this powerful authenticity [00:09:00] and it comes from a place of genuine help and support the team of curriculum managers are expert teachers and working with seconded teachers with current, you know, classroom experience, developing, you know, really high level advice that we know will resonate with teachers and really reflect what's going on in, in schools currently.

Um, and the other piece of that is working really closely with our principals, our education directors working with, um, Educators SA and our associations to get kind of constant feedback and input and advice on, um, how these uh, resources can have impact and really get to the knees of what's going on in the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: And we get to meet a couple of those teachers that have helped you um, very soon

Monique Miller: But before we continue our conversation on curriculum resources, Dale, what is making news this month?

Dale Atkinson: Thanks Mon. Um, if you're liking what you're hearing about the curriculum resources and, uh, and other supports and would like to be a part of shaping curriculum resources and developing these products, uh, then you might want to take part in the curriculum development skills register. It provides South [00:10:00] Australian school-based teachers and curriculum leaders, the opportunity to work in the curriculum development, directorate, and contribute expertise and advice about curriculum, teaching and learning. You can have your say on the curriculum that can be taught in our classrooms. If you'd like to share your expertise and want to find out more, including how to apply head to the curriculum development skills register page on EDi.

Uh, we'll put a link up here in our show notes as well. Also happening this month. Are you looking for a contemporary way to engage students? And if you are, then why not learn about how to use Minecraft in the classroom? The kids bloody love it and, uh, they're all over it. So, uh, we've got some free training coming up for those listeners that don't know, Minecraft's an open-world game that promotes creativity, collaboration, problem-solving. Um, the course that we've got going is most suited to teachers of students from year three to nine. Uh, the trainings available face-to-face or online, but please get in quickly because registration is closed on Tuesday, may 18. We'll share the registration form show notes as well. And lastly, next week [00:11:00] is National Volunteers Week.

This year's theme is Recognise, Reconnect, Re-imagine. The theme highlights an opportunity to explore how volunteering might be re-imagined through more flexible and inclusive roles, including back on school and preschool grounds, now that COVID restrictions have been eased somewhat. To the more than 20,000 volunteers working in our schools, preschools and centres, of course we say are very big thank you.

Monique Miller: Today, we're at the Education Development Centre in Hindmarsh learning about new South Australian curriculum resources that have been developed. Like many teachers, you may already be using them to help plan your classes. With us is Alex Semmons, Assistant Director for Curriculum Development. This is a huge piece of work and what I'm wondering is how did you go about creating these resources?

Alex Semmens: Yeah, it's, it is, it's a huge bit of work and the responsibility and the opportunity is so motivating for the team. It starts with research, you know, what does the [00:12:00] evidence tell us about curriculum and the importance of curriculum planning and what that looks like?

Um, what is the research and evidence say for each of our learning areas about helping our students achieve in those high bands and move their learning forward, and then lots and lots of collaborations.

Monique Miller: As all teachers know, time is precious and I guess this is fair to say that. This is going to be a real time-saver in the classroom.

Alex Semmens: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. From the feedback that we've got already from teachers about the great help, that it provides at that really high level about how does the curriculum kind of fit together? Um, how do all those elements combine and what does that look like for our students to just really kind of clear intentional advice around literacy and numeracy, and what does that look like in Hass and science and, um, taking the brilliant advice from those guidebooks and putting it into a kind of a learning area context has been a great help.

The hardest part of being a teacher is, um, the time that's needed to develop curriculum for your students to develop those resources and plans and this work really speaks to how much heavy lifting can we do? What does all the [00:13:00] resources and guidance and modelling that we can provide that gives teachers as much time as possible to think about the learners that they've got in front of them. And what are those each individual students specifically need? How can we take this resource? How can we use it? How can we adapt it to our students' needs to make sure that they get the entire curriculum? I think we're on a really exciting journey with this work.

There's going to be lots of collaboration over the next few years about um, the impact of these units and how we can always constantly make them better, how we can, um, provide better advice, better resources, better support, um, getting in as many teachers as we can through the, um, skills register to kind of contribute to this work.

So we're always responding to what's going on in every single classroom in South Australia and provide really high level, helpful advice that teachers can grab a hold of and shape to make sure it meets the needs of their kids as well.

Monique Miller: Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree and using these resources is not going to be a one size fits all.

We're going to be adapting [00:14:00] them to, to, as you said, to every child in our classrooms and for me, what's so important is building these relationships with our kids, knowing what they need and sometimes, um, you know, planning can be overwhelming as well as meeting all the other needs. Um, that you need to of a teacher.

I want to just go back to these units of work. How do classroom teachers adopt and adapt them in their classroom?

Alex Semmens: Yeah, there's lots of opportunity within the units to think about the advice and then what it means for the students in the classroom. The teacher tips, um, in particular, I think are incredibly helpful, uh, taking the high-level advice and then thinking about what does it mean for me and where am I up to in my teaching and where did my class look like?

So those tips are really targeted and draw on the experience of, um, the amazing curriculum managers and seconded teachers that we've got working for us. Or working with us, sorry to go you know, what have I learned? What have I picked up along the way? Or what's an opportunity here to do this a little bit [00:15:00] differently or what are some additional resources?

So, um, the teacher tips in particular, within the unit are designed to be really conversational piece between the resources and in the teachers using them as well. So I think, um, they're going to be, uh, an incredible support that takes the teaching and learning advice and assessment advice, and kind of opens the doors to how can we do this a little bit differently and how can we kind of cater for the different needs of our students as well?

Monique Miller: Now, I know you're releasing resources every September. You had some come out last year and I'm actually really looking forward to what's coming this September as a year four teacher. Can you give us a bit of insight into what's coming?

Alex Semmens: Yeah. So we'll have scope and sequence documents coming out for languages, um, across a range of those disciplines, building on the English, maths, HASS and science resources in years 3, 4 and 10, and our first suite of resources across years, 5 to 8 for the arts, technologies and health and PE. So, uh, really exciting that we're, um, working across all of the learning [00:16:00] areas and we can really get the curriculum implemented at a really high level right across all the disciplines.

Monique Miller: Amazing. I cannot wait to get my hands on those. So most importantly, where can we find them?

Alex Semmens: Uh, EDi. So on the EDi site, um, under the teaching and learning menu, there's navigation to all of the resources there.

Monique Miller: Thank you so much, Alex, as the assistant director of curriculum development, it's been so good to hear from you and now you've invited some seconded teachers in today, uh, to tell us a little bit about how they've produced these resources.

Alex Semmens: Yeah. We have Nick Kyriazis from LeFevre and Sam Moyle from Brighton. They've just been outstanding individually and then collectively all of our seconded writers, just a wealth of knowledge and expertise and current classroom experience just our work lives and dies with that. So it's just been absolutely fantastic having access to people like Sam and Nick.

Monique Miller: I'm actually a  little bit starstruck here. I've got one of my old high school teachers, uh, Nick Kyriazis [00:17:00] and, um, I was actually wondering what's it like being a seconded teacher and working away from the classroom on the curriculum?

Nick Kyriazis: Oh, it's been great. When I got the call to get invited, to write some material, I thought what a tremendous opportunity to check practice. And I've been fortunate enough to be influenced by some pretty reasonable, heavy hitters in, in, in around the maths industry. So it was really good to get that all down and then get it out to the maths community. It's a bit scary though, cause you're worried everyone's going to judge you by your work.

Um, but just to get it down on paper and get it out there and you have an opportunity to really place a microscope on yourself and it's quite humbling as well, I suppose, um, and realise where your own flaws are and to get that all right and, and share. It's been awesome. It's been really good.

Monique Miller: Yeah, we all sort of have a little bit of imposter syndrome stepping out of the classroom, but we, you know, you are the expert in your field and it's awesome to be able to share that with maybe new graduate teachers or really anyone.

These are [00:18:00] accessible by any teacher, maybe you're moving year levels or, um, specialties. And how about yourself, Sam? How have you found uh, working on the curriculum?

Sam Moyle: I've really enjoyed it. I was surprised at how much I've enjoyed it, the challenges that it posed, uh, the opportunity to really connect with the, the research and the best practice.

Uh, I'm a little bit lucky. I have the opportunity to continue teaching point 2 at school. So I'm doing my year twelves and they're a particularly special group so I really wanted to stay with them, but I've really, really enjoyed this experience far more than I'd expected to. I usually like a challenge, but this has gone beyond.

And so I've been lucky enough to be seconded for a second term. I'm really enjoying it.

Dale Atkinson: Like looking back on some of the products that have been created, what, what are the things that you're most proud of, of having done?

Sam Moyle: Uh, I guess the, the opportunity for me to write a couple of new experiments and then to build in, uh, my, my ideology has been very much about innovative and dynamic approaches to the curriculum, [00:19:00] lots of hands-on and kinesthetic approaches. So being able to build that in and perhaps empowering teachers to be able to do experiments, particularly the challenge that, and to really engage students, as opposed to using a video, things like the iodine clock reaction, and I've even managed to sneak in the Briggs-Rauscher, or even if schools don't have the actual materials just to have that video, but to really show the forward and reverse reactions with chemistry.

And so, yeah, having, having those opportunities to, um, to create new things and share them.

Monique Miller: I do like the sound of, if you don't have the resources, we've still got, you know, a video that you can watch, that you can experience what it is that you're teaching.

Sam Moyle: Yeah, absolutely. There's a number of different options and I guess high tech and low tech as well.

So if you're, um, Uh, not advantaged by having the technology in the classroom. There are other ways of doing that. So there's lots of different ways to skin a cat, really. And so providing those in the teacher tips, uh, for schools to be able to implement.

Dale Atkinson: Well it's really about imparting  some of the benefits of your own wisdom [00:20:00] really isn't it.

In terms of you spent quite a bit of time in the classroom, build up a body of knowledge and understanding and wisdom and, in terms of what works and has it been sort of something that's enjoyable to be able to pass some of that information on to, um, to other colleagues.

Nick Kyriazis: Oh, it's been awesome. I've got two little stories.

I had a really fresh rookie and this person didn't know that I was one of the writers and I like Sam I'm teaching uh, just one class at school. Um, cause you've got to teach something, right? Like we're teachers. Um, and he came up to me and goes, man, this stuff is awesome. I can really concentrate on just teaching rather than trying to invent the wheel again.

And that's when I thought, yeah, well, that's exactly what it's for. And then I had a real seasoned, uh, lady, um, who I've known for a long time who was sort of stuck in the old way. And she's really now just changed their outlook. And most of the part is looking at this conceptual. Conceptualised way of delivering the maths.

Um, and it's really changed the way that she's done stuff and [00:21:00] she said she feels like a young out of uni teacher again, because she's getting to learn all the new ways, which is really good, which is really good. I was really pleased. And so they're the things I'm sort of proud of the effect it's having on the teachers that are already out there and getting them to come along with the ride with us.

Monique Miller: Fantastic. Um, what sort of support is available for you when working on these documents.

Nick Kyriazis: I've never felt alone. We're in a team and we're all bouncing off each other all the time. Um, our manager Catarina, she's always in contact and we meet regularly. If I ever think I need something here, I just can't think of anything.

I'll just send an email out to my network and somebody's got something. So, you know, we make these units, but they're definitely not a hundred percent ours. It's like, uh, it's almost the whole community coming together. Get these things out. We're just sort of a conduit sometimes. And yeah so the support is really good.

Sam Moyle: Yeah. It's definitely a collaborative thing. Um, we've been doing the same thing through teams, uh, sharing documents or websites that might be useful, but I also bounce ideas off of [00:22:00] the team back at school and ask for their opinions on, on how to deliver this. And do they think that that would be useful in the classroom and the support that I've had from my leadership as well to, to be involved with this has been really good.

Monique Miller: It really goes to show that it does take an army.

And for any, any teachers out there that are thinking of taking some time out of the classroom and sharing their knowledge, um, would you recommend teachers taking part?

Sam Moyle: Do it. Absolutely do it. It's been the most amazing professional development for me, the opportunity to really dig deep into the research and the best practice which we always talk about but don't always have the time to implement when we're teaching full time. So having that opportunity has been amazing and that's part of why I've been enjoying it so much. Don't be scared. It's been really good. And the flexibility of the work too has been amazing. It's lessened the burden on my wife as well, because I dropped the kids now off in the morning. Um, she can get to work, um, and then they get picked up [00:23:00] by their grandparents and then I'm going to work in the evening anyway. Cause if you're in the classroom, you're working. So I just catch a bit of time. It's nice, have the dog next to me most of the time.

Monique Miller: That always makes a difference. Now I almost did forget on this podcast we do like to ask, uh, what do you love about your school? What I did want to ask instead was what's one of the best things you've been able to do here that might help a school?

Sam Moyle: I guess, really challenge, uh, old sort of pedagogical approaches, uh, not to get rid of them, but to really extend them and then to incorporate the, the technologies, uh, and perhaps the more innovative pedagogies or newer pedagogies as well, but not to throw the baby out with the bath water, but to really combine and enhance the learning.

Nick Kyriazis: I spoke at one of our faculty meetings about, it's not about changing who you are and what you believe in, but it's about developing your practice into something so that it can evolve through time. It's not just sitting still. [00:24:00] And that's what I think these units are doing really well. I know their purpose is you take the whole unit and you use it, but, you know, we don't need to change experienced teachers.

We just need them to move forward with the education that's happening. Rookie teachers will need more but can you imagine if everybody goes on this journey, if everybody does this and I have no doubt in my mind that it would change the outcomes across every school, every student in the, in the state. Yeah. And parents seeing the experiences the kids are now getting, hopefully you can get more of that parental support at home.

I was just listening to the radio this morning and the data being pushed out was kids. They surveyed thousands of kids. I think it was in Indonesia, one of the Asian Pacific region countries. And it was the parents who supported that kid's schooling more at home, did better. And hopefully this gives kids a better experience they share with the parents and they get involved with it all.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's just such a, such an important piece of the puzzle. Um, so I want to thank Alex, Sam and Nick for [00:25:00] joining us today. The curriculum resources are out there. I think, you know, the one thing that's really come through today from, from the discussion with all three of you, is these products have been designed and developed by the teachers who are out there in South Australian public schools.

And they're specifically targeted toward the things that we know are going to provide uplift and support, um, and a great outcome for our kids. Um, they're out there, they're free. They've been designed by your colleagues and they're really very accessible on EDi and also in the show notes. So it's just, you know, it's a, it's an amazing thing.

Please go out there, check them out if you haven't already. Um, if you're using them really think about whether you want to come in and, and help to, you know, design the next lot, because you know, this is something that we are going to be putting out and pumping out every year and updating as we update the curriculum.

So please think about coming in and, uh, and providing the support. So yeah, when it's a fantastic thing. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. And thank you all for listening. We hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. Don't forget you [00:26:00] can subscribe to Teach on Apple podcasts or follow us on Spotify. If you're enjoying the podcast, leave us a review.

Tell your teacher friends, uh, or get in touch via our email education.Teachpodcast@sa.gov.au. You can also head to the website education.sa.gov.au/teach where you'll find all the show notes, including information on where to find the curriculum resources. Thanks for listening.

Monique Miller: Catch you next time on Teach.

Dale Atkinson 0:00:07 to 0:00:16

Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education.

Monique Miller

And I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport Primary.

Dale Atkinson 0:00:19 to 0:00:29

In this series we will take you to a different school every month where you'll meet engaging educators who are working hard to inspire our students, and they may have had their own trials and triumphs along the way.

Monique Miller 0:00:30 to 0:01:05

Today we’ve travelled to Kapunda Primary School, which is an hour north of Adelaide on Ngadjuri land, we pay respects to elders, past and present. Are you an early career teacher like me? Perhaps you've been teaching for a while now and wondering what next step you can take. Today we’re talking about building your career in the teaching profession. There are four stages you can go through as a teacher, graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead. Shortly we're going to hear from two lead teachers, Belinda and Jemma about their experiences and advice for teachers, plus why you could have a lot to gain from teaching in the country. But before then, Dale, what is making news?

Dale Atkinson 0:01:05 to 0:02:36

Well we’re into April, so there's a lot going on first and foremost, consultation is now open on the next chapter of our workforce strategy. The workforce strategy is aiming to enable every person in the workforce to perform at their best. So together we can achieve growth for every child in every class, in every school and preschool. The focus this year is on designing a workforce plan for educational leaders and teachers. To help us shape this plan. We want to hear from you and your thoughts on the key issues, opportunities and also the barriers that are in the way of achieving our goals. You can have your say by completing an online survey, which we’ll share the link to in our show notes. Or you can submit a written submission via education dot workforce strategy at sa dot gov dot au. The consultation is open until April 30 and while we're talking jobs and developing your career, the department has hundreds of permanent secondary teaching positions available to start in the 2022 school year. This includes positions arising from the year 7 to high school move, So whether you're a public school teacher looking for a career change, maybe you're a graduate looking for your first job or a contractor to seeking a permanent role. And even if you knew to the public education system, you can apply for a secondary teaching position in a South. Australian public school. Applications open soon, so if you're a qualified teacher, keep an eye out for what could be your next great job at www dot education dot dot gov dot forward slash recruitment.

Monique Miller 0:02:37 to 0:02:45

Today we're at Kapunda Primary talking about how you could develop your career in education and why you might want to consider becoming a highly accomplished or lead teacher

Dale Atkinson 0:02:46 to 0:02:47

I reckon before we start that Monique.

Because you're quite an early career teacher at the moment. And I think you've got quite an interesting story in terms of how you got into the profession. So what? What made you want to become a teacher to begin with?

Monique Miller 0:02:58 to 0:03:24

Well, initially, I wasn't always planning on being a teacher but in that sort of important time in year 12, I had a really influential teacher, Anne, if you're listening, she truly made a difference in my life at that time. And then it became my dream to then have that impact on students in the future and yeah, that's when I guess I realised maybe I want to be in school for the rest of my life.

Dale Atkinson 0:03:24 to 0:03:33

That's understandable. But you, in terms of getting your break, your current position, I think essentially, you just made a bit of a pest of yourself.

Monique Miller 0:03:33 to 0:04:16

Absolutely. I was TRTing around the western suburbs at the time and working in some fantastic schools meeting students teachers all around And that's when I fell in love. I fell in love with my school and the culture, the leadership, the kid's effort, when I would go to work at that school, I just felt this magic. And I said, Well, this is where I want to be, went into the deputy's office and said, I want to be here. And if I have to TRT for four years, that's what I'm going to do because I want to be here. I feel a part of the furniture already so, and that's when they sort of said, Well, we’ve actually got a contract for you next year. So that was the best

Dale Atkinson 0:04:16 to 0:05:09

day. That's amazing. So it’s that combination, isn't it of like passion and persistence and really sort of being out there like it’s really about letting it known what you would like to do and demonstrating that to you, to your future employees. Really, which is a great story. You're doing really well out there. I know because I've spoken with your boss. We're also joined by Belinda Ramsey, who’s a lead teacher, national assessor and assistant principal at Roxby Downs Area School, and Jemma Worrell, who's the lead teacher and student wellbeing teacher at Kapunda primary school, which is where we are at the moment. Kapunda Primary in the Grain Belt, home to Map the Miner. I think also the town home to Is it the most haunted town in South Australia? Is that the thinking and we’re in a building that I would suggest is probably 150 years old? So any bumps in the night here?

Jemma Worroll 0:05:10 to 0:05:19

There has been some sightings in this building in particular, people have felt a bit of a presence. I've never seen anything but certainly heard

Dale Atkinson 0:05:19 to 0:05:36

Well, that's exciting. I think we can all feel a little bit more anxious. So away from the spooky bumps and over to Jemma. Jemma Can you tell us a bit about your role as a lead teacher and how it's different from other teaching roles because it's not something I think that's well understood.

Speaker 3 0:05:36 to 0:06:32

Sure. So my job now as a lead teacher and as a leadership member, at Kapunda Primary is to create that magic I guess that Monique was talking about. So making sure that that spark and fire that you want to help spread. So I think it's my job as the lead teacher at this school to help lead mentor, support early career teachers and to help them find that magic. Because we want more of you and Belinda And I were saying last night that opportunities that have risen from becoming certified and like today we've said yes to those opportunities. So I guess it's about constantly saying yes. The other role that I have gained from this lead teacher process is being a mentor for our early career teachers. And there's one particular teacher at the school who I've supported through, and I want to see her become credited as a highly accomplished or lead teacher because she is phenomenal. So that's really rewarding is creating the Moniques in our schools.

Dale Atkinson 0:06:33 to 0:06:39

So Belinda, you're also a lead teacher. What was it that it initially made you want to become a lead teacher.

Belinda Ramsey 0:06:39 to 0:07:36

For me it was about the culmination of my teaching career. I've been in teaching for 23 plus years, and it was kind of the natural progression for me. It was the next step. It was my own personal growth but also my impact on others working in a country site where we have a large number of early career and graduate teachers. I felt that it was a part of my my role and my personal responsibility to ensure that we maintain the high expectations that we have in all schools across all of our sites in South Australia, but also the exemplary practice that we see in classrooms it's so important for doesn't matter which career stage you're in your journey. It's about our impact on others it’s about our impact on our colleagues. It's about impact on every student that we teach. So for me, it was absolutely about supporting those and leading others around me.

Monique Miller 0:07:36 to 0:07:56

And good leadership is really what makes the difference in school as an early career doesn't matter where you’re at, if you've been teaching for 10 years, if you've got good support from leadership you want to go to school every day.

Jemma Worroll

And good leaders learn with, you know, they learn on the floor, on the ground with you. They needed to be modelling out, demonstrating and learning with you not telling you what to do.

Belinda Ramsey 0:07:56 to 0:08:25

Yeah and also the privatisation of the practise. It's about modelling, that exemplary practise and going in and doing classroom observations and the learning and the constant feedback because we're all learners and we're all growers in this profession. And that, to me, is one of the most rewarding parts of my role that I'm really passionate about. We need to ensure that our early career teachers have the opportunity that I guess Jemma and I had when we first came out in our first teaching roles.

Jemma Worroll 0:08:25 to 0:09:00

I think also the process for Belinda and I, we talked about as a lead teacher now, and Monique you already sound like you're doing this. It's just measuring your impact. So not, after teaching a lesson, what worked, what didn’t. How has my impact been measured and you reflect after every lesson. It's not just done and dusted. So you're asking the kids did that work? Did that not work? So you're just constantly reflecting on what you're doing as I guess a live learner. I think that's that's different from other teaching roles and that you're constantly reflecting,

Speaker 2 0:09:00 to 0:09:37

I think too, as a lead teacher, we’re kind of experts in the standards field. We know the standards inside out upside down because we lived and breathed it throughout our certification process. So the 37 descriptors at the league level Jemma and I could we could talk for another hour about those but we won’t. I guess just having that expert knowledge and sharing that with the people that we work with on a daily basis and bringing it to the fore of all of our coaching conversations and mentoring conversations our line management conversation. Because ultimately, our goal is to improve the outcomes of every student in every class.

Monique Miller 0:09:38 to 0:09:56

And constantly thinking about that throughout your practise, not just when it comes to putting together a portfolio or moving to the next level or anything like that. So I am really interested in the difference between a highly accomplished teacher and a lead. What's what's involved in that? And is it? Does it run as a timeline? Do you go to highly accomplished and then lead?

Belinda Ramsey 0:09:56 to 0:10:21

No, it's not fluid. Obviously, we start our teaching career at graduate, and then we moved to proficient. Some teachers might choose to stay at that level. Certification process is voluntary. So depending on what's actually happening in your site and your context, some choose to become highly accomplished or they choose to be lead. Depending on if they are running a lead project in a school again, it just depends.

Monique Miller 0:10:22 to 0:10:27

You might start the highly accomplished, then go to lead. Or, if you are leading in a certain area, you can go straight there.

Belinda Ramsey 0:10:27 to 0:10:36

So for Jemma and I. We both went from being proficient, proficient practitioners in our classroom context to lead.

Jemma Worroll 0:10:36 to 0:11:03

And the descriptors at the highly accomplished level talk about supporting colleagues. So it might be, I'm in my middle primary team and I might support the teacher next door. I'm helping support her, and I'm supporting her kids. At that lead level. It's leading a school, leading a group of teachers and having an impact on that more school wide level, so the difference is highly accomplished might be supporting one or two colleagues that lead is, I guess, leading by example,

Belinda Ramsey 0:11:03 to 0:11:07

which could filter into partnership level as well.

Dale Atkinson 0:11:07 to 0:11:24

Belinda, you're a national assessor, which I think is an incredibly intimidating sounding title. So I guess the first question is, Is it intimidating? And what are the key things that you're looking for when you're assessing teachers for certification?

Belinda Ramsey 0:11:25 to 0:12:24

Interesting question. I don't find it all intimidating. I guess I've been on both sides of the fence, so I've been through the certification process stage one and two and becoming a nationally trained assessor, I guess, it just harnesses more of my ability to know the standards and have that expert understanding off them and that deep understanding of what actually happens at classroom level and what we are saying with our impact widely amongst our teaching crew. Being an assessor has absolutely allowed allowed me the opportunity to network more widely within our department. Having conversations with like minded assessors about what we're actually looking for, and it's a very rigorous process that are aspirants at HALT go through and for us as assessors, we are looking for clear evidence of teachers alining their practise to the Australian professional standards for teachers.

Monique Miller

So what skills have you continued to develop by becoming certified teachers?

Jemma Worroll

One of the criteria to become certified as a lead teacher is we had to provide evidence within our portfolios of leading a whole school initiative that would have looked different for Belinda myself it was leading change, improving the pedagogy of teaching students with autism spectrum disorder. This school have made significant progress and growth with our pedagogies at that consistent level amongst all of our teachers. So in answer to your question, Monique, the skills that I've continued to develop since that time of submitting their portfolio is I've continued to roll out whole school initiatives and some of the things that I've done as a student wellbeing leader at this school is I’ve introduced wellbeing assemblies every fortnight to talk about wellbeing. And I guess, topical concerns within our school, topics such as casual racism, bullying, using great manners, the things that we're seeing in our yard. I bring to the forum every fortnight and speak, and it's a bit of a Jemma show, but the entire school gets the same message, and then we talk about it within the fortnight, which I've introduced. That sounds so it's so powerful. I want more. So those were just some of the initiatives that I think I've introduced, and I think having to provide proof of your lead initiative and that portfolio it hasn't stopped, like you just keep on saying Look, it's a bit scary. It's a bit out of my comfort zone, but I believe in it. I'm passionate and I'm going to roll it out in our school. So yeah, that's one of the things that that I've kept going since being certified.

Belinda Ramsey 0:14:05 to 0:15:27

I guess a skill at lead level and also at certified level is the skill of I guess diving into someone else's practise and knowing what we're looking for and aligning that practise with the standards. Also, I guess knowing our impact, the impact that we have on others, the skill of being able to communicate the language of the standards is really, really important when we're having pre-observation conversations with colleagues. So that's an area of focus for me is having the ability and I guess feeling very privileged, to be on that side and help support other people's practise and move them along and support them with their career. That's really exciting for me, the modelling of exemplary practise, using data supporting teachers to use data to inform their teaching practise is an area that we do dive into quite deeply at our site and consistently again using the language of the standards. Highlighting the importance of national certification as well. You know we want to be the best teachers that we can be and we have some amazing operators in sites across all of our schools in our state. It's really important to keep the conversation flowing about the importance of that. And we have a lot of teachers that are aspiring, aspiring to be highly accomplished and lead teachers. And Jemma and I feel that it's our role and our responsibility as leads to support with that.

And when you have the opportunity and I feel blessed in our site that we do have a large number of early career and graduate teachers, they're the ones that are coming through uni that have already put their portfolio of evidence together. They have a very clear understanding of the standards. They know about the career stages. And just because we're lead teachers, we don't know everything. So we learn from our early career teachers, and I have a really big respect for our early grad teachers that come out to our sites.

Jemma Worroll 0:16:04 to 0:16:05

Well, said Belinda.

Dale Atkinson 0:16:05 to 0:16:19

For those who are kind of on the cusp of this and thinking, God, this might be something that I'm really interested in doing, but well, it seems like quite a involved and detailed thing to get involved in. What's the What's the message for them?

Belinda Ramsey 0:16:19 to 0:17:36

Have a go. It's one of the most rewarding experiences in my career. It's actually the pinnacle and a highlight of my career to be certified at national level. A really big thank you to everyone in the national teacher certification team who supported Jemma and I on our journey. It's something you can't do alone we as teachers are naturally collaborators. We work together, we work as teams. We need to lean in and ask for support. Can you please come and observe me? Can you offer me some feedback on my lesson? How do you think I could do a warm up for this particular lesson?  It's vital that we have that. And for me, I really would like to get the message out there that it's really inspiring the networking that comes with being certified. Being able to attend HALT summits. So Jemma and I have attended two or three of those listening to Professor John Hattie talking about knowing thy impact. We know that that's what we do on a daily basis, and that's what we hope going through the certification process does for everyone that we work with is knowing our impact and that positive impact that we have on not only students and teachers, but also our parents and our wider community. And it filters out again to our partnership.

Jemma Worroll 0:17:38 to 0:18:05

That collaboration is so important. You do need someone to support you. You need to have someone hold your hand and you do it together. And you can do that with a colleague, a line manager, find somebody. But if you're thinking about it, get some support and go for it because there are plenty of pits of despair that you go through because there's a lot of work. But if you're doing it together, you're having opportunities to share with each other. You can get there, but you do need support for sure.

Belinda Ramsey 0:18:05 to 0:18:35

Our department provides that support to the national teacher certification team runs workshops, which Jemma and I both attended. And I think that's when I first met you, Jemma. You were presenting at one of them. So we have day one day two and day three, and that outlines the whole process from collecting your evidence to submitting your portfolio of evidence, annotating the artefacts and that stage one and then moving into Stage two, which requires a site visit from a nationally trained assessor.

Dale Atkinson 0:18:36 to 0:18:56

I don't have a teaching degree, but I'm going to email you about how I could become certified too. It sounds like an incredible thing, and you guys are so passionate about it and such incredible advocates for for all of it, I mean, it sounds like an incredible benefit for the school. It’s an incredible benefit for the teachers, most importantly, an incredible benefit for the kids.

Belinda Ramsey 0:18:57 to 0:18:57

Thank you.

Jemma Worroll 0:18:57 to 0:19:23

And look, teaching is a really busy job and, you know, finding the time to put your portfolio together is tough. You need to dedicate some school holidays to it, but highly worthwhile. And if you've got the support and some time, you've got to make that time happen if you want it enough. But as I said, we're both in leadership roles now. But this certification process and becoming certified as a lead teacher is still my proudest achievement in my teaching career this far.

Dale Atkinson 0:19:38 to 0:20:03

So we're also, I mean, obviously out in the country. We’re speaking to two country teacher's, country assistant principal Belinda on the way up in the car you were talking about working in Roxby Downs and going into work, dodging emus and kangaroos along the way. You’ve been to Kangaroo Island. You've worked all over the country and out in the regions What's the great thing about working in country towns?

Belinda Ramsey 0:20:03 to 0:21:29

There are so many, there really are. Jemma, you would agree, I guess being born and bred in the country for me it just means instantly you are supported and you know so many people that can help you, regardless of where you are in your journey. I remember walking into Roxby Downs Area School in 1999 and we had a staff of about 59 instantly, you know, 59 people, and then when you have your weekend barbecues or whatever you're doing, it's you meet partners and family. So you feel immersed in the community from day one, and that's exactly how I felt in all of the schools that I've taught in. And it's also getting to know the parents. I think they’re pivotal in the daily work that we do having our parents as a part of the process of educating children is, I guess, a number one for me. It's a priority to get to know my students inside the classroom, outside the classroom, what are their interests, who are there brothers and sisters, where they from before Roxby. What's their story? And how can we tap into that? And I think I have seen a lot of early career and graduate teachers come to Roxby that have fallen in love with it. I had a three year plan and 22 years later, I’m still there and still loving it and still a part of the community, so it gives you the option to become integral in the community in a range of different ways.

Monique Miller 0:21:30 to 0:22:26

So that leads me to why should teachers, maybe graduate teachers or experienced teachers consider working in rural and remote areas?

Jemma Worroll

I think that obviously Belinda's context and my context is very different. But we're both country. For Kapunda I guess we’re at a gateway to so many beautiful spaces, We’ve got the river 45 minutes away. We've got the Barossa just down the road. The drive to work is where I am able to reflect on my job. I am driving past the vines and I love the vines because without sounding like a poet, you really see the seasons. You've got the stark wood in the winter, you've got the budding green blooms in spring. You've got the fruit in the summer and the beautiful autumn colours of the leaves in the autumn. It's just it's a beautiful space, and we can link into those natural resources,

Dale Atkinson 0:22:26 to 0:22:38

Like the exposure to the range of different great things but different problems that schools face. So the breadth of experience is so much broader than it would be potentially in some of the metropolitan schools.

Belinda Ramsey 0:22:38 to 0:23:48

It is, and I guess we learned to be very resourceful. We don't have the opportunity to attend a training and development from 4 to 6 on a Wednesday night at the EDC, so we tend to tap into our local expertise. So it might be teacher stepping up and running, training and development sessions it might be tapping into Andamooka Primary School or Woomera Area School, depending on what we're doing. But we we really learn, to, I guess, grow our own talent and tap into that. I think that's very, very important living in the country where distance is a factor and distance absolutely comes into it. You know, it could even be if students are going on school camp before we get anywhere. It's a four or five hour trip. So I guess just having that in the back of your mind when you early career or graduate teachers come to I guess when you look at a place like Roxby it’s rural, it's remote, it's isolated and it is in the desert, so, you know, be aware of things like the heat in the summer and distances that need to be travelled. But so many positives, the beautiful sunsets.

Jemma Worroll 0:23:48 to 0:25:11

And, I guess for early career teachers that are thinking about heading to the country, I guess in Kapunda we've got when you move into a school that has so many parents and family members that are involved in the school, those people are so highly invested, their kids and for the community as a whole. So it's like a family around a family approach. And that's what happens here. We asked the why we know the families, as Belinda was saying, it's really invested that family feel.

Monique Miller

Now we don't have much time left, but I do need to ask you, What do you love about your school? Jemma, do you want to start us off? I’m looking around there’s so much, it’s so beautiful.

Jemma Worroll

Yeah, I guess it is about the community. So many people are willing to help for our students with high needs that don't have food. We've got community members that are making meals, freezing them. We've got local businesses that are donating money so that a child in care can get braces, they reach out. We've got local churches that are on hand. If I text her and say We've got a family that needs a meal, she will go to ALDI. She will get the food and she'll drop it off that day. So it's just We've got so many people that will put their hands up to say Who needs help? We're here. We're here to help.

Belinda Ramsey 0:25:11 to 0:26:10

For me, the camaraderie that we have on our our staff. We've got quite a large staff and we all work really well together. It's a hard working team with high expectations and every teacher, educator, parent at the heart of what we do every day, are our students. It's about working hard for them. It's about getting better at what we do every day and ultimately supporting the students and improved outcomes for all of the students from reception right through to year 12. But also we have the luxury of our students quite a few of them stay in Roxby and work because obviously we have the mine at Olympic Dam and for me I'm seeing that next generation come through. So it's really nice walking into Woolies in the afternoon and you get the Hi Mrs Ramsey how are you, and I guess you still have that connection and that contact with the students that you've taught. So I guess it's kind of like a big family in the desert.

Jemma Worroll 0:26:10 to 0:26:19

That’s right, and it's about the soul of the school. And if you've got the right team that are invested in the school like at Roxby, like at Kapunda, then it's going to work for the kids.

Dale Atkinson 0:26:19 to 0:27:15

That's great, thank you very much. Belinda and Jemma, you’re both incredible advocates for I think, working in the country and pushing yourself in terms of professional development and career progression. And I think I reckon we'll get quite a few enquiries and a lot of follow up off the back of this. So thanks to everyone for listening, we hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. Please don't forget you can subscribe to Teach on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listened to your podcast, actually, or you can head to our website, which is education dot sa gov dot au forward slash teach, where you'll also find our show notes and there'll be a lot of them there, including some email addresses and things that you might want to use to contact and find out more information along with your own listening. We encourage you to listen to the podcast during staff meetings to generate some discussion. And we'd love to hear from you. So if you have a question we could all learn from get in touch and send us an email at education dot teach podcast at  sa dot gov dot au

Monique Miller 0:27:15 to 0:27:16

Catch you next time on Teach

Dale Atkinson 0:27:16 to 0:27:18

See you guys. Thanks for listening.

Dale Atkinson – 0:00:00 to 0:00:16

Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education,

Monique Miller – 0:00:16 to 0:00:19

and I'm Monique Miller, primary school teacher at Westport Primary.

Dale Atkinson – 0:00:20 to 0:00:30

In this series, we'll take you to a different school every month where you'll meet engaging educators who are working hard to inspire our students and make sure they are prepared for an ever changing world.

Monique Miller – 0:00:30 to 0:00:53

Today we're at Pennington R-7 in Adelaide's northwestern suburbs, which is on Kaurna land. We pay respects to elders past and present. Today we're talking about literacy. Shortly you'll hear from one of the guest speakers at this year's Literacy Summit about the science of reading. Plus, you'll hear from some awesome educators about how they've improved reading outcomes at their school. But before then, Dale, what's making news?

Dale Atkinson – 0:00:53 to 0:01:28

Thank you, Monique. As you just mentioned, the Literacy Summit kicked off last month for the first time ever. It was an online virtual event featuring literacy experts from right across the world. There are 13 presentations you can catch up on. You just have to head over to plink. And while you're on there, if you're a year one teacher you can register for our phonics screening check training sessions.That training is mandatory. There are three options to choose from based on your level of experience. This year's checks will take place in term three between the second and 27th of August.

Monique Miller – 0:01:30 to 0:01:48

Today we're at Pennington R-7 talking literacy. Literacy supports student learning across the whole curriculum and is fundamental to learning. Earlier, I caught up with Professor Pamela Snow from La Trobe University to talk about the Simple View of Reading and how it can help teachers and students.

Professor Pamela Snow – 0:01:49 to 0:04:04

Well, a Simple View of Reading is a theoretical framework. Can I say first of all, that I think the Simple View of Reading, the word simple is a bit of a misnomer. I like to refer to it as the elegant view of reading because it pares the reading process back for the novice to core skills and processes that have to be in play in order for children to achieve the final purpose of reading, which of course, is extracting meaning from text. So the simple view of reading is a formula, really, that's got two elements to it. One is the child's ability to decode or to identify the words on the page. So knowing that the black squiggles are in fact a code, that written text is a code for spoken text. So being able to crack the code that could be coding part of the formula and the other part of the formula is their language comprehension. And that's because we know both of those processes have to be in play in order for children to achieve that in point of understanding text. Importantly, the mathematical operator in between those two elements of the formula is a multiplier, not an addition sign. So it's not decoding ability plus language comprehension ability, it’s decoding ability multiplied by a language comprehension ability because anything multiplied by 0 is 0. So if you don't have skills on either side of that ledger, you're not going to be able to comprehend what you read. Or if you have weak skills on one or both of both sides. That's going to contribute to weakness in the reading process as well. So all children need to have capacities in both decoding and then in understanding what they're reading. It's possible to decode something that you can't understand. It's not possible to understand something that you can't decode.

The best example I can give you of that is the fact that I studied French for six years at secondary school a long time ago. I've forgotten an awful lot of my French vocabulary, but I do still know how French language works from a decoding perspective. I understand French autography, the writing system. So if you gave me a page of French text, I could read it out loud. But I couldn't really tell you very much about what it means, because my vocabulary store now is very thin. On the other hand, if you gave me a page of text in Arabic, I wouldn't be able to decode it. And therefore I wouldn't be able to understand it because I don't understand the autography of Arabic.

Monique Miller – 0:04:48 to 0:04:52

How does it provide guidance for student assessment?

Professor Pamela Snow – 0:04:52 to 0:06:52

Well, it helps us to break down some of the core component skills, and it's important to say to that more recent workers have broken down the simple view of reading into its component parts. A well-known example of that is the Scarborough reading rope that was produced by Paula Scarborough, back in. I think that was published around 2001/2002, and many listeners to this podcast would be familiar with the reading rope. But if they're not, a simple Google search will pull it up. And what Hollis Cabra did in that was to break down really the elements both in the decoding part of reading and in the language comprehension part so that teachers are very cognoscente of processes that they need to be addressing at an instructional level and also skills that they need to be assessing, um, in emergent readers. So if we look at the word recognition side of the rope, we're looking at phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, knowledge of the alphabetic system, the alphabetic principle, the recognition of some high frequency words that perhaps are leaning more towards what we might call less regular and maybe a discussion for another day. But it is generally thought that it's helpful for beginning readers to recognise a small number of high prescience words immediately on site like the word I and my and So that's the word recognition part of the decoding part, the alphabetic principle, technological and phonemic awareness. And then the language comprehension, part of the, um, Scarborough Reading Rope, which is also the language comprehension part of the simple view of reading, are factors such as the student’s background knowledge, their level of vocabulary, the extent to which they can understand their new syntactic structures to represent sentence structure and meaning, their verbal reasoning ability, their ability to grasp the fact that language is sometimes used literally and sometimes used metaphorically. So when we say something like, um, a piece of cake, we're not literally referring to a piece of cake on a plate we’re saying that it's really simple. And then, of course, there's also knowledge about print and print concept.

Monique Miller – 0:07:32 to 0:07:37

How can teachers like myself use the simple view of reading in the classroom?

Professor Pamela Snow – 0:07:37 to 0:08:21

It's been said that we have a language brain, but we don't have a reading brain, and I think if teachers keep that in mind, it helps to reinforce for them the level of difficulty that some children face in getting across that bridge. Some children will get across it quite seamlessly, it seems, and that's fantastic. But we have to have early years classrooms that cater to all children under the curve, and especially children who are packed closer to the tail of the curve and may need quite a specific boost in both of those components of the simple view of reading.

Monique Miller – 0:08:22 to 0:08:33

Absolutely. I can see in my classroom how some students can be fantastic at decoding, but their language comprehension just isn't there. So absolutely.

Professor Pamela Snow – 0:08:33 to 0:08:47

And they're equally reliant, equally important, and they're mutually reliant, so you don't become a successful reader if you've only got one of them, you have to have both of them.

Dale Atkinson – 0:08:47 to 0:08:58

Professor Pamela Snow from La Trobe University there. Let's go local now and hear from two educators who have embraced this theory. Principal Georgina Grinsted and teacher Stasha Andrews. Welcome to you both.

Georgina and Stasha – 0:08:58 to 0:09:00

Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.

Dale Atkinson – 0:09:01 to 0:09:05

Georgina. Let's start with you. Why did you decide to adopt the simple view of reading at your school?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:09:06 to 0:09:34

Okay, so we had been working on the teaching of reading like everyone else for a really long time. But our results weren't really showing us that children were getting it. And so we knew that we needed to do something different. Two of my staff attended the literacy summit back in 2019, where Pamela Snow and others spoke. And in the process of that, people got really enthused about there's something new and different here that we could perhaps be looking at. We knew that it wasn't working, so why not have a go? So that's really where the whole thing started from.

Monique Miller – 0:09:34 to 0:09:39

And what was your experience with the simple view of reading? When did you first hear about it?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:09:39 to 0:10:19

Okay, so that was that was my first time. I guess some of my leaders, particularly my literacy mentor, had heard about it already and was already doing some preliminary work. We actually started this whole journey, though, on writing. So we started with how language works, and we wanted children and teachers to be able to understand how language actually functions. So we had done that whole as a whole staff, Um, and out of that, teachers started to say ‘I didn't know this stuff. I didn't know all of this information, so how could I teach it?’ And then they started saying, and I went to uni and I never actually got taught how to teach children to read, so we went okay, this is the journey that we need to go on.

Monique Miller – 0:10:20 to 0:10:25

My next question is for Stasha. How did the discovery of the simple view of reading change the way you teach?

Stasha Andrews – 0:10:25 to 0:11:26

Just building off of what Georgina said earlier. I'm an early careers teacher, and I had that same thought of I haven't been taught how to teach reading appropriately at uni. I hadn't been exposed to the Simple View of Reading. I had a pretty limited experience with it. So I've been on the same learning journey as everyone else, familiarising myself with a simple reading and learning about it. So I think for me, I now know the strands required to be a fluent, proficient reader. Through Scarborough's Rope. And I think one of the big learning areas for me has been understanding that vocab is crucial to making meaning, and it's connected to knowledge of the text. Um, so this is definitely changed the way that I teach changed what I teach, how I teach it. I've been focusing quite heavily on teaching vocabulary, one of the strands quite explicitly. So vocab’s been something that we've been working on as a whole school as part of our site improvement plan. It's also been part of our PLT teaching sprints and vocab being part of our teaching sprints has provided me with opportunities to engage in robust dialogue and discourse with my colleagues, with leadership and with our literacy coach here as well.

Monique Miller – 0:11:26 to 0:11:29

I really want to know more about these sprints you're talking about.

Stasha Andrews – 0:11:29 to 0:12:15

Yes. So we started with writing first on sentence structure. And then we’ve progressively made our way into reading. Um, so last year, we focused quite a bit on the vocab instructional routine and how we could work that into our daily program in our daily schedule. Um, so the instruction routine is all about introducing words and breaking it down, teaching it explicitly. Um, I modified the routine slightly just so I could focus on the more forms of the words a lot more. I added more activities to provide students with multiple learning opportunities to actually practice the knowledge that they were learning and actually apply it. Um, so we started with a vocab instruction routine, and now we've moved into a space this year where we're looking at comprehension. Um, and the complexities that come with teaching that.

Monique Miller – 0:12:15 to 0:12:38

I love. I love I've been teaching vocabulary as well, and to see that in their writing. It's just so fantastic and using it, and they're noticing it more and more of a upper primary lens, as opposed to what we think of, um, learning to read in the phonetics of it all. So, yeah, yourself as a upper primary teacher. Yeah, to sort of look at it through vocabulary and that more

Stasha Andrews – 0:12:38 to 0:13:28

sophisticated vocabulary. Yeah, definitely. I used that same term sophisticated vocabulary in my classroom as well. And it's been great because their writing has improved, their sentences have improved. Their vocab choices have improved where, you know, the kids say ‘Miss, I'm using more sophisticated terminology. I'm using more sophisticated words’, which is great. Um, so I've seen that change in their reading and they're writing, but I've also placed an emphasis on oral as well. I said, I don't want to just see it in your written stuff for your reading. I also want you using it in your oral language. Even the other day, I was on yard duty and a student walking around with me, and she was telling me a story about her grandmother, her maternal grandmother and I had explicitly taught maternal as part of my vocab lessons, which was great because she just naturally worked it into conversation so I could see her actually applying what I'm teaching. So that was really good. It makes it all worth it. Definitely.

Dale Atkinson – 0:13:28 to 0:13:41

So Georgina. Here we are. We're at a category two school with a really kind of diverse and interesting group of kids. Can you talk a little bit about the struggles that the students were having before you implemented the explicit teaching of reading?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:13:42 to 0:15:20

Certainly. Like I said, our data was really bad, and I guess we are a very data driven system. So for us as a school, we were putting in lots of effort and it wasn't actually going anywhere. So we really had to question What is it that we're doing? And is it having an impact? And that's really where the sprinting comes from because it's about teachers looking at one very small aspect of their practice and then trialling that for five weeks and then, if it doesn't work, getting rid of it and actually then replacing it with something that does. So for our children who don't have resources at home. They haven't got lots of rich language experiences. They're not being exposed to classic literature and good text materials. Despite the fact we were doing that old immersion concept wasn't working so as Stasha said what we needed to do was actually be more explicit. So the explicit teaching, I guess, was the fundamental aspect of what we changed and what we did differently. I also talked to my staff a lot about the fact that for children, a learning journey in a school should be like a trip around Australia, not a trip around the world, because there should be commonalities. There should be a common currency. There should be a common language. There should be sets of the culture should have things in it that are the same wherever you go, so that every year you're not spending the first term getting to know how this teacher does stuff. So I think for us, that's really been the next part of this is now we've got a consistency. Everyone speaks the same language. Teachers are doing the same activities. The sprinting brings year level groups together, and two and three classes are actually practicing the same technique with their children to see if it’s effective.

So for struggling readers, um, that whole notion now of being accessing the resources they need. So we got rid of all of the P M benchmark books, and we now use the decodable readers. So until a child can read, they don't see any other text other than decodable. And that's made a really, really big impact.

Dale Atkinson – 0:15:39 to 0:15:49

What's the, you correctly identified that we’re a very data driven system. What's been the overall shift in those numbers that you've seen since adopting the technique?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:15:49 to 0:16:34

So we've seen improvement across the board, particularly by year three level alongside of all of this, we've also implemented a synthetic phonics program, which is called Red Write Inc. They have a program called Fresh Start, which which we've used as an intervention with our older children, because until children have the letter sound connection, until they have really clear phonological awareness phonemic awareness, until they understand all that, no matter what level they're working at, that was very I guess, that was an aha moment for many of our upper primary teachers. We can keep pushing away at what we've done. But if children have missed those basics, it doesn't matter how hard we push, it's not going to change anything. So that's I guess that's really been one of the biggest direction changes for us as a school

Monique Miller – 0:16:34 to 0:16:42

start of what benefits have you seen for students into using the simple view of reading? And have these had impacts on student outcomes?

Stasha Andrews – 0:16:42 to 0:18:15

Yes, definitely had positive impacts on the ship and incomes. I think the improvement has been as a result of our understanding of how this learning takes place to the science of reading and how to actually address the breakdown. Before I started learning about the simple view of reading, I didn't know much about it. I couldn't address or identify the breakdown, but now I can identify the breakdown. I can figure out the problem. I can figure out what needs to happen next for that child, and I feel that all of us teachers have been on that journey, and we now can identify the breakdown, and now we can give them that tailored program. And so now the kids are actually getting what it is they need rather than some other program that's not really serving the purpose, and I think as well in my class I had groups of students who they could accurately decode what it was they were reading. But they weren't actually understanding the words they were reading. There was there was no meaning there. But then, on the opposite side of the spectrum, I had other kids who were focusing so much on the word recognition side of things that they just cognitively just didn't have the capacity to take in the meaning. And so we've implemented the explicit teaching of reading. We've upskilled ourselves with simple view of reading. We implemented the program that Georgina mentioned earlier for the older students, and so it's worked. They've got the alphabetic code now. I had one student who worked his way through the program. He now has his alphabetic code. He's reading with more fluency. He can decode unknown words, and with that, he's actually more confident now. And he's more engaged in reading. Before, it was like a chore for him and now he’s like ‘Miss Miss Miss, when’s novel study?’

So I've seen an overall confidence changed demeanor.

Dale Atkinson – 0:18:20 to 0:18:29

Have you noticed if that’s had a positive impact on that student’s overall experience at school? Does the confidence kind of expand out into other areas?

Stasha Andrews – 0:18:29 to 0:19:19

Yes, it has. Um, it's definitely helped him being more confident with his writing as well, because he's able to read all of the background knowledge, and his fluency has improved as well with it. I'm just so proud of this child. Sorry. So he's because he can decode the unknown words, his fluency has improved. So when we are doing tasks, he's actually understanding the knowledge and information that he needs in order to write about the topic. So there's more confident with his vocal choices going into his writing. His writing is improving, so it's just it's just been a bit of a flow on effect for him, and it's not that he's forcing himself to participate. He's actually genuinely wanting to engage now, and he's actually excited about reading or his writing. So it's just been an overall kind of positive.

Dale Atkinson – 0:19:19 to 0:19:23

Sounds like the most incredible thing is that something you recognize in your own teaching experience?

Monique Miller – 0:19:23 to 0:19:58

Absolutely. It warms my heart. It really does just hearing other teachers as well, being outside of the classroom and getting to meet you and hear yourself talk about it. I can relate to it so much as well and really understanding what part of reading that they're missing, um, to have good reading comprehension. Is it the decoding? Is it the language comprehension and being able to realise that and fix it really changes, make some outcomes. Georgina. What impact has the explicit teaching of reading had in your school?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:19:58 to 0:21:36

Well, I think first and foremost, it's had a big impact on teacher confidence. So it's not just about children. If teachers know and understand what it is, they have to teach, then they're going to be much better at doing that. So I think fundamentally, it's been about that. It's been about confidence. It's interesting. They've been teachers who've come and have been resistant along the way because as teachers, we get used to doing what works for us sometimes, and not necessarily what works for our children. Other teachers have said, ‘Oh, you know I did university, Why am I doing this again?’ And other teachers have said you've actually made me a better teacher. So that that's rewarding knowing that if you take, this was a risk, you know this wasn't something that just happened. We had to. We had to take a big risk. We we had to get people, teachers convinced that this is going to be better. And in the beginning they had to abandon a lot of things that they had been used to doing. And that takes a leap of faith. So I'm really grateful that I had such an amazing group of teachers who wanted to take that leap of faith with us. Um, and even those who were reluctant in the beginning, like I said, have come to it and realise that they are now more effective in their teaching because ultimately we want, we spend a lot of time and energy. A lot of thought goes into the work that we do. But if we're not having an impact, then why would we keep doing it? You know, that's a bit like banging your head against a brick wall. Um, so that's been a really big change. Like I said, the consistency there we now have the language that we all speak. The fact that the conversations in the staff room have changed, the conversations that I have with teachers are changing, and that's really important.

And then the flow on effect of when you see children for the Read Write Inc program, for example, we've just done a new round of testing because obviously we've got new children into our school for the start of the year. And children who come racing up and go I've moved from the pink group to the, you know, to see little ones really, really excited and know that they're progressing. You know, I think for many of our children they used to come to school and they didn't actually know whether they were making any difference for themselves. Um, so I think there's been just a very positive change to the culture of the school. Um and also that's had a, you know, an outgoing impact on the achievements and the results.

Monique Miller – 0:22:14 to 0:22:30

You’re so right, that consistency is key. And when you find something good, you really want it to run from reception, right through to year 7. Yes, Absolutely, So ladies, what advice would you give to a teacher or a school considering assessing and using the simple view of reading?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:22:31 to 0:23:15

Let's start from the whole school perspective. I think you need to take a risk. You need to say what we're doing isn't working. We need to do something different. And so, as the leader, you need to have that vision. Then, in my case, I've got an amazing team around me. Um, we chose because there was no real training and development we could access externally around this. We chose to do it ourselves. So we chose to upskill ourselves so that we could upskill teachers so that they could up skill children. So it has to be on all of those levels. Um, and basically, you need people who are willing to be learners who are willing to be vulnerable, who are willing to take on the challenge. Um, and willing to say, ‘you know what? This isn't working, so I'm going to try something different.’ That to me, I think is fundamental, Stasha?

Stasha Andrews – 0:23:15 to 0:23:34

I think from my perspective and maybe even the perspective of early careers teacher as well, I think one of my biggest things is make sure that you know and understand how our language works, have a good grasp of the of the language and also have a good grasp of how best the teacher, how students learn at best.

You know, we didn't learn a lot of this stuff at uni. Um, and so go out. Do your homework, do your research. And it's a journey. You're not gonna get it just like that. You've got to keep keep at it and keep learning. Um, you know, we've been on that journey now as a school for the last couple of years, and I think the science and the research is really clear on what we need to know and do to make a difference. It's just a matter of looking at the research. Look at evidence based practice and just give things a go. Just give it a go, trial it out and see how you go.

Monique Miller – 0:24:03 to 0:24:13

I love that. And finally, I have one last question which we're going to ask at the end of all our podcasts. What is one thing that you love about your school?

Georgina Grinsted – 0:24:13 to 0:24:39

Wow. Um, there are lots of things. I don't know that I can name it in one. But I do think going back to what I just said before, I do think it's about the commitment of my staff to make a difference for children, you know. As a category two school these children need all the help they can get. And everybody here I know comes to school every single day to do their very best for kids. And as a leader, I couldn't ask for better than that.

Stasha Andrews – 0:24:39 to 0:25:08

Look, I mean, I can't pick just one thing. I really, really love working here. I really love this school, and I love a lot about it. Um, but I think I would be I think I would agree with Georgina. I love how dedicated how committed we all our staff members. It's just even like Georgina said, the conversations in the staff room are changing. Everything we do is for the betterment of our kids, and that's probably one of my favourite things. Just how hard we're working to make sure that we have better outcomes for our students.

Dale Atkinson – 0:25:09 to 0:26:21

What I think walking in here this morning, like the enthusiasm and the energy kind of really just shows through it. I think it's just such an incredible place you've got here and the way the kids are kind of interacting. It's just such a positive vibe, and I think there's so many great things that are going on. So, um yeah, so thank you very much for your time and taking time out of the classroom. So I'd like to thank Georgina and Stasha for sharing their experience of teaching in South Australia and trying something new in the classroom. It's been fantastic hearing about how you both used and adopted the simple view of reading to improve outcomes for your students. Just a reminder to everyone that the simple view of reading is addressed in the advanced phonic screening check training session, which you can register for on plink. Thanks to everyone out there who is listening. We hope you've enjoyed today's podcast. Don't forget, you can subscribe to Teach on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcasts or head to our website education.sa.gov.au/teach. And we'd love to hear from you. If you have a question we could all learn from get in touch with us via Twitter or  Facebook or email us at Education.TeachPodcast@sa.gov.au.

Catch you next time on Teach.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today we are meeting with Sylvia Groves from Salisbury High School and Ruth Mussger from Murray Bridge High School. Every year we have what's known as Leaders Day. It's an opportunity for all the principals and preschool directors to come together in the morning. They hear from the minister and the chief executive and other senior people in the department about the department's strategic direction, some of the priorities for the year ahead. And then in the afternoon the really enriching part takes place, which is where the leaders come together and learn from one another. And Ruth and Sylvia were giving presentations at this year's Leaders Day, and they were speaking about their high schools, their improvement journeys in those high schools, and the outcomes that they've been able to achieve for their students.

So that's the reason why we're speaking with you today. So, Sylvia and Ruth thank you very much for joining us. So, Ruth, to you first, can you just give us a bit of context around your site? What's unique about Murray Bridge High School?

Ruth Mussger: Sure. Murray Bridge High School is a large rural school. I think one of the things that stands out for us is that we are the only feeder high school for our community. So we have lots of small primary schools that join together with us at high school. We are an entrepreneurial specialist school and a music focused school.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And you've got a fairly diverse student background as well don’t you.  The number of children from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island?

Ruth Mussger: Absolutely, yes.

Dale Atkinson: In addition to that, as a result of the industries that are up there, quite a number of children from international backgrounds as well.

Ruth Mussger: Less so while Thomas Foods, which is the major employer in the town, is rebuilding after the fire in 2018, which had a devastating impact on the community, and we saw a lot of our families having to leave to seek employment elsewhere. We're really looking forward to this year when Thomas Foods back online.

Dale Atkinson: And Sylvia, you're an hour and change away from Murray Bridge High School. But I think in terms of student population and parent background, we're talking about a sort of similar  sort of setting aren’t we?

Sylvia Groves: We're a Category two school and with a high degree of complexity, which I'm sure Murray Bridge is as well. Our numbers currently sit at just under 1100 and we have over 30 different cultures represented at our site, which adds richness that we love. 11% of our students are Aboriginal, which is high for a metropolitan school and which is also growing rapidly. We have 77 special needs students who also add a richness to our site. We have 234 students with an identified disability. We have 528 students identified in CCD, a third of our students that your students and that's growing 55% of our students are school card, which adds another layer of complexity and our families experience significant social disadvantage, which has been exacerbated by COVID, which continues to take a toll. Of our enrolling students in year seven, 37% were below and in year 8, 36 were.

Which one of our priorities is helping our kids to learn how to read. And in previous years that deficit was closer to 50%. So we've had to train our teachers how to teach reading and now moving into the numeracy space, we’re well supported by families who believe the school will make a difference to their children. And for some time we've had waiting lists to get into our school and we are a positive sitewith minimal staff movement and there is something about the school in the community that tethers staff to our school, which is great for stability.

Dale Atkinson: But one of the things that kind of jumps out as you talk is actually one of the things that also is very apparent in Ruth’s presentation to the Leaders  day, which is you both have a very clear focus on who are the kids that you're working with and you've got a really deep understanding of that. How do you go about gaining that deep understanding of your student cohort to help drive the improvement journey?

Ruth Mussger: For us, it's been a matter of going out to our feeder schools and really spending a lot of time working with the teachers and with families to really understand what students bring to the table so that we're starting from the point where they're accessing learning already rather than assuming they're an empty slate. That's been really important to us. We have similar statistics to Salisbury in the number of students below standard of educational achievement in literacy and numeracy. So the mantra of a year's growth in a year for us can't happen. It has to be more than that and significantly more than that if we're going to get our kids to catch up.

Dale Atkinson: Is that a similar experience to you Sylvia?

Sylvia Groves: Absolutely. And we've got significant programs in place to support that. In terms of students, we have to know our students and relationships are the critical thing at our site. So we have a care program where students from year 7 to 10 stay with the same care teacher, and then in 11 and 12 they will have a different care teacher.

I also take a care class, which helps me have a greater understanding of families and have that same connection with students. And our mantra is no surprises. So we need to know all the time where our students are at and we expect that of our teachers as well. So we have a five weekly reporting system. That's what our clients want and while that is onerous for our staff, it does make a big difference.

Dale Atkinson: So those things don't happen by accident. They build over time and done in a very deliberate way. How   have you gone about that in terms of approaching that with your teams, with you, with your teachers, and approaching that with your parent community?

Ruth Mussger: The focus has been on, yes, we're a complex site and yes, we have our challenges, but let's focus on the over 95% of students who are there and just want to get on with learning. Let's work out what the systems are, the processes are that enable them to do what they need to do best and then add support layers for those who need additional help.

Sylvia Groves: I think too developing a culture of high expectations was really critical to our site because many years ago, and I've been lucky enough to be there for a long time, getting over the line was the main thing. Very few kids went to university and even the attitude of staff to students wasn't high. So developing that strong culture of high expectations for both staff and students was really important at out site.

And the mantra with no surprises so that we know what's going on at all times. So we worked really hard on getting helping the kids to believe that they can achieve and achieve well and they can compete. They're not defined by their postcode. But we also had to develop strategies to support our staff, to build the belief for them and have the courage to give our kids 20s, to know what 20 looks like, and to put structures in place so that the staff feel supported because initially they felt like we were overreporting and we do overreport. But that's what we need to do because we need to know. So we listen to what our staff are saying. We put strategies in place to support them, whether it's no meetings during snapshot time. And when we get our results, we look at what sort of support do staff need, what strategies can we put in place so that they feel the process is also about them as well.

Dale Atkinson: And Ruth  in your presentation, you I think, there were a couple of very individual personalised stories from some of those students about some of the work that had gone on in terms of building their ambition and lifting their sights in terms of where they wanted to be.

Ruth Mussger: And I think that teaching fraternity are absolutely critical in having those conversations. Kids have got to trust first, and I think that we're exactly the same. And once you build that level of trust, then you can have the hard conversations around, what are you doing with the rest of your life? Let's work out where you want to go, what direction you want to take, and how we can support you to get there. So the individualized pathway planning is a very strong feature of our senior school.

Dale Atkinson: Is that something you focus on as well?

Sylvia Groves: So we've used a multi-pronged approach. So we have the positive behaviour for learning, we have positive education and career development and those things sort of steer the ship and we're constantly working on that. So we're always hunting for the good. We're looking at ways that we can move forward, not just for our students, but for our community as well. There's a lot of training and investment in those.

Dale Atkinson: What sort of focus have you put on in terms of creating those teaching teams and those communities of learning among your staff?

Ruth Mussger: One of the critical things is that we had to create time to allow good things to happen and schools are busy places. You can't expect that teachers will develop incredible lesson plans and do all the work that they need to happen during the day and also come up with great new ideas. So creating think tanks and opportunities for people to be involved in those has been really important for us.

Quarantining time for teachers to work together. It means getting rid of the extra, we always saw that the one hour staff meeting was an essential element of our week and we discovered that, you know what, a half hour or 20 minute online briefing every week is enough, which frees up 40 minutes for other things to happen.

Sylvia Groves: We’re similar. Every Wednesday we finish the school day at 2.15 and that time then is quarantined for professional learning teams and very much  the same, intentional lesson planning using data to make sure that we're getting the planning right for our students. The English teachers who are doing the literacy blocks in year seven and eight, they get half a day a term to support them in their planning for that.

So it is very much valuing what the teachers are doing, but also creating that space because if you don't create that space, it's not going to happen. There's too many competing demands. So that's been really critical for us, is having that time and listening to what staff need and professional development has to be highly valued and teachers have to think that they have access to it, which they do with a large part of our budget goes towards professional development.

Ruth Mussger: In our situation. It's not just about teachers coming together in learning areas, but it's also around teachers who all teach common students together and finding out what it is about that student. Why are you getting success here where I'm not? What's happening in your class? It's different in mine and I think that's been pivotal.

Sylvia Groves: We've also created an innovative pedagogies team of people who could put up their hand and say, I want to be part of that, who are leading forward more innovation that they can share with other staff who have less time. And that team is now looking at powerful learners and trying to build agency for our students because our students like things to be done to them. They don't actually want to have to think as much. So our drive now is to move from the teaching of embracing and getting the students to take more ownership of their own learning.

Dale Atkinson: As you describe that, it strikes me that these things build a momentum of their own, but I'm assuming that it takes a little bit of a push to start that ball rolling. Is that fair to say?

Sylvia Groves: Well, definitely with the PBL. So we've been a positive behaviour learning school for a number of years, but we sort of do it on our own and it's just come at this opportunity where the department have realised that this is a really good practice and they've invited us, which to our surprise, because we're already doing it. And we went back to our staff to ask them if they thought it would be good for our school to do. And everyone about one said they wanted to do it. Getting the buy in from staff is really important. So as a leader it's really important that I give them all the information on why we should do it, so that they also have ownership, and that's been a really big part of anything we do. And keeping the focus narrow so staff remind me don't deviate too much, don't make us do other things. When we’re on the literacy path which we've now broadened. But initially they would say to me, But you said we weren't going to do anything else. So I have to listen to the staff a lot because that is that professional trust. But I also have to let them take risks and they do and they don't always work out, but they feel confident that they can put up their hand and say, Can I try this? And we will finance it and give them the courage to do it. And nine times out of ten it will benefit our students.

Ruth Mussger: Getting permission has become so important in our lives, hasn't it?

Sylvia Groves: And releasing for us too.

Dale Atkinson: You touched a bit earlier, actually, before we came on air a conversation about stability within the workforce being really important, how are you able to kind of maintain that? I think Ruth you said that in your presentation as well, that you've been able to keep a core team together.

Ruth Mussger: Yes. And I think for the first time in a long time, also having teachers from outside of our area reaching out and saying, gee, I'd like to come and work at your school, which is an absolute breath of fresh air. It is around building that reputation for teachers to be able to get on with what they love doing best and that's teaching and learning. Removing barriers that teachers often see are the stumbling blocks for what wears them down and makes life too hard. So having processes and procedures in place, supporting everyone to work together has changed the culture.

Sylvia Groves: Culture is very big at our site and we have a lot of young staff, but we do have older staff as well and we value all different levels of experience. We try and also make it a social aspect. So at the moment following COVID, we have a themed happy hour. The tech studies did The Block  and things like that. We're constantly trying to bring our staff together and value them and meet their needs. Whether it's not to be isolated cause COVID did isolate us for quite a while. But Salisbury there's something that gets in that staff's blood. They want to stay there. We have many people who are there long term. And probably our biggest issue now is that we have a lot of emerging leaders who want leadership at Salisbury, but they don't want to leave and I can’t provide enough leadership jobs. And I see schools around me who don't have that stability. That's one of the major reasons they struggle because they're constantly training and getting people up to speed and it takes time.

Ruth Mussger: And going back over old ground when there's a new influx of people.

Dale Atkinson: As we're talking, we are a couple of weeks out from year 12 exams. We are by the time this goes to air probably will have been sat. Can you talk to us a little bit about your ambitions for this year? What are your expectations?

Ruth Mussger:  I  have huge expectations for seeing some of the processes and initiatives that we've put into place actually play out in a real sense. Our focus has for the last two years been on Aboriginal learners and their achievement and success and SACE completion and lots of work there in building capacity of staff and students. One of the areas that we've identified is that our students generally in an exam situation would be a grade lower than what their other grades are showing.

The temptation for a lot of us to say, well, they just need more exam practice is something that I've had to really fight, because what we know is that it's the language that our students don't have, the sophistication of that language. The tier two and three words that help them tell what they know is what's lacking. And that's a longer-term process. And that's starting as we do in year eight and seven in building that capacity and then seeing that change happen.

Dale Atkinson: That shift between not just understanding the concepts but being able to describe the sophisticated term.

Sylvia Groves: And right now we're working with every single year 12 student to maximise their opportunity because we have been hit by COVID. And these students for three years it’s embedded. And as I was speaking to before, attendance has been an issue for us. The competing demands of an opportunity for our students to get part time work and extensive part time work has impacted on their studies. So while we are expecting some really good results and one of our Aboriginal students is going to have exceptional results, which we're super excited about, we know that our results are not going to come on the trajectory we've had for the last number of years, which is a little bit disappointing for us because hard work is still there and students have also been less resilient and that will be a challenge for us in the future. When in doubt, they've opted out and no matter how much we've wanted them to remain in their schooling, that's been a challenge as well but we don't give up and we will to the to the deaf knell will br working with every student to make sure that they can maximise their opportunities.

Ruth Mussger: And I think we're in exactly the same boat. The other area that we have developed is our independent learning centre, which currently has around 120 students from ages 16 to 21. So that the opportunities to reconnect with learning and to make that final step to complete SACE is still there for those kids who take that easier route when when the going gets tough and we've had some above average state improvement in SACE completion through our ILC.

Dale Atkinson: It strikes me as speaking to both of you that there's a sort of an underlying philosophy of being really strict on the things that you're going after, but with the flexibility about how you approach those things. The need to be adaptive to contexts and shift your thinking when the circumstances in front of you change. What are your priorities given COVID and some other things that have gone on in the last 18 months, what do you priorities moving forward within the structures that you've already set up?

Ruth Mussger: The key thing is nothing new unless you take something away has been our mantra. Where does what we're initiating fit into our improvement agenda? And if it doesn't, then it doesn't happen. We had to remove a lot of barriers to learning, in particular the digital solution. It didn't matter how many different leasing and you know, those kinds of arrangements we had in place, we never got more than 50% buy in from our families and in the end we made the decision it is a crucial element and luckily we did. It was just before COVID to say we're just going to buy a device for every student. Everyone then has a level playing field. That changed a lot of what we were able to do in those early years in really maximising online learning opportunities, which for a lot of our kids when they were away and this year it was the teacher was away one week and then the student was away next week and then another group away the week after. There was no continuity and it wasn't smooth, but we were able to set up systems where there wasn't that lack of availability of resources for kids. The backwards mapping of skills and literacy demands has been our biggest buy-in for staff. They can see that if kids need these skills in year 12, they don't need magicy arrive in year 12 with them. They have to be developed and nurtured. So how do we design learning that enables that to happen? And once again, having the pockets of brilliance within our staff that take an idea and run with that Murray Bridge writing guide is an example of that. We know that our site improvement plan focused on literacy and numeracy, but in our complex sites there is more that goes on than that. And so developing a strategic plan around all of those elements and how they all fit together was really beneficial.

Dale Atkinson: So how do you as leaders create time in your day to day for the instructional leadership piece in the face of you know, those operational reactive demands, how do you keep a real focus on student outcomes?

Sylvia Groves: That is always a challenge and you can only have so many hours in the day. I'm very fortunate that I have an exceptional leadership team, so that allows me freedom and also because I have a lot of trust in them to do that role. We also have strong levels of communication structures, so that allows staff to reach to me and to other leadership and to support the voice across the site, which is really important. I make time for key meetings, but also fine tune the meeting so if it's not necessary, it's not going to happen and really value what's going on in those meetings and make sure I'm visible as much as possible so that I'm in tune with what's going on at the site. Observations has become a big part of what we do. Make sure that I'm in classrooms and the best part of that is it affirms what's going on in the school. And I get a lot of joy out of seeing what's going on and listening to the kids love it as well. When you come in, you know, they like when you sit next to them and they hear and see what you're doing, give feedback to staff, which, you know, they don't work in silos. They're part of a bigger system. That's been something we're really working on as part of our school processes and is embraced by the staff as well. I constantly try and listen to staff and find ways that we work smarter, not harder. What are the important things? So for us it's positive. behaviour for learning will be a big thrust to school and the giving the student agency.

But we can't let go of the work we're doing in numeracy and literacy and we also have to look at what are the good things we've got, what do we keep? Let's not keep changing for the sake of change as well. Having a clear class, being on the front line in terms of parent interviews, year 12 kids getting them in, all those sorts of things. That's what staff see as well. So it's really important. I'm not just in my office, I'm not just doing emails which you could do all day, but honestly, if you could. But that that's I need to be really visible and whether that at happy hour, in the classrooms, walking off and I'll be at the front gate in the mornings. The first lesson I often walk around to make sure kids are getting into class, it’s that visibility that's really important.

Ruth Mussger: And I'd go one step further also and say that good leadership teams don't happen by accident and it is leading from the front foot. We've found that like you we have so many staff who have spent their time want to head into leadership, don't necessarily have a leadership experience. So providing the opportunities for that training and as a whole leadership group, 24 of us all spent the whole of last year on leadership training and then carrying on this year into the Orbis instructional leadership.

The mantra is that we are all instructional leaders and it's not just about me getting into a classroom, it's about every single leader being in classroom and being visible around the school. And I think that the key thing for me, if it's not in my diary, it doesn't happen. So I do have to schedule get out of the office. That would be my key message to anyone.

Dale Atkinson: Well this is a conversation that I think could probably go on for another couple of hours, to be perfectly honest, if you didn't have to get out of the office and back out to running schools. Thank you very much for your time. This has been really great, so we thank you very much for your time.

Ruth and Sylvia: You're welcome.

Intro

Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders, past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today something a little bit different, we're joined by the big boss, Professor Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of the Department. Professor Westwell, welcome.

Professor Martin Westwell: Oh, good on you, Dale. Looking forward to it.

Dale Atkinson: So, nine months into the job now, it's a reasonably solid gestation period. What would you say you've learned so far?

Professor Martin Westwell: Look, how long have you got? It's a steep learning curve when you go into a new job. And no different with this job. When you think about our system, lots of people complain about the bureaucracy, and so they should. That's what we do. But, you know, coming into department, one of the things that I have learned is just how impressive the work that we do, the people that we've got in the department, really are having a kind of central corporate function, all the things that go on here.

Professor Martin Westwell: Learnt so much about that and the support for schools. And just the way that people think about the support that they're providing for schools. I think especially during things like, you know, COVID and now the floods in the Riverland, how we're able to bring resources to support schools. It's just amazing. And also I think I try to get out and go to sites, preschools, primary schools, high schools to see the work, see the system from their point of view because you can't see the system from this office in Flinders Street.

Professor Martin Westwell: You've got to get out there and see that in all the different contexts that we're doing work. I kind of knew it in my head, but just seeing the breadth that we've got, you know, we've got some amazing educators supporting kids in amazing ways and a knew it, but just never seen the breadth of it. And that's been something that I've learned.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it? And I know you've made a deliberate and conscious effort to go out to sites a lot this year. Are there any specific kind of things that stick with you from your experience over the last nine months?

Professor Martin Westwell: So, so many examples and it's hard to pick. I think one of the things is kind of got trapped in this thing where we talk about good schools being schools that get, you know, the highest grades. And what I've seen a good schools, great sites, amazing kindies, you know, just sitting down with the kids. There was one down in the South East, and I sat down and sat with a group of kids in the kindy, and they were playing hairdressers. And so, they had the brushes out and the hairdryer and they said, ‘Can we do your hair?’ And they thought that was hilarious because anybody who knows me, knows I've got no hair at all. So that was hilarious. And then they decided that was a bit boring because there was no hair. So, they started doing my makeup. So, but actually what I saw in that was the results of the efforts that the people on site put in to develop the kids and the kid’s interaction. And one kid kind of tried to get another kid to do something and that child wasn't having it and just gently said, ‘No, I don't want to do that.’ And the other child backed off. It's those moments that you really get to see. You know, you can see the impact that we're having on young people.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that's interesting you say that. I was out at a meeting with a principal and the Governing Council chair, and the principal was talking about implementing project-based learning as a way of preparing young people with a breadth of skills academic, social, interactive that would really help those kids to thrive and prosper in, you know, the modern workplace, the modern world.

And the Governing Council chair brought it back and he said, ‘Look, that sounds fantastic, but what does that mean for teaching pure academic stuff to my kids?’ He says, ‘Everything we see kind of indicates, you know, NAPLAN scores, PISA scores. That's what we're looking at when we're looking at the quality of education’. We've done an amazing job, I think, conditioning parents to look to those things as an indicator of educational quality.

What does that tell us, that interaction, about how we should be talking to parents about the broader purpose of education and the role of schools?

Professor Martin Westwell: Yeah, our structures kind of corral parents into this way of thinking. And one of the ways in which has been expressed is this idea about, you know, parents asking the question, how well is my child doing? As if there is kind of one line. And what we want to know is how far are my kids along that line, how far are my kids along that line in comparison to other kids?

We want to know where our kids are developmentally. You know, even when your child's born, you know, you might follow the weight in the growth compared to the averages. But if you're not average, that's fine as well, because you're not supposed to be average. Yet, somehow in education, we've got to narrow this thing down to the average or some comparison on one single measure.

So, this question, ‘how well is my child doing?’ is almost the wrong question. The question really should be, ‘how is my child doing well?’. Trying to capture that kind of diversity of what so many ways of doing well and being ready for the world. More and more we see employers saying not interested in university, not interested in how much you know, I can help you to develop that knowing, What I'm really looking for.

Doesn’t matter which industry students or young people are working in, what I’m really looking for is resilience. What I'm really looking for is that ability to learn. What we're really looking for is that good communication and ability to work with others, you know, whatever those things might be. And yet we leave those to emerge from education. Parents go, ‘Well, that's all okay, just as you said, that's all okay, but come on, the main game games over here, isn’t it?’

Well, no, it's not anymore. It hasn't been for a long time, but what we really see now is the world really demanding that shift. I was talking to the Industry Skills Council, so people from industries all across South Australia and I talked about this and the shift. I think that we do need to make to get that balance right.

A bloke came up to me afterwards and said he was a potato grower down in the South East, and I thought, oh, what's he going to say? He's going to say ‘oh, I just want skills.’ And he didn't. He said, ‘that’s the best thing I've heard, that's exactly what we need for young people.’ Now, of course, getting a job isn't just the only purpose of education, but what we are seeing is the world asking us to think differently about education.

And I think that will come through with that conversation with parents as well. The question being, ‘How are you, the Education Department, best preparing my child to get into the world and be brilliant? Come on. How are you doing that?’ That's what I want parents to ask, not ‘how well is my child doing?’

Dale Atkinson: So, what does that mean for an educator in terms of how they know whether they're doing a great job? What are the indicators we're looking for from educators in that sort of space?

Professor Martin Westwell: That's really why we've started off this conversation about the purpose of public education in South Australia because we have to really have a settlement on what we agree that we're going to jointly be responsible for. And then things like the Australian Curriculum that I think are full of lots of knowledge, which is great, students need knowledge, subject specific skills, but perhaps not some of these other the things that we know are so important.

So, if you just think about something like self-regulation skills, some research just came out that you can teach self-regulation skills. And if you do, what happens is it has a big impact on students’ academic achievement. But what it also does is it has a big impact on students’ ability to control some behaviours, ability to stop and think and make better decisions.

That's making students brilliant, not just in academics, but also in other aspects of life and in the way that they interact with other people, the way that they make decisions, the way that they participate in a democracy. Not all the information, all the misinformation that's thrown at them to be able to just stop and think and say, well, actually my emotional response to that is this.

But my second thinking is actually, well, hang on a minute and do that thinking. That's what makes a brilliant mathematician, or contributes to making a brilliant mathematician, a fantastic historian. And it also helps to find your way in the world.

Dale Atkinson: Gives you that space. The clarity of thought, I guess, is where you need to be. You've spoken before about South Australia being historically a leader in public education, stretching back to the 1800s. It's probably not the public perception now, albeit we know that there's plenty of innovative practice in that field. What can we do collectively to reclaim that position as innovators and leaders in public education?

Professor Martin Westwell: Got to be able to tell a good story, right? I think going back to this kind of purpose, you know, what are we here for and tell that story. You know, there's a famous story that's probably not true of JFK going to NASA in the sixties and meeting a janitor and going over and saying, well, what do you do?

He said, ‘Well, Mr. President, I'm helping to send a man to the moon.’ And I love that, even though it's probably not true, I love it because what it is, you know, we've got this thing that we're going for and everybody knows what it is, and we can be really clear about what it is that we're going for.

And of course, it’s not enough just to start the story, kind of do the thing as well. Right. They actually did put a man on the moon. So, you have got to be brilliant. But if you look back at the story, South Australia, you know, some of those amazing people like the likes of people like Alby Jones, Garth Boomer, South Australia was known for meeting the needs of students.

Having a system that really focused on students, on students being effective learners compared to know us. To be an effective learner, you’ve got to know stuff, you can’t be knowledge free. You got to know stuff, you got to have skills in the subjects in the areas in which you're doing learning. But I think South Australia was known for being effective learners.

So you go to a janitor, in a school in South Australia and say, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I'm helping to develop effective learners.’ That would be pretty amazing if we had that story. We had the evidence to back it up and say, this is what we're doing, this is how we're changing the world, this is how we're changing South Australia.

So, I think that both, we can do that, and I think we can tell a better story about how we're doing that.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, a group of 30,000 people all targeting one direction. You've identified student agency as a key factor in gaining traction in learning. So, my dad would say ‘why would you ask a six-year-old what they want to learn?’ What does it mean? Student agency, in terms of curriculum, design and pedagogy?

Professor Martin Westwell: Two things, just first of all, one of them is the student agency in learning. That's a kind of means to an end. So, what we want to do this learning, you want to get this achievement, you want to do brilliantly in NAPLAN and SACE and other assessments. And so, there's a question about how the student agency support that.

And you can think about student agency as an end in itself. We want young people who have got agency, can take agency, can use their agency in their lives. We want young women, young men who can use the agency. We also want young people, gender diverse people say, this is who I am, and I am taking agency my life to achieve my goals in my life, to support other people, to help other people to change South Australia.

And the opposite, of course, of agency is just that passivity of sitting back and letting the world do what the world wants to do to you. And so now we think about student agency, the development of agency as an end as well as a means and something that's going to be important in the world. Back to kind of what it means for us in terms of our system.

It's not about saying, you know, you choose, we'll stand back and cheer from the sidelines. You know, it's not that, if we're purposely going to be developing a student agency and it's an intentional outcome and we're going to get in there and support students to do that. And it might be some choice about what they're learning.

It might be some choice about how they're learning, it might be some choice about how they're going to show us the evidence of their learning, through our assessments and other things. And it might be some big things. So, imagine if we had student voice in some of the policy decisions we're making about curriculum, about the way that we run our schools, the way that we run our system.

Because then if they've got that voice, they've got some of the ownership, the part of the story. And so now they become active partners in that work rather than again sitting back and letting it be done to them. I also think that the student agency we can see has a big impact on student’s self-concept in their learning, on the sense of belonging, the idea that, you know, yeah, this is something I'm taking this personally, this is something I can do, I can be part of.

So, I see it as being crucially important in moving forward in education, no matter where we are in the world. And I do think we have to think about how we incorporate it into our practice and how do we support our educators to incorporate it into their practice.

Dale Atkinson: And that's a process that's already started. Last year we held a number of student forums across the state. Can you tell us a bit about that project and why that was so important?

Professor Martin Westwell: This is starting with students, purposefully, asking our students about their aspirations for the future, trying to reveal the thinking underneath that. Also thinking about how are they partners in this process. So, this idea about getting to our purpose, you know, the example that's often given around the world is Kodak. Kodak thought that they were in the business of film and chemicals, and they sold more film and chemicals. And even in their own labs, then they invented digital photography and they put it to one side. Why? Because they were in the film and chemical business, and it decimated the company. It made them irrelevant because the main game moved and went to digital photography. Now, if they thought they were in the business of photography, the business might have moved and changed and maintained its relevance.

So, the reason why I give that example is, when we talk about our purpose, we have got to make sure that we remain relevant. And who do we have to remain relevant to? Clearly, our students. So, what does relevance to our students mean? So, talking with our students is important to do that work and to make sure that our students feel like they're part of the story, that they're activated in that work.

But what we're also seeing there is students telling us, you know, they don't use this language, but telling us something about equity, telling us something about wanting to be challenged more. You know, we put some of the data in front of them about things like their cognitive engagement, talked about what cognitive engagement was. Then showed them their own data from the Wellbeing and Engagement survey and said, what do you notice about this data, first of all?

Then we asked them, why do you think things are like this? And then ask them, how might we improve if we do it differently? What could we start with? What should we stop doing? Amazing insights from our young people to help us move the system forward.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's incredibly powerful, isn't it, to talk to those kids. So, this is the opening salvo in that discussion around the purpose of public education. What are the next steps in that process?

Professor Martin Westwell: We've got all this input now from our students and just working through that feedback now and getting that together. And then for us to be able to share that with leaders, educators across the system, to help that to inform some of our thinking, of course, using some of the best research from around the world to inform our thinking as well, but also, of course, the expertise and experience that we have in our system.

So, engaging with our educators and with our leaders again to think about what is it that we're going to have the shared responsibility for. From that, when we think about that purpose and those components of what we're taking responsibility for, what we want our system to look like, we've had a lot of focus on excellence, quite rightly over the last few years.

But I think we need to think more about equity in our system. What do we mean by that and how do we get an equitable system? Because we know that if you drive a more equitable system, you get more excellence from it. Those two things work together really well. And thinking about, you know, the wellbeing of our students, developing that, developing some of these capabilities of students that are going to make them brilliant in the world and brilliant learners.

And of course, again, to improve that achievement. So, we want to kind of bring those principles together and then say, okay, so if this is what we do, we want to be responsible for how do we know if we're going to be successful? So, what are some of those measures? And we're going to need to put in place across the system to understand that we are being successful in those things?

Clearly, from a school's point of view, if there's a dozen different measures of ways of being successful, you're not going to do all 12 or however many there are. That's too much. But schools will know where they can really focus to get the biggest impact they can for their students and perhaps focusing on two or three of those measures going for those things to make the biggest difference outcomes for our students.

Dale Atkinson: It's interesting you say that schools will know. Speaking to a teaching colleague, they were saying that generally in their opinion, a 2 to 5 year lag between a change in systemic strategic direction and that adjustment gaining traction in the classroom. How do we address that? What do we do to meet that kind of need and make sure that the educators themselves aren't suffering from initiative fatigue or feel like they have too many competing priorities?

Professor Martin Westwell: Yeah, so look, I agree with that. I mean, it's really clear that even with an intensive focus on one particular thing, sustained change happens over at least an 18-month period to get sustainable change. You could focus on that for at least an 18-month period. And I think your point about initiative fatigue is a really good one.

If we're doing lots of bits and pieces, there's no clear understanding of, you know, why we're doing this. We don't have our man on the moon discourse. It feels like you've just been asked to do a lot of stuff, you know, it's unconnected stuff. We've got this thing or initiative going on over here and that initiative going on over there.

It’s all piling in on schools. So, I think there's a couple of things. One is we're actively thinking about now is how to relieve some of that pressure on schools. What are we currently asking teachers to do and principals to do, leaders of preschool sites as well? What are we asking them to do that really, we shouldn't be asking them to do?

So, what can we take off whilst making sure that you've got student agency, but we'll want to make sure there's enough room for teacher agency as well, and for principal, site director agency in the system too. That's a balance to get right. Sometimes you can think that you're taking a load off teachers, but what you end up doing is taking choice off them as well.

So, we've got to get that balance right. So, if you have lots of different initiatives that don't seem to be connected and don't resonate with educators in terms of how is this making a difference for kids, how is this helping me to express my professional identity as an educator? Because this is what we're here for. I’m here to make a difference for the kids.

If you don't feel like it's all connected, then you’re just doing stuff for the sake of it. That's draining. But I think that with our purpose statement, with this shift of balance from just excellence to excellence and equity, we're thinking about what are the components of wellbeing that support our students to be successful in the world as well as in their learning, and perhaps some broadening to think about how are we developing some of these capabilities for our students.

I think when we've got that story settled in South Australia, anything that we do will then be guided by that. So, everyone should be able to see that this initiative, this piece of work, this offering, this opportunity is connected to putting a man on the moon. Our version of that. I think things will make much more sense and educators will see the connection to their professional identity and to their professional purpose in making the biggest difference to kids.

I think that will help, as well as the streamlining that's necessary along the way.

Dale Atkinson: We're speaking with Professor Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of South Australia's Department for Education. Now you're new to the role, ish, do we still claim newish? Nine months? How do we go?

Professor Martin Westwell: Still lots to learn, I reckon.

Dale Atkinson: Still lots to learn, and still lots for people to know about you, I think too. So, we've established a little fast round here of questions for you so you so people can get to know you a little bit better. Are you ready?

Professor Martin Westwell: I’m not sure, but let’s do it.

Dale Atkinson: All right. So first off, I know you're from the north of England originally. So, this first question, it's very important. AFL or Premier League?

Professor Martin Westwell: I'm going to say neither, Rugby League.

Dale Atkinson: Rugby league.

Professor Martin Westwell: So born in Wigan in Lancashire, which is just, Rugby League country.

Dale Atkinson: So, do you still follow the rugby league?

Professor Martin Westwell: Yeah. So, we adopted our Australian team when we first got here. The kids were five and nine and there were a few Poms playing for the Rabbitohs. So, we follow the Rabbitohs and get to see some games and of course the State of Origin gets played in Adelaide from time to time. So that's always a good day out.

Dale Atkinson: So corporate office or classroom and I'll be shocked if you answered corporate office.

Professor Martin Westwell: There's some things you can do from a corporate office, right? So, there's levers. You know, you get to influence the system, but you know, it's the reason for being is the classroom and what goes on in the classroom to make that difference to kids.

Dale Atkinson: Favourite band?

Professor Martin Westwell: Tricky one. I reckon, anything Northern Soul. Wigan was the centre of the Northern Soul area in the UK. I grew up in the late eighties, early nineties, probably Stone Roses. And you know and you go to WOMAD and see some of those bands that you're never going to see again. And so, some got into things like there's a band called Elephant Sessions, but really love and would never have, you know, really obscure.But that's the great thing about going to WOMAD.

Dale Atkinson: So Northern Soul, does that mean you've got a pair of bowling shoes at home, and you can do the, the kind of shuffle dance?

Professor Martin Westwell: Yeah, that’s right. Years and years ago, you know, people used to come out with talcum powder at the trouser legs and sprinkle it on the floor, just to get the moves going.

Dale Atkinson: And I would encourage anyone who is not aware of Northern Soul, to just type that into YouTube and have a look at kids going crazy.

One book every educator should read?

Professor Martin Westwell: If I had to pick one, it would be Ken and Kate Robinson's ‘Imagine If’ that came out recently. I think that's a really great short read. Captures Ken Robinson's philosophy. But things like even G.H. Hardy’s ‘Mathematician's Apology’. I think anybody who works in science, maths, physical sciences, that's an incredible read and I don't think I can go past Garth Boomer’s ‘Negotiating the Curriculum’ either, and the contribution from South Australian educators to that volume.

Dale Atkinson: We'll look to see a little bump on the Amazon list there.

If you could achieve one thing in 2023, it would be?

Professor Martin Westwell: Look, there's so many things, lots of medium sized things and big things, you know. So, landing this purpose conversation, obviously that's something I'm really focused on. Some of the national stuff. Minister working hard to improve school funding and the way that school funding occurs for public schools in South Australia. So, negotiations with the Commonwealth Government. But 2023 has to be a year of hope.

It's raising the levels of hope in the profession. It's been such a tough couple of years. Things have been really difficult, but now I think we're coming out of it and so just thinking about what we want to achieve as professionals can flourish, can grow in 2023 in a way that's just not been able to over the last couple of years.

Dale Atkinson: So, in that light, if you could say one thing to South Australia's educators and support staff in week zero, what would it be?

Professor Martin Westwell: I’m not sure this can be one thing. So do you think, you know, think about the possibilities that we've got in front of us, be part of the purpose and feed into that process. Look after yourself. But also, you've got to look after yourself, you've got to feed your soul in this work. And Ken Robinson, going back to Ken, said, ‘What you do for yourself dies with you when you leave this world.

What you do for others lives forever.’ I think that teachers, more than most, are able to change the lives of others children, young people to change the life of South Australia. So, what I'd really say is go on, live forever.

Dale Atkinson: I think it's a lovely way to wrap it up. Professor Martin Westwell, thank you for your time.

Professor Martin Westwell: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Bella Pittaway: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Bella Pittaway and I'm from South Australia's Department for Education. Today we're talking about the Autism Inclusion Teacher role. We'll be seeing across our primary schools this year for the first time. Soon, we'll head to Keith Area School to hear from a special education teacher about the difference this new role will make, but before then, let's get some more information about the Autism Inclusion Teacher role. Joining us, uh, Anna Noble, Assistant Director of Inclusive Practice, and Erin Anear Manager of Disability Advice and Research. Welcome to you both. Now, the big news last year was that an Autism Inclusion Teacher will be appointed in every public primary school this year. What exactly is the Autism Inclusion Teacher role?

Erin Anear: Yeah, it certainly was big news. Since then, we've been working really hard to make that announcement kind of become a reality. But before we talk about the role, I just wanted to explain really quickly that you might notice us use the terms autistic person or person with autism today.

And this is because many autistic people prefer identity first language, and we might use both interchangeably. So you might hear autistic person or child with autism. But we use both because each person is unique and their preferences around identity are different. The Autism Inclusion Teacher role is really exciting.

It's a new role. It's been developed with a focus on improving school support for autistic children in young people in ways that work for their school. And that's really important because while we're rolling this out statewide, we have been really conscious of ensuring that each school can develop the AIT role to work within their own site context. But we don't wanna lose focus around that role. And the consistency as well. The AIT role's really focused around two key areas, so that's helping teachers to build their own practice in teaching autistic children and their knowledge around autism, but also influencing the practice of others at their school as well.

So that's really our two key things that we're looking at. There'll be opportunities for formal and informal professional learning, and the AITs will all be connected to a network as well. And I know Anna will talk a little bit more in detail about that, um, later on too. And it's unique because the role isn't just release time and it's not just training, it's a whole package of supports around the teachers.

We've been calling it the team around the AIT. . So this definitely includes that release time and that targeted training, but it's more than that. And this is something that hasn't really been done before. So it's a really new concept. Um, and it is a really exciting initiative as well. And I guess the role itself has been developed with input from educators, from schools, from teachers, from industry groups, university researchers, specialists in autism, and most importantly, with input form autistic people themselves. And so from teachers in our system who are autistic, and also from young people as well in our system.

Bella Pittaway: And Anna, why is this such an important role?

Anna Noble: Well, the prevalence of autism diagnoses among children and young people has increased substantially over recent decades, and this has in part, been driven by a greater awareness of the condition of autism.

And what we are finding is that school outcomes for many of our students who are autistic, they're poorer relative to their non-autistic peers. Uh, so things like not feeling connected at school, not feeling like they belong, difficult relationships sometimes with peers and with their teachers. It really is something that is noticed throughout the education and throughout their research.

The other thing is participation rates, and it's not just children not attending school. What we're finding is participation rates within a classroom. So for a lot of our autistic students, teachers will be providing opportunities for learning, but not think about, well, how do I make sure that a young person with autism is fully included in this? Have I provided supports around working in groups? Have I prepared this person so they know what's coming? For many of our children with autism, school can present a real challenge. So given this, there's a need for building teachers knowledge of autism so that they can apply effective approaches in their classrooms and so that they can make good decisions about which supports, which services, which interventions will likely be in the best interest of their students.

And this is really about the best interests of our children with autism. So that's one of the key reasons it's building the capacity of our Autism Inclusion Teachers to know and recommend good practice. Another reason is we know um, autistic students benefit mostly from teachers who can recognise or maybe anticipate where the challenges are at school for their children. Is the classroom noisy? Is there too much going on? Is there not enough going on in the classroom for these children to keep them engaged in their learning and motivated in their learning? Is the classroom too unpredictable? And as well as those, those aspects, there's things around, um, opportunities. Where are the opportunities such as freedom to follow a deep interest? We know that for a lot of our autistic students, they have very deep interests and passions, and teachers can use these strategies and these interests of the children to really engage and motivate their kids. So there's lots of things that can make or break a good schooling experience for our autistic students.

Bella Pittaway: And do we know approximately how many students have autism? Bearing in mind that there would be students who are undiagnosed.

Erin Anear: This can be a tricky question to answer. There may be children and young people in our schools who are undiagnosed, and there also might be students who are diagnosed, but they don't necessarily receive any extra support or resourcing or anything around them.

But what we do know is that sort of at the end of 2021, when our last data came through, there were around 4,900 students who you know, had an autism diagnoses, were in a mainstream school and they received additional resourcing as well. And I guess if you look Australia wide, the number of people with the diagnosis of autism is actually growing.

When we have a look at the data in 2015, there were 164,000 people across Australia who were diagnosed. And by 2019, that had grown to 205,000. And that's a trend that's sort of across the world as well. So we are looking at about one in 70 people would have a diagnosis of autism.

Bella Pittaway: Anna, who will be in these roles at school this year, what training are they going to receive?

Anna Noble: There are gonna be lots of teachers. We're expecting there to be about 440 teachers, and they're all different kinds of roles. The people who be AITs are coming from different positions within schools, so lots of them are teachers. Quite a few are leaders, and some are teacher leaders.

The teacher leaders are those who hold those specialist positions in their school, such as an Inclusive Educator or a Wellbeing Coordinator. What we know about them is that they're going to come in with different levels readiness for this role. And so when you talk about, you know, what training's going to be provided, the training will be set at different levels because some of our teachers, such as our Special Options Teachers or our Special Class Teachers, or our Inclusive Leaders, Inclusive Education Leaders, they'll have deep knowledge in autism already. And so they'll be training for them set at a more advanced level to build teachers understanding of autism and to know its impact on learning. Most of our autism inclusion teachers will participate in a two-day face-to-face course provided by Positive Partnerships, and they will complete one of their modules.

Plus they'll receive training in how to use some of their autism specific tools that will be incredibly helpful for our teachers in the classroom and across the school and these tools will help support their decision making for their autistic students. Then what will happen is they'll be provided with a whole suite of training options.

We'll be pointing them to other training opportunities that are accessible on plink online. Or coming to South Australia, for example, Barry Carpenter is coming to South Australia in March, and the AITs are going to be invited to come along to that training.

Bella Pittaway: Awesome. And so once they've had all this training and they're taking up the role in their school, what will they actually be doing?

Anna Noble: They'll be analysing the data schools have on their students with autism. And this is to identify the strengths of the school already. So where are they already providing evidence-based strategies and supports and evidence-based interventions, and also looking at the needs. So with the AITs, they'll be receiving our training.

This will always be around what are effective practices in schools. And our AITs will then be able to say, okay, so we are doing this practice, but that doesn't seem as evidence-based as something else. Maybe we should introduce this. They'll be supporting their fellow educators to know a range of strategies and support.

So in-class supports, assessment modifications, ways to engage students in different classroom activities, such as working within groups, speaking in front of a class. They'll be sharing resources across the school, such as our newly released autism practice guides, and they'll be sharing their learning from the training.

So leaders, Will work with their Autism Inclusion Teachers to support them to identify what's gonna be most beneficial for that school community. So the main focus on site will be to provide guidance to the fellow educators on how to best support and educate students with autism and embed inclusive practices that support learning and development.

Bella Pittaway: And Erin, how does this role, the AIT role connect with other student support services?

Erin Anear: That's a really good question. It's so important that we recognise that there's excellent work happening across the system already to support autistic children and young people. And the AIT role is not designed to replace any of the supports that already exist.

So your special educators, your behaviour coaches, psychologists, speech therapists, they're going to continue to be available and they can help schools. They might work with the AIT at the site as part of that help with the school. But the AIT role isn't designed to be a main point of contact for the services, and we still expect schools to manage referrals just as they have been through their student referral teams. Or through just general consultations with their student support services providers.

Bella Pittaway: And we know you mentioned earlier, I mean, there are at least more than 4,000 students with autism. And for teachers out there that might have, uh, a student with autism in their class, they might be thinking, well, how can an AIT support me?

Erin Anear: And I guess building on what Anna said earlier, we really see that AIT role being able to support teachers in lots of different ways. And that really depends on the site context. But the AIT can share the learning that they're doing in the professional development. They can guide teachers to different approaches or strategies to trial, and they might be able to share resources like articles on specific areas around autism.

It might be that the cohort of students at that school has a specific need. You might have a number of girls diagnosed with autism, and therefore you might need some resources specific to that. That's something that our autism inclusion teacher could help teachers to access, or it could even be different kinds of scaffolds. So you know, ways of teaching students with autism, it might be strategies you can use around specific areas of learning. So that might be comprehension reading fluency, it might be, how do I best work with an autistic learner around multiplication? So there's lots of different ways, but I guess the most important thing is just sharing those contemporary evidence-based practices.

Bella Pittaway: That means you've got someone in that school that you can go to, if you've got a question, you can go to that person and go, look, this is what I've got happening in my class. Is there anything you can suggest or something that I can follow up on?

Erin Anear: That's right. And then, you know, the autism inclusion teacher has access to those networks of those professionals, um, to then be able to have those questions in supported by the professionals who have an experience as well.

Bella Pittaway: Well, we've sort of touched on it already, but Erin, what do you think AITs will be able to teach, you know, other staff at their school?

Erin Anear: The fact that we've got an AIT in all of our primary schools is such a unique position. So while we're talking about this being something that's site specific to the context and how they'll work, we're also making sure that there's a consistency of the information that's being shared with schools.

So this is an opportunity for those contemporary evidence-based practices to actually be shared more widely across the state as well. And we know that the research in and around autism is developing rapidly and there's new information being shared every day. So the AIT will be in a position to be able to share that with staff.

And they might not necessarily formally teach the staff, but they might be sharing information perhaps as part of a staff meeting. They might have a regular sort of sharing spot, but it's more about them guiding others, demonstrating that best practice and modelling that within their own classrooms um, or with the autistic students at their site as well.

And at the same time, the AIT is going to be regularly connecting with the networks as well, and the networks themselves will be able to help with some of that, I guess on the ground information. So, you know, I tried this and, and that didn't quite work. And oh, hey, maybe try it this way. So you've got this AIM team of professionals giving you the, the evidence base, and then you've got your contemporary peers actually helping you with, how do I actually get this happening on the ground at my school? I, I think that's a really unique part of the.

Bella Pittaway: So we've talked about what the autism inclusion teacher role, what they will be doing. What are some misconceptions you'd like to address or some things that they won't be doing?

Anna Noble: I think it's important for people to know that the autism inclusion teachers won't be teaching all of the children with autism on their site, that's not the role. That's not their particular role. They won't be providing the referral services Erin spoke to, and they're not going to be the centre point for families. Classroom teachers will still be the first point of contact for families, but if teachers are saying, I need some support to engage our families in working with this child who happens to be in my class, then the autism inclusion teacher, who will be undertaking some professional development around engaging families, will be able to bring some of those strategies to that teacher.

Bella Pittaway: And just also something unique. What has it been like, because this is an Australian first, so I can imagine it's not like you've had a model where you can look at and go, okay, well this is how they've done it in their school system. This is happening for the first time. What has that been like?

Anna Noble: It's, I don't know that we've had an opportunity in the past before to really step back and have a look at the science of learning, really considering how do adults learn, how do teachers come together? What makes a network? Because a lot of this work is going to be supported by the networks and teachers coming together, sharing practice.

So we've had to think really deeply about what does an effective network look like? How do these teachers stay connected? How do we ensure that we provide them with the ongoing support, ongoing modelling that we are guiding the work they're doing and giving them an opportunity to say, actually this is what's happening in my site, and is anyone else finding something similar? And the support of the Autism and Inclusion multidisciplinary team, we just call them the AIM team, is really to bring in their sort of credible scientific knowledge to go, these are the strategies that you could use in your classroom, hearing about what's not working, and then exploring with our AIM team around, you know, why don't you think this particular intervention might be working at this point in time?

So they're gonna have access to these opportunities. I think that's what's the difference and the time we've really taken to look at what does an effective network look like. That has been the most significant part of this.

Bella Pittaway: You're sort of forging this path, and I'm sure you know, other states will be looking on and seeing how it all goes and probably have their own questions about it too. Before we finish up here, what impact are you expecting the Autism Inclusion Teacher role will have in our schools,

Anna Noble: Given that there'll be one person who is released one day per week or one day a fortnight, to focus on improving the school experiences of students with autism, I'm expecting that they'll support schools to feel more confident in the approaches they're using for their autistic students, that they will increase their repertoire of strategies and interventions available in their schools. They'll have more evidence-based resources to draw from when thinking through tricky situations. And I heard Ceri talking about sometimes it's tricky and I'm going, yeah, that's kind of what we are doing here to be more inclusive.

And I guess the ultimate impact I'm expecting is that they'll have this sort of ripple through effect across the state, across our primary schools of building knowledge I'm hoping that families will report that their child's previously unmet needs are now being addressed better. I don't know that we can solve all problems in this, but we can start to improve and that children with autism will say they feel better connected to school. They feel they belong and they wanna be there.

Bella Pittaway: It's a big, big task and obviously something that is much in need. Um, and yeah, wish you all the, the best with it. It's, yeah, really, really important work. Thank you for joining us today to take some time out to sort of explain a little bit about the role and, and the impact, um, you're hoping it'll have.

Anna Noble: Thank you.

Erin Anear: Thank you.

Bella Pittaway: Joining us on the phone from Keith Area School in South Australia's Southeast is Ceri Price, a year four, five special education teacher. Welcome, Ceri.

Ceri Price: Thank you. It's nice to be here.

Bella Pittaway: Can you tell us a little bit about your school?

Ceri Price: Yes. So Keith Area School is a rural school. We've got approximately 310 students from foundation to year 12, and almost every class has autistic students.

My year four five class, for example has two autistic students, one of which is quite high needs.

Bella Pittaway: What difference does additional training and support for students with autism make in your classroom?

Ceri Price: So for me, the training and and support is all about leading the improvement of the experiences that my students have, not just in the classroom, but also in the yard. I want them to be positive and to cover all their needs, including functional needs and skills as well as the curriculum. So having that additional training's going to enable me to be able to deliver that.

Bella Pittaway: And how have you sort of had to change things or the way that you do things in the classroom to make sure that your teaching is inclusive?

Ceri Price: One of the things that we do is clear timetables, and I know many teachers out there will say, but we do that anyway. But for many of our autistic students, having it on the board isn't enough. They need their own personal timetable, differentiating the work so that it's inclusive. So we are using their interests, their interests to engage them in the activities, making it all relevant and personalised to them.

Bella Pittaway: What sort of changes have you noticed when it comes to inclusive teaching? Where we are now, say from 10 years ago?

Ceri Price: Nowadays, it is a very big focus on inclusive teaching, on making sure that all students are having their needs met, that we are differentiating the curriculum, that we are not just delivering one size fits all.

Because as we know, students aren't all the same. They don't learn at the same rate. They don't learn in the same way. So we have to be able to be adaptable and to make sure that we take into account their backgrounds, their abilities, um, their disabilities.

Bella Pittaway: And how do you go about sort of balancing the needs of your students in your class?

Ceri Price: It's a tricky one, and each day can be very different because as students come in like one day they can come in and have had a bad morning. And so you teach to the emotions that day, but it, it's knowing your students, it's getting to know them and keeping up to date with evidence-based practices and knowing what strategies and methodologies are the ones that are recommended. And ones that are known to work are not ones that are just, 'Hey, one teacher's done this and it worked there', but there's no backing to it. There's no scientific evidence that says that it either works or doesn't work.

Bella Pittaway: Is there one in particular that you've sort of been using that you've found really helpful?

Ceri Price: I wouldn't say one, I'd say there's a lot of different methodologies that I incorporate cause you need to have a toolbox. I like the Positive Partnership and a lot of the advice and strategies that they promote on their website and in their trainings. But yeah, it's really about getting to know your students and, and having that toolbox and, and knowing what you can and can't do at a different, at certain times.

Bella Pittaway: And Ceri what are you looking forward to with the Autism Inclusion Teacher role?

Ceri Price: Well, a school can be a really isolating place, especially when you're trying to improve the experiences of students. So I'm actually really looking forward to being able to work with other teachers in the same role, to develop that sense of collegiality and support and to lead the upskilling of educators at our sites with evidence-based practices and methodologies, but also working with other professionals such as the psychologists, having that extra support to back us and to advise us is going to be so worthwhile and useful.

Bella Pittaway: What difference do you think it's gonna make to Keith Area School?

Ceri Price: I think it's gonna make a huge difference having so many students that are autistic, being able - school bell sounds -

Bella Pittaway: I love that we've got the school bell. It's perfect. . We're having a chat with you at school, so of course the school bell's gonna go off.

Ceri Price: That's it. It signals the end of the day, so it's the mad rush hour. But no, being able to help the students gain a better experience to help the teachers, the SSOs or the educators to be able to provide that and know that actually they're doing the right thing as well. It's that sense of peace of mind that comes with it.

Bella Pittaway: And Ceri before we, we let you go, because the school, school bell has, uh, just rung there, . What does, um, what does inclusive teaching mean to you?

Ceri Price: Well, inclusive teaching's about what we've just talked about, really it's about meeting the needs of the students. It's about having that toolbox of strategies and methodologies. It's differentiating and it's engaging the children in the class, no matter what their abilities or backgrounds, and having all of that together will then help develop their sense of being valued, their wellbeing and their overall success at school, which is essentially what we've become educators for.

Bella Pittaway: That's a lovely way to end there, Ceri. Thank you so much for your time.

Ceri Price: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Bella Pittaway: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Bella Pittway and I'm from South Australia's Department for Education. Today we're taking a student wellbeing focus and talking about bullying prevention. Later in the episode, you'll hear from a student wellbeing leader in school captain at Woodville Primary School about their bullying prevention approach, which includes a student-led initiative that last year won a Children's Week Minister for Education award.

But first, did you know there's a suite of bullying prevention tools, resources, and guides that are available to you. To find out more about them and approaches you can take to bullying prevention, I'm joined by Engagement and Wellbeing Policy Officers, Lisa Gascoigne, and Lydia de l'Amour. Welcome to you both.

Lisa Gascoigne: Thank you. Thanks, Bella.

Bella Pittaway: First of all, how do we understand bullying now? What kind of behaviours fall under this definition?

Lydia de l'Amour: Well, here in South Australia, we use the national definition of bullying, which is found on the Bullying No Way, website. And based on the national definition, there are three key things to look out for when we are looking at bullying.

So these behaviours are one, ongoing and or repeated. Second, they are seen as a deliberate misuse of power. So we see a power imbalance occur amongst students. And finally, we might see repeated verbal, physical, or social behaviours that are intended to harm. So bullying can be seen in person or online, or a mixture of both.

It can also be obvious to others, but there are times when bullying can also be a bit sneaky and hidden. And might be harder for young people to be able to explain or articulate what's actually going on when we have conversations around bullying, referring to young people as victims, perpetrators or bullies is really unhelpful because it's not always clear where the issue has started.

So when we are talking about young people, we talk about young people involved in bullying. So they might be on the receiving end of bullying, or they might be the one who is engaging in bullying activity. Because demonising language is really unhelpful to have those restorative conversations and a more strengths based and supportive approach.

We need to consider how there's an overlap in roles when it comes to bullying, because it's not always clear cut. It is a complex social issue, and we acknowledge that. So when we are talking about bullying, it's important that we get the language right. But I'm going to take an opportunity to clarify what bullying isn't, because there are many times that we refer to behaviours and things that are happening in our school.

It's actually not bullying. They do require a response, but they're not actually bullying. And these things might be one-off acts of violence or intimidation or social exclusion. There might be someone saying something hurtful or abusive to another person. Or it might be just simply not liking someone.

They definitely require a response by the school. These are not bullying behaviours.

Bella Pittaway: What are those called? Those behaviours you've just mentioned there?

Lisa Gascoigne: Yeah, so there'd be things like violence, harassment, discrimination, all things that are really important for us to address within schools and across the community in general.

But it does really pay for us to kind of consider what is bullying and what are these other behaviours, because there are certain approaches we might take to bullying that you know are, are specific to those behaviours.

Bella Pittaway: And how might bullying look differently from the early years to say senior secondary?

Lisa Gascoigne: At different age groups, we might kind of see that occur differently. And it's really important for us to consider what's developmentally appropriate at different age groups. So obviously behaviours that might occur in the early years might not be considered bullying because they're just, um, the normal things we would expect of 3, 4, 5 year olds as they're kind of learning what those social skills look like. So the department does have a behaviour support toolkit that can help schools in kind of unpacking which of those behaviours are developmentally appropriate and what might be concerning or serious and need more of a response.

Bella Pittaway: And is that toolkit that's up on EDi?

Lisa Gascoigne: Yes. So you can access it on EDi. There's also hard copies that schools have been sent and they can request from the department as well. Obviously at different age groups as well. We see bullying kind of appear in different ways. So Lydia was kind of talking about covert bullying. Bullying that's a little bit more hidden in nature.

Might kind of, um, occur at different age groups. We know that bullying tends to peak around grade four and five, and also again as young people transition to high school. We're obviously going to take a different focus at different age groups. In the early years, we might focus on, um, building a strong foundation for young people around what positive friendships look like. In primary school, like we might hear from Woodville, focus on how they, uh, negotiate personal relationships or personal conflict. And in high school we might be kind of talking to young people about bullying and the law and what that looks like.

Bella Pittaway: And speaking of high school, I think most students, by the time they're in year seven, they probably have access to a phone and social media. How has the use of that digital technology impacted bullying in schools?

Lisa Gascoigne: Yeah, absolutely. So we know that cyber bullying or online bullying, so that might occur kind of using mobile phones or using digital technology is really the same behaviour. It's just carried out through a different medium. There are a few added complexities in that online or cyber bullying, more likely to be anonymous, so they might not always know, um, who's kind of using those behaviours. Online content can be easily shared, so there might be a much larger audience that that kind of is happening in front of, and children and young people can be exposed to online bullying kind of any time of day, any place that there's technology available.

So that does make it that little bit more complicated in that there aren't really boundaries around that. We also know as well that generally speaking, young people that are experiencing online or cyber bullying are also experiencing bullying in person. So it tends to be an extension of bullying that they might already be facing kind of in the schoolyard.

It is really important kind of when we are addressing cyber and online bullying, that we also address the general drivers of bullying.

Bella Pittaway: So how should schools respond to cyber bullying and other online safety incidents?

Lydia de l'Amour: So Simply put there isn't a one stop answer for this. However, a great place to start is the department's Responding to online safety incidents in South Australian schools procedure and guidelines. This is found on EDi as well. And this resource does help schools to respond consistently and proportionately to the incident at hand. And it helps schools to consider the many factors in making a decision on how best to respond because there may be a need to just do a local response.

However, there may be need to be able to do a more escalated response, and there is that support and procedural steps that schools can follow to do. There's also a lot of information on the department's website about cyber bullying and online safety that's accessible to everyone. Here, it points us to the eSafety Commissioner.

Now, the role of the eSafety Commissioner is to support families, educators, and students in responding to online safety incidents, and they may be called in to remove content. So there are always places that people can go for support.

Bella Pittaway: We're about to talk about this suite of bullying prevention tools that was released last year, but just before then, what is the best approach to bullying prevention?

Lydia de l'Amour: So Dr. Phillip Slee, who is an expert around bullying prevention from Flinders University has said, relationships, relationships, relationships. When we can strengthen our relationships. It means we can have a really strong approach to bullying prevention, but in that it's a three-pronged approach. So we need to include students, families, and communities, and the school. On the department suite of resources and support, we have a lot of tools and resources that can help schools to actually do that. But before we even discuss preventing bullying, it's important that everyone has the same understanding of what bullying is, and that's what these resources and the Bullying No Way definition can do. If we're talking about schools being a place where students can come and feel safe and feel included, we can actually have a strong bullying prevention approach right there. What that looks like is a place that celebrates diversity, calls out discrimination when it occurs, and teaches the skills around assertiveness and conflict resolution skills. Teaching students to have those difficult conversations and to be able to have a restorative approach when we're looking at relationships with each other.

One thing I want to point out is that having a zero tolerance approach or scare tactics around bullying actually has the opposite effect. It's probably what we encountered when we were children and it's probably what feels most familiar, but it actually, it doesn't work. Having a strengths base and a supportive approach can have the greatest impact.

Bella Pittaway: Let's get to these resources, cause I'm sure teachers are keen to, if they haven't already accessed them, find out all about them. What did you release last year? What can teachers access?

Lisa Gascoigne: Yeah, brilliant. Lydia was talking about how important it is for everyone to be on the same page. So all of these tools and resources are really focused on building that shared understanding using consistent language and messaging and increasing knowledge and skills for educators and school-based staff.

So they do include a suite of six professional development modules for educators. They're available across all three schooling sectors to make sure we have that consistency statewide. And they do kind of support schools to look at a range of topics, including understanding bullying, strengthening relationships for safe and supportive communities, providing effective interventions and responses, preventing and reducing bullying for children and young people at highest risk, and working with parents.

In addition to the modules, we also have released practice guidance to help schools kind of work through extra advice and tips on, on the best way to approach things. An induction checklist for leaders. So when new staff kind of come on board, they can help them step through that learning journey as well about what works best for bullying prevention and response, and a PowerPoint resource for schools to use when they might be running education sessions for parents as well so that we can make sure the whole school community's on the same page.

Bella Pittaway: And it's all, we'll share the links in our show notes so teachers can access them, but everything is on EDi for them to access.

Lisa Gascoigne: Yep. So the majority of resources are available via the external facing website to make sure they're accessible to all three schooling sectors, so we can have that consistency.

So young people that are accessing any school site are going to have the same messaging. But we do also have the professional development modules and some lessons that we have available. A package that focuses on bullying and the law that are available via plink, so schools can log in there and find all of the the resources.

Bella Pittaway: Awesome. And we're going to hear shortly from Woodville Primary School about the work they're doing in bullying prevention. Why are student-led initiatives important?

Lisa Gascoigne: Yeah, so prevention and response to bullying is much more effective when we involve students. We know students have the right to be involved in decisions that affect them, um, and that includes their schooling and their experience and, and how we might prevent and respond to bullying.

And we know that when we do involve them, that we are going to have better decisions services and and supports for them and for their school community. Really when we say kind of student-led approaches, um, we're talking about meaningful student participation and it can look different for different groups because we know that different age groups, different capabilities of students involved, but it really is about supporting them to express their views and influence the things that affect them that might student-led, where young people are kind of coming up with an idea, advocating it for it, and putting it in place. Through to more consultative where they're being asked for their decision, but it's being taken really seriously as, as a really valid source of information for the school as well. So earlier this year, in June, we, um, funded 75 sites to implement bullying prevention activities that, um, involved meaningful student participation. And Woodville Primary was one of those sites that received funding to put in place their idea.

Bella Pittaway: Just lastly, the other important community here are parents and carers. How can schools and teachers engage with parents and carers to prevent and reduce bullying?

Lydia de l'Amour: Yes, Bella, this is a good question because parents do come with their own experiences and understanding around bullying, and this may then influence the advice they give to children and how they think a school should respond.

So we need to take parents along with us as teachers in the journey around bullying prevention. So as Lisa mentioned before, we've developed a suite of resources that help teachers to be able to effectively engage with parents in bullying prevention. This starts with having that common understanding around what bullying is, and then second, supporting teachers be able to have those difficult conversations.

But there are things such as the teacher practice guidance to the plink module around how to best engage with parents. So there is support for teachers to be able to engage with families in bullying, prevention.

Bella Pittaway: It's really great to know that there are so many, um, resources out there that will be able to help teachers with approaches to bullying prevention.

Lisa, Lydia, thank you very much for your time today.

Lydia de l'Amour: Thanks, Bella.

Lisa Gascoigne: Thank you

Intro: Teach.

Bella Pittaway: Let's head off now to Woodville Primary School, where we're joined by Student Wellbeing Leader Wendy Jolley, and School Captain Emily. Welcome, Wendy. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about your school?

Wendy Jolley: Woodville Primary School, we're on Port Road. We've got about 240 student reception to year six. We've got a massive property. Great Lot of playing. and we're looking forward to having this podcast with you guys.

Bella Pittaway: Well, thanks for, for being with us. We are talking about bullying prevention approaches today. Can you tell us what the bullying prevention approach is at Woodville Primary School?

Wendy Jolley: One of our, um, prevention approaches is to use the restorative practice questions. There are five restorative practice questions that we use when children are having a conflict, a dispute, or a misunderstanding. We have a business card that we give to the children and when they come in and they want to have a discussion, we usually go through those five questions. The first question is, what happened?

So everybody has a turn and goes around the table and explains in their words what they consider to have happened. The second question is, what were you thinking at the time? And that's where we find out what everybody, their intentions were or what they were thinking while the incident was occurring.

The third question, then says what have you thought about since? So everybody has a turn to tell us what they have thought about since the incident. And often you see that they've corrected their thinking or they're letting other people know what their thoughts have been since then. And the fourth question is, who's been affected and in what way?

And people are able to say how they're feeling about what's gone on. The fifth question is, what can we do to make things right? So people give their opinions about how to fix something. So we do that and traditionally we've done it in a session inside around a round table. But the initiative that we've had for a restorative bench means that we don't have to use those business cards inside.

So one of our things that we think is important is that open discussion often helps with bullying prevention.

Bella Pittaway: Just touching on that, how have you found the questions have gone? Like, why was that an approach that your school has chosen?

Wendy Jolley: I think we love the first question, what happened, because sometimes adults ask kids why they did something, and that's really philosophical, and the children have to search for an answer that they think the adult wants to hear, so they can usually relax.

As soon as you say with the first question, what happened? You usually get the story. And then after that, you can't challenge somebody else's thinking. So if the second question, what you are thinking at the time, then they're quite relaxed with that approach as well. So it opens up the discussion. We actually tell our families and our parents that they should have the business card on their fridge. And if anybody wants to have an argument at home, you should stand near the fridge. And you should go down the list of questions because we think you'll get a better response from everybody if you do that.

Bella Pittaway: I love that. That's the voice of Wendy Jolly, student Wellbeing Leader at Woodville Primary School.

Also joining us from Woodville Primary School is their school captain Emily. Hi, Emily.

Emily: Hello there.

Bella Pittaway: Can you tell us a little bit about your student-led restorative bench project?

Emily: So the other school captain and I were told toward the start of the year that we could get a grant of $4,450 to help stop bullying in our school.

We then both came up with the idea of installing a bench in our school with the restorative questions on it where people could discuss the question together. We were then nominated for the Minister of Education Awards. We attended the ceremony and were very happy to win one of the awards. We are now hoping the idea can be taken up around Adelaide and South Australia in both public areas and schools to tackle bullying issues.

Bella Pittaway: And for teachers out there who might be listening to this, can you tell us a little bit about what the bench looks like? And I understand there's also a QR code on it.

Emily: Yeah, there is a QR code, so it's like just a standard picnic table and it has the restorative questions on five blocks down the middle of the table so people can read them, and we are still yet to put the QR code on one of the blocks, so the QR code will link to our video and to prepare for the video, we wrote a script, held auditions.

This video features a conflict between our student actors who demonstrated how to use the bench, and it went for about three minutes. So a student drops the coin on the ground and another picks it up. There is an argument then, and basically the video explains how to use the bench and how to solve a problem.

Bella Pittaway: Yeah. That's awesome to have that, that visual guide as well with the questions. Emily, what's sort of been the response from, from students at your school to the bench?

Emily: I've seen a lot of people around just sort of using it and we've already had people coming over with, you know, conflict. So it's been really great to see people using it and we're hoping that it can be used a lot more in the future.

Bella Pittaway: And you did mention before about the Children's Week Minister for Education Award. How did you feel when you won?

Emily: I felt amazing. It was amazing. It's a cool glass trophy. It just looks amazing. Really excited.

Bella Pittaway: Wonderful. I'll just go back to Wendy before we leave you there. Wendy, what do you hope having this bench will mean for your school?

Wendy Jolley: I think the main thing we hope is that the students will have a skill for life. We want them to be really familiar with the idea that you can sit down and discuss things and come to some resolution. So we hope that they're going to use the bench to sort at their own issues. We've seen a few kids, as Emily said, sitting around the bench and talking, and they have come to us and said that they have used the bench.

Sometimes we think teachers might need to sit with them because it's not possible to solve it completely by yourself, but we're excited because it's outside in the fresh air and we don't have to stay inside around the wellbeing room table anymore. We also asked the Mayor of Charles Sturt to come to the opening because we believe that these benches would be really good right around South Australia in lots of parks.

So we asked whether she would want to come and see what the bench looked like, and because of the QR code, we think that people would be able to just click on that and use those questions even while they're sitting at a park bench and having a picnic.

Bella Pittaway: Yeah, it's a really, really great concept and and good to sort of get out, like you said, in the outdoors as well, and, and have those conversations.

Wendy, Emily, thank you very much for joining us.

Wendy Jolley: Thank you for having us.

Emily: Thank you so much.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today I'm joined by Dr. Florence Gabriel, who is the enterprise fellow in Education Futures, and a senior research fellow at the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning at the University of South Australia.

Dr. Gabrielle, thanks for joining us.

Dr Florence Gabriel: Thank you for having me.

Dale Atkinson: So today we are talking about maths anxiety. We're going to take it out of the equation. I guess the first thing to kind of establish is what is maths anxiety?

Dr Florence Gabriel: Studies over the years have shown that many people have extremely negative attitudes towards mathematics, and that they can develop negative emotions when confronted with mathematics and these negative emotions, they can turn into a phobia of what we call mathematics anxiety.

Maths anxiety is a negative emotional response to mathematics, and it's often defined as feelings of tension, nervousness, or even fear that some people experience when doing mathematics at school, at work or in their everyday lives. And unfortunately, maths anxiety is a common problem in classrooms. If we look at piece of data, for example, select survey that's run by the OECD.

25% of Australian students report feeling helpless when solving a maths problem. And also, interestingly, neuroimaging studies have shown that students with high levels of maths anxiety they show more activation in brain regions associated with the detection and experience of pain, but it's pretty serious.

Dale Atkinson: That seems like a, like a pretty extreme reaction to something that we are exposed to pretty broadly in the education setting.

So for a lot of kids, what, what are they experiencing in terms of symptoms? Like what? What's visible to teachers when a child is, is experiencing mass anxiety?

Dr Florence Gabriel: There are different types of symptoms associated with maths anxiety, and it can cause physiological symptoms, and that includes increased heart rates and breathing rates, sweaty palms, stomach ache, or headaches.

It's also linked to emotional symptoms, so if you're a student who's starting to panic or if you are getting angry during a maths lesson, , it might be due to maths anxiety. There's one more type of symptom that's actually really important to learning, and these are cognitive symptoms. These cognitive symptoms, they can take the shape of invasive negative thoughts or ruminations or, or worries where you would think things like, Ugh, I'm never going to understand math, and these worries, they will overload your working memory.

Which is the type of memory that allows you to hold information in your head when you complete tasks, like mental calculations, for example, and obviously when your working memory is disrupted, well, your performance in mathematics will often suffer. Something that I don't think I have mentioned yet, but if you are math anxious, it doesn't mean that you are bad at math.

It just means that maybe some students would be deterred and wouldn't become the mathematicians, engineers, scientists, programmers, or, or economists that they could become because they feel too scared or anxious about mathematics. We want to avoid this situation and support our students and help them perform to the best of their abilities.

Dale Atkinson: So where does this all come from for students?

Dr Florence Gabriel: Unfortunately, it starts really early and mathematics anxiety appears to increase with age during childhood. So it can start as early as in year one or two, and it becomes quite strongly apparent from year four or five. And this may be due to general anxiety, increasing as children get older, but also because of exposure to other people's negative attitudes towards mathematics. It's also linked to experiences of failure or, or even just the threat of it, and also it's linked to changes in the content of mathematics itself. With maths becoming more complex and more abstract. Math anxiety is caused by pre-existing difficulties in mathematical cognition, but we shouldn't neglect social factors because they also play an important role. For example, if you were exposed to teachers who themselves suffered from maths anxiety, you’re more likely to develop math anxiety yourself, and studies have shown that this tends to be more often the case for girls than for boys.

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think the public perception of mathematics and, and how it's all framed is an interesting phenomenon in that people will very readily describe themselves as incapable or, or not particularly adept when it comes to mathematical concepts in a way that they wouldn't do in terms of literacy.

Yeah, that's great. Often here or I'm not good at math, so I'm hopeless, but you'd never hear somebody say I'm hopeless with reading. These stereotypes are well and truly alive and, and it's something that we hear all too often.

Dale Atkinson: So how do we combat that in the classroom?

Dr Florence Gabriel: What's really important in the class is to build student confidence in their mathematical abilities.

And things that we can do to help combat these stereotypes is just making teachers aware of them. Studies from the US showing that if in-service teachers are made aware of stereotypes and stereotype threat around mathematics, it will actually change their attitudes and obviously teachers attitudes and their beliefs in their mathematical abilities will also influence their students attitudes and and their mathematical achievement.

There's actually a really interesting theory that comes from educational psychology that was put forward by Reinhard Pekrun, and it can help us understand how and why maths anxiety is happening in the classroom. And this theory is called the Controlled Value Theory of Achievement Emotions.So according to this control value theory, the experience of emotional achievement settings is determined by two types of appraisals, those relating to control, for example, that can be expectations for success or confidence or self-concept beliefs, and then appraisals relating to value.

And that could be the level of importance that a student gives to a task or a subject. This theory says that anxiety is rooted in poor control appraisals combined with higher levels of value, which means that if you care about mathematics but you don't feel in control of your learning in mathematics, you are likely going to experience anxiety.

So what we can do to help that is developing students' self-regulated learning skills because this will allow them to take control and take ownership of their learning. That's something that we're working on currently with my research team at at UniSA. Developing interventions built to develop students self-regulated learning in maths classroom.

Dale Atkinson: I was talking about the opportunity to interview you with one of my colleagues. They immediately jump to the work of Dr. Carol Dweck around, you know, the growth mindset and the fixed mindset and how the perception of the opportunity to learn and the idea that success is possible is such an important thing for a child when they're particularly in any learning space, but, but with mathematics.

Dr Florence Gabriel: Yeah, absolutely. And I think building strong self-belief and that confidence in mathematical abilities is very important. Because, you know, sometimes we just feel negative emotions and it happens, but what really matters is what we do with these negative emotions and how we're going to regulate them so that. They don't negatively impact our learning.

Dale Atkinson: So what are some of the things that educators can do to create that sense of safety for a child to embrace the challenges of perceived difficulty?

Dr Florence Gabriel: What's really important is that children are allowed to fail and they feel comfortable and that they understand that failing is part of the learning process. Encouraging taking risks in the classroom, and that can be done by using open-ended problems, for example, where there's multiple solutions to our problems. Students can explore different ways of solving problems. Collaborative learning can help too. In this case, these are techniques that are proven to help students and reduce their anxiety as they're working on mathematics problems.

Dale Atkinson: Something for parents perhaps. What's the role of high expectations from parents to students in this area?

Dr Florence Gabriel: Parents' expectations for, for their children and, and how much they value mathematics themselves. They are also obviously associated with student attitudes and their outcomes in, in mathematics and research actually shows that parents' expectations can act as a, as a filter through which children understand their abilities and it will affect their expectations for success. There's really interesting research coming from the US on the impact of parents, mathematics, anxiety, and particularly when dealing with the children's homework. But it's not necessarily linked to pressure, but it's related to the maths anxiety that the parents experienced themselves.

If children ask their maths anxious parents for help with their math homework, it, it can actually backfire. And this is because parents can communicate their fears and their frustrations to their children who can then internalize all of that. In the worst case, avoid mathematics entirely. So the way we talk about mathematics and the language we use, is really important here.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, I think, it's probably the classic kind of challenge for any parent is not imprinting the negative perceptions of things on their own kids . So it's a, it's an extension out to mathematics in all parts of life. So you mentioned a bit earlier that a significant proportion of the adult population and a number of teachers experience maths anxiety themselves. What are some techniques that educators can avail themselves of to help to overcome?

Dr Florence Gabriel: Yeah, so unfortunately there is indeed a large value of evidence in the, in the research literature that shows that pre-service teachers have higher levels of maths anxiety compared to other university students who are studying things like business or health sciences, for example.

And unfortunately, these pre-service teachers are typically going to become teachers in early years or primary school. And, and the big issue here is that they will bring their maths anxiety with them into the classroom. And usually they tend to think that they are less capable of successfully teaching mathematics, and obviously that will have a negative impact on those students.

One of the, the biggest issues here is that maths anxiety can affect how teachers assess their own mathematical abilities. So the more mathematics teachers know, the more confident they will be in their mathematical ability. And one of the positive consequences of increasing teacher's self-efficacy beliefs in, in mathematics is that they tend to rate the importance of teaching mathematics to young children more highly.

It's really important to support pre-service and in-service teachers in this space. This support can take the form of professional development or enrolling in postgraduate courses, in in mathematics education, for example.

Dale Atkinson: It's something that really needs quite a bit of focus and, and I guess part of it is wraparound from colleagues who are confident and capable working with those who are perhaps a, a little bit more anxious and feel that anxiety. So really it's about, you know, getting together with your colleagues and, and one owning up to whatever anxieties you have, but having those conversations with people who are perceived within your teams as, as really strong in that area.

Dr Florence Gabriel: Absolutely. And I think having that safe space to talk about it freely and recognizing that maybe you are a bit anxious when you are teaching maths, but there's something you can do about it and, and working with your colleagues to, to help alleviate the symptoms you may feel when you are teaching maths yourself, that's definitely very helpful.

Dale Atkinson: We're very fortunate that you have agreed to provide, some of your expertise for a plink course that's going to be available to listeners and that'll be linked off to in the show notes, uh, when it comes available, what are the top three things that you want to get across to, to educators in that process?

Dr Florence Gabriel: The first thing I would say that, well, maths anxiety is very common and it's probably something you've seen in your students before. But the second point that I want to make is that we can actually do something about it. And self-regulated learning seems to be a good avenue to alleviate maths anxiety symptoms.

So helping children with their self-regulated learning and their emotional regulation, uh, will help them become more confident and less anxious when learning mathematics.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the interesting things about mathematics as opposed to, you know, we touched on literacy, uh, a bit earlier and, and lots of other areas of learning, is that it can be perceived to be right or wrong, you know, it's a pass fail binary kind of outcome in terms of the problem that's in front of you, which is not something that's apparent if you're discussing the humanities or if you're learning how to write or even, you know, you're reading it's okay to fail a little bit and then get some growth.

What role does that play in terms of maths anxiety, and how can that be alleviated by educators when confronting kids and letting them know it's okay not to get it right the first time.

Dr Florence Gabriel: It's important for teachers to allow children to understand that it's, it's okay to fail and, and to take risk in, in math classrooms.

And, and sometimes there's not a, a single right answer as well. It's, it might be true with simpler arithmetic, but if you work on more complex mathematics, there might be more than one way to arrive at a solution. So, focusing on, on that flexibility in terms of teaching and learning is really important as well.

And, and that's actually linked to all of that self-regulated learning and the, the executive functions that underline self-regulation. So, allowing children to come up with, flexible answers and different answers to a problem will help them in this case and hopefully alleviate some of the, the maths anxiety symptoms they would otherwise feel.

Dale Atkinson: I mean, so much of it, like all things in education, comes down to educator demeanour and perception of how the kids are experiencing that relationship with their educators. It's such an important factor, isn't it?

Dr Florence Gabriel: It is. It really is. Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: What's your final message to everyone out there in terms of giving maths a go?

Dr Florence Gabriel: I think it's really important for children to feel less anxious when it comes to mathematics. Mathematics is beautiful and it's also the gateway to many different careers. One of the long-term consequences of mathematics is the avoidance of anything that has to do with math. So any course or university degree or career that has mathematics in it.

So what we want to do is really support students here and make sure that they develop their full potential.

Dale Atkinson: Some great messages for, for educators, for parents, for students about, you know, being bold and giving things a go. Dr. Florence Gabrielle, thank you very much for your time.

Dr Florence Gabriel: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we are talking about numeracy and mathematics with the Emeritus Professor of Education at Monash University. Peter Sullivan, welcome.

Peter Sullivan: Oh, thank you. I'm looking forward to the discussion.

Dale Atkinson: First things first. You're here at our Numeracy summit and have just presented to a group of 900 leaders and educators in in preschools and schools across the state. What's the one thing all educators could do straight away to improve a student's experience of learning numeracy?

Peter Sullivan: The main thing is to get students doing the thinking. Someone described it as the students holding the pen and finding ways to ask problems and exercises and tasks and experiences where the student is doing the thinking rather than following instructions from the teacher. And the more the students can take on that challenge of thinking for themselves, being curious, exploring possibilities, looking for patterns, the more likely they are to learn mathematics and to experience mathematics and to enjoy it.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the ways you describe that in your presentation is a 'you do, we do, you do' approach. Can you unpack that a little bit more?

Peter Sullivan: One of the ways I describe it sometimes is experience before instruction. There's almost nothing that being told how to do it is helpful. Almost always. If you have an experience and then are told how to do it, then it makes sense. And I think that, that, if you're like metaphor is that if we always have the students do something before they have an opportunity to formalise it, then it's more likely to be resilient or to be persistent, to be retained by the student, to be able to use it again in the.

Dale Atkinson: You represented this in a very entertaining way actually, in that you gave all the educators who were there a simple problem that I think you would've given to, I think you said year three or four age students in, in that context, you engaged them in that problem, came back to them and spoke them through the techniques and the opportunities that existed to solve that particular problem, and then extended it to the next step.

And I think one of the things that you observed from the stage, but was really obvious participating in it on the floor, was just how much more engaged those teachers and educators were once they had to revisit that subject.

Peter Sullivan: And it's called consolidation. And the idea with the first task was, that it was what we described as low floor, high ceiling. Now, what that means is without it varying the task at all, it's possible for some students to engage and get one or two correct answers, whereas other students might engage not only getting multiple answers, but actually seeing the pattern, seeing the possibilities, proving that they'd found all the possibilities.

Uh, the idea is that the students work on a task. They have an opportunity to discuss the task with each other. But then work on another task, which is a little bit the same and a little bit different. And it's the experience of the first task prepares them for the second task, and it's the second task we want them to know how to do.

Often I suggest to teachers that the goal is we ask students things they don't know how to do, but arrange the lessons in such a way as they finish the lesson knowing how to do. Because that's what learning is moving from not knowing to knowing. Sometimes we can do it in the reverse order, but if we set tasks up like that, followed up by productive discussion that between the students and the students and the teacher, and then follow up with another task that the students have now learned the skills to be able to solve because they've had an experience before the instruction. It's the second task that consolidates the learning and that's what's engaging for students.

Dale Atkinson: You've identified that there are four types of maths lessons that should be delivered to students. Can you describe what they are and what links them and how they can be effectively used?

Peter Sullivan: Okay. Well, it's like a balanced metaphor diet. Now, sometimes when I talk about this, I have a graphic from the hospitals and it actually says that one of the food groups is biscuits. It looks like it says that. So the idea of a balanced diet is important. Now I say there are four types of maths lessons. One type is called practical investigations. That's more or less anything that involves measurement. Anything that involves the students getting out of their seats. Anything the students involves gathering data, you know, measuring the size of containers, measuring the areas of basketball courts, designing car parks, whatever they're doing. That's an example of a practical experience and that should be happening regularly. Not necessarily frequently, but certainly regularly and maybe let's say once in every planned sequence that that we have, there should be an opportunity to do something practical that's connected the mathematics with the world.

Another one is games and activities. Now there are literally hundreds of games and activities on the web, and there was one session today that was on that topic from James Russo and utilising games so that it's not just game playing, but actually a learning experience that's engaging for students is an opportunity to create lessons.

And I would say in the same thing, there should be a game slash activity in every lesson sequence that we might play in the every unit of work. A third one is active. I call it active teaching only because explicit teaching sounds a little bit like giving the students rules in which that they follow, but often the interactive teaching where the teacher is, is drawing from the students their knowledge but progressively leading the learning, you know, through the course of the whole of the lesson. That's another effective way of teaching. And the model that I was using was structured inquiry where the students predominantly work on a task that's then discussed and then a further task as opposed to do that.

But having said that, I think there are some principles that guide each of those lessons. We still want the students thinking to be at the centre. We still want the learning to be inclusive of all students and the students to feel like they're part of the classroom community. And we also want the lesson, however it's structured, to build connections between ideas, between parts of mathematics, between other KLA's between meaning.

We want those things to be parts of all of the lessons, even though they may have different goals and different pedagogies. The learning goals, the experience of the students is still.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the really interesting things that you referenced, and there actually has been a through line in a lot of the presentations to the Numeracy Summit, which the presentations were all available on plink and there'll be some show notes which link off to those plink sessions.

But one of the things that you kind of touched on was that you can approach. , any of these subjects matters or these problems for all children altogether, and it's not necessary to stream them into different capability areas, but rather it's about the time that you give them to engage with and process some of these problems.

Peter Sullivan: Yeah. Some students if given a problem can just start work straight away. Other students just need 10 minutes to get their pen out. It's the amount of time that they take to get ready and sometimes the time getting their pen out is actually productive time. They're still considering the task. But what can happen is if the task is such that the, the students who have worked quickly and work efficiently get the task finished, we can then be stuck by saying, well, we've got to move forward. Some students sitting there and doing nothing. That's why I always say that teachers should always consider that there may be some students for whom the challenge is, is too great, and how do we support them? Well, maybe we need an enabling prompt that's specially designed to give them a, a leg up, a scaffold that they can get on back onto the main task.

But the more important thing in this context is we need to be able to extend the thinking of the students who are finished and give them something that's meaningful and relevant and extends their thinking. But is actually a, a meaningful challenge that they'll take on the challenge. Oh, that's an interesting challenge. I'll do that. And if we can do that, it actually allows us to have more time for those students, if you like, in the middle, who just need more time to engage with the task, to see the patterns, to build the connections.

Dale Atkinson: And of course sitting behind all of that is an awful lot of planning and preparation for teachers and, and for the leadership. Can you talk us through how that should be approached to the school level in terms of really enacting high quality numeracy education practice in the school?

Peter Sullivan: One of the things I believe in strongly is that we should have formal structures for our planning meetings. A lot of countries, teachers don't have time to plan, so having time to plan is a real privilege, and so we should really structure that time so it works effectively.

Now, I think the first item on the agenda should be what, why, how. That is, what do we want the students to learn? Why do we want them to learn it, and how can we bring that learning about, what experiences can we choose? The next stage is how would we know if they've learned it? You know, if you like it, formulating and formalising the assessment.

The next thing is how do we anticipate the students will respond? And how are we going to support the students who might need additional support? How are we going to extend the student's thinking? Then what resources do we need in order to be able to teach the lesson? What other things do we need to think about?

So if we structure the planning experiences, you know, formally and deliberately, and maybe even have an agenda with minutes, it's actually going to facilitate that planning. In effect, the planning, it looks complicated, but because the teachers are just planning one set of experiences for the students, and a lot of the learning is generated by the students themselves, the planning is actually less onerous once the teachers become familiar with the process.

Dale Atkinson: One of the things you spoke about was the absolute central nature of evidence as a key to understanding impact, but not to suffer too deeply from, I think what you described as a data museum, which is an overload of information that's perhaps not useful to, to the teacher.

Peter Sullivan: Well, schools gather and are sent a lot of information about student progress, about cohort progress, about implementation of goals, and sometimes I suspect schools may well be overwhelmed by it, but I think that we should use evidence to help guide emphasis and priorities in our planning. Now, for example, what seems to be a current issue at the moment is that there's attention to the, what I call high potential, but underperforming students. Now that's actually evidence in the data it's in, in the growth data, the year three to year five, year seven to year nine data that are accessible for every school.

And for example, if the students are in the top two bands are falling backwards from year seven to year nine students in top two bands from falling back to the year, to three to five, then I think it, it means that it warrants our attention to look at what might be the causes of that decline. But we need to think about, well, there should be improvement from seven to nine in, in everything.

And if teachers are teaching in a particular way and they, they're convinced that this is the right way, well, is that improvement what they're hoping to achieve? You know, are there enough students, for example, proceeding all the way to the elective areas of, of mathematics study and they need to use the data of their own school, because all policy implementation is context specific.

There's no one size fits all for educational programs. And so trying to find what's the data that we have access to, what are the resources we have, including the teacher resources, you know, including their enthusiasm and their knowledge, and how can we utilize those resources in the best interest of improving the experience of the students when learning.

Dale Atkinson: Could I touch a little bit on artificial intelligence, which has received a lot of media coverage recently. It strikes me that mathematical disciplines within all the academic areas are probably the area that has been most influenced and adaptable to technology, presumably since the invention of the Abacus coming forwards. So what can you see as the impact going forward on teaching practice, but also the learning experience for kids?

Peter Sullivan: Look, it's a difficult question to answer. I'll come back to answering the question, but what my interest at the moment is to try and create mathematics questions that are suitable for, let's say, year three students that the artificial intelligence can't answer.

So ones where, if you like, the sort of brain type of flexibility that's necessary to answer the question just isn't available to artificial intelligence. So my interest is trying to, uh, formulate questions of that sort. And I think that if we can come to understand what artificial intelligence does do and what it doesn't do and, and in fact how it does, what it does do, that would be useful.

I was actually out of school and they used artificial intelligence to create my introduction and it was quite accurate. Now, I assume it probably searched my bio at Monash, but it was interesting that something, a task like that, that would be able to create it for an individual in a place would be able to be done.

I actually applaud the South Australian Department for Education for its openness to exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence, and I think it's an interesting challenge for, well, for everyone. Particularly for educators, uh, such as myself to say, yeah, well, what are the implications for teacher education, for classroom practice, for task design, for the design of experiences, now that we have access to artificial intelligence and that can influence not only the design of the task, but the design of the experience as well.

Dale Atkinson: And how do we unlock those unique human capabilities that hopefully remain unique. I guess we'll find out soon enough. So thank you very much for your time today. If you had one final message to provide to educators, for those who are at the front of the classrooms, what would it be?

Peter Sullivan: Well, look, if I can answer that with two messages. The first message, and probably the most important one, I'm often asked that question in, uh, when I'm doing professional learning sessions. If you had just two words of advice for us, what would those two words be?

And my thinking is, shut up. That you probably, if you are a teacher, you probably talk too much and you could probably afford to talk less, to encourage the students to talk more, to create more space for the students to talk. But the other thing is just connects to something that happened in my house. I hid some Easter eggs one time. And the grandchildren came into the room with the Easter eggs, and then something happened. It was a bit unfortunate. There were two people there and I, I won't name them, let's just call them the mother, and the grandmother, wanted to show the children where the eggs were, but it was an Easter egg hunt. The whole point is to hunt for the eggs.

It's sort of a metaphor for teaching. Sometimes we can be like the mother and the grandmother and we lose confidence that the students will be able to find the eggs. And so we say, oh, here's an egg. Now you've got an egg. But in fact, the more that we can encourage the students to hunt, the more we can be patient, the more we can trust them, the more likely they are to find and create their own knowledge. And so it sort of becomes like a metaphor for teaching. Let the students find their own eggs.

Dale Atkinson: I think that is the perfect summary and conclusion. Peter Sullivan, Emeritus Professor of Education at Monash University. Thank you very much for your time.

Peter Sullivan: Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today something with a bit of an international flavour. I'm joined by a man called Sir Kevan Collins. He is the founding Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Fund.

He's also a member of the department's Education Innovation Council. Uh, which is chaired by our CE. So he's a, an important advisor to the strategic direction of our department. Sir Kevan, thank you very much for joining us.

Sir Kevan Collins: It's great to be here.

Dale Atkinson: Can I ask you first about, uh, the parochial question as a South Australian, what are the advantages and disadvantages we've got as a jurisdiction

Sir Kevan Collins: In the, in the work I do supporting South Australia, it's, it's interesting reading the data because I think the big advantage is obviously the brilliant people that work here, and all the data shows the successes and the progress you've made, but also the size. Because one of the things we've learned about education is the more personal you can get, the more down you can get to know the individuals, the more progress you'll make.

And the size allows you to really get into the detail and that's where the answers are. Not in grand, big plans, but in meeting the needs of individual children and working with individual schools, the 700 or so schools that serve here.

Dale Atkinson: So it's really the interface which, where all the, all the work gets done, isn't it?

Sir Kevan Collins: Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: So let's talk a little bit about equity. You spent some time, a lot of time in Tower Hamlets as Chief Executive there an environment where there is a vast span in terms of the haves and the have nots. Can you tell us a little bit about your view of equity and why our schools and parents should care about it?

Sir Kevan Collins: Equity matters not just for the child who is underserved, but actually equity matters for everybody. If you look for example, at Australia, let's do this, the country rather than the state here. If you look at Australia's results in PISA And the desire to move up if that's what you want to do. You cannot do that without raising the tail.

The dragon lag of having some children left behind makes everyone suffer. The other thing we found in the UK and the work I do with UNESCO and and other parts of the world is when you serve the most disadvantaged children, well everybody benefits. You become a better teacher, a better school, and more effective organisation.

That's true of special educational needs as well. The biggest challenge of our generation educators is how do we make sure we don't leave some children behind because there are growing gaps. And the bad news to bring to Australia is when you look at the gaps, they're widening. And this big challenge of how do we narrow gaps and bring everybody with us to the promise of education, if you like, is the challenge.

Dale Atkinson: Can I talk to you a little about how we address this in a, in a post COVID environment? A lot of the researchers sort of indicated that there has been impacts, not just on learning outcomes for students, but on wellbeing indicators as well. What should we be looking at post COVID in terms of helping our kids?

Sir Kevan Collins: What we learned through COVID and I was the National Education Recovery Commissioner for the UK appointed by the Prime Minister to work on COVID, and what we learned through COVID was that education affects the whole of the child's life. It's not just that maths scores go back. Or English scores go back. We learnt that mental health, socialisation, a whole range of things have been impacted by not going to school.

What that reminds us then is schools aren't just about academics, they're about the whole child. The impact of COVID, unfortunately, on all the data everywhere has been greater on the most disadvantaged children. So how do we deal with the legacy if we're not careful of COVID, that we've got widening gaps?

You know, children have had access to computers. Children who had parents who were highly educated supporting what, that's one story. But there were some other children who didn't have connectivity, didn't have resources, and this is the biggest disruption since the Second World War on, on education in, in most of the developed world.

And it goes without saying that it's going to take a long time and it has to be a broad front across the whole of a child's life. Not just more maths and English, but more sport, more choir, more drama. In England, 19%, uh, drop in the number of kids taking part in sport. These habits have been broken of being involved in these activities and we need to rebuild them.

Dale Atkinson: And so what have you seen in your experience of site systems, individual schools are doing this well and what are they focusing on?

Sir Kevan Collins: I think there are three domains that people are beginning to focus on. The first. You do face down this thing of learning loss. Those of us who working, for example, early education, will know the phrase from someone like Jim Heckman, the Nobel Prize winning economist, 'skills, beget skills'.

And if you haven't got some skills that you would've acquired in early learning that has a deficit, it begins to catch to you later on. So we have to cover the loss off. The second we've seen is that these broad social skills, these habits of learning and social skills have to come before you do the hard academic skills.

You have to get children back into the habits of learning. Teachers will talk to you now quite often about behaviour, low level disruption, kids not attending. So you got to get the habits of learning first. And then you've got to work on the skills. And then the third bit I think, is this, um, opportunity to really understand how technology, now there's been a kind of breakthrough in technology that's a positive legacy.

If there are already from COVID, we should grab hold of and rethink education as this blended experience between the use of technology. Never, ever without the teacher that's going to not be, instead of that as well as, and how do we think about those two things, but critically, the broad experience, which I think COVID taught us children really need in schools now.

Dale Atkinson: You started your career as a classroom teacher. What do you wish you knew then in terms of teaching children that you know now from your experience?

Sir Kevan Collins: It's almost like you wanna go back and apologise to those children because, Uh, and I was lucky, I taught, there was one group of children, we had a, what's called vertical grouping in London, east London. It was 40 years ago. A third of the kids were, were of one age, and I had the youngest kids all for all three years, every day. And of course now I know that I wish I'd been better skilled. I wish I'd known more. I look at teacher training and I think it's great, but we need to kind of develop it.

So this being intellectually curious about what I do and about how children learn, I think is kind of driven by my ongoing guilt about the way I serve that first group. So I wish I'd known a hell of a lot more.

Dale Atkinson: So taking you back to that Tower Hamlets experience, and I know Tower Hamlets had a reputation for being quite innovative as a local government area, and local government in the UK has a remit that's more akin to State Government in Australia.

So responsibility for things like education, child protection, aged care. So a fairly broad remit, I think one of the things that Tower Hamlets was looking at and, and had enacted was really going out to the community and talking to them very actively about how they wanted the money to be spent and resources allocated.

Sir Kevan Collins: Sure.

Dale Atkinson: What are the kind of things that we can learn as an education system from that approach?

Sir Kevan Collins: So when you look at the challenges of serving, I think any kind of community, what we've realized increasingly is that you can get a disconnect between those of us that want to do the best and sit in big offices running the system and those on the ground who are the communities. As they get more and more diverse and the needs kind of develop and they get more and more complex. It's hard to keep ensuring that the classic old services deliver. So you've got to be more creative about how you engage with people. So in Tower Hamlets, for example, which is if you take free school meals as a proxy for poverty, we had the most kids in England and by 10% more than anyone else. And when I first got there, it wasn't me who did this. Our results when I was teaching at the beginning were pretty much the worst in the country. Interestingly, now they're in the top quartile and for every year group in England, and they outperformed somewhere like West Sussex, which is interesting because, uh, these kids, 70% come with English as second language and there's poverty now.

I think the big step, and it was unusual for someone to be a, a primary school teacher and then to become the chief executive of the council took a long time. But the interesting thing we learn was one, you have to work with the crane of your communities, so you have to go to where things are quite interesting.

You have to work with the moss, you have to work with all sorts of community groups where there are lots of conversations that need to be thought about. What are your values, what are their values? What's non-negotiable in those spaces? You also have to be ready to do things that were innovative. We, in that example, to the budgets, we spoke to young people and so the community across all ages and said, what do you think we should do with the money?

And we actually put money on the table and said, you decide. Young people overwhelmingly suggested we spend it more on older people in their lives. Older people overwhelmingly said we should spend it on young people, but giving people the chance to really take ownership meant a different relationship with the activities.

And I'm a great believer that the people who use services are the best source of data and information on how you improve services. And by the way, the other thing about improvement is its habit, not an event. So this took 20 years of sticking with the knitting, which people like to kind of keep innovating, but sometimes you've gotta stick with it and the grind it out.

Dale Atkinson: So that takes us very neatly to a conversation that's going on here in South Australia around the purpose of public education and a thing that our chief executive has kicked off in terms of a discussion at every level about what are we for in public education? What's your focus on that? What is your take on the purpose of public education moving into 2023, 24, and the next century?

Sir Kevan Collins: I mean, I'd like to start the conversation just a slightly different place, and that is what kind of place does South Australia want to be? Is educations one of the biggest drivers to create the place you'll be in the future? What kind of lives do you want children to have in the round? And then how does education play a part in that?

Because the one thing I'm absolutely certain is that education plays a part, it's essential, but not sufficient to describe and create the lives you want for children if you want them to flourish and thrive. So you've got to ask, how healthy do you want children to be? What achievement do you want children to have?

How do you want to participate and make a contribution to the lives of South Australia? What about the economic wellbeing of our children and what about their resilience and wellbeing? Education has a role to play, but we just can't load it all education. Well, we have to think about that in the future, and education is right at the centre of that ecosystem.

Dale Atkinson: Sir Kevan, those are some excellent questions for us to think on and to leave on. Thank you very much for your time. You are needed by our chief executive to, um, provide him with some advice and a discussion point. So I'll let you get going, but uh, thank you very much for your time.

Sir Kevan Collins: Thank you very much indeed.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a Podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today I am joined by a man who has an extensive technological background technology in schools, technology around schools, ways schools can use technology.

He's the Government and Academic Engagement Lead at Google for Education. Mr. Chris Hart, thanks for joining us.

Chris Harte: Thanks, Dale. Lovely to be here.

Dale Atkinson: So first of all, what is the positive potential of technology in education?

Chris Harte: So I think one of the areas where technology can genuinely support is in personalising learning.

And I think that we've talked about like the promise of personalising learning for 20 years. How do we give each child an equitable shot at learning, at learning growth? How do we really ensure that they have what they need at the point in time? And technology has always like hinted at that possibility and never really delivered.

And I think that we're moving into a space and technology where the actual capacity of the technology to support the personalisation of learning is becoming a reality. If you tackle the big challenges around access to devices, access to connectivity and platforms and skill building and pedagogy, which have now made sound really small, but they're pretty big challenges once you kind of tackle those and you're in a space where young people and children have access to technology, as a standard piece of their learning. It's not like we're going to go to the lab to do an hour. They've got some access to technology over a long period, an extended period of time. Then I think we're in a space where technology is supporting personalisation and you know, that's through AI. I think it's through the ability to collaborate and to connect globally.

I think there are so many parts of that where we're kind of plugging into a learning ecosystem beyond just the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: So you must engage with a lot of schools out there in all sorts of capacities. What are you seeing nationally and internationally that is really exciting, you and animating sort of your work?

Chris Harte: I'm really so lucky. I mean, I spent 17 years working in schools as a, as a languages teacher in the school leader in the UK and also here in Australia. I should never pick a favourite school, so I'm not going to say a favourite school, but one of the schools I think that really inspired me and continues to inspire me is XP School in Doncaster in the UK.

XP School is one of those schools I worked very closely with a lot of the founding staff in that space, and it came from the tragedy of a secondary school burning down. And so, what do we do? It's actually a blank canvas for us to be able to do something brand new and XP School takes a very, very different approach to learning.

And even though, you know, I have a passion I guess for technology, the reality is that the technology at XP is probably quite invisible. It's just there. And it really is much more about the pedagogical approaches and the culture of personalisation. And it is a bit of a tagline, but it's really meaningful as they talk about the children and young people in the XP schools because there are now a number of them in the XP schools are crew, not passengers.

And so it's really about how do you empower the agency that the young people already have so that they are driving their learning with support, with scaffolds, with accessibility, with all of the things that the kind of grownups in the space have to put in to ensure that that happens. The reality is that that crew, not passengers, mantra, really feeds into everything.

So students drive their learning. They do take a project based, they're actually called expedition based. So that's where XP comes from, expedition-based approach to learning, where they will investigate through transdisciplinary approaches, some big challenging questions, but they connect to the local community as well.

And the walls both kind of physical and metaphorical, I guess, are really porous. So they're constantly connecting out to community, having community connecting in. And part of the technology piece is being able to connect to that global learning community and global learning experiences. So when I'm looking at something which is a very non-traditional model of a learner focused ecosystem, I think XP has got a really interesting story there, which is within the context that the school exists, it's within the physical context, the location, the community, and every school's different.

But I think there are some things that you can pull from that, which are really interesting to explore anywhere in the world.

Dale Atkinson: I'm going to make a big assumption here. Any parent of a child and teaches are, are similar in this dynamic, understands the plasticity of their little brains and their capacity to pick up technology is far more intuitive than perhaps it is for those of us as we get a bit older.

What are the challenges for educators in this space, and how do we encourage upskilling and building capacity in these areas for, for people who perhaps aren't the digital natives?

Chris Harte: Yeah, it's a, it's a really great question because I think there is absolutely a lot of truth in the idea that young people who have been surrounded by technology intuitively know how to access and use the technology, but they don't intuitively necessarily know how to access and use it for good. And in the sense of they don't like they can use the things, but there are still a bunch of skills around digital citizenship, around what it means to use the power of technology to advance learning, to do good in the world. I think that's a really important piece that needs to be deliberately designed by educators, um, and, and families actually, and parents to talk about, you know, what are the pros and cons of, of technology because there are. And the technology in itself is, is never at fault in the sense that it's just a thing, it's just a tool. But the reality is like how we use it, how we apply it. So while I totally agree that young people tend to know how to use the technology, whether they know how to use it well and safely, for the most positive impact, I think is maybe another question.

And to pick up on the, the kind of upskilling piece, there are lots of programs out there at Google we have a program called Be Internet Awesome. Which is a kind of game based, um, curriculum around for young people, which is freely available just in go and Google it. And that is really focusing in on how do I stay safe online, how do I look after my identity?

What does it mean to have a digital footprint, those kinds of things. So we do it through a game-based approach, which is great, and we localised it across the Asia Pacific region into many different languages now. So that idea of, yes, there is technology, yes, you know how to turn it on, you know how to do stuff with it.

But there is definitely learning and upskilling around that, the capabilities and the digital kind of citizenship skills needed to really make the most of it.

Dale Atkinson: So one of the big challenges for the schooling system over the last two or three years has been COVID-19, the impact on learning. What has it taught us about the positives and the negatives of technological opportunity?

Chris Harte: At the height of COVID, there were kind of 1.5 billion kids who were, you know, forcibly removed from their schools across the world. So there were suddenly kind of evicted and having to learn from somewhere else. And in many countries, you know, in Australia we were, we are very lucky, we're generally resource rich and able to do kind of remote learning and those kinds of things. For where that was impacted in many other countries, that was not the case. And I think what it has taught us, there are a couple of things. I think that technology in and of itself is never the solution that it has to be about how technology is used. So if you go personal anecdotes, I have a who's now a 17-year-old, but he was going through year 10, 11, and 12, some parts of 12 through COVID.

And day one, when he was sent home, there was a timetable set. He was online and he had lessons, you know, an hour long between 9 and 10 and whatever. And day one, he was sitting at the dining room table, you know, bright eyed and bushy tailed. I think after four days he was lying on the sofa with his laptop, and then probably after a week he's in bed with his hoodie on, camera off.

And there was something about that whole piece. I mean, it was a challenging time anyway, but there was something about that whole piece of we can't shift technology into the same structures. It'll only take us so far. So if we try and just take school as is and shift it online, then actually we're losing connection. We're losing that wellbeing aspect. You end up with a two-dimensional representation of your class where you might have some cameras on and some cameras off, and this isn't the best of circumstances where people have actually got technology and connectivity. I think there's something about that learning design is not the same, so you have to think about learning design hand in hand with technology. And why I think the, the kind of pandemic and the, the sessions of remote learning have, have really taught us is that to do learning really well with technology, we have to unleash learner agency. They have to have some level of autonomy, some level of choice and voice and responsibility and identity around their learning experience through technology.

Because if we just think, oh, I'm going to do my teacher piece, and then the kids are going to fill in some quizzes and, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with doing that, but you're losing a huge amount of students’ engagement because it becomes such a passive piece. And you know, as a teacher, you're walking out of the room, you've got eye contact, you've got the ability to keep the dynamic in a room or in a learning space going, and you kind of lose that a bit with technology.

So the learning design has to be different. The learning design has to be focused on learners at the heart of a learning ecosystem, like how do I tap into this self-serve learning content? How do I tap into this lecture from an expert in, in the states on something else? And I think it's a much more dynamic and, and in many ways more interesting and personalising opportunity to take technology as an enabler of a different paradigm versus let's just pick up school, which we tried to do because that was, it was an emergency, right? You try to pick up school and put it into technology. So I think that that is a shift. My biggest worry is that we snap back to an older paradigm because we're all tired, like we're all sick of change. And you know, there's the real exhaustion out there. So I think that school's thinking about that and saying, what did we learn?

And in fact, asking the very question, Dale, that you just asked is, what did we learn about it? What can we take the good bit and how can we move that forward in our school, I think is a real opportunity.

Dale Atkinson: I mean, there are some fundamental things about the way, uh, education infrastructure is designed which are not future ready to the physical spaces, the furnishings, even the structure of the school day, uh, in many cases, which can sometimes be, you know, locked away in enterprise agreements and various bits of legislation.

These are very big challenges for us. What are some of the kinds of practical changes that schools, educators, leaders, can make now to kind of adopt some of these technologies in a really meaningful way for kids?

Chris Harte: I think that one of the really interesting pieces in this is that if we focus on an incremental shift on what we already do, then technology will be helpful. It'll be something that's useful for kids. It'll shift maybe instead of having a handwritten essay as a proxy for learning, we've got a, you know, a really dynamic video presentation as a proxy for learning, but it's still, at the end of the day, just a proxy for learning for, for something from a curriculum.

I think that the small steps are about how does this enable us to do something different and better than we would otherwise do. Like I'm a fanatic for post it notes and butchers’ paper, like I love it. I'm all about it. I want to be in that space. I want to be moving stuff around. And sometimes, you know, you can go online and, and you can go and do a Padlet, or you can do a Jamboard or something like that.

And it's a kind of that when we talk about sort of SAMR models and pieces like that, it's a bit of a substitute level. What I'm really interested in is yes, do that because that helps teachers to feel comfortable. It helps them to see that the technology helps a little bit. Look for things which are maybe more augmentative, things that are going to move learning in a different direction, but also really try and at the same time, and this is also the challenge, at the same time, in parallel, try and reflect on what would it fundamentally look like if we shifted something like the timetable.

So what does it look like when, which we did during the pandemic, often in many schools, what does it look like when students have extended periods of time where they are driving their online? And I think when we talk about agency and it, it sometimes feels like it's a student voice wellbeing place and it's like, oh yeah, it's about students being able to talk about what they want, which it is having some voice and having some choice.

But I think the reality with agency is that technology allows the students to access learning at times, which are more appropriate to them, and that will be different for every child. And technology allows us at this idea, again, of, of the promise of personalisation. Technology allows us to lean into personalisation.

So if you were to say to kids, okay, we, we are doing this for unit of work, and there's some content and there's some process and there's some product, one really simple thing with technology is to say, okay, the content is x, the process we're going to use over the next six weeks is this. The product can be whatever you want.

Use technology. If you want to go and do a video, do a video. If you want to do a beautiful poster, then do a poster. Like as long as whatever you’re creating demonstrates the learning outcomes. Great. And I think unleashing technology that way is a really small step that people feel comfortable with, but also then that helps learners and young people to really demonstrate what they know and what they can do and what they can apply in lots of different modes.

And I think that's a real joy of technology and I think it's that kind of, short, easy step to take.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it does take some bravery though.

Chris Harte: It all takes a little bit of bravery. I think that's the thing.

Dale Atkinson: Well, I think you've inspired all of us to be maybe a little bit braver in our thinking, um, as we move forward.

Thank you very much Chris Hart, for joining us to talk about technology and education.

Chris Harte: Thanks for having me.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we are joined by Professor Geoff Masters, who's the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Council for Educational Research. He's a man who has held numerous roles in education in Australia, nationally, states, territories, he's advised a lot of the governments, if not all the governments across the country.

Thank you very much for your time, Professor Masters.

Geoff Masters: It's a pleasure.

Dale Atkinson: So first of all, we are here together at Leaders Day, and one of the things that we are discussing is the purpose of public education. You've been writing about this for a number of years, particularly within the context of emerging challenges for public education.

What are the big challenges that we need to address at the moment?

Geoff Masters: Well, I think globally there's recognition that school systems everywhere face a couple of big challenges, and really the first challenge is to think about how we better prepare young people for their future. What kinds of skills, what kinds of knowledge, what kinds of attributes will young people need if they're going to not just survive but thrive and flourish in the future. So that's a question that, as I say, school systems everywhere are now asking, and I think there's a general recognition that curricula as they have existed, are not going to provide the kind of preparation that people believe is now required. And that's because the curricula tend to be heavily based on subject learning.

Subject learning will continue to be important of course, but it's a matter of getting the balance right. Not so much emphasis on memorisation, on reproduction in a, in a passive way of facts and procedures, but being able to think, being able to take what students know and apply it, transfer it to different contexts.

They'll need skills in thinking critically, solving problems, creating new solutions. Around the world there's this focus on the challenge of broadening our priorities for education and incorporating into that priorities like student wellbeing and social and emotional skills that young people will need to develop.

So that's one challenge. Then the a second challenge is the challenge of ensuring that every young person develops those kinds of outcomes, knowledge, skills, attributes. So this, if you like, is the equity agenda, and it's equally important to make sure we don't leave many young people behind as we move in this direction.

Dale Atkinson: Is a move away, I guess, from a post-industrial kind of work-based outcome for children and young people and funnelling them into contributing to the economy in certain clearly defined ways.

For education systems and adjustment in their priorities is difficult and it takes a a lot of change. How are we going to make this move to adapt to this new world?

Geoff Masters: Well, it is true. I think the kinds of changes that we are now talking about are not just minor changes. They're not just tweaking what we currently have.

It really means rethinking, redesigning, re-imagining, the way that we think about learning itself and the way that we structure learning in school. You know, once upon a time it was the case that even students who didn't do well in school could end up in employment. There was a need for people with low levels of skill and manual skills and so on.

But of course, what's been happening over recent decades is that knowledge is becoming more accessible, more routine jobs are being performed by machines. And so there's a real risk, I think, that people who do not achieve minimally adequate standards are going to be left behind and will often be left without job opportunities.

And that will have implications for all sorts of other outcomes, health outcomes, you know, career, earnings, and lifestyle. And so if we don't address this question of how we ensure that every young person is well prepared for their future, there's a real risk, I think, that we end up with social consequences of that. People who fall behind and, and end up being unemployed see education as part of the problem. Education, they will say, works in the interests of the already advantaged, the social elites. So I think there's the potential for significant social division if we don't keep our focus on not just ensuring that people are well prepared for their futures, but that every young person is well prepared.

Dale Atkinson: It's a significant change in mindset mentality for education systems and perhaps not educators, because I feel like some of the conversations that I have with teachers and principals and preschool directors, they are very focused on the whole child, but they do feel sometimes that they are operating within a system that has some clearly defined structures and restrictions and, and things that they have to go after.

In particular, the signal that we send around academic performance where we sit with the PISA scores, SACE outcomes in South Australia, NAPLAN scores. How do we send a different signal to our educators?

Teachers know what they would like to be able to do, and schools leaders know what they would like to be able to do, but often they work within a framework that not only guides what they do, but often constrains what they're able to do.

Geoff Masters: And what I'm talking about here is the curriculum. The content of the curriculum, the way the curriculum is organised and, and the way it organises learning, I'm talking about examinations and assessments and reporting requirements. These are all part of the framework or the context within which schools work.

And we all need to be thinking about the implications of that. It's not just something for education departments and national curriculum bodies and so on to be focused on. It's something for all of us who have an interest in improving the quality of education and the outcomes of education for young people.

We all need to be thinking about how we redesign the context within which schools work. And as I said, I think that needs to be a radical redesign if we're going to address the challenges that now face us.

Dale Atkinson: Speaking of radical redesigns, there's been a lot of discussion recently about the role of artificial intelligence and the impact that it might have on education.

A lot of the media coverage is centred on it as an issue of assessment, that it's going to present issues for educators and education systems in understanding how well children are doing and perhaps not focusing on what I think is perhaps more of a central problem, which is what does that actually mean for what these children need to be able to do when they enter the workforce and move beyond schooling?

How do we start to look at those issues? The what is education for that central kind of component within an environment where there are rapid technological developments.

Geoff Masters: Yeah. What is the role of humans in the future? What do we want humans in the future to be able to do? They need to be able to work with the available technology, and the technology needs to be supporting what it is that humans can uniquely contribute. So I see an ongoing role for teachers in this, but I see technology increasingly being able to support the work of teachers. For example, when you mentioned assessment, I can see technology being used to provide better information about the kinds of misunderstandings that students might have developed.

For example, automatically testing hypotheses about misconceptions that students might have. I can imagine that. And then feeding that through to the students and to teachers. So yeah, technologies do introduce challenges. People have been worried, as you said about the implications for assessment. My worry there would be that we don't use the appearance of things like Chat GPT to go backwards. One response would be to say, alright, from now on, our assessments are just going to be paper and pen tests where we can control what's going on. That would be a backward step in my view. On the other hand, there are challenges around the authentication of student work as their work if they're able to draw on systems like Chat GPT so it's a question of working out as we go along, how to make best use of these available technologies and, and how to have them complement the work of teachers.

Dale Atkinson: If we are to broaden out the purpose of public education, having signalled to parents that certain things are valued, what conversation do we need to be having with parents in the public more generally about broadening out the metrics that we are going after, and how do we demonstrate that there's value in those other things that are perhaps harder to quantify?

Geoff Masters: Yeah. Well, I think the first thing I would say is that in my view, the disciplines continue to be important. Subject learning continues to be important, and it always, they always will.

But it's a question of what that means in practice. And I think what we need to work with parents on, so it's a matter of having appropriate conversations around these topics. We need to work with them to say, look, the world is changing. Knowledge now is much more accessible than it used to be. You can look things up very quickly.

Some routines that we used to teach, you know, in mathematical, long division or whatever, students can now carry out those operations on their devices. And there are many things now that machines can do. So we need to be thinking about the implications of that for what we value, the kinds of learning that we value.

And I think if you approach it from that direction, Parents in the broader community will understand what we're saying. We're not saying that knowledge is not important and that mathematics, science are not important. Of course they are, but it's a question of what should we now be valuing because traditional kind of passive, reproductive learning that is characterised, so much of education will be less relevant because of the ready accessibility of facts and processes and routines.

Dale Atkinson: Perhaps the last thing to touch on before I let you go is we're facing a, a bit of a teacher shortage across Australia. In fact, internationally. What should we be doing to raise the profile, the profession, and attract more young people and indeed people who aren't so young into the teaching profession?

Geoff Masters: Oh, that's a really interesting question too. Look, I think part of the answer is to promote teaching as important to the future of individuals and the future of society to help the community understand that teaching is crucial to building the kind of future that we want.

And I think some countries, for example, Singapore have been quite effective in doing this. They've made it clear that school education and that teaching are crucial to the future of the nation. I mean, in that case, they don't have things they can dig out of the ground and sell. And so they know that's a capacity of, of their humans, their population that will be so crucial to their future.

So, I think it's partly about sharing with the community, just how important the work of teachers is and will be for creating the kind of future that we want. There are other things we can do as well, I think to make teaching more attractive and they include increasingly treating teaching as a profession and giving teachers not only a better preparation, but also more flexibility and more autonomy to decide what and when and how they teach. I think the more we constrain those things, the more tightly we try to specify what you have to teach, when you have to teach it, how you have to teach it, we de-professionalize and make teaching less attractive as a career.

Dale Atkinson: I think we'll have a lot of teachers nodding along to that last sentiment. Professor Geoff Masters, thank you very much for your time.

Geoff Masters: You're very welcome.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today I'm joined by very special guest, someone who's CV almost defies summary in some respects, a woman who has advised education systems around the globe and the OECD. Valerie Hannon. Thank you very much for joining us.

Valerie Hannon: You are very welcome. Thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Dale Atkinson: Well, we've had you here today because we've gathered together all the principals and preschool directors within South Australia’s public education system for a discussion about the purpose of public education as much as anything, and to get a sense of where we need to go as a system and within individual schools.

What is in a brief summary, the challenge that public education is facing at the moment?

Valerie Hannon: It's facing the challenge that it was designed for a different time and for different purposes, and we have just rolled them on and rolled them forward with tweaking at the edges as though it will do for the 21st century. And the truth is they won't. Mass education, government funded, is a relatively new phenomenon. And the concept of the school, how it was, how it used resources, how it used time, people, space, we're all pretty much laid down in the last century, or even in some cases, the one before that. And those conventions have been very strong.

And I think if you look at systems, whatever they might be, economic or health systems or housing systems, there have been so many fundamental changes and yet education, has remained resilient and in a sense, you know, that's a kind of strength because people have a lot of confidence in the idea of school.

They went there, they know it's a kind of centre for a community, in many cases. You look at poll data about trusted professionals, teachers rate pretty high compared to say, politicians or journalists. So it's been a resilient system, but it's out of time. And the issue is not just, oh, well, let's refresh this, bit more technology, so forth for the 21st century, but rather the human species is in such a predicament and faces such extraordinary challenges, I would argue never seen before by our species. That we have now, I believe a responsibility to try to be what I call good ancestors. No, not what I call that. It's obviously indigenous people. Always had a sense of seeking to be good ancestors and we're not, because our education systems and the institutions within them are not enabling young people to shape the future that they need and that they want.

Dale Atkinson: Little bit about the old promise of education, being around social mobility and spoke a little bit about your personal journey.

Valerie Hannon: You listened my keynote.

Dale Atkinson: I certainly did. Now, you mentioned that you believe that's a false promise with an overvalue on the academic capacity as opposed to other skills and attributes that young people need. What should the new promise of education be?

Valerie Hannon: I think the new promise needs to be grounded in the new purpose that your colleagues are exploring today and what they look into their hearts and determine fundamentally is a good life in the 21st century and hopefully onwards.

So the old concept of the good life, which was, I mean, the Greeks explored it explicitly. We tended not to. There's a, there's a kind of hidden tacit, image, if you like, of wealth. I mean, actually, if you look up success, certainly in some dictionaries it says fame, money, and power. Is that, is that it? Is that the deal?

Dale Atkinson: That's a very narrow descriptive.

Valerie Hannon: Indeed. Indeed. But the underpinning kind of skeleton or frame for education is founded I think on a highly individualistic notion of getting on, of succeeding, of doing better. Yes, social mobility, making as much money as you can. And my argument, I think, in that of many other commentators internationally now is that we need to move from the I to the we. We need to think much more collectively about where we stand as humans on the precipice of some enormously dangerous crises, which are existential threats. And then unless we start to think A. more collectively about the common good, less about our own singular possibilities and be longer term rather than short term, then I would say we're toast.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. You've talked about the rebalancing of the value of the head, the heart, and the hand, which I think is linked a little bit to the argument that you were making just there, which is education systems have been grounded in this idea that funnelling children into academic achievement into university and into certain roles within society based on the capacities that we're able to assess through examination effectively.

How do we as teachers, as leaders of schools approach that idea of balancing the head, heart, and hand. What are we going after in the classroom with these kids?

Valerie Hannon: That's a really great question, and I think you heard some of it in Geoff Master's contribution to this conference after I spoke. Let's be clear. I mean, the, the first thing is you have to really explore, interrogate these ideas and make them meaningful to yourself. If you're just adopting the kind of motto, head, heart, hand, you know, it, it can be like, icing on the cake or frills or, or as Martin put it kind of at the periphery, let's, let's hope it rocks up.

These, the concepts say of being able to form and sustain and develop great relationships, which is at the heart of great lives. The capacity to understand a different relationship with our planet, which we have systematically violated and continue to do. That's a question of the value frame that young people acquire through their learning career.

And no amount of tech fixes or development of bio flight fuel carbon catcher will solve our problem unless young people start to perceive their relationship with a natural world in a very different way. And understand humanity's relationship to other species, for example, and Mother Earth herself in a very different way.

So that's, that's a huge agenda. And it is about heart, and it is about values and dispositions as well as knowledge and skills. I mean, look, I, I believe in knowledge, don't get me wrong, so we're not tossing out the concept of bringing minds to become the most intelligent they can be. But I think we want to broaden our concept of intelligence and understand that we need to be and grow in many different ways.

I will insist on the value frame being absolutely front and centre in all of this. And don't talk to me about knowledge as being sort of preeminent. And I've also seen enough of short of sheer intelligence at work, kind of slicing and dicing concept. Look, in our lifetime, who was it who created, say, the financial meltdown in 2008?

It wasn't the illiterate people. It wasn't people with low education qualifications. It was extremely greedy people with MBAs and PhDs.

Dale Atkinson: With a narrow set of capabilities, perhaps a very limited moral compass.

Valerie Hannon: Precisely so. So all of this needs to be in scope, hugely in scope. And I think one more thing on this, if I may think that the, the COVID pandemic was an eye-opener in many ways, wasn't it?

But one of the things across the world people clocked was that, you know, who is it who keeps society running? Who makes sure that we get food on the table and gets it delivered and stocks the supermarket shelves, who is in there in the hospitals, nursing people who perhaps don't make it. Head, heart, hand. And we disvalue those people.

So I, I think I mentioned in my keynote, as book, which I really recommend to your listeners. Called The Tyranny of Merit by Michael Sandell and a Harvard professor, ironically, who absolutely knocks to pieces this idea of a meritocracy built on intelligence and where that's brought us to. So how do teachers recentre this?

Well, and Martin Westwell touched on this, it's about bringing into the centre that which is at the periphery, and you can only do that if you get real clear about your new purpose and a narrative that surrounds that because that will enable you to create the kind of balance within your, your school offering. I think that is what we might be looking for.

Dale Atkinson: It strikes me as you are talking that to some degree the children and young people that we're educating are ahead of us in some of these areas, particularly around consciousness of environmental sustainability in the future of the planet, a recognition of the importance of democracy and democratic institutions. Do we need to be a bit better at listening to and following their instincts rather than continuing down the same path that we have been?

Valerie Hannon: Well, naturally we do and not just listening but involving them in designing solutions, which I think you in South Australia are in the lead on, I really do. I haven't come across more sophisticated means of exploring the understandings of young people and their potential contribution that I'm seeing here. So absolutely no question about that.

I mean, I'm heartened by what you say about young people's sensitivity to the fragility of democracy. I hope that's true. But the data, if you look at a number of sources on this of young people out of school from sort of 17 onwards, is that there's a real kind of indifference about democracy. So something like, would you be prepared to fight for democracy?

And the graph of people who said that they would is on the slide, is going down. On account of democracies disappointed quite a lot of people I think, so I hope you're right that young people care about that. I want to believe that. But we need to help them to do it. And we won't do that by kind of dry civics lessons about our government institutions.

We need to get much more relevant, much more participative for young people to explore forms of democracy and indeed, practice it like a muscle. But you are right, of course, on many aspects, young people are more sensitised. They're angered by the short-termism and the irresponsibility, the egregious lack of care for their future that adults have demonstrated, and they want to do something about it if they get half a chance.

Dale Atkinson: What you're speaking about, I think, is really reinforcing the role and function of teachers within society and the importance and pivotal nature of the role that they have. It's an incredible privilege and responsibility, isn't it?

Valerie Hannon: I believe it is. And becoming ever more challenging. So naturally, I argue for a kind of societal response to what teachers do in terms of both of remuneration and frankly respect. We need to work at that. It's really important. But with the advent of in increasing technology in classrooms, I'm all for it, and I think we should deploy it and exploit it to the max, but the skills of teachers are becoming or need to become ever more sophisticated and ever more central.

So this morning at our convening, people were asked to talk about purpose and so forth and again and again this understanding, this insight that relationships are at the heart of deep learning was surfaced, and that's spot on for some young people. As we know, the, the school will be the place where they form the most important relations, that perhaps the most, the loving relationships, maybe the only place where they get respect.

So for all my criticisms of the current, you know, kind of model of schooling, I believe passionately in the importance of the institution of schools, I think they're critical to flourishing and thriving societies for a whole range of reasons, which probably haven't got time to, to enumerate here but I think part of that is to create this public space, which, which by the way, you know, becoming rarer and rarer as we zoom more, as we buy our stuff online, as we shop less, you know, where'd you go in the public space to meet people not in your family and not like you?

So the whole concept of the school is a really critical space for connection and making relationships, I think is more important than ever.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. You have looked at schools and education systems across the globe to identify what a future school would look like. What is innovative about the approach of those exemplar, future schools and what's the common thread across them?

Valerie Hannon: Well, to be clear, in the research I've done on this, I, I didn't sort of set out to look at schools who are innovating because who's to say that their innovations would be sustainable or be successful in the long term or would be part of the future?

It couldn't just be me saying, I think so, and I'm not in the crystal ball gazing business. So my method of going about this was to start with the future, what we know about the kind of trends affecting our future, and look at the work of a whole range of organisations, which were futurists, think tanks, research organisations, intergovernmental organisations. Whose business was to say, here's how the future is looking, and if that's the case, what does that imply about what education should be doing?

And I synthesised out of that some design principles for schools. And these design principles were not around curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, which is the way we usually chunk it. They were around values, they were around operational philosophy, which is by the way, where curriculum and all that comes in. But they were also around learner experience. So three sort of clusters of design principles. And then with our research team, we went out, we had look for schools who were exemplifying these design principles. All of them actually with a very clear view to preparing their young people for the future that they want.

So if you ask me, values were very upfront around purpose, again, come back to that, that word, very much framed on understanding how equity is essential for a thriving future, that schools need to be absolutely relevant to young people's lives as they're lived. That they need to be learning centred in that they employ all the best research about how learning becomes powerful. And it's powerful. That they deploy technology cleverly not, you know, obsessively, sometimes a paintbrush is the best piece of technology. And that they are ecosystemic, which perhaps is not a word, familiar with colleagues, but meaning that they, they reach out, they see the school as a kind of base camp from which learners reach out and to which they bring terrific learning resources. And then finally they really do focus on the learner experience. Cause if it doesn't change the learner's experience, doesn't really mean a damn. And how do the learners experience it? Well, it should be, they should have a sense of being included, that they should be known where collaboration is the norm. That's how people do things here. You know, we collaborate together so we become powerful learners. That it is personalised, Geoff Masters talked a lot about that today, and obviously that's very challenging in public schools, but we're finding better ways. And I'll finish with this, that learners should feel empowered. Not disabled, not humiliated, not disregarded, but actually the school is a place where they become empowered.

Dale Atkinson: Well, I think it's a lovely, powerful message to finish on. Thank you very much for your time, Valerie Hannon.

Valerie Hannon: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all elders past, present, and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we're getting a little bit introspective, we are talking about the Perspective survey and how it might be used to improve various different areas, including communication, change, voice, how we can, um, use the process of asking people how they feel about various different aspects of their school experience and how that translates into change in a school environment.

And we are joined by a couple of principals. Karl Robs from Port Lincoln Junior Primary School, hello Karl.

Karl Robst: Hi, how are you?

Dale Atkinson: Good, thank you. And we are also joined by Kirsty Amos, who's the principal at Parafield Gardens High School, and one of her teachers now recently promoted to B1 leader, Beth Pontifex.

Kirsty Amos: Good morning.

Beth Pontifex: Good morning.

Dale Atkinson: Let's talk Kirsty about your school. Can you tell us a little bit about Parafield Gardens High School?

Kirsty Amos: We are a relatively large metropolitan high school. We've got approximately 1,250 students and the demographic is quite, um, diverse. We have up to 50 languages spoken in homes.

We have four or five main languages other than English, and we have a very broad spectrum of socioeconomic status. It is a wonderful school. It's a really inclusive school. We celebrate diversity. And our teaching staff and our ancillary staff is just as diverse as our students and our community. So I feel really proud and privileged to be there.

Dale Atkinson: It's a very large, very complex metropolitan setting.

Kirsty Amos: Yes.

Dale Atkinson: Which I think Karl probably, um, leaves you at the other end of the spectrum. Can you tell us a bit about Portland Lincoln Junior Primary?

Karl Robst: Oh, absolutely. You would think that Parafield Gardens High School and Port Lincoln Junior Primary School could be poles apart on this one, we're actually, um, very unique. As a junior primary school, we actually the last junior primary school in South Australia with our foundation of the year 2 students. We have 260 students on average. Uh, a very broad socioeconomic backgrounds with our families. And being rural South Australia comes with its unique challenges, but also those positives as well.

As a JP school, one of our positives is that real singular focus of education for foundation of year 2. Everything from facilities to staff development has a whole school, JP Design, it's actually quite a, a wonderful spot to work.

Dale Atkinson: So two schools, two very different settings. Um, but the reason we've brought you both together today, um, is to talk about the Perspective survey, which is a survey that we undertake where we invite all our teaching staff to respond, to let us know how things are going onsite and how things are developing, and able to track some of the progress and those sorts of things. Now, one of the three focus areas that we are looking at as a department is around communication, change and voice.

And the reason you are both here today is because you've both been able to deliver some pretty impressive growth in the era of positive feedback around the communications. So we're going to explore a little bit about how that came about. So firstly to you, Kirsty, your communication score between 2020 and 2022 improved by 17%.

Can you tell us how that feels when you see that result?

Kirsty Amos: Oh, well, it was, I was definitely looking for an improvement, but we started from a fairly compromised spot and we've still got a fair way to go, but I was really, really pleased. I was probably a little bit anxious before the results came out because I thought that we had improved, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure of that.

But we had worked really, really hard. Not just me by any means, the whole leadership team, but actually the whole staff. So talking to each other and supporting each other and making sure that if we have a problem, going back to check in, is a really important aspect of what we do. So to have the affirmation that we had made quite a significant improvement in a relatively short period of time was good.

And it meant that we could keep doing things that we were doing, but also look for other ways to get better.

Dale Atkinson: So what was your immediate reaction back in 2020 when you got the initial results? What did that feel like?

Kirsty Amos: Uh, that didn't really feel very good, but I was a little bit protected from it because I had only been in the school for about a term, so I could read it in a particular way.

Probably what was most shocking to me was the comments at the end, but a lot of the comments were about communication. And so I was able to, after you, you put your emotions aside, really analyse what the, um, comments and the data was saying, and then decide with staff what we were going to do about.

Dale Atkinson: It's really important to take a bit of the personal out of it.

Kirsty Amos: Mm-hmm.

Dale Atkinson: Immediately. So what were the things that you went after?

Kirsty Amos: Communication, asking for information, analysing information, sharing the actual information, and then the analysis with people, but trying to do some of the analysis together. It's not possible to do all of the analysis together because, um, getting 150 people together often is difficult, but you can get smaller groups together to discuss things that are relevant to them.

You can share information. So I put out a weekly report, and I do that every Sunday, and I make it clear to people that they don't have to read it on a Sunday, but I would like them to read it before staff meeting on a Monday afternoon. And people have let me know that they like that because some people like to do it on a Sunday. Some people like to do it first thing when they get to school on a Monday. Some people like to do it just before they need to, and all of that is fine. But using that mechanism, um, I can usually send one communication a week. Every now and again, something really important and urgent comes up that I need to not do that, but people then know that that is the methodology that I use.

And if it's in there, it's important and they need to need to know it. But that also gives me an opportunity to put in an in attachments of photographs of data that's being collected and usually collected from everybody so people can see themselves reflected in the data, they can see themselves being listened to, and then they can see that whatever decision is made, either as a collective or with relevant groups, that there's a reason for it.

If I can't do what it is that the majority wants, and it's also important that that's communicated why and what we can do next. If we can't do X, what is it that we can do that is going to have the best outcome for the biggest number of people?

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, so it's communication linked to a strategic purpose.

Kirsty Amos: Yes. The original question was what we wanted to go after first, a lot of people were telling me that behaviour was an issue, and we knew that, and it definitely was the volume of behaviour that needed to be managed. Was a bit overwhelming, so we needed to change how we were doing that. So that was one of the things that we consulted about, and we came up with a very, very different model of how we were going to do that.

Then we had to look at the leadership and how we were going to make sure that the behaviour was managed in a reasonable timely way. And then that we communicated with people what had happened and why and what we were going to do next. And so that wasn't a short process that actually took two terms, but in order to be able to reassure people that we hadn't just forgotten, we had to keep making sure that people knew where we were at in the process and what was happening as a result.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, really powerful tool for creating a consistency of expectations top to bottom from you know, the students through to the, uh, teaching, leadership and all the way through, and the parents and, and families.

Beth, your experience as a, as a teacher and now B1 leader, what did you see that changed from that 2020 time to now?

Beth Pontifex: Lots of different things, but for lots of different reasons. So not only did our leadership structure change, but the way that teachers were included in different communication also drastically changed. So whether it was communication around behaviour, the way that we are now included in a structured way that if there is a critical incidence, for example, we know what communication we'll receive from leadership and within how long. The day-to-day communication around staffing, we have a daily bulletin that comes out, and this year we've recently added some more information to that. So it's just communication has improved but in lots of different ways and for lots of different people. Kirsty's weekly report that comes out every week, as she just mentioned, and that has different uses for some teachers.

They just like to know and overarching everything that's happening. Some people are really interested in the data that comes out. There's also positives that Kirsty shares in her weekly report about good things that are happening, and teachers love seeing that part of it as well. So I think I've been at Parafield in a really sort of important time of change, but for lots of different reasons, not only just communication.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Karl I don't want to pit you against Kirsty here who had 17% improvement in her communication score, but you got 45%.

Kirsty Amos: That's amazing.

Dale Atkinson: It is amazing. Tell us a bit about how you have achieved that, uh, over the last couple of years.

Karl Robst: In all honesty, it's been great to listen to Kirsty and Beth talk about their site and the improvement they've gone through with that, because we're seeing very similar levers of improvement in our site as well.

Just understanding that the Perspective survey provides that voice for staff, for all staff, and it really does give a good indication of that school climate. It's all about that clarity and consistency. It allows our leadership team to actually understand the climate for the education that's occurring and the initiatives that are taking place.

You know, positive climate leads to more successful initiatives. One of the levers I believe you touched on there, I think is something that we really focus on is building that collective investment in the school's environment and culture. So sharing the data, sharing the information, and really having that ownership about where are the improvements coming from based on that, that survey, so, uh, staff understood that. Now it is valued, their thoughts and their opinions are valued, so therefore, together we'll decide on where it needs to improve. Communication, our leadership team has a real, I guess laser focus on true communication stems from that trust. Building, that trust through all facets of the school and staff, parents, students, and our leadership team really value that communication and have developed the skills to do so with real clarity.

So our deputy and wellbeing leader are great practitioners, are developing those strong working relationships through that trust and really believe that there should be some really clear process for communication. I know Kirsty spoke about different methods and so did Beth, about communication between leadership and staff.

We have a digital platform, which we have similar actions as well with, uh, bulletins and daily communications. And having that ease of communication. Now, I really believe that it really should come from that, and Beth touched on it as well, that value adding direction as well, and really avoiding that deficit model, you know, that, uh, communication really needs to come from that, uh, value adding, so, you know, continues that trust.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, Kirsty he was nodding along there about the, uh, the value add model. Can you add a little bit to that Kirsty?

Kirsty Amos: Yeah. Schools are complex places regardless of where you are and how big or small or how diverse. But we, we need to manage the things that happen on a day-to-day basis, but we always need to come back to our core business and what it is that we are trying to achieve, which is, make school an amazing place for the young people that we teach and support them to develop the skills and abilities that they need to be successful in whatever it is that they choose to be successful in.

And the way that we do that is to have a site improvement plan. And we have strategies about whether it's about teaching, reading or um, numeracy or digital technology or so we have to be able to communicate about the things that we are making decisions about, but we always have to come back to that core, students at the centre, and we can do that by affirming all of the wonderful things that happen. I don't know of a better place to work than in, in a school because we have so many opportunities to do that. And bringing it back all the time is a good strategy too.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. It's such a great way to kind of reinforce the good work that's going on and encourage and help improve. One of the things that is a limit of Perspective is it's a point in time. It's, you know, once every couple of years and you get some results back. How do you track that the changes that you're making in response to it are being successful and gaining traction in the interim.

Kirsty Amos: I think we just use it as a point in time, but we continue to ask for information and share information and follow on. It's really important that if you ask for information, that you use it and that you share with people how it's being used. You also need to make sure that just because you got a piece of information and you choose to do X, Y, or Z, and you then do that, that may or may not end up the way that you think. So after you've done that, you've got to collect more information to make sure that it was the right decision in the first place. And if it is excellent, do more of that. But if it isn't, you need to modify it somehow. And you need to include the same people in making the decision if you're going to refine something.

So that's also really important. We, after every student free day, we have a quick Google form response sheet and we, we try and make it really quick and easy for people to see whether it met their needs and again, in the next student free day, if it did meet people's needs, we'll do more of that. If it didn't, we don't do that again.

But we also ask people what it is that would have met their needs. So we do that about really everything. So one of our strategies at the moment is before, during, and after reading strategies. And we have, uh, people really loved sharing their work. It doesn't have to be perfect work, but what the important thing is, is that people feel, um, supported to share, they feel supported that they don't have to be perfect, but that we are all in this together.

And we will get better if we share our work collectively. Lots of different data collection points, lots of sharing and using the information that we have together to get better. Continuous improvement all the time. Because you're already good.

Dale Atkinson: That's not bad. We might chop that out and use that as a, I don't know, a slogan for a t-shirt or something.

Kirsty Amos: I'll buy one.

Dale Atkinson: Karl um, uh, for you, how do, how do you maintain the momentum of or the focus that you are able to identify from Perspective and carry that through?

Karl Robst: I think one of the major challenges, and I know that Kirsty and Beth feel it in larger sites as well, is time. So if you want staff to communicate deeply about student needs, or within ancillary staff or to parents with special initiative groups, they must have the time.

This becomes a time tabling and a finance, and even a human resourcing issue, it can be. But if it's important, you structure the time in, and I love Kirsty's point about noticing all the quality and acknowledging the larger and the smaller achievements and really noticing what's occurring on site. I mean, how we go about checking in and maintaining, I guess, the momentum of the initiatives in place, after the survey, it really does come down to that, uh, open door policy. Really having leadership being open to feedback, have built those levels of trust with staff to be able to give feedback to leaderships and also the trust that, uh, as Kirsty said, it'll be acted upon. And if we can't act upon it, then have a real transparent conversation about why that is and what can we do instead.

Some of the work that, uh, previous leadership team put in place was around that aspect of time and communication, and really strategically giving staff opportunities during our PLCs to meet and discuss students' outcomes. And as Kirsty said, keeping students focused in that centre. It is all about the students and their needs.

Now, our current leadership team is really focused on the idea of a clear improvement narrative, giving all the staff a voice, providing the ancillary staff with high quality PD so they have the same communication, the same language as teachers, and can be considered partners in that student outcomes.

And our leadership team implement digital platform communication as, uh, many schools do. One initiative that we have, um, put in place that, um, not the Perspective survey, but our follow up check-ins have indicated have been well taken by staff is our PDP format. So Beth, our deputy and myself, are present in those meetings and we offer a coaching model and we coach the staff through the session.

So we ask them to come with less, less preconceived ideas of what we might want to hear. And instead through that open communication actually leave with meaningful and relevant goals. And, um, while that was something that we didn't put much weight to as far as we didn't think it would be a true, um, true lever, we just thought this was good practice and an opportunity that we could present. It's comeback from staff as a really meaningful opportunity.

And again, in some way it's really respected that aspect of time instead of the guesswork about what they think, uh, the leaders might want to hear. They come in, we have a real clear conversation, a real coaching method to actually unpack that deeply.

Yeah, I think that's a really powerful thing to have those sorts of conversations in an open forum with that coaching mindset in place.

 We are really talking about it in the smaller site though. Um, as the site gets larger, there would be many complexities around, um, time tabling where you would have two leaders in a session at the same time. So it may be unique to a, a site like such as ourselves. But, um, we do find it's a, it's a valuable method.

Kirsty Amos: Well, actually, Karl, it's interesting that you say that because we use a growth coaching model, but I don't do it all. So all of my leadership team have been trained in growth coaching, and it's a very similar process. We don't want people to come with preconceived ideas. So it is an authentic conversation where people are listened to and supported to come up with meaningful goals. Yeah. So that's great.

Karl Robst: Yeah. That's great.

Dale Atkinson: Now, if I can go back to the teacher perspective, Beth, what is the active role that the teaching workforce can play in this process? Not just of Perspective, but in terms of showing leadership from the troops?

Beth Pontifex: Yeah. I think it's all about, because schools, especially ours, is on that improvement trajectory around communication. Teachers actually feel more confident and willing to then go and ask those questions as well. Because the communications coming from leadership. Teachers feel confident to go and knock on a leader's door and ask a question or send an email, whereas that wasn't what people felt willing and comfortable to do previously.

But our focus is the young people in front of us and our focus is helping them. Whether that's positively, whether that's helping them redirect themselves and self-regulate. They're our focus. So just trying really hard to keep that in mind I think is something that is really important. We can all get bogged down in so much of the other stuff that happens in every school, every day, but just remembering why we're there.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's a powerful sentiment. So we might, uh, we're almost out of time, but we might just wrap up. Perhaps if I could go to each of you and just get your number one priority, communications wise over this term and how you are planning to kind of execute that. So, Kirsty, what do you think?

Kirsty Amos: Mm-hmm. Open, transparent, regular. Did I say honest already? It's really important that when, uh, people ask you a question that you answer it as honestly as you can with the information that you have, and do the best that you can to address whatever it is that the need is.

Dale Atkinson: Very good, Karl?

Karl Robst: I agree totally. I think having practices in place and avenues for communication in place at the moment, I think, um, we will really focus on being able to follow through with agreed actions from that communication.

So all staff who've have had a voice are seeing some results and together building that, that shared efficacy of that student outcomes, keeping those kids centred in the conversation.

Dale Atkinson: Consistency, commitment, honesty. Lots of good themes there. Karl, Kirsty. Beth, thank you very much for your time.

Kirsty Amos: Thank you.

Karl Robst: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today I am out at Craigmore High School and we're joined by Georgina Davis who is the Student Agency and Pastoral Care Leader at Craigmore High School. Hello Georgina.

Georgina Davis: Hello.

And we've also got Elliot who is a student leadership group member. He's in year eight.

Elliot: Hello.

Dale Atkinson: And finally Ellie who's a fashion design student in year nine.

Ellie: Hi.

Dale Atkinson: Thanks very much for joining us. So the reason we're out here is we're going to talk about student agency. What it is, how to get it, how to activate it and what to do with it when you've got it.

First of all let's have a quick chat with Georgina Davis. Georgina, can you tell us a little bit about Craigmore High School?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, absolutely. So Craigmore High School is a category 2 public school in the northern suburbs. We have years 7 to 12 here and we have an extremely diverse range of students from ATSI, EALD backgrounds and many different other backgrounds to be really honest.

So yeah, really diverse school with lots of fantastic students, over a thousand students on this site.

Dale Atkinson: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey as a school in terms of seeking to activate student voice and agency. What, what were the motivating factors behind it?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, absolutely. Um, so student agency has been a major part of Craigmore High School for a long time now.

I think even before I started teaching, to be really honest, and currently it sits with me as the Student Agency and Pastoral Care Leader, which is a new role this year at our site. Previously, it has sat with curriculum areas in regards to co-agency and students designing their curriculum. It's also sat in areas of leadership groups, which or other ad hoc programs where staff have volunteered to do those things.

And I think at the moment we're really working on refining that program and refining those curriculum areas and making sure they're really visible to all our staff and that they're able to understand the importance of student agency in our site for all staff.

Dale Atkinson: Now when I talk to my friends who are not educators about student agency, inevitably they always say, why would you bother asking kids about what they want to learn? So, what's the answer to that question? Why do we engage with students in this?

Georgina Davis: So student agency is a multifaceted approach to teaching and I think there's many, many, many wonderful approaches or reasons why you should use student agency. The reason that we use student agency, or I personally think student agency is really, really important, is it gives students an entry point and an engagement.

It's the same way that if you're at home and you are, okay, I've got a list of things to do right now, and one of them is clean the toilet, mop the floors, walk the dog, or baking. And baking is my passion. I love baking. I know which one as an adult I'm going to go to first. Which one is my interest? Which one am I going to be willing to engage in?

Which one am I willing to actually get some learning out of as well? Yes, I could probably learn how to effectively clean a toilet, but I don't really want to do it, so I'm probably going to rush it. I'm probably not going to do it really well. I'm not going to really pay attention. But if I, okay, I really want to bake a red velvet cake, I really want to refine the skills that I need.

Whether it be whisking eggs or making the best possible icing for that cake. I'm willing to have an entry point in that. I'm willing to engage in that. Students are willing to engage in things that they are interested in. They're not willing to, and I don't blame them, not willing to engage in things that they have no interest or stake in. Why bother?

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, I'm totally up for the baking over the toilet task to be honest with you. So let's talk about how you actively activate that. What does that process look like?

Georgina Davis: So at Craigmore High School, student agency is a multifaceted approach. It very much is multifaceted at this site. So the first thing is your stereotypical student agency group.

So your leadership group, which I feel like most schools would have these days, is our first sort of port of call. However, we've really made an effort to diversify those student agency groups. So making sure that I'm not just got your stereotypical student leaders, the kids that want to be there and are happy to have leadership attached to their name.

We've also got different groups. So for example, we have the Charter Ambassador Program, which we're about to start running, which gives students an opportunity to look at the charter and what impacts them and what makes them happy, safe and well, and that they get to involve themselves in that. We also run the Australian Refugee Association group and I have a group of girls that work to really make their voices heard in regards to the refugee space.

So it's a really diverse range of students in those leadership groups. We're also looking at forming an ATSI group to support Aboriginal learners at our site. So that's the first sort of facet of it. The other area moves towards the curriculum side. Now within curriculum there's two approaches again.

The first one is subjects that have been specifically designed with student agency at the focus and they would be at our year seven and eight level passion projects. So passion project was designed for students to explore their passion and that was designed with student agency at the focus. So that's our middle school version of agency in a curriculum subject and if you move towards SACE, we obviously have the new EIF and AIF pilots currently running through, where student agency is once again at the forefront.

And I suppose the third part of student agency at our site is looking at our curriculum areas. So your maths, your HASS, your English, your science. And in those areas, co-design is used to support student learning. So they should have a say in what they are learning in those subjects.

Dale Atkinson: What difference does that make in that last bit around the co-design? What difference does that make in terms of engagement for the kids?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, so I think it goes back to even what I was just saying before about the baking example. If you're willing to engage in that, the results are going to be more authentic. The outcomes are going to be better because students are willing to put the effort, willing to put the time in.

So if you've just got say two designated lessons a week, which we do at CHS, and say you want to do this really, really big project, you're obviously going to have to engage outside of school. I'm only going to engage in that if I have agency in it, if I have some sort of stake in it, if I have something that I'm willing to do.

So students are more dedicated in their learning. The outcomes are much better in that they are authentically learning things that are important to them that they know are going to guide or improve their future.

Dale Atkinson: And what are the, um, kind of metrics, what, you know, in education we are absolutely obsessed with data. What are the metrics in terms of what you're measuring and what you're seeing from, from this engagement?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, so we definitely have to speak to our curriculum leads on this one because within CHS obviously many different, um, curriculum areas. I know specifically, um, if we're looking at our leadership group, so not the curriculum area that we were just talking about, we're seeing an uptake in students actually participating in those leadership groups. The number has grown greatly and it's also diversifying, which is really important. So whereas before we had no students from our disability unit in our leadership group, this year we do. And we're also seeing a range of students from a range of different backgrounds involved in these leadership groups, which previously we may have seen less of.

So it's really good to see a diverse range of students within these groups.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that sounds incredible and very rewarding, I would imagine.

Georgina Davis: Yes, it is.

Dale Atkinson: Which is a good time, I think, to bring in the students, given that this is all about the kids. So Elliot, Georgina spoke a little bit about the student leadership group and you're obviously heavily involved in that.

Can you tell us a little bit about what that experience looks like and the impact that you're having at the school?

Elliot: The student leadership group is pretty much when a whole bunch of students come together and want to make change for their peers and the school, the school environment in general. We come together in this room and have like a list of things that we talk about, sometimes made by teachers, but we host it ourself and the teacher mostly takes notes.

Dale Atkinson: What have you been tackling this year so far?

Elliot: The stuff we've tackled so far is the green team, which is pretty much a way to help the environment around the school. There's been a lot of trash and litter, and lots of children just don't care about the environment. So we put together a group of different students to help clean up the school and educate around the subject.

Dale Atkinson: And what was it that made that one of the things that you wanted to focus on?

Elliot: Ever since I was a kid, I've always like seen bad stuff happening on the news and bad stuff happening to the people around me. And I've always wanted to make some change one way or another, even if it's just in a small school environment.

Dale Atkinson: And does it make you feel like you've got a bit more kind of control over your day here at Craigmore High School?

Elliot: I'm a very controlling person and I like having power over other things and being able to do what I'd like is really rewarding to me.

Dale Atkinson: And do you feel like you've made more connections with the other students here?

Have you sort of expanded out your friendship groups into areas that you wouldn't have expected?

Elliot: Definitely. Lots of the students in the student leadership group I had barely talked to before I joined and now I'm pretty close with them and I can just send them messages about what's happening or just talk to them in the yard.

Dale Atkinson: That's really exciting. Ellie, you were a fashion design student, uh, in year nine. Now, um, we were talking before we came on air about just how old I am. Now there is no, there is no way when I was at high school that there would have been a fashion design program in year nine. Can you tell me what that looks like, how that's happened, and what your experience has been.

Ellie: Yeah, so, originally, I'm going to put this out, originally when I started I was doing visual arts. No interest in jewellery at all. And then I suddenly picked up, I want to do jewellery, I want to make, you know, all these pieces, and my teachers just went, alright. Just do jewellery making, like, I'll help you do this.

So, jewellery making is a lot of like, focus, a lot of, um, of course designing, and you know, making practical things. And really delving into what you want to create as a designer.

Dale Atkinson: And what's been the experience over the last couple of terms? Like, have you been able to kind of create some really incredible things?

Ellie: Oh, yeah, of course. I've been able to fully make three pairs of earrings so far, big thing for me because I've never touched jewellery before I started this. And yeah, really being able to like expand my creativity in that department.

Dale Atkinson: And are you looking to go on with it, a little bit?

Ellie: Of course. I've had a blast.

Dale Atkinson: That's excellent. Can I talk a little bit back with you Georgina about what that experience might look like from a teacher because obviously there is an element of... kind of courage and trust that kind of goes into that sort of approach where you do meet a student on their own level.

What is it in terms of the conversations that you're having with your colleagues to kind of make that really give that permission for them to try something new?

Georgina Davis: It's a really individualised thing. So I can say all I want to be honest, but I think a lot of our staff have a lot of really great tools in their toolkit to do that. Megan Hill is Ellie's teacher and Megan is fantastic at co-design and as you can hear already, she's done some wonderful co design with Ellie so far. I think it's really about starting the conversation with students. Because it can seem quite scary to release the reigns a little bit because as a teacher you're like, okay, I need to have my learning assessment plans, I need to have my unit plans, lesson plans and I also need to make sure that this all comes back to the Australian curriculum.

So your hands are fairly tied to start off with and then you have students and you're like I really want to engage them in this and I really want to do this and you're hesitant to start. Most people are 100% and I totally get that but I think if we look at the outcomes as I was talking about before, it's easier for you to teach a class where you're not having to run up against behaviour because you won't have behaviour in your classroom if students are actively engaged and if students are doing things that they have chosen, say like Ellie making earrings, the behaviour is going to be at an all time low.

So it's really about me helping staff create that conversation or start that conversation, really starting to sort of discuss their interests. Things they don't like as well, and like really anything. So having that conversation to start off with is the starting point.

Dale Atkinson: Back to you Ellie. You've obviously had this great opportunity and experience of, of doing jewellery design within the fashion space. Have you been able to think about, uh, other areas that you might want to expand into and, and use to engage your education?

Ellie: Personally, at the moment, my HASS class, we were focusing on, in the beginning, wasn't interested in that. It was like, basic, you know, World War stuff. And my teacher has said to us, she's gone up to us and said, Hey, what do you want to learn about next semester?

Is there anything you're interested in? And this has really got me like, oh, okay. Like, this is something I can have a voice in. I can pick what I want to learn. And it's really helped me personally stay like, on track. I want to come to school now because I have a voice.

Dale Atkinson: So Elliot, in terms of, uh, next steps and directions for the student leadership group, you spoke a little bit about some green initiatives. Are there some other things that you're looking to tackle in the back half of 2023?

Elliot: We're working on having different clubs and lunchtime activities, because the very first thing thing we discussed in the leadership group was there being nothing to do at recess and lunch and lots of groups just walking around having no idea what to do.

So we want to set up like student run clubs where students can pick whatever they're interested in, that being like chess or theatre or gaming. And like set up a little room at recess or lunch with obviously a teacher present so they can just do what they'd like and express themselves in a little room with people that want to be there.

Dale Atkinson: It's such a different approach to like teachers telling you maybe you guys might like to play some soccer at lunchtime or something like that. Do you feel like the ability to kind of come up with those ideas yourselves is important?

Elliot: Yeah, a lot of lunchtime activities has just been this is happening at this time, come here, or this is going on in this room. And I feel like having the opportunity to like have students pick what they want to do and like how they do it is really good.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's exciting, isn't it Georgina, in terms of being able to unlock the passion in the kids, but also give the teachers maybe a little bit more freedom to kind of engage with students in areas that might be interest from outside.

Georgina Davis: Absolutely. It's definitely, and it was a question asked of me this morning actually around like how rewarding this is. And I said, my favourite part of my job is like building relationships with kids and having a chat. And now in my role, I just do that all the time.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's pretty exciting. So I mean, I asked the students about their plans for the back half of this year and you've sort of ran through at the start of the pod just about some of those things that you're looking at in terms of climate ambassadors and the Australian Refugee Association group and other groups like that.

Where are you planning to take this?

Georgina Davis: So you've heard that we've got a couple of different leadership groups. I really want to expand that, driven by student interest. So SLG is something that, like, leadership group is something that us as teachers are like, we need a leadership group. I really would like to throw that back to the kids and see what that they feel there needs to be leadership in regards to.

I did mention earlier about the ATSI leadership group and that's about diversifying our leaders. And I think it's really important to hear Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices throughout our site as well as in many other facets of our learning. That's why that exists and why it should exist.

And I think setting up more leadership groups where students get that say is part of what I'm going to do. Chatting to our principal, Sarah, I think I'd also really like to make this learning and the student agency learning more visible across the site. I think for new staff coming in, and we have many wonderful ECTs at our site, it's really hard coming into a new site, whether you're a brand new teacher or you've been teaching for 20 plus years and trying to understand the lay of the land.

And I think student agency has always been at the forefront of our school, but I think providing staff with the strategies, facilities to understand what the key components of that are and how to do it within their classrooms because it looks very different at a HASS level to a student leadership level.

They're both student agency but they look very different. So I think making the learning more visible for others is something that I'm really keen to work towards and really delving into those specific curriculum areas, HASS, English, etc. to really understand the excellence that's happening in their areas and making that visible to everyone.

Dale Atkinson: And where do you go for your own learning in this area in terms of the networks that you tap into and perhaps the knowledge of colleagues?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, absolutely. So, firstly, knowledge of colleagues is, would be my first thing. We have after school on a Thursday when the kids leave early. Um, we obviously have from 2.30 to 4.30pm and throughout this time, we have used that time for lots of literacy intervention for our school because that's something really important to our site. But I think I'd really like to tap into the wonderful student agency that's happening throughout our site and allowing others to present on their ideas.

So I think to be really honest, I think your first, and you'd be silly not to, is looking at staff here that are already doing it because we've already heard of the wonderful examples in Megan's class already. Why would we not go speak to Megan?

Dale Atkinson: And are you comfortable if people come and speak with you?

Georgina Davis: Oh, absolutely. Go ahead.

Dale Atkinson: Excellent. Alright. Well, we might make some of those details available, uh, either through us or, um, up on the notes in terms of contacting Georgina, which would be great. I guess we've got a bit of time for one final message. So I guess my final question to all of you is, what difference has the activation of agency made in terms of, for you Ellie and Elliot?

Elliot: I'm a lot more confident about my schoolwork. Having like, most of the time it's just a task sheet with like a list of things we have to do. And the rest is completely up to us. So I love just decorating my little slideshows or PowerPoints or whatever I have to do. And having the choice to put in a lot of effort or put in a little. Or paint this one colour, paint it another. I just love that.

Georgina Davis: Sounds great. Ellie?

Ellie: Totally agree. This has just been something that's, you know. Like I've said before, it just allowed me to get more motivated, just in general, coming to school. I'm like, alright, you know, I can choose what I want to do, I'm gonna go for it. It's like, I'd be silly to throw away the opportunity. Yeah.

Elliot: I'm a lot more happy coming to school if that means I get to do whatever I want instead of following a script that a teacher gives me.

Dale Atkinson: I get the feeling, Georgina, that that, what they just said there, is essentially the motivator for you, is that right?

Georgina Davis: Yeah, 100%. That is the first and forefront motivator. The other thing also, if I was adding my two cents, is it's, like, it's easier as a teacher. I know it might not seem like that, like you have to go into a classroom, you have to then like work backwards and have a chat to the kids, but, If you're not up against students that don't want to do the work, and I don't blame them, some of the curriculum, it can be a little bit tricky to either understand or get through sometimes.

If we're facing up against that, sometimes it's really important we then then have these agency, these discussions to help our students, which in all fairness makes my job a lot easier because I don't have to behaviour manage. I don't have to do any of those silly things I don't want to do. I can just have a chat. This is what we're doing. What do you want to do? Okay, let's do that. That's your lesson. It's so much easier.

So whether you're either baking a cake or

Dale Atkinson: making some earrings or changing the world through green initiatives, the more control and agency you've got, the better. Thank you very much. This has been a great chat. Georgina, Ellie, Elliot. Thank you.

Georgina Davis: No worries.

Ellie: Thank you for having us.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia.

My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today I am joined by the Senior Lecturer at Flinders University in Health and Physical Education, the Outdoor Education Lead, Joss Rankin. Thank you very much for joining us.

Joss Rankin: Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: Now, outdoor education. What is it?

Joss Rankin: It's a really broad term and it depends in what context sometimes we're talking about it. Outdoor education most commonly is thought of as the subject area at schooling and it's to do with learning in outdoor spaces, um, it's connections with environment, it's an understanding of cultural perspectives of those spaces that we're in and often connected with the adventure activities.

So when we think of outdoor education sometimes we might say I went kayaking or I went bushwalking or mountain bike riding. And that's a nice starting point sometimes, but yeah, outdoor education more broadly definitely connects with activity, people, environment and cultures.

Dale Atkinson: So my recollection as a child of outdoor education was, as you say, some of those outdoor activities and learning the skills around those outdoor activities. But what are we trying to link them to when we take kids outside?

Joss Rankin: Yeah, great question. When we take kids outside and we're learning in the outdoors, we can think about what the broad range of outcomes are that we might actually be looking to achieve. So when we talk about outdoor education in the Australian Curriculum, it's, it's not actually a subject area independently on its own from foundation through to year 10.

So we can actually look at it as experiences embedded in other subject areas, or we can look at it as a pedagogical approach. So if you're talking about that idea of developing skills related to the outdoor activities, often it's because we do have that subject in existence, although it's not on its own learning area, we might utilise outdoor education as a subject for the achievement of outcomes in a range of areas. So the outcomes can be connected to things like our cross-curriculum capabilities, our cross-curriculum priorities, or if we're using it to achieve outcomes in other learning areas like mathematics or geography or science, we can view it as a pedagogical approach and we might talk about that more specifically as outdoor learning.

So the way we go about the teaching and learning as opposed to the subject that has its own defined outcomes specifically.

Dale Atkinson: What are the advantages of taking children outside in terms of that pedagogical approach?

Joss Rankin: It's a really big question. And it's one I explore a lot with my students. And if we can think about, I guess, the domains of learning. So if we think about we can achieve outcomes that are physical, cognitive outcomes, social outcomes, affective outcomes, that question of what are the benefits, we can actually start to now categorize them into those domains of learning. I've got a colleague at Flinders at the moment, Kate Ridley, that's looking at what are the reasons in which we might embed movement generally in learning outside of Phys Ed or outside of outdoor education.

And there's really strong mental health outcomes that are being shown through research. We can also look at those social interaction outcomes. It's an interesting one because that, that idea of social competence is a cross curriculum capability, but it's not necessarily something that's always explicitly taught.

There's this misunderstanding that maybe because we've got people to work in groups that will develop those social outcomes, but those in a sense are skills themselves and students need to have challenges and experience what it's like to work with others and disagree and come up with common understandings and hear opinions.

So what are the advantages or what are the outcomes that we might achieve? We can look across that spectrum of there are personal advantages. There are advantages for social interactions. There are advantages for affect and stimulating different emotions, whether that be joy or being uncomfortable or a range of those sorts of things.

And I think for me, one of the biggest advantages of taking students outdoors is we often talk about this idea that we want students to connect learning with the real world and what better place to go for the real world than out into it.

Dale Atkinson: So what's happening in a young person or a child's brain that's different when they're in the classroom, as opposed to when they're outdoors?

Joss Rankin: When they're outdoors, we've got an opportunity to stimulate what we might refer to as embodied learning. So we don't have to be outside to stimulate embodied learning, but inherently doing things in different spaces that allow people to move and collect and share and show, um, encourages people to embody their learning.

And when we go right back to, say, John Dewey in the 40s talking about some of those foundational educational theories, we actually understand really clearly now that through embodiment, our mind makes sense of our experiences. So by engaging my body in what's going on, I make sense of what I'm learning in relation to me.

And a really simple example, I was talking about this with someone last night, is that I can tell you that a rose thorn is sharp. And you can understand that it is, and I can tell you that it's going to hurt, and you can think, okay, well, maybe I don't want to do that, but there's going to be a little bit of intrigue.

And until you go and touch that rose thorn, you don't understand what it feels like necessarily. And I think that's the example that comes to my mind because I have a three-year-old child at the moment. And, and I've said that many times, mate, that's sharp, watch out. And he'll go, yep, daddy, I won't touch it. And inherently then I'll hear the scream.

Dale Atkinson: That's the difference between sort of knowledge and experience, isn't it?

Joss Rankin: Yeah. This ability for people to have an experience with the knowledge that we're trying to engage them with and make sense of it in their own life world.

Dale Atkinson: I would imagine for educators sometimes the idea of moving a learning experience from indoors where there's a controllable environment and known parameters for these kids and taking that outdoors is a challenge. What is it that teachers should be thinking about and being brave with to make that step?

Joss Rankin: Yeah, it's a really good point. It's not necessarily the standard to take our learning outside.

If we think about the space that I work in, in, tertiary education, a lot of the lessons that training teachers experience are in indoor places. So in their training, they are getting used to and getting comfortable with classrooms and tables and the ability to bring a PowerPoint up. And it's often also been their experience coming up to that point.

So it's this cycle of what appears normal and what do I feel comfortable with? And the challenges often are that going outside is different. So the weather is unpredictable. The equipment isn't in beautifully aligned boxes on a shelf. I'm not a hundred percent sure that students are going to stay in a particular space like they might stay on the floor or at a desk.

They don't necessarily always do that anyway, but here's that idea of we're trying to create students who are inquisitive, are creative, want to know answers, want to challenge ideas, and the outdoor environment presents us with that. So I think the question was around what should we kind of be aware of in, in facing those challenges.

And you mentioned the word brave, and I think being brave is a really big part of it because uh, things won't always go exactly the way that I've planned. But if they have, we're working in a teaching and learning environment that is always predictable. And if I'm asking students to be creative and to challenge ideas, I actually don't want to end at that predictable point because we haven't created something new, we haven't challenged an idea because we've got to exactly where I thought we would get to. So if we've got an idea around the outcome that we'd want to achieve, not necessarily the product of that outcome, that can be one thing that helps that level of comfort to go, I understand where I want this learning episode to go, this day to go, this week to go, with how students engage and reminding ourselves that the content, the answer or the end point, that's just one little piece of the puzzle in terms of the outcomes that we are actually trying to achieve. And layering what we're doing outside with a range of other outcomes in the first place and just starting simple.

I want students to interact, and I want them to be inquisitive about a concept to start with. That might be what helps us feel a little bit safer and a little bit braver to do this.

Dale Atkinson: So if you're an educator who, um, is considering this for the first time or has had some experiences that weren't necessarily great in terms of taking the kids outdoors, what's a great way in for them?

Joss Rankin: I think start simple. Just have one idea or one concept that you want to play with and talk with a peer, a colleague, about how you're going to use this as a pedagogical approach. So for instance, if you're working with a group of students on the concept of number or sorting, maybe just start with using the outdoor spaces or natural pieces of equipment in the first place.

So maybe actually you bring a piece of the outdoors in rather than spending $150, $200 of your classroom budget on perfectly aligned blocks that have 10 of each colour and these sorts of things. Go outside and collect a bunch of things that are presented to you. Grab some rocks, grab some sticks, grab some leaves, grab some blades of grass, grab some rubbish potentially as well and look at those concepts just with that equipment and realise that actually the environment presented you with the opportunity to use those things as equipment and to, to explore the concepts. The idea of working with a colleague can be nice because they can be there as a critical friend as well. And when things don't work perfectly, like it gets a little bit windy and blows the kids equipment away, you can just take a second to have a laugh with each other as opposed to panic and look at how that actually has now changed the parameters for the way that the student understands that concept. One of their groups has blown away. Maybe that presents a conversation about the properties of that leaf or that stick or that whatever it might have been.

So start simple. Just go, what is the concept I'm working with? Can I use things from the outdoors and bring that in to start with? Or do I feel brave enough to go and use the spaces as well?

Dale Atkinson: And in wellbeing terms, what is the experience that young people are having, children are having when they're going outdoors, how does that aid with their wellbeing?

Joss Rankin: There's a range of really simple and really complex outcomes. So a few things that go on in the brain when we move, we actually stimulate new areas of the brain connected with, you know, releasing endorphins and these sorts of things that just generally make us feel a little bit better. I think there are greater opportunities in the environment to be able to connect socially.

I think structured classrooms sometimes can be a little bit restrictive in the amount of people we can engage with. And if we can promote good social interactions, we feel better about ourselves. In those groups and those translations into making friends in the classroom to connecting those ideas with what I do when I'm on the playground becomes really interesting as well.

There's also that idea that simply being in green spaces actually promotes well being too. So there's little bits and pieces that all start to come together in terms of simply being outside, being amongst green spaces and natural environments, embedding movement into what we do to stimulate a good sense of wellbeing, promoting social interactions, and seeing myself as a learner in the real world.

It's amazing how often we might explore a concept on a playground with a child and then go for a walk at lunchtime and see if any of those kids are trying to continue to explore that learning. They don't always, but it's quite interesting to see how often they will replicate those ideas if they realise that they exist in those places that they play as well.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, what an incredibly affirming type thing that is for an educator. You're obviously out and about in schools quite a bit and engaging with teachers. Are there some activities and some behaviours that have just blown you away in terms of like, wow, that is the most incredible thing. That is what all educators should be doing.

Joss Rankin: Yeah, there's some really great stuff that educators are doing. When there's a permission to explore and try something that might not work, there's a real sense of freedom. And I've seen some really interesting things that have been set up. And for me, some of the biggest wow moments have actually been about the reactions of the children.

When you ask that question, my first memory isn't necessarily of a particular activity, but it's of the response. And I remember doing some work with some schools down south and we were looking at these ideas of embodiment, the way that we might express our understanding through our movements. And we were doing a lot of things with musical patterns.

So a representation of repeating patterns and looking for those patterns in the music and then representing them with coloured dots. So for instance, every time we heard a clapping stick, there'd be a red dot. Every time we heard the kick drum, there'd be a blue dot, making that visual representation of what the repeating pattern was and how that translated to the music. And we were having some conversations with the children at the end and there was a really interesting conversation with, I think it was a year two student and he said, I really like body learning. I said, do you mate? What do you like about body learning? He said, oh, people don't usually come and choose to be in my group and play with me, but when we do body learning, they do. And I get a chance to work with my friends. And it was just one of those moments where you go, oh, this is for this kid about feeling connected and feeling safe at school, and it was a really interesting one.

Dale Atkinson: That's such a powerful thing in terms of the nexus that we're all going after in schools between, you know, learning social safety, wellbeing, what an experience that would be for the young man.

Joss Rankin: Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: Incredible. Now, what sort of conversations, you know, say you're working in an environment where outdoor education is not facilitated, uh, encouraged, isn't something that has been habitually in, in place. What sort of conversations should educators and teachers be having with their leadership teams around how to bring this into place? What are the main selling points?

Joss Rankin: I think the starting point is to define some of the differences and understandings. So if we're talking about saying, hey, I think outdoor education would be really valuable in this environment, and we get a response that says, no, I don't think so. I think explore that a little bit further.

So there's a little bit of work to do in defining the differences between outdoor education as a subject and outdoor learning as an approach to explore a range of outcomes from a variety of learning areas. Embodied learning as a pedagogical approach. And then we can also talk about cultural responsiveness.

So an understanding of different ways of going about learning. And if we can explore those differences in the first place, we might actually find that the initial no is a response to something like risk aversion. I don't want us to do outdoor education because we don't have the skills, we don't have the risk management, the prior experience with bushwalking or kayaking.

And we can say, ah, actually what I'm talking about is the ability to use outdoor learning as a pedagogical approach for these reasons. So step one could just be defining those differences and clarifying what we're actually talking about. And then step two might be looking for opportunities to engage with it.

So maybe you do have a really resistant group who don't want to explore that. So maybe test some ideas at lunchtime. Go and engage with children on the playground or in the sandpit and prompt them with a few questions. What are you doing? What are you exploring? What are you noticing? And then start to record some of that information for yourself and look at the ways that they are engaging with ideas.

And I'm going out on a limb here and saying I think actually we'll have some realizations along the way because over and over and over again, we see these positive outcomes from outdoor learning, from embodied learning, from an ability to be creative and explore ideas.

Dale Atkinson: Where can teachers go for more information?

Joss Rankin: Lots of different places, thankfully. The Australian Curriculum actually has this really hidden little space of information. We're very good at finding the learning outcomes connected to areas, the capabilities and the priorities. But if you type in and search for Australian Curriculum connectors, these are pedagogical approaches that can be used to explore the outcomes across the curriculum.

Outdoor learning is one of the Australian Curriculum's curriculum connectors. And that's a really good starting point for going, what is outdoor learning? How can it be applied to our curriculum to achieve learning outcomes? And it's also got a little bit of a research bank that starts there. If you want to get more interested in particular areas, you can search for things like forest schools as a concept.

And there's a lot of stuff that comes out of the UK that looks at this idea of outdoor learning from an early learning setting or what they refer to as forest schooling in some instances, but also revisiting some of that stuff that's through kind of initial teacher education around John Dewey's concepts of embodied learning and what that actually allows students to do.

 But thankfully that initial in through the Australian Curriculum, I think is a really strong one because it's, it's part of what we, we've got as our curriculum.

Dale Atkinson: That's great. We'll include some of those links in the show notes. Joss Rankin, Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, Health and Physical Education. Thank you very much for your time.

Joss Rankin: Thanks for having me.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education and today we are joined by a man who is a clinical psychologist, a family therapist, an author, a speaker. There's a very long list of things in front of me here, Andrew.

Andrew Fuller, thank you very much for your time.

Andrew Fuller: Feel free to keep going.

Dale Atkinson: Well, it does say here you've worked with more than 4000 schools and more than 500,000 young people, which is incredibly impressive.

Andrew Fuller: I get around.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And your area of expertise really is around helping young people to self-regulate.

The idea of metacognition and their ability to stop and think. What is the most common mistake that teachers and parents make when they're confronted with a child who's struggling to self-regulate?

Andrew Fuller: Well, I guess the major issue is to believe that they can self-regulate, really. In fact, I don't particularly believe in self-regulation, I believe in co-regulation.

So that people learn to self-regulate eventually, hopefully, not everybody, through being co regulated. So we actually calm ourselves or enthuse ourselves in our relationships. Basically, we know that dopamine is one of the things that of course drives an up regulation and that's really driven partly by challenges, problem solving, quizzes, puzzles, estimation games in classrooms, all that kind of stuff, but also about the strength of the connections.

So, our social interactions are really important. Also, when we are upset, cranky, distressed, and so on. Some of us can sort out our stuff, and that's kind of cool if you can do it, but many of us can't, and so it's only when we're with somebody that we trust, respect, or have some kind of sense of connection with, that we can start to calm ourselves down.

So again, we co regulate.

Dale Atkinson: So the idea really is about building relationships between educator and child and helping to establish that before you reach a kind of crisis point where there is a young person who's topping out and feeling really kind of agitated and not in a good space.

Andrew Fuller: Well, really at the centre of any great school, any great life, any great experience, are relationships and so if you don't have the relationships there, people can't learn.

So we only learn really when we're within the company of people who we trust and feel safe with. And so without that, no learning exists in a school. So the core business of any school is if you can get the relationships right, then the learning follows, and the behaviour also follows that.

Dale Atkinson: Can we talk a little bit about metacognition? What exactly is metacognition?

Andrew Fuller: Well, a long time ago inscribed on the temple of Apollo in Delphi in Greece was the words 'know thyself'. And how wise that was to know thyself is a critical feature of an aware life. And so knowing yourself, of course, is critical for your learning, knowing how you learn best what your learning strengths are, what distracts you and so on, so we can talk about it in terms of learning.

But it's also true of wellbeing. So that essentially all of us, I think, have our ups and downs in terms of our practices of wellbeing and self care, I don't know about you, dale, but you know, I look after myself most of the time, but there's a few days, the party went a bit long or whatever happened, right?

So you're going to go, whoa, okay, I now need to pull back. And so basically, we need then to think about how do we help that conscious part of ourselves to be aware of that. Now, it's an interesting kind of phase to understand because it's not just a cognitive awareness of yourself. I mean, that's important, but we also need to be aware of under what conditions we function best.

So it's not just about kind of having the awareness it's going, okay, what are the features that I need to replicate in order to function best? Am I better after six hours sleep, or ten hours sleep or what works best for you? Am I better if I catch up with people regularly every day or am I better if I have sometimes where I don't catch up with many people at all?

So it's finding out that wonderful, curious mix that is individual to you about the conditions under which you thrive best.

Dale Atkinson: And how is that something that an educator can help to develop and build that self-awareness in a young person?

Andrew Fuller: Probably the most critical word to think about is what. And so partly when we're looking at kids or anyone who's not functioning very well, one of the first thoughts is not why is that occurring, because we can all theorize about why you're like this, but what's happened to you really? What's, what's going on? Now, maybe I may know that, or I may not know the answer to it, but speculating on what's, what's happened to that person that they are distrustful or feeling weary or feeling annoyed or angry or irritated by what's going on. And then partly the other question is the same word as saying, so what's going on for you? You know, you're not normally like this. How can I help? And so understanding that, is it critically important? Because we live in a world of why. Why aren't you ready on time? Why aren't you, you know, kids are thrown, and people are thrown, that why question all the time.

But what, is a much kinder response, I think.

Dale Atkinson: Why is it so important that we talk to young children about the way that their mind works and how this can help them?

Andrew Fuller: One of the most essential things that any of us can do in our lives, and we really don't have this as a major process in schools, which is a great, great shame.

If we can help people to understand how their brains work, we can improve their lives dramatically. We can improve basically their learning outcomes easily, but we can also improve their emotional lives, the richness of their relationships. So knowing, metacognition is knowing yourself and part of knowing yourself is knowing your brain.

In the last year particularly the amount of research on neurobiology of learning and neurobiology of basically wellbeing has been through the roof. It's really recent research and so what we need then to start to do is to think about how we could help people to get their hands on that research, use it in their classrooms, but also use it with young people to go, okay, so this is what's going on when, when I feel like I want to procrastinate, for example, what's going on in my brain?

Why might that be occurring? And what can I do that's different that's going to shift that state?

Dale Atkinson: You've worked with more than 4000 schools. Among those schools, are there any that you, that come to mind where you think, wow, they have done, an incredible job or are doing an incredible job. And what were the things that really captured you and really twigged your brain around that?

Andrew Fuller: The 4000 schools that I've worked with, and I've had been very honoured to work with all sorts of different schools, I can tell you that the things that really differentiate great schools are not programs or processes or even really things that they've imported or the knowledge and the wisdom of the staff in many cases.

It's the culture. The culture is around relationships. So having distilled this with 193,000 young people, what I boiled those three features down into were three words that basically when people connect with one another, when they protect one another and when they respect one another, people thrive. So the CPR of wellbeing, connect, protect, and respect.

And I think if you think about your own life, it's with the people that you connect with, the people you feel safe with, and the people ultimately you feel respected by, are the people that you're most comfortable sharing yourself, being aware, being creative, and being exploratory in your life.

Dale Atkinson: And I guess those moments that you reach a point of sort of psychological safety, that's where you're, you're confident to be a learner, confident to open yourself up to other experiences and to be open to gaining new learning. That's where it all kind of fits in.

Can we talk a little bit about the resilient mindset, which you've touched on with the CPR stuff? What does that look like as an individual?

Andrew Fuller: We've heard a lot over the years about fixed and growth mindsets, and the research has moved beyond that to a three-factor model. And if you think about it, these are driven by the challenges that we meet and our capacity to meet those. So we've all had times where the things that we have to do exceed our capacity.

I've got so much on, I don't want to begin, I don't want to, we get frazzled, we become anxious. So we enter an anxious mindset. There are also days where your incredible capacities are not fully appreciated by other people. Dale, I know that's very hard to imagine, but it possibly happens from time to time.

People don't enjoy that joke or that mediosyncratic sense of style that you have, and you get a bit dismissive. You become a bit avoidant. You say to yourself, well, what's the point? The point, nobody listens what I have to say. Nobody cares what I think. Right? And so we become into that avoidant mindset, but it's the balance between the challenges and the capacities that give you this sweet spot.

And that sweet spot is a bandwidth that we call a resilient mindset. And it's only when you are in that bandwidth that you can learn things. Other times you're either too anxious or too avoidant to learn a damn thing. And so it relates exactly to learning, but it also relates to your immunological functioning, because we know when you're in that bandwidth, your immunity actually is heightened and your longevity also increases, so basically you live longer and you're healthier physically.

So part of the art of running a school, running a family, running a community, running a classroom, is trying to have the bulk of people in that bandwidth most of the time. And being observant of the people who are either in the anxious or the avoidant mindset and thinking about what do they need from me in a relational sense to feel safe enough to get back into that bandwidth.

So it's not basically going, 'Oh, right now, Dale, you're in the avoidant mindset and you need to fix that.' Because you can't, you actually, you're going to fix it partly by having a kind adult who helps you to kind of, he looks like he's been feeling like he's been a bit neglected or overlooked. I'll ask him a question, include him and that kind of stuff.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the great challenges for, uh, principals and leaders within schools and preschools is finding time within a very crowded space for all of the things that they need to do from, you know, curriculum design to the leadership piece to these relationship type skills that you're talking about here.

What should they be prioritising in terms of how they're working with their educators in this space?

Andrew Fuller: For any educator to have a happy career, they need to have a good time with the people they're going to spend most time with. And those people are their students. So if you get the relationships right with your students, then you're going to be a happier person.

If you're a happier person, that's that becomes a bit contagious, right? So it's very clear to me where your number one priority is. Actually, when you're at work, if I get those relationships right work becomes a joy because of course, you know, people are kind of relating to you, they're vibing off you and things are going well.

Now, that's not going to happen all the time. We know kids are kids and life is life. But by the time you get into my classroom and you're welcome, that's great to see you, how's things, all that kind of stuff. And basically, I believe in you. I know you're a smart kid. We're going to get even smarter this year. We're going to do all that kind of stuff. That makes an incredible difference, not only to you as a learner, as a student, but to me as an educator, it just makes my job a joy.

Dale Atkinson: Maybe this is something that's a bit self-evident, but we don't really stop and think about these things sometimes. Can you talk us through the characteristics of a good relationship and what some of the warning signs of an unhealthy relationship might be so that people can really think and reflect on that?

And what you can't see, listeners, is he's just checked his watch. Yeah, can you talk us through some of those things?

Andrew Fuller: There are five major features to a quality relationship, and the first one is trust. It's hard to imagine a good relationship without a degree of trust. But trust alone, while kids are desperate for it, people are desperate for it, we all rely on it, is never going to be sufficient because we all get things wrong.

We'll say things sometimes we don't mean or upset people we don't mean to upset. And so we have to have forgiveness. Now, forgiveness is often a misunderstood concept because, of course, sometimes people hear forgiveness and go, it's sort of an anything goes kind of world, but actually forgiveness is holding people to a higher level.

It's actually saying, you know, you're more than this situation, it's actually, let's go and help you fix it, because that's what we do here, if we stuff something up, we fix it. But, you know, I know that that's not who you are as a person. Then the third part is integrity. Being who you say you are and doing what you say you'll do, which is a big-ticket item in all aspects of life.

The fourth one is hope. In a world that often wants to rid people of hope and spread anxiety and despair, being somebody who sides as the antidote to that. Being hopeful for his or her students, being hopeful for the world in terms of its capacity to overcome difficult times, is a remarkable statement.

Some might say it's a bit rose coloured glasses, but it's actually important to really tune ourselves to what's hopeful in the world and the great breakthroughs that are occurring, and there are those. And the last feature of the five is kindness. Now, I think that everybody knows when they're kind. And I think also everyone knows when they're not kind.

Put those five features into any relationship, a romantic relationship, into a work relationship, into a relationship between you and your students. Trust, forgiveness, integrity, hope, and kindness, and you're there.

Dale Atkinson: It's a challenge for the listeners, I think. Trust, forgiveness, integrity, hope, and kindness.

That's what we should be going after in all of our relationships.

Andrew Fuller: Try it out in your romantic partners, my friends.

Dale Atkinson: Andrew Fuller, thank you very much for your time.

Andrew Fuller: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: And we're also joined today by Kathryn Mahadeva, who's an occupational therapist with South Australia's Education Department's Self-Regulation Service. Catherine, thank you very much for joining us.

Kathryn Mahadeva: Thank you. Thanks Dale.

Dale Atkinson: While we were listening to Andrew talk there, you were nodding on a lot. What was resonating with you? specifically?

Kathryn Mahadeva: Well, our service is very much to support educators in schools to promote the regulation of students. We believe that that's essential for students to feel safe. The metacognition, being self-aware and understanding their emotions, their inner feelings, and being able to tweak their arousal levels, their attention, their emotions, and consequently their behaviour for the situation at hand. We very much believe in that occurring through relationship, so co regulation, and, yeah, our service is there to support schools with that whole process. We've got OTs and psychologists and also educators involved in our team.

Dale Atkinson: So what does the support look like? Is this a hand holding exercise with the staff out in the schools? Is it about training them up? Is it everything in between?

Kathryn Mahadeva: Well, essentially, when a school is interested in our service and puts through a request, we meet with the leaderships. So we very much want to be intentional, join them on a journey.

So their developmental journey of where they're going in terms of supporting the regulation of students, fitting in with their site improvement plans or their PQIPs and very much the culture of where they're heading and what they want to develop in that way. So we do planning and then we provide professional development opportunities.

So that's workshops, that can be either stand alone, sort of shorter, or it can be more of an in-depth process. And so the types of topics that we cover include relationships, so co regulation, the role of that in supporting emotional literacy development in students, the sensory processing as being an important part of understanding arousal levels, and also we look at thinking strategies and also educator self-care because we know that it's important for adults in the young people's life to be regulated themselves and having that inner self awareness and being able to therefore provide the safe environments and the co regulation for the students. We also do very much some follow up supports because we believe that the workshops alone are not going to make a sustained difference necessarily.

And so we're looking at translation into practice. So reflective practice through coaching and just unpacking what does that mean in everyday life in the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: So as a principal or leader out on a site, what are the kind of things that they might be observing that should be a little trigger to them to think, oh, actually, I might give Kathryn and the team a call?

Kathryn Mahadeva: Well, it really is a matter of what they're seeing in terms of the students. We're interested in data.

We encourage schools to collect data too, but they may be more informally noticing trends. But because we know that the academic outcomes, the learning is going to be based on students feeling safe and being emotionally regulated. It can be anything from student wellbeing that triggers this, or it might be even the engagement, attendance, all of this is, is related to how regulated students are. So there can be many, many ways in which we see that this situation needs support and addressing and building within a school.

Dale Atkinson: So I guess sometimes asking for help can be an act of vulnerability. There can be some anxiety around that process.

What would your message be to, to principals who might be like, oh, I'd love some help, but also I'm a bit anxious about how that might be perceived centrally or by my bosses or plenty of those sorts of things.

Kathryn Mahadeva: Well, I hope that we exude the fact that we're enthusiastic and warm. Essentially, we believe in relationships. So it's very much we, we want to foster that sense of safety ourselves. And we know that for all humans to be vulnerable and to grow we need to feel safe. So, it's very much a philosophy of our service.

Dale Atkinson: It's baked into the ethos.

Kathryn Mahadeva: Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: Kathryn Mahadeva, thank you very much for your time. She's an occupational therapist with the Self-Regulation Service with the Department for Education.

You can find out more about the self-regulation service on EDi and they'll also be in the show notes if you want to make contact and learn a bit more. Kathryn thank you for your time.

Kathryn Mahadeva: Thanks Dale.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today we are joined by Natasha Chisholm who is the Senior Project Officer for the Workabout Centre at the Department for Education. And by Jacob Turner, who is a man we have to be nice to because he works for the Australian Taxation Office and is a former graduate and person who's come through the Workabout Centre program.

First of all, for those who are out there who don't know what it is, Natasha, what is the Workabout Centre?

Natasha Chisholm: The Workabout Centre is a school to work transition model. So when we're talking to students and families, we basically say our jobs are to help Aboriginal young people stay in school, complete SACE and then ultimately achieve a successful post school pathway.

So we run a whole different range of programs that's going to support a student's school retention and then give them opportunities to explore training and career pathways.

Dale Atkinson: So, before we came on air, I was having a look at the website that you guys curate, which is available for parents and for students to look at, which is workaboutcentrecareers.com which you can go and look at and explore, and people should definitely have a look at that. But the broad range of activities that are available and the pathways that you make available for students to explore is pretty incredible. Can you tell us a bit about the scope of the work?

Natasha Chisholm: The scope of our work is really driven by our young people. We'll have a lot of generic programs we sort of run, so things like barista, white card, first aid, all those small little qualifications that help a young person go into a training environment for the first time, start actually exploring what they do and don't like. And then we might, depending on student interests, look at individualised programs.

If we have a group of students who really want to explore university, then we might work with the university to create a program that's specifically for them. We do a lot of work readiness as well, so those basic entry level employability skills. And we do a lot around that essential identification as well.

So birth certificates, tax file numbers, which Jacob's now an expert on, getting bank accounts, Medicare cards, all that identification that a young person's going to need once they leave school as well. And even in school, once they get a job. Last year, we started a lot of volunteering programs as well. So it's really driven by that student demand.

Plus what's happening out in the community and, and with the industry, we just try to, yeah, match that all up and create opportunities.

Dale Atkinson: So you've got a group of 120 students, I think you said that you're working with this week. What's the experience that they're enjoying at the moment?

Natasha Chisholm: So that's year 10 students from across the state. I think we have maybe about 20 school sites involved in that. That's for the ACE program, so ACE is Aboriginal Career Education. It's the third year of the program, so those year 10s during term 1 to 3, undertake a couple of career education workshops with our team, and then they come together a couple of times throughout the year to explore pathways.

This week is all about picking your individual industry, so we have 11 groups across 9 different industries. So each day, the students are bussing out to their activities, like our animal care group today is going up to Mylor to Animals Anonymous. We have three different trades groups going out to do bricklaying, carpentry, other various industry tours.

Our health support group today is going out to the TAFE SA Dentist School at Gillies Plains. So it's really about them learning, trying hands on activities, and learning more is this pathway really for me. And then next week, when students are going back to do subject selections, the aim is that they're able to make more informed and educated decisions about their pathways.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. I'd imagine that's incredibly helpful, which is probably a good time to throw over to Jacob. In terms of the experience that you had, how did that help you clarify the work pathway that you wanted to take?

Jacob: My original plan was to go to university up in Queensland, James Cook University. And the whole idea was, what am I going to do for work while I'm there?

And I had no skills. I was just like, yeah, cool, I'm going to go to uni, that's it. Without thinking about what I'm actually going to do while I'm there. Enter Tash, where she's like, oh, you know, we've got barista courses, we've got this, we've got that. And Cairns, which is where the university is based, is a huge tourist destination.

So, my idea was, I'll go be a barista. When I did the barista course in year 9, which I think I was the youngest out of the group at that time, and then from there it was just starting to look into all these other places I can go. So the barista course, I did a white card, so I can go work on construction sites, which I ended up using for like stage setup and takedown, things like Adelaide 500, the Queen concert that was in Adelaide a couple of years ago. And then I ended up doing a kitchen operations course for a year, learning how to cook. Not just for a career, but also just being an adult.

Dale Atkinson: Just for life.

Jacob: Yeah, that's it. But a lot of it was kind of coming out your shell, being around, being put into these practical situations that you wouldn't get in school.

We'd do a coffee morning here at the Education Department. So, you know, we'd be downstairs, we'd have to talk to people, we'd have to be loud, we'd have to be fun, charismatic and whatnot, which we weren't used to. We're all, you know, 13, 14, 15. That ended up leading into cafe jobs, restaurant jobs, and then into sales.

I ended up not following my plan and going up to uni, but yeah, being able to speak to people, those, those skills that you kind of get as a by-product of doing these other courses that really helped build my communication and being able to get into a Federal Government job at 19, which I was the youngest there at the time and, you know, have a chat to some of my other mates and they were just learning those skills that were just getting those jobs.

So, yeah, I think that was a big takeaway of. Working with Tash and the Workabout Centre, you get all of the skills that they primarily teach, but then also the life skills that comes with it that you don't really notice until, yeah, you do it and you grow up and go, Oh, I learned that really young compared to, you know, them, them, and them.

Dale Atkinson: While you're talking, what it makes me think about is you end up with a, quite a safe space to explore all of your options, really. Tash, is that kind of the aim of what you're going after?

Natasha Chisholm: Absolutely. So, Workabout Centre is a team of Aboriginal people, which is quite unique. And no matter what we're doing with our young people, it's a culturally safe and supportive environment. That's first and foremost. So even when we're engaging non-Aboriginal trainers and businesses, we do a lot of work beforehand to ensure that this is going to be the right environment for our young person. And we could have a group of 10 different kids together and they want 10 different pathways, and we'll support them to explore that.

But that just fills my heart with joy hearing Jacob talk about that, his experiences now and what he learnt. That's the takeaway though for me and the rest of my team as well. It's not, yes, this is our jobs, but we're actually supporting our community and our future leaders. And yeah, that's added bonus I think for us.

But one of the key things we say that works for Workabout is we don't say no. And what we mean by that is when a young person comes to you and says, I want to explore this pathway, or I want to do this job. And even though we might know it's unrealistic, we don't say no, we say like, yep, let's explore that together.

Let's find out what's the first steps in that. It's about letting that young person grow and learn for themselves. Actually, maybe that is unrealistic or it's not going to work out for me or it's, there's no opportunities there, but what is there? So we like to go on that journey with them.

Dale Atkinson: I think the interesting thing about what Jacob was talking about in terms of the breadth of your experience and the, the variety of avenues that you kind of explored, which is you don't really know how one thing leads to the next, do you? Like the journey from being a barista to working for the tax office is not direct, but you had, I think a bit of a plan and a bit of a way to explore it. Would that be fair to say?

Jacob: Yeah. You know, before that plan was in place, I had no idea what I was going to do, but I believe actually my plan at that time was drop out and be a sparky.

And then Mum once again was like, oh yeah, you might need some other skills before you get into that. You know, Workabout Centre came along and that's when I just started prodding around and looking at what options until I found that plan and then looking at what options help directly with that plan.

And, you know, as I said, it doesn't always go to plan and, but it all kind of works. To doing a barista course, it wasn't just how to make coffee, it was how to talk to people, how to build those relationships with people very quickly. You know, it takes two minutes to make a coffee and you've got to really make a good connection because at the end of the day, that's what people come back for.

They come back to see the barista. Even if your coffee is a bit, how you going.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's very true. I know, speaking on behalf of the entire department workforce that when the Workabout baristas come in, we are very grateful for the, for that.

Natasha Chisholm: We get a lot of that feedback, yeah.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, no, it's terrific.

I think one of the things that sort of strikes me is that there's a bit of a wraparound here, Tash, in terms of what the student experience is. Can you talk about what that one-to-one experience and support from you looks like?

Natasha Chisholm: Yes, as I mentioned before, like, we take a really individualised approach because there might be some students who need more support, one on one support.

There are other students who prefer that we work with them in smaller groups. I think it's important to mention, like, we're not a full-time program. We're not a flow program or alternative learning, but we are there to support our young people when they need us. So someone like Jacob started in year 9, but then he also engaged with us year 10, 11, 12, and obviously several years post school.

So students can come in and out of Workabout Centre programs and services as they need that. There'll be some students where we might take a step back and do behind the scenes work a lot because the ASETO and the Aboriginal education staff in their school have that really great relationship with the young person and the family, and we might just be able to provide supports on the, I guess the outside of that, and just come in when we're needed.

And then there's other times where our coordinators might be that key person for our young person, and they're the number one contact and we're drawing in other services as they're needed. So again, it's all student driven. Like I said, we can put the opportunities out, but it's a young person's decision if they want to engage.

Dale Atkinson: And what's the age range that students engage with you?

Natasha Chisholm: It's generally 15 and up. If it's accredited training, sometimes there's minimum ages. We have run events for students as young as year four. We have like a, it's called career walk. So students come and do like little 30-minute activities of actually just starting to learn, Oh, I, I like doing makeup and hair.

I can actually do a pathway in that. So, just starting to, I guess, create that spark for them. But generally our programs will be year 9, 10 and upwards.

Dale Atkinson: And just looking at the website again and the broad range of options and areas that students are able to explore, can you talk to us a little bit about your connections with the tertiary institutions, with the training providers and with the industry?

Natasha Chisholm: Yeah, so when we're working with the universities, we're primarily working with the Aboriginal units in those universities. So, for example, just on Tuesday, we worked with the Yungkurrinthi team down at Flinders University with Indi and Viv, they're amazing. And we said, hey, we've got a group of year 10s coming who want to explore these pathways. What can you do? So they've taken the regional students through the university accommodations, we've gotten them on campus to actually see what it's like to be a uni student for the day. And then they've explored those different faculty areas as well. And we do that with Adelaide University and UniSA have hosted our health group for two days this week.

And those staff are amazing at being responsive to us and what our young people need, they create really engaging and interactive programs. Cause we know that if it has Workabout Centre’s name across it has to be engaging. It has to be interactive. It has to really capture our students’ interest. So that's why we work really closely with those people to ensure that that's going to happen.

With our RTOs, we work with a really wide variety. And again, We'll do a lot of that background work, maybe with the trainers to gather, you know, what's your experience working with Aboriginal young people, maybe actually support them to look at how they're going to deliver and what's their alternative assessment methods and do we need our stuff in there as support as Aboriginal people when there's a non-Aboriginal trainer.

It's the same with industry, for example, with Kmart, their indigenous recruitment officer has been great, and he works with us a lot to identify where there's local employment opportunities. So then our coordinator can go out to the school, target some of those young Aboriginal people, prep them up for interviews.

And we've had a lot of young people get jobs with Kmart through that industry connection.

Dale Atkinson: Well, it just sounds like there's nothing that a student can't dream of that you aren't able to kind of at least give them some concept of how to achieve that thing.

Natasha Chisholm: I would like to think that, like, we hear that you can't be what you can't see and dream big and all of those sorts of things.

I just think we should be empowering our Aboriginal young people in our community at every opportunity. Showing my age, I didn't have a lot of these opportunities. I was in a regional school as well; I didn't have a lot of opportunities to explore these certain things. And we didn't have school-based traineeships and apprenticeships at the time.

I didn't work when I was in high school. So I really value this, and we can bring this to our young people now. We'll do everything in our power to make that happen for them.

Dale Atkinson: What would your advice be, Jacob, to other young Aboriginal kids who are thinking about various different careers and, or maybe even don't know what they want to do?

Jacob: Just have a crack at everything. You know, if you don't know, it's harder to research into it than just do it. At the end of the day, it's, it's a job. You can go work at a place for a couple of weeks, if you don't like it, you can get a different job. I know growing up, it was very much like, oh, it's very hard to get a job.

It's very hard to get this, that. If you've got your head screwed on, it's not as hard as people make it out to be to bounce from one job. You know, you can try being a barista for six months here if you don't like it, go work in the kitchen for six months. If you don't like it, go work as an administration officer somewhere for six months.

Like, that's okay to do. You don't have to nail it on your first shot. Some people get lucky and they do. You know, some people work at the same place for 14 years. And absolutely love it. Yeah, and other people, they don't find what they love until, you know, they're 30, 40. And that, that's, that's fine.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, might even go higher on that number. I think that's good advice.

Natasha Chisholm: Because there's so much pressure on young people to, you know, know what you're doing after year 12. It's okay if you don't, I think you make a really good point, Jacob, like, just try different things, as long as you keep doing something, keep moving forward.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Natasha, how do people find you?

Natasha Chisholm: Me personally? No. For staff in schools, our Aboriginal education teams in secondary sites are our key people, and they're often connected to their local Workabout Centre coordinator. So we have three metro coordinators, and then we have three coordinators who are covering regional areas. So they can reach out to those people.

We do have a page on the internet and the intranet as well, with all of our contact details. We have a generic Workabout email address. That you can go to, which is education.WorkaboutCentre@sa.gov.au and that'll come through to me and we'll send that out to the relevant coordinators. We have a Facebook page that you can keep up to date with and you can message us through that.

And then we also have the careers page that you were referring to earlier. Oh, we're on the 15th floor in the education building, so come say hi.

Dale Atkinson: There are a lot of open doors on all platforms. So it's, I guess there's a message for our educators, but there's also a message for any Aboriginal young people who are thinking about entering the workforce in the next three to four years, that the program's there to explore and navigate career options and possibilities. They can help you to make informed career choices beyond school. There's the opportunity to take up school-based employment opportunities that can increase the likelihood of students finishing year 12, completing SACE, all these sorts of activities.

But most important of all, I think, was what Jacob touched on in his conversation earlier, which is the opportunity to develop the broadest possible range of skills, capabilities beyond just work skills, but life skills and expand your horizons as a human being. It's quite a, quite a program.

Natasha Chisholm: Yeah. You never know where it's going to take you.

Jacob, I would consider a colleague now as well. So Jacob and Zane, another student who's come through Workabout Centre, came out to one of our career expos earlier in the year as stall holders. So that was great to, a proud moment for me, yeah, to see some of the young people we've worked with over the years actually now participate in programs in other ways and engage our young people.

Dale Atkinson: Self-sustaining. It's an incredible thing. Natasha, Jacob, thank you very much for your time.

Natasha Chisholm: Thank you.

Jacob: Thank you.

Intro: Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders, past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education and today we're joined by Dr Jennifer Buckingham who is the Director of Strategy and Senior Research Fellow at MultiLit. Jennifer, thanks for joining us.

Jennifer Buckingham: You're very welcome. Thanks for inviting me.

Dale Atkinson: Well, it's good to have you here because you are involved in discussing the research base behind the teaching of synthetic phonics at our Literacy Summit. And the title of your presentation is From Sounding Out to Sight Words, the Teaching of Synthetic Phonics. And it's looking at the large evidence base describing how children learn to read words and the tools and strategies that primary leaders and teachers can use to develop efficient reading for all students.

Can we just start by talking a little bit about what the reading brain is?

Jennifer Buckingham: Sure. It's a really important concept for teachers to understand, and it's really just a shorthand term for the neurological network that is created when we learn to read. So children are not born with that network in place, it has to be created through teaching and learning.

And we need to make connections between parts of the brain that aren't connected in a way that it needs to be, in order for children to make the connection between print, speech and meaning. So, we do that through repeated exposure and practice with connecting letters to sounds, with decoding words, and then over time those words become stored in memory as letter strings, and those letter strings, which we otherwise call words, then become connected to meaning.

With lots of practice, that process becomes really fast and we start to recognise familiar words on sight. So, it feels effortless, but that has to happen in a really intentional way, there's no alternative to that. It has to happen in every student's brain, it just will happen at a different rate for different children.

So we create the reading brain through teaching and learning and there are types of instruction that make that more likely to happen, and to happen quickly, and to be successful.

Dale Atkinson: What are those types of instruction that make it more likely to happen?

Jennifer Buckingham: The instruction that is most effective is explicit and systematic.

And systematic synthetic phonics is a very explicit and systematic way of teaching children to decode words to read. So it is the method that is most aligned with the reading research on the reading brain and on cognitive processes and on successful reading acquisition.

Dale Atkinson: What is it that teachers need to be focusing on in the classroom when they're engaging with children on this stuff?

Jennifer Buckingham: Teachers need to focus on the connecting of the letter sounds in those very early stages of reading. So, um, getting children familiar with the alphabet and teaching in a very systematic way how the letters in written language, connect to the sounds that they hear in spoken language. And that's sort of something that we do really without thinking about it too much, but it's a brand new idea for a lot of kids.

So, beginning readers need to have that explained to them very carefully and taken through that alphabetic code in a really methodical way, but at the same time, making sure that they are developing their vocabulary because that's the other very important aspect of it. There's the code and the written word and then there's the language, and we need to connect those two together for children in order for them to be able to read.

Dale Atkinson: What does that experience look like for the child that you're teaching? What are you trying to kind of instil in them over a period of time?

Jennifer Buckingham: Yeah, so from the beginning stages we're connecting the alphabet to the sounds in speech and we're building up their understanding of how those sounds come together to make words. And those represent words that they know the meaning of, that they've learned, and also new words that we're teaching through vocabulary.

And it's a very systematic process starting with a few letters and sounds to begin with and adding some more. So over the first year of school, it's amazing, you know, how much code students can learn and how much language they can learn at the same time. A systematic and an accumulative process.

They're not teaching, you know, one set of content and then forgetting that before they move on to the next one. It's picking up the previous content and integrating that with the new content that they're learning. By the end of about the second year of school, you'd hope that children were pretty familiar with all of the alphabetic code and they're decoding fairly well, and they've got a really good developing vocabulary.

So then by the time they then get into the third year of school, you're starting to work on things like fluency and reading comprehension. But laying that foundational groundwork of being able to read words accurately and with some automaticity is essential for that next process to take place.

Dale Atkinson: Now the teaching of reading and language seems to be a strangely contested place at times.

What do you say to teachers who, and leaders, who might say, you know, look, our children don't learn like that. We tend to approach it more through, say, levelled readers or other approaches. What's the message there?

Jennifer Buckingham: Well, levelled readers use an approach that's less effective because they're based on a disproven theory of reading, which is the three cueing method.

And the three cueing method encourages children to use context cues to try and work out what an unfamiliar word might be. So it might be the overall meaning of the sentence or it might be whether, you know, it sort of makes sense in terms of the syntax. And they're taught to do that before they attempt to decode it using phonics. So using that, that three cueing approach has been shown to be inefficient and has a really high error rate. And it's much higher than the error rate than when students use decoding as their first strategy if they've been taught a systematic phonics approach. So when children are learning to read using levelled readers, that can give the impression that they're reading, but what looks like successful reading is often just good memory for whole words.

It's not building that neurological network that I mentioned earlier and that skilled readers need. So, our brains have a limited capacity for remembering whole words, and so a student who can't decode will hit a level that they can't get past at some point. As I mentioned, some children will learn to read no matter what the teacher does, but because there are individual differences that arise from having an advantaged tone background or just a stronger predisposition to learn.

And so those students who do eventually manage to learn to read using these less effective methods, such as levelled text, often have poor spelling because they haven't learnt that code. Um, and also they would have learned to read more quickly if they'd had that really effective explicit instruction.

So there's, there is an opportunity cost for those students who would have been learning to read earlier and could have been really building up their vocabulary and those other great things that we want.

Dale Atkinson: That is so insightful and incredible. I'm the father of a nearly six-year-old and one of the things that is very apparent about her and some of her little friends is just how incredibly powerful their memory is.

But while you're talking, it just makes me think about the superficial learning of memory and the difference between that and actually understanding the sub layer of what you're trying to engage with, which is what we're trying to achieve with this, isn't it?

Jennifer Buckingham: Absolutely, because knowing the code and how it works can be generalised then to every word that they read.

And we still use that even if we don't necessarily know we're doing it. So we as skilled readers most of the time are just reading words on sight because they're words we've seen a thousand times. And so we just, we're familiar with them. But if we see a word that we're less familiar with, or it's a brand new word, we will go back to using that decoding strategy.

And we have that. And you don't lose it. But for children, it really has to be painstakingly built and so that they will always have that and take it through their life.

Dale Atkinson: And where can people, obviously, you know, the research base that you've engaged with at a really deep level is available, I think, on your website, five from five.

What sort of resources and other activities and support is available on that website?

Jennifer Buckingham: The five from five website is a really great starting point for teachers who want to know more about scientific reading research and it provides it in a really accessible way. But it also is a great resource for teachers who are looking for ways to upskill their practice or to look for references and up to date research.

So it's got a really wide range of uses for teachers wherever they're up to in terms of their understanding of the science of reading and of systematic synthetic phonics instruction. So there's information on there for parents as well. That has been developed so that there can be a better partnership between teachers and parents, and all have a good understanding of what's going on when children are learning to read.

Dale Atkinson: As a parent myself of a child who's nearly six, what are the types of things that the parents should be doing in terms of supporting the classroom teaching that's going on?

Jennifer Buckingham: One of the best things that parents can do with children is read with them and whether that's their home reading books, which in the early years of school will hopefully be decodable books until they have become proficient in that particular skill.

But also, you're reading a wide range of great children's literature and having fantastic conversations about language, about the alphabet, about words and really building up their vocabulary. It's such an important thing for parents to do because there's only a limited time as we know in school. So, teachers are using that time in the most effective way possible, but there's a lot of time outside of school where children can be really engaging with literature and learning lots of words and word meanings and background knowledge and that's a really fun thing for parents to do with children as well.

Dale Atkinson: So really the parental role is less explicit instruction and more just helping to engage enthusiasm for reading and reading practice.

Jennifer Buckingham: Yeah, absolutely. So, supporting what's going on in school in terms of reading instruction and if there is some homework, if there's some practice to be done around tricky words and things like that, then yeah, definitely following the guidance of the classroom teacher.

But really, it's, you know, a great role of parents to be developing vocabulary and knowledge about the world. And all of those things contribute to children's reading comprehension.

Dale Atkinson: So with the five from five website, how does that fit in with the best advice papers and the big six components of reading that have been produced here in South Australia?

Jennifer Buckingham: Well, they're very closely aligned in terms of content, which is not surprising given that they draw on the same evidence base. So sometimes there's little, slight differences in terminology, but the language is largely really consistent and certainly the recommendations are as well.

Dale Atkinson: Now, SA's Literacy Guarantee with the Phonics Screening Check, the coaching, the professional learning that that sits there is obviously, you know, heavily engaged with phonetical awareness and synthetic phonics and evidence-based reading instruction.

What do you think our next steps as a department and as a public education system should be?

Jennifer Buckingham: Well, South Australia's been a national leader in terms of literacy policy around the early reading instruction in schools, and the Literacy Guarantee and the Literacy Guarantee Unit have definitely been at the centre of that. I know that teachers around the state really value the support that's provided through the unit.

So my advice would be to not lose that momentum around exemplary phonics instruction. It's really easy to sort of feel as though, okay, we understand this now, we don't need to focus on it as much, but results in the year one phonics check have improved since it started, but they could and they really should be a lot higher.

Those results show that the work isn't finished yet. There's a lot of great achievement, but we still have some work to do there. And I'd also advise that not taking your foot off the pedal around phonics instruction, but also paying attention to vocabulary and building knowledge through primary school.

They contribute to reading comprehension. So when you have a state full of fabulous little skilled decoders, they will then also be able to read for comprehension and enjoyment.

Dale Atkinson: The escalator we want all those little kids to be on, really.

Dr. Jennifer Buckingham, Director of Strategy and Senior Research Fellow at MultiLit. Thank you very much for your time.

Jennifer Buckingham: My pleasure. All the best.

Dale Atkinson: Dr. Buckingham's presentation is available on plink. That presentation's name is From Sounding Out to Sight Words, the Teaching of Synthetic Phonics.

And there are another 9 presentations from experts available there. The Literacy Summit presentations are all on plink. There's 10 in total. They provide educators with the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge about literacy improvement in preschools and schools. They're all aligned to department policy and that includes the literacy guidebooks and best advice papers.

So thanks very much for listening. Looking forward to your company next time.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. And today for something a little bit different, I'm joined by a man who's had a few careers I think over the journey, Mr. Rod Bunten. He's been a diplomat, he's been a maths and physics secondary school teacher, and currently he is, well, among other things, um, married to the Governor of South Australia, Her Excellency, the Honourable Frances Adamson.

Rod, thank you very much for your time.

Rod Bunten: Thank you for inviting me.

Dale Atkinson: So can I talk a little bit, first of all, about your journey from diplomat into teacher? How did that happen?

Rod Bunten: It happened because I'd reached a point in my career, and the Governor had reached a point in her career, we were both diplomats, that it made little sense for both of us to carry on, and even less sense for her to give up her career and me carry on with mine.

And I, I'd always considered myself not as a diplomat who used to do physics. But as a physicist who was doing diplomacy. So, I thought, I'll retrain as a physics teacher. There are things I want to teach people. There are things I think young people might need to know. And here's a job I can do anyway.

Dale Atkinson: And what was it about the appeal of teaching that drew you in?

Rod Bunten: Initially, it's two things. Initially, it was about the subject physics, about the fact that students as they learn physics have to reject everything they've ever been taught and hold dear and are good at and take on a new way of looking at the world. And that's, that's a fascinating process to go through and to watch people go through and to help people go through.

But the main reason was that I came from a pretty ordinary background. But I was good at physics. And if you're good at physics, you can go to, you know, Oxford and do physics. And nobody really cares what your background is, can you do physics. It's a lot harder if you're good at English literature because you don't have that cultural wealth of backgrounds that other people have.

So I always thought of physics as being, you know, boxing for smart kids. It's how you get out of the ghetto. And I've had an amazing life through physics. I met presidents, prime ministers, Nobel prize winners, Oscar winners, captains of the Australian cricket team. I'm here, in essence, and I wouldn't be if my talent had lay in the direction of modern languages or, as I say, history and not physics.

Dale Atkinson: I think it's an interesting message at a time when really across Australia and internationally as well, there's really like an outcry for more students to be studying those STEM subjects, to be going into mathematics, pure mathematics into physics. What is it that we aren't doing currently that we need to be doing to encourage some of those younger kids into the discipline?

Rod Bunten: There's two aspects of that. One is how do we get more kids in and the second and specific one is how do we get more women into it. You've got to make it relevant. You've got to make it about them. You've got to make students understand there are people in South Australia, engineers, designing a better mechanism of delivering stints to the heart.

They are going to save tens of thousands, um, or massively improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people a year, more than the most brilliant surgeon will ever do in a lifetime. They're engineers, not biologists. The physical sciences should be seen as something for people who care about the world, as well as people who just enjoy the challenge and fun of that maths-based world.

Dale Atkinson: I guess that's the difference. You've spoken a bit previously about, um, mathematics is a creative art form, rather than perhaps how it's viewed in high school. Certainly the early stages of mathematics is quite formulaic and dictated in terms of the outcomes. How do we present that creativity within maths and physics?

Rod Bunten: There are a number of ways you can do it. So, if you were to look at some of the project-based work, you know, initially, IB Maths was intended to be entirely taught by project. That is to say, the students would just do two years worth of projects. And they would learn the maths on the way as they needed it to solve the problems they were trying to solve.

If you look at Japanese maths teaching, it tends to be a quick five minute exposition of a new element of mathematics. And then the children are broken into groups. Mathematics in Japan is a group exercise. It's not like here where it tends to be a solitary undertaking. You don't want to share with anybody else because you want to be sure that you're the brightest.

It's a group exercise. They're given a group problem. They solve it as a group, other groups solve it, and they critique each other. I quite successfully, um, got people being creative by asking my students to write their own exam paper. Everybody wrote a question, and then everybody answered all of the questions, and then everybody judged each other's questions as to whether they were good questions, whether they were too easy, whether they were too difficult. So it started them thinking about the use of mathematics in quite a different way. But I'd turn it around, I think, and I'd say, well, how do people teach jazz? Because we need to teach mathematics the way people teach jazz.

At the moment, we're teaching mathematics the way they teach, if you like, to be a classical musician in a, in an orchestra, perhaps. We're focusing on accuracy and precision and learning technique rather than expression and creativity and operating with other people and feeding off other people's creativity.

So, that's how I'd love to do it. I totally accept that at the moment no teacher is given the resources to enable to do that. No teacher who did that would be particularly happy with their parents because all parents at the moment care about is that terrible four digit number, the ATAR. Nobody should judge a student on four digits.

Dale Atkinson: One of the interesting things that was discussed at the Maths Summit with maths teachers a bit earlier and a few leaders this year was around the concept of permission to fail for students and while you're talking it just makes me think about that as a, and quite often, maths anxiety is built around the fear that I will get the wrong answer, rather than, you know, I've come very close to getting the right answer and my creativity is being shown in these various different ways.

Is there a way that we can signal to students that, in essence, having a go at mathematics is part of the benefit of it, rather than just being seen as, you know, correct or incorrect.

Rod Bunten: I think there's a broader problem, not just in mathematics. I think it's most acute in mathematics. No teacher wants their student to fail. So all teachers, all school systems, go out of their way to put in place safety nets and scaffolding and support for students to stop them failing. The problem is, if you don't fail, you don't learn resilience. When I was doing teacher training, another mature teacher student who had previously been in the building industry said that he was on a building site and he watched an interaction where an apprentice turned up, uh, first day working on the building site and got there at, um, 8.30am and the subcontractor said, go away, you're fired.

You were supposed to be here at 7.30am, you're here at 8.30am. And the apprentice said, oh, give us a chance. And the contractor said, this was your chance, you're fired. And the trainee teacher said to me, why did he have to learn that lesson for the first time in real life? Why hadn't he learned that lesson in 18 years, 12 years of schooling?

So I think we have to let people fail in all subjects. When you get to mathematics, it gets more acute because there is this, this concept of the right answer. And if you structure a subject, and if you structure the way it's done, and if you structure assessment particularly, so that, that it's all based on right answer, wrong answer things, then people naturally become terribly averse to the wrong answer, because that's the only reward going, is getting it right.

So, a lot of it will come down to assessment, I think, but there are other dimensions as well.

Dale Atkinson: I'm just touching on, uh, the concept of getting it right and definitive answers, one way or the other. Can we move on to science? You've co-written a, a paper about teaching climate change science in senior secondary school and some of the issues and barriers and opportunities that exist there.

As I understand it, your argument Is that climate change should be taught by inquiry rather than transmission, and that the kids, the students, should be taught to make judgments about their claims. Why is that?

Rod Bunten: In science, science, not science teaching, but science as it's done, all judgments are personal.

Scientists stand on the edge of the unknown, hopefully on firm ground, trying to reach for the next firm ground. So, students must learn that knowledge is not perfect, knowledge is not an abstract. The purpose of science isn't to walk up a series of steps to this perfect knowledge, but rather to work out how to get from where we are to the next step.

That's one thing. But the main thing is that, of all the people you'll teach, only a handful will go on to be scientists. But all of them will go on to be citizens. And citizens need to be able to assess and judge claims about science and other things. But claims about science, it might be climate change.

It might be vaccines. It might be COVID transmission. And if you just teach a body of fact, what you are teaching them, the meta learning, is you achieve knowledge in science by transmission from a higher authority. If, on the other hand, you teach them how to make a judgment themselves, you're teaching them meta learning is very different.

There's an old saying, 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you destroy an entire ecosystem.' We need to give people the knowledge they need and not the wrong sorts of knowledge. It's really interesting, I don't know whether anybody's talked on this podcast about indigenous systems of learning.

But indigenous systems of learning are based upon the idea that there are safe knowledges for certain levels. And so the bottom level in Pitjantjatjara, and that tends to be the level that is safe for, you know, even people like us to learn. So that's what is sort of told to outsiders. We have a, unfortunately, a system with many wonders, but one of the problems of the internet is that almost anybody can become a teacher of people, particularly young people, not somebody who is trained, not somebody who necessarily has their best interests at heart.

But just somebody with a podcast or somebody with a, an axe to grind and we need to teach students to become their own judges of their own learning. So an inquiry-based approach to something like climate change, and I chose that for my paper because that was a really big issue, the science of climate change, 15 years ago, is a brilliant opportunity for students to learn that.

Dale Atkinson: Now from your experience, um, within the diplomatic service and then moving into teaching, what is the comparative way and what are the benefits of both in terms of how we prepare people for management roles?

Rod Bunten: So I came quite late to teaching as I've said, and I came with an assumption of how managers would be prepared.

So the idea is the diplomatic service, you reach a point in your career about 10 years in where if you're identified or wish to become a manager, there's then a period of extensive training, possibly full time or longer part time where you acquire a whole range of skills to become a manager. In the school system, largely, you sort of organically come up through the system and you organically bid or selected for positions.

And you drift up, drift is, that's a value, uh, laden word, but you, you move at whatever pace up through a system. And the advantages of that, of course, that everybody in a sense knows what is happening and it's quite open and also you are working with people. You are familiar with. The disadvantage seen from outside, a twofold, one, if you're having people just purely selecting the people below, inevitably people think that the best management style is the one they use, but that results in a cloning, that results in an organisation, reinforcing one single way of doing things. And the second thing is teachers, and an education system ought to believe in education, it ought to be so deeply entrenched in the DNA that its response to almost every problem ought to be, can we train to do this better? And if you do management training, you discover there are different management systems, different management styles, but also some very valuable techniques.

So two that served me well as a diplomat, one was an old-fashioned technique called management by walking. The idea being, you know, you want to manage a whole group of people, make sure that every day you sit and see them doing their work and just get a feel for, are they having a good day? Are they having a bad day?

Is the work going on? What are the problems they're facing? And a second is to judge what are the skills and strengths and attitudes of all the people in your team. How do they work together? Do they, do they complement each other? Do they clash? Is everybody on the same page? Which sounds like a good idea but isn't always a good idea.

So, for example, some people, particularly senior managements, often get really excited about answers to the question 'What does this mean for the organisation in three years time?' In many ways, that's what people look for when they're looking for senior leadership. Many other people, and I'm one of them, tend to be quite excited by the answer to the question, 'What does this look like for me on Monday?'

And if when you're exploring problems, and particularly when you're explaining what you're doing, you only look at what does this mean for the organisation in five years time, you will turn off and not engage. The people will go, yeah, that's fine, but on Monday, I've got my year 8, level 3 maths who are just a pain.

Or, for me, in my first year of teaching, every second Friday, I had triple essential maths on a Friday afternoon. You want to learn how to be an engaging and enthusiastic and fun teacher? Try teaching essential maths for two and a half hours on a Friday afternoon every second week.

Dale Atkinson: That sounds like, uh, whoever was sitting at the timetable, uh, didn't like you very much. That seems like an awful challenge.

Rod Bunten: It was fun. We enjoyed it.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that's good.

Rod Bunten: I mean, they teach the syllabus, but we enjoyed it.

Dale Atkinson: Well, that's maybe where the creativity comes in, right? Friday afternoon, you've got to try all sorts of things. Can you tell us a little bit about the Governor's priorities around education during her term?

Rod Bunten: Yes, I mean, I have to start off with the obvious caveat that all of your listenership will be aware that none of them voted for the Governor. So the priorities for education are the government's, but the priorities for education inside her time here, uh, very much about leadership and citizenship. It's very much about how can we encourage students, encourage, enable, support students to be active citizens.

From my own personal viewpoint, I, you know, was a secondary school teacher and I always felt a bit that that was the Cinderella service in education. Lots of people get excited about universities, and there are good reasons for that. Lots of people engage in primary schools because for a whole variety of reasons, but I can see the attraction in that.

Secondary schools sometimes look like a bit more hard work and a bit more of a challenge, but I have to say as a teacher that was, I found nothing more rewarding than dealing with 17 and 18-year-olds. For two reasons. One, they all see the world in black and white and that is so refreshing after, as you reach my sort of age, and you tend to see everything in different shades of grey.

But the second thing is, if you, as one of my students were, come to school late because before you get there, you have to drive your siblings to their primary school because mum's a, uh, an addict and dad is absent if he was ever present. And you're 17, you are what is known as a winner in the lottery of life.

And 97% of the people on this planet would change places for you in a heartbeat. But it doesn't look like it, if that's your situation in life now. And it doesn't look like you have much options. But actually, people do. Those people do. And it's really exciting to be working with a group of people where actually the potential is so high.

Can I say just one thing generally about teaching which I, which I learned, and really surprised me, coming from diplomacy. And that is the honesty and collegiality of teachers. Teachers are much more self-reflective of their own performance than almost any other profession I've come across. I was once observing a substitute teacher in a maths class. It's always a tough, really tough job being a substitute teacher. And this class for this individual, who was off task all the time, hadn't gone well. There'd been several interactions, ended up with the individual being excluded and sent off to the level two. And as we left to go different ways, the substitute teacher turned to me and said, I know you've been watching what I did.

I want you to know that's not how to do it. I really didn't handle that kid well. Don't use that as a model. And walked off and I thought, 25 years as a diplomat, I've been in meetings with ambassadors, ministers, prime ministers, councillors, all sorts of people. Never once did we walk out and the leader of the delegation go, 'Oh, didn't do that very well, did I?'

Everybody always tries to find an excuse to externalise failure, if you like. Teachers don't, they know that it's a performance art, you don't always get it right, you go into the staff room, you seek support from your colleagues, and normally you get it, you dust yourself off, you go back and think, I'll do it better next time. That's a great thing.

Dale Atkinson: So just as a final kind of reminder to all the educators and teachers out there, you can actually request a visit of the Governor and you can request to visit Government House if you go onto governor.sa.gov.au to check it out and we'll have those links in the show notes for everybody to access as required.

Mr. Rod Bunten, thank you very much for your time.

Rod Bunten: Thank you. It's been great fun.

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach; a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today I am joined by a very special guest. An international man of great ability and expertise, Professor Guy Claxton.

He is a cognitive scientist. He's written more than 30 books on psychology and education. He's a man with a double first in natural sciences from Cambridge University and a doctorate in experimental psychology from Oxford. That's a lot of stuff there.

Professor Claxton, thanks for joining us.

Guy Claxton: Not at all. It's my pleasure.

Dale Atkinson: Now what I'd like to speak to you today about, and you've just joined us from a conference with a large group of our students, and I'd like to talk to you about student agency.

Tell us a little bit about what that session today with those, four, five, six hundred students looked like.

Guy Claxton: First of all, can I say it was a first for me. First time I've done a live workshop with that number of kids scattered across a large geographical area. It was the first also in the sense that I've never been involved in a similar event anywhere else on the planet.

I would like to start by just tipping my hat to Martin Westwell and his team for engaging in such a thorough and honest investigation of what it is that communities, and professionals, and families and students themselves, what they want from their education. I don't know of any other jurisdiction that has gone to these lengths to do customer research- customer facing research.

Doing that kind of research has been a kind of commonplace in the business world for, I don't know, 30 or 40 years, but education doesn't seem in most places, certainly not in my country, and then back in England, it doesn't seem to have caught up with the importance of finding out what the customers actually want and getting some feedback. I suspect there are a lot of reasons, but one of them might be there is a kind of continuing insularity or arrogance on the part of educational professionals, that they're the only people who know whose business it is to know what young people need to know, and that anybody who questions- who isn't trained in the profession, you know, doesn't know what they're talking about. So students who don't turn up or vote with their feet, there's something wrong with them, or there's something wrong with their families.

And the idea that cumulatively, certainly in my country, the vast number of kids that haven't come back to school after COVID is just brushed away as if it were, you know, we need more draconian measures to punish parents if their kids don't come to school. Rather than entertaining the possibility that it may just be that their time out of school hasn't sharpened their sense of the relevance and the empowerment of what goes on in school. And they've, you know, hundreds of thousands of such kids are continual truants in my country, and I suspect the stats are not very different in Australia.

This consultation and the seriousness with which the department are taking it, I think, is really laudable. And the focus of it is obviously meet and drink to me.

My work is two-pronged in a way. I am, as you said, Dale, a cognitive scientist or a learning scientist is my specialism. So part of me is an egghead and my work has revolved around learning to learn, the learnability of learning itself and also really quite rapidly changing fundamental conceptions of what it is to be intelligent and moving away from that. The idea that we're condemned by our genetics to have some kind of fixed sized pot of general-purpose nous that sets a ceiling on what we can achieve and that follows us around for the rest of our lives.

And the other side of my work is very practical with schools. Actually going into classrooms, talking lots of workshopping with teachers and gradually developing an extensive micro-toolkit of little things that teachers can do in schools as they are. We're not going to get wholesale improvement unless we can show existing teachers the steppingstones that are not too threatening to get them from here to there.

So a large part of my job here and my work with the students this afternoon is to try and introduce them in a kind of entry-level sort of way into some of the science, but also a little bit into some of the practical ramifications. And I think we were at least partly successful. They seem to be quite interested in the practical relevance of some of the things that I was talking about.

Dale Atkinson: And what changes when we start to engage students on this level, the level that you were engaging with them today?

Guy Claxton: The fundamental change is around the notion of learning and around the learnability of learning. And around the interestingness of, if you unpack that, if you start to see learning as a craft, then beginning to understand what the skills and capabilities or life skills, or there's a whole big vocabulary that is used to refer to something a bit deeper and a bit broader than merely a skill which sounds like a rather technical thing.

So habits of mind, character strengths, positive learning dispositions. So getting clearer about what are the underpinnings of someone who is confident, autonomous, and capable when faced, this is my definition broadly, when faced with situations that are novel, challenging, complex, or uncertain. That's my definition of learning.

It's like being good with uncertainty. Or as Jean Piaget once defined intelligence as: knowing what to do when you don't know what to do. We've built an education system around giving kids things that they do know what to do.

I always have this image by the time they leave they have a large backpack of well-rehearsed performances of understanding that is supposed to equip them for life in the big wide world and I honestly doubt that that's the best send-off we can give them.

Whereas, if we dig deeper into the process of learning and if we talk about learning as if it were itself something that was learnable, there are skills and strategies, obviously, but there are these more deeper, more character like things. And I think for me, that's the difference of nuance between in the new framework that's emerging from the Department for Education.

I think for me, learner effectiveness or the effective learner points in the direction of the skilful or the strategic. And the idea of learner agency points at something deeper; a confidence or an attitude or a stance. All other things being equal and openness to that which is strange or challenging. Not being automatically frightened or bigoted or dismissive of people, things or ideas that are not immediately yours or not immediately familiar.

And goodness knows, society needs that kind of mindset, doesn't it? Tolerance for diversity.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, I think that's certainly echoed, I think, in the way that educators have been engaging with their students.

Guy Claxton: Yeah, so if I could just add one-one more thought.

A lot of my work is how to make that not just hot air and aspirational. You know, the road to educational hell has been well-paved time and again by fine words and wish lists. Whereas my work has been: 'so how can we tweak what's going on in a maths classroom so that it is building, not just the ability, but the desire, the appetite to figure it out for yourself?'

So you don't have students kind of sitting there looking pathetic with their hands half up, saying with their most mournful face on, saying verbally and unverbally, "I don't get it, Miss, please come and rescue me”.

And I think we've been too quick often in the past to, it's like kind of responding to a stroke patient who says, "Nurse- I, my legs won't work anymore. Please wheel me around in my wheelchair". Whereas, a good physiotherapist will say, "Come on, George, up you get. You did 12 steps yesterday, do 15 today". And that kind of tough love, you might say, is absolutely in George's best interest. And likewise, for children to discover the capacity and the appetite. I think both those things are important.

So I often say that you know you're making progress in a classroom when you set the students a puzzle, it might be in an English lesson. A common activity, certainly in my country, is to take a poem- a well-known poem, cut it up into individual couplets or stanzas, give them back muddled up to students and take away the title of the poem and give it back to students to would say work in twos or threes to see if you can reorder these elements into what seems to make the most sense to you. And out of which, you can make a reasonable guess as to what the title of the poem is.

And you know you're doing well when you say, "I'll give you ten minutes to do that", and after seven minutes, you say, "Would you like to know the answer?" And they all say, "No, Sir. No, don't!" Like: 'Don't rob us of the possibility that we might be able to figure it out for ourselves'. Because there's pride and pleasure. It's not fun, but there's a pleasure, isn't there? In that efficacy.

So it's like, little things like that. How do we change our very understandable impulse to rescue children and comfort them when they're finding something difficult and tweak that so that now they are gradually discovering and strengthening their capacity to do it for themselves; so that the mood in the room now becomes one of the teacher is the last resort to rescue them like if all else fails rather than the first resort?

Dale Atkinson: I mean this is quite a glib summary perhaps, but that transition from teaching the student the thing to teaching the student how to learn about the thing is quite a profound shift, isn't it?

Guy Claxton: 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him how to fish'. It has some similarities to that. Fish goes off much faster than learning does. But yeah, absolutely.

The idea that children's performance in schools, like how and why they do well or they do badly in their learning, is not easily predicted by some naive combination of fixed ability and effort.

That's the traditional, what we call in my discipline, folk psychology. And it's inaccurate and it's unhelpful. It would be like talking to, you know, the third squad of a football club and saying to them, effectively, you know, 'you're in the third squad and that's where you belong, mate. Because you lack ability'.

You wouldn't be a very good coach if you spoke to your athletes in that way. You'll motivate, you'll say, 'if you try really hard, if you practice, ta da da, maybe next season you'll make it into the second squad'. And maybe they do and maybe they don't, but they'll have learned more through the aspiration, rather than feeling pigeonholed.

And we've unfortunately and without really meaning to that notion of ability, fixed ability plus effort, has and in some places still does permeate. It's like a bit of mental malware. That if you're a bright student or a successful student the way you tell that is by the fact that that student gets everything right first time, preferably without breaking sweat, and always. Now that's a very stupid idea to feed into students' minds because it means if they're slow or they make mistakes, that immediately gets interpreted as stupid. Nobody likes to feel stupid, so you're kind of getting them to veer off, you know, the legitimate experiences of being a learner now become aversive to you.

Once you point that out, it's common sense. But in some classrooms, still, it's a rather uncommon common sense. People might sort of poo-poo it as just a bit of sort of Namby-pamby psychology, but to my mind, it's absolutely practical.

And I think it went- those ideas went down rather well with the students. For a lot of them, it made them stop and think about, for example, the nature of mistakes. Some mistakes are sloppy; some of them are unacceptably costly if you really mess up some expensive material; and some mistakes are smart. Like, they were a good idea, they didn't work perfectly, but you've learned from them and the next time you're going to do better.

So even that, for a group of five-year-olds, detoxifies the notion of mistake and opens up the concept of drafting, learning through critique and through reflection. Good old-fashioned trial and error.

Dale Atkinson: One of the things you spoke to the students about was the learning pit. Can you sort of explain that concept to the listeners?

Guy Claxton: The learning pit is a very nice, simple, graphic visualization which basically just points out two things:

Any learning worth its salt is uncomfortable by definition, unless it's kind of really trivial learning. What it means is you're at and beyond your current limit of comprehension or competence. You're somewhere out there. You don't know, you can't reliably predict the effect of your actions. You can't always get the result that you wanted.

Getting kids clearer, getting-getting them to understand more clearly the realities of learning, I think. And to know that frustration and confusion are not things to be scared of. They're inevitable emotional accompaniments.

The science shows very clearly, deep down in us in the way we're designed biologically, our bodies, and our brains and our minds learning is an emotional business, you know. We were designed as learning animals to discover things that matter to us. And our brain is designed to switch on and to make itself rubbery and plastic when we're confronted with something that matters to us, that seems threatening or an unexpected resource. And yet, schools have often kind of operated as if curiosity, or that sense of significance or mattering, was a sort of expendable issue. Like, we don't need to pay attention to it or even that it was a distraction.

So the learning pit, first of all, encourages children to understand that it's not that bad to be in the pit. And everybody did. David Bowie did, Paul McCartney did- he spent a lot of his time in the learning pit. So did Beethoven, so did Einstein, etc, etc, etc.

And the second side of the pit, it just graphically shows, but if you develop on your strategies, and if you develop your learning strengths and your learning attitudes, you have ways of getting yourself out of the learning pit. They're like crampons in the side of the pit. And that you can go on discovering those more and more.

I was in a school this morning, Prospect North Primary School, where the children there- year five and six children were showing me their customized version of the learning pit which was very meaningful. I, like, I checked with them, 'Is this just another bit of teacher business that we have to do?'

They- 'No', they said, 'it's really useful to have those words, to have that insight'.

The time in the pit is not necessarily just painful and useless. And that if you try and build a rope bridge across the top of the pit and avoid the discomfort, then you end up just as incompetent as you were on the original side of the bridge. I mean, I think a lot in metaphors. And I think in education, it's useful to communicate a lot in metaphors.

So I think the learning pit is a very useful image, a way of imaging that gets kids, particularly younger kids, directly into an understanding of the reality of learning rather than this alternative idea that anybody who's really bright doesn't have to bother with mistakes or effort. You can just do it.

Dale Atkinson: There's a huge degree of resilience and self-confidence that's required for a student to tackle learning in that particular way. How is it that educators can activate those capabilities within learners?

Guy Claxton: Well, that's a big part of my work and I think it's a big part of what underlies the responses to the consultation.

I was just looking at some of them. Children and parents alike saying they often use the word 'skills', where I would use the word 'dispositions'. But again and again, they use words like: 'be more resilient', 'more confident', 'more curious', 'more creative', 'more entrepreneurial', 'more imaginative', 'more collaborative'. They often couch their wish list for education in those terms.

So the job of the teacher now becomes moving them at an acceptable rate. You become like a mind coach, where you're not- you don't see your job just as filling minds of a fixed sized ability, but of actually expanding that ability. And you do it gradually in the way you blow up a balloon. So it's like you see intelligence not as a fixed sized bucket, but as a balloon that is capable of being inflated or becoming larger and more flexible as you go along.

So little things like resilience. There's lots of little strategies that are very common, they're not particular to me. But what I do is try and collect these things and show the synergy behind them.

Little things like, try '3 Before Me'. Which is when a child is struggling, you'll go to say, "I will help you, but just tell me the three things you've tried to help yourself first. And if you haven't come up with three things, then would you just, Anna, would you just see if you could hang in for another couple of minutes? Then if you're really, really, really stuck, I'll come and give you a hint. Would you do that for me?"

It's a tiny tweak in the classroom, but it's a tweak that is inviting, that is telling Anna she might be able to rescue herself. That doing so it is a desirable thing and that if she has another couple of minutes, she might just be able to do it rather than falling into that helplessness and there's lots of lots of variations on that. So it's just finding those little stepping stones that help teachers get from here there.

How you build concentration, for example, we know that the ability to concentrate despite distractions is a strengthenable muscle. It's what mindfulness training is all about. There are all kinds of little ways in which you can raise children's awareness of their own potential capacity to control their attention. To not get ripped away from what they were doing by a fire engine that goes by. And to learn to recognize that. And it's a bit like CBT, a form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

It's like having the awareness in the moment to say, 'Ah, this is a potential distraction. I don't need to go there'. And sometimes it's so juicy you can't resist it still. But sometimes that opens up a moment of choice where you can say, 'Aha, I'm now going to go back to what I was doing'. So these little things that are highly accessible, but I think often psychologically quite sophisticated, are things that I want to kind of make available broadly to teachers.

We're not going to get into the world of dispositions by a quantum jump. We're going to get there by evolution by lots of teachers hearing about these things and going quietly to themselves: 'Oh, I could do that. I could do that with my kids. I'm going to try it tomorrow'. And gradually, the great liner of education begins to turn around or at least that's my belief.

Dale Atkinson: Well, I think that's very encouraging and, uh, in the show notes we'll have more information on where teachers can go to access some of the advice and expertise that, uh, Professor Claxton has made available.

If you had one piece of advice to the teachers that are listening today, what would that advice be?

Guy Claxton: Give it a go. That was one of the things- one of the lists of five most important things that parents said they wanted for the children. The willingness to give it a go. And I would just wish all teachers not to be stuck, not to be defensive, not to be immediately critical.

Not to say: 'Oh, but it'll jeopardize the results', particularly secondary and senior secondary teachers. But to say: 'It's only a little thing, it's a little tweak. It might make a difference; I don't know yet. But I'm going to give it a go and I'm going to make it work for three weeks and then I'm going to see if it's made a difference to the mood in the classroom'.

Chances are it will, and if it does, then you might be ready to make the next little tweak and on you go. So do something a little bit different tomorrow.

Dale Atkinson: I think the piece of advice that we're providing to teachers there is exactly the skills and capabilities we're trying to instil in the students that we're educating.

Guy Claxton: Exactly right.

Dale Atkinson: Professor Guy Claxton, thank you very much for your time.

Guy Claxton: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.

​

Dale Atkinson: Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today we are talking about professional learning programs and specifically about the professional learning programs provided by Orbis, which can boost your career development and opportunities as an educator and a leader. And we're talking to two people who have been boosting their opportunities as educators and leaders in Kurt Ferguson from South Downs Primary School, and Sarah Edwards from Loxton High School.

Welcome to you both.

Kurt Ferguson: Thank you.

Sarah Edwards: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: So first of all, Kurt, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your current role?

Kurt Ferguson: Sure, so I've been out for a little while now teaching. My current role is a senior leader for curriculum pedagogy that really involves system-wide processes for our school around kind of our data collection and how we use our data. And then kind of building evidence-led practices at our site and supporting with effective teaching learning behind that as well.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, I'm sitting across from you and you look like a reasonably young human being. [00:01:00] What's that career journey involved in terms of going from teacher to leader in relatively rapid succession, I assume?

Kurt Ferguson: Yep. It's probably taken a fair bit of adjustment. I think probably early on I had to really grapple with kind of my own knowledge and building my confidence around that and really backing myself in and realising that, obviously, people have put me in the position because they also see something in me, believe in me for that. So, that's probably taken a little bit of adjusting, but I'm kind of finding my feet with it now and obviously nothing worth having is without its challenges.

Dale Atkinson: Absolutely true. In terms of Orbis' role in your professional learning, how have you engaged with the programs there?

Kurt Ferguson: Yeah, so I think my first one was Instructional Leadership. So we actually had at the time at my previous site, my whole leadership team went in and that was really nice way to find, dabble my feet in with the Orbis work. You're actually doing a lot with your current site and I found that a lot of the Orbis PDs had us doing a lot of things that we could actually take back and action at our site.

So that was probably a really nice way to dabble into it. And then probably more recently I've [00:02:00] been engaging in Middle Leaders PD, and that's probably been a little bit more on my own personal development and myself as a leader; and talked a little bit about building my own confidence and resilience as a leader. And that's probably had a bit more of a role in that there.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it is a nice mix, isn't it, of learning some of those leadership capabilities that you're looking for, but also some of those practical tools around pedagogy and classroom experience.

Kurt Ferguson: Absolutely.

Dale Atkinson: Now Sarah, you're a teacher who's worked at various country locations across South Australia. Can you walk us through your experiences?

Sarah Edwards: Well, my experiences have been a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest. I've also been out of uni for a little while now and I was teaching for a couple of years and then, before I knew it, I was in a leadership role and I was like, oh what is going on? And what I can really accredit it to is living in country areas.

Like, being in country schools provides such unique opportunities that you don't necessarily get in those metro schools. And there's ample opportunities, there's some really broad opportunities, to [00:03:00] demonstrate your capacity as a leader and that's anything from organizing camps, excursions, you can coach sporting teams, and then of course you go right through into those official leadership positions within the school.

And I think I was quite lucky being in a country secondary school. Sometimes those cohorts were a little bit smaller and the teaching teams are very close-knit. So I was working quite closely with a leader, and then he retired and it just seemed like that natural progression to step into his role. It wasn't as easy as what I'm making it sound like.

I initially applied for the job and didn't win it, but sought lots of feedback, particularly around how I could work with other people and how I could develop my skills. And I worked really hard as being a leader in like running PLCs and chairing committees. I really tried to set myself up and then I applied for the job again, and I won it. Flash forward and yeah, here we are.

Dale Atkinson: That's really good, isn't it? 'Cause it's that combination of kind of structured professional development and learning that you want to engage with as, as an educator and as you go through your career. But then there's also the self-propelled stuff that you do on your own.

That's right. Isn't it [00:04:00] Sarah?

Sarah Edwards: Yeah, absolutely. I was only having a chat to my principal this morning; I was chatting to her and I'm like: "remember when there used to be written reports? And it'd always be like, Such and Such talks a lot, or Such and Such is this. Mine was always: Sarah always has leadership opportunities or she's always a leader of a group".

So I guess it was kind of there and I've always wanted to be a leader in some capacity. It just probably happened a little bit quicker than the plan, but I love it. I think it's fantastic. I, I think teaching is a great job and I think that these B-band or middle-band leadership roles have that really great balance between the leadership and that teaching as well.

Dale Atkinson: And so what is the, what's the role of Orbis been in drawing out some of those sort of natural leadership tendencies in you?

Sarah Edwards: Orbis has an extensive opportunity for me to, or not just me anybody really, to network and work with people who are like-minded and just as passionate about what you do. I really like the Instructional Leadership that Kurt mentioned earlier where you actually do get to work in a small group of people and you, you get to really build on your strengths within that team that then is [00:05:00] reflected nicely and directly into schools.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Kurt, is there anything that you've been surprised about yourself or something unexpected that you've learnt through the Orbis programs?

Kurt Ferguson: Definitely. I think probably in the last one, the Middle Leaders, really getting engaged for like who I am as a leader and actually starting to, you know, you've got professionals that are actually there who are well-skilled in leadership everywhere and all the different facets that it has and actually kind of understanding that there's so many different layers to what leadership can look like, what kind of leader you can be.

And I think probably in that Middle Leaders you really get the chance to grapple with your own identity as a leader and, kind of, what your values are and what they mean for, you know, if you've got certain traits or characteristics that you lean into when you're feeling pressured or when you're feeling that you're under a certain level of stress and, kind of, ways to manage that and mitigate, kind of, your responses as a leader to make sure you're still the most effective leader.

I think that's something that certainly surprised me and has been, you know, really powerful for me as a leader to, kind of, move my own learning forward.

Dale Atkinson: That does sound really powerful.

[00:06:00] Sarah, you mentioned this a bit earlier in terms of professional learning communities and those sorts of things. How have you been sharing what you've learned at Orbis with your colleagues?

Sarah Edwards: The thing I really love about the Orbis professional learning, and I will continue to rave about this, it is that it's so relevant to what's actually happening in South Australian classrooms at the time. Like, I'm sure we've all been involved in some professional learning that isn't provided by Orbis.

And you kind of go, 'oh, does this really fit my context? Why am I here?' What I really love about Orbis is I walk in going, 'this is gonna be great, and I know I'm gonna walk out, I'm gonna be walking out with resources and strategies that I can directly implement into my classroom. And if it's not in the classroom, in that leadership space, depending on what the professional learning was about.

I rave about this so much that when I did the Orbis 6 to 9 Numeracy last year I was like, 'right, this is great. I had direct impact on my own pedagogy in the classroom that when I started at a new school at the beginning of this year, I was like, 'I need my maths team, my maths [00:07:00] teachers, to be participating in this because I know how valuable it is. And if it's impacted me and my efficacy in teaching mathematics then it is certainly gonna have an impact on them.'

So we've had three teachers do the same program, and I could confidently say that they've all had the same experience. That they can take exactly what they've learned and bring it straight back into the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Kurt, you were nodding along to a bit of that. Is that a similar experience that you've had?

Kurt Ferguson: Yeah, very similar experience.

I've really enjoyed, kind of, everything that I've engaged with and, as I said earlier, like the Instructional Leadership, kind of, my first little chance to engage with Orbis was very much, you know, taking what you're doing into practice and taking it straight back to your site. Spread out over a year, you know, it was really intentional in that, you know, you're working with your entire team on quite literally your site. It wasn't just something that you do on a day and you bring back. And the reason I was nodding is, I've had a couple of our staff sent off to the Orbis Maths this year and it's always a glowing review when they come back. There's evidence-based practice that they can bring straight back in that's gonna provide the, the best bang for buck in classroom practice. So yeah.

Dale Atkinson: That's really [00:08:00] good feedback. How has that impact filtering down to students? What have you seen in that area?

Kurt Ferguson: Yeah, I think all of the Orbis PDs and trainings that both our teachers and our leaders have been able to go along to, we started to see that trickle-down effect. So it might not be that we're directly, it's not the students that are going along to these PDs, but their educators are making sure that you're putting best practice in front of those students and then, in terms of leadership, we're making sure that all the different things that we're implementing as a site and our school-wide practices and processes are so streamlined and tight. It, it falls hand in hand that by the time it gets down to the students, we're, we're very confident in that, you know, there's the most evidence-backed, research-based practices happening in there and there's engaging pedagogy and, as a result, you're gonna see your students move from that.

Dale Atkinson: And you're seeing something similar at it to Loxton, Sarah.

Sarah Edwards: Yeah, for sure. I'm lucky, I'm sitting on the end of the phone 'cause I'm also nodding away. I think, Kurt, really, now that they're talking about that evidence-based approach to lots of the, the teaching and the [00:09:00] learning strategies that Orbis presents and that, that we can take directly into classrooms.

I found as a teacher and somebody who engaged with the 6 to 9 Numeracy program, that it really consolidated my understanding of the maths curriculum. I found it rather affirming and that when I came back to class, I noticed an increased engagement level with my students because I wasn't spending all my planning time unpacking the curriculum because I learnt so much of that at the Orbis that when I was planning for these lessons, I could focus on making it more engaging for my students and that I could differentiate for them more confidently because I just had, I guess, almost one less thing to worry about because Orbis had gone through it so thoroughly.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that's a huge step change for, for any teacher in terms of workload and other things.

Kurt, you mentored early career teachers. Can you tell us a bit about the benefits of mentoring for yourself and, and the mentees?

Kurt Ferguson: Sure.

Yeah, I've been lucky enough to have a few early career teachers that have gone through the Orbis early career stuff with me as well.

I think something [00:10:00] that has been really powerful for me is, I mean, schools are a very busy place, as you both would probably understand. It's not often you get the opportunity to kind of set aside some time to really unpack both: one, how your early career teacher's going; and two, actually getting the opportunity to work through those things with them.

I think a lot of the time you feel like you have a really strong grasp on how things are going, but it's not until you get to a day like the Orbis Early Careers, the first intensive you do where a lot of the work is around, kind of, their perceptions of how everything's going. And I think in the times that I have done that, it's been really like, 'oh, I really needed to probably take a bit more of a step in the direction of actually getting the information I needed from you to see how I can best support.'

I've done it twice now and both times I've walked away feeling more confident that I can support my early career teacher better and vice versa. That, you know, they have a stronger affirmation that I can be the leader that they need.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That does sound like a really powerful kind of exchange of, of interest really.

Sarah, you mentioned earlier today that you're out on a beautiful spring day in Loxton. Best [00:11:00] time of the year, according to you, up in the Riverlands. So you started your teaching career out at Roxby.

Sarah Edwards: Mm-Hmm.

Dale Atkinson: You've been all over the country. What advice would you give to new teachers considering starting out in country areas?

Sarah Edwards: Oh, this is so easy for me. I love when I get these questions because I'm so passionate about education, particularly in country areas. And I get that I can respond to this question really easy 'cause I grew up in regional areas and so for me it was a no-brainer that I was gonna teach in a regional area myself.

I really didn't have any interest in going to Adelaide schools because I just think the country is the best. Like we have the most beautiful state, and I might be a little bit bias-y, but I think we actually have one of the most beautiful states and some of the pristine holiday locations. So, heck, why not wake up every day in these beautiful locations and get to work and live in that community?

But for me, I guess I just really wanted to use this to address some of probably the worries that some teachers may have about moving out [00:12:00] into the country. It, it can be really daunting for some people, but rest assured, the department has plenty of supports in place. You have access to government employee housing with subsidised rent which is always a, a win there.

And then, of course, the department also supports you in moving by organising a removalist and you don't have to pay for those kinds of things as well. So it's a wonderful opportunity. And I guess I'll also take this opportunity to give a bit of a plug for all of us here that quite often if you are in a country school, they will pay for your accommodation or your travel costs to head down to Adelaide.

So I think that's a win-win win all round.

Dale Atkinson: We'll take all those wins.

So lastly, for those who are aspiring to step into leadership roles and are maybe considering Orbis professional learning, what is your advice in, let's say, fewer than five words to them?

Kurt Ferguson: I can give you a few over.

Dale Atkinson: Go. Start with a few over.

Kurt Ferguson: Don't be afraid of what you don't know. Just remember that you're gonna grow.

Dale Atkinson: That's pretty good. That's not bad. Sarah?

Sarah Edwards: Aw man, that one even rhymed!

Dale Atkinson: You've gotta try and top that.

Sarah Edwards: How am I gonna beat that? [00:13:00]

Dale Atkinson: Do your best.

Sarah Edwards: Take every opportunity and grab it with both hands 'cause you just never know where it's gonna take you.

Dale Atkinson: I, I'll take both of those. They were excellent. Thank you very much to Sarah and to Kurt.

Kurt Ferguson: No problem.

Sarah Edwards: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: And Orbis professional learning programs, they can support you and your career from graduate teacher to leader and everything in between. You can enrol in a professional learning program that's right for you on the Orbis website, which is www.education.sa.gov.au/orbis.

Or you can just look in the show notes underneath where you access the podcast.

Thank you very much for joining us. See you next time.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And it must be the start of the school year because I'm sitting across from Professor Martin Westwell, our Chief Executive. Thank you very much for joining us.

Martin Westwell: Oh no, it's an absolute pleasure, Dale.

Dale Atkinson: Now, we were sitting here last year. We spoke a lot about what your plans were for 2023. 2023 was a pretty big scene-setting year with the launch of the Purpose Statement, the Department Strategy. So they're out in the wild, where to now?

Martin Westwell: Yeah, it was such a great year and we started off with all that input from our students and then saying, 'well what does this mean?' and the Strategy and then coming out with the Strategy. And as I've said lots of times, it was a "strategy" and it wasn't a "strategic plan". And we did that absolutely on purpose because strategic plans so easily just become plans like stuff to do.

So you end up with a lot of initiatives and then what you do is you congratulate yourself for going through the initiatives and getting to the end of them. And that can be impactful, but really what we want to do is focus on purpose and what we're [00:01:00] here for. Why are educators signed up to be educators in the first place, whether that be preschool, primary, high school teachers?

So we've, we've kind of really sat in that, 'let's get to grips with the Strategy and what was meant by the areas of impact and the guiding principles, how we're going to use some of the levers'. So we talked about that a lot.

And at the beginning of last year, you know, Leader's Day, we used a lot of international experts to help inform the conversation. And I think this year we're really now turning to say, 'well, what does that mean? How are we putting that into practice?'

For lots of our sites, they were already looking at the areas of impact and really now building up momentum, saying, 'well, I'm kind of getting this out.' It wasn't being as recognised before, as much before as it is now. And so we're really kind of saying, 'so we were already putting into action and we're going to double-down on what we were doing because we could see that it was working for our kids'.

For others, it's going to be a year, I think, where they're going to say: 'well, I'm going to try out this area of impact. I want to put focus in on this. This is in our school. This is going to be our focus'. And then grappling with [00:02:00] the, "how are we going to do it?"

And, you know what? Sometimes we're going to be really successful and sometimes we're not, and it's not going to be successful. So we're not going to see improvement as this kind of lockstep series of things to go through.

That improvement cycle we've had in the past is a really good improvement cycle, but you've got to be able to have the human beings in it and know that it's a bit messy and sometimes it's going to work, sometimes it's not. Try some things out a particular way, and then if that's not working, well why is it not working? Do we need to do something differently? So it's a year of putting things into, into practice, but again, not being too judgmental of each other, not being too high-stakes about this. Really think about it as a year of learning how we together and in our individual sites are going to approach the Strategy and put it into practice.

Dale Atkinson: So it sounds like the message is one of being brave and trusting your professional judgment.

Martin Westwell: Absolutely. So the professional judgment is a really important part of our Strategy and the Strategic Plan. The, the planning for how we're going to put the Strategy into [00:03:00] place.

Because, again, I've talked about this quite a lot before, I don't think there's any such thing as "best practice" in education. That suggests that everybody's the same, education's simple, it's really well-established what to do and everybody should just do that. There may be one or two parts of education where we should do that. But really, what we know is that teaching and learning is just not that simple. And so to deal with the complexity, we need to rely on the professional judgment of our educators.

They're going to make decisions and choices that are in response to the students that they've got, the context, what's going on, the other staff at the school, the supports that they've got, a whole host of things to make those choices. And I want to empower our leaders, our teachers to be able to make some of those choices in their classroom, in their school, to make the biggest difference they can to our students. And that they can make some, you know, they can have some failures as well, that they can have those praiseworthy failures that we talk about: 'give something to go and if it doesn't work, well, that's okay. We can learn from it, take a step back and move [00:04:00] forward and be even more successful'.

Dale Atkinson: Now on a weekly basis you go out and visit schools and preschools, and so you're hearing them talk about this, and you're seeing how they're engaging with the Strategy and the Purpose. Have you seen anything that exemplifies the direction in which you want our system to head?

Martin Westwell: Oh look, so many things. You know, one of the things about the Strategy was, it was actually quite a reflection of what was already going on in, in many of our schools. So many of our schools with a focus on wellbeing and making sure that our students are able to regulate, are able to work with each other, are able to work well in classrooms. That all the things that need to be true for that classroom experience to be a good one put in place.

But you know, some of the places that I've been to when I think about other areas of impact, like being an effective learner, for example. Just watching students do things like self-differentiate. It's amazing!

So just pick out one example, I was at Mount Barker South Primary School and there they've got two classes, two teachers. And they got the two classes together [00:05:00] and it was a particular piece of maths work and they said, "so if you're", they had this particular language about, "if you're looking at this in the", I think it was "surface" that they were using.

"If you're just, if you're just getting into this and you're just starting and you're not so confident, you're just getting going, you can do this task in there with this teacher. If you, if you're going for deep and you've got an understanding of this and you're going a bit deeper and you really, you know, you think you can do these kinds of questions, stay here with this teacher. And if you're doing transfer, so if you're taking this idea and you think you can go with it, pair up and do this particular piece of work. No teacher, just get on with yourself".

And then I watched these kids sort themselves out. And I saw the teachers like intentionally looking across and like seeing some of the kids who had gone for the surface and going, "uh, not sure you're in the right spot. Go next door and see if you could, if you can give that a go".

And I talked to some of the kids who were doing the transfer piece, so they I could see them, they'd negotiated whether they were going to do the transfer bit or not. They talked [00:06:00] about it, they decided they were, sat down, they got on with their work. And I went over and said to them, "Why have you chosen to do this? Because, you know, if you went into that other class, the deep one, you'd be able to be really successful. Why don't you go in there and show everybody what you can do?" They looked at me as if I'd grown two heads. They said, "But we can already do that. You know, why, why would we, why would we go next door and do that because we can already do that. We're here trying to do this thing that we can't already do and we're grappling with it".

And so just fantastic to see. And that doesn't happen overnight, right? The learning culture the, again, the aspects of wellbeing that have to be in place. And then the kids are able to kind of do this differentiation, feel like they're in the right place and then just lean in and engage with their learning. It's an absolutely beautiful thing to see.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, and I think what goes for the kids there at their primary school goes for the schools and preschools within our system. That success looks very different for different settings and in different settings, doesn't it?

Martin Westwell: I think that's a really important point, right.

So, you know, so I [00:07:00] say this thing, but what I, what I don't want anybody to do is to kind of rush out and go and do that, you know, because it might not work in your site. That might not be the way that we get the biggest difference for the kids in every site. So there is something about, yeah, again, that teacher judgment. Having a good sense of what's going to make the biggest difference for these students with the staff that you've got, the students that you got and so on.

And so, you know, that's that difference between "best practice": everybody do this; to, you know, through to good practice and even emergent practice: these are the things we're trying so that we can make a difference for our students. And I think we see that again, we see that all over our system. And of course, some parts of that that are really important, you know, we've invested heavily in phonics.

And so clearly phonics and the phonics check that we've got really helping people to make decisions around what, when kids have got it and we can carry on and when we might need to put a bit more effort into that. But the way that people are doing it are different in different places. Just, again, making sure that it's, [00:08:00] we're having the maximum impacts that we can through good practice based on teacher judgment.

Dale Atkinson: Can I turn to the corporate office. What are your expectations around how the department's corporate services are going to orient themselves in light of the Strategy?

Martin Westwell: Yeah, you know, so for all of us, we've got, you know, we've got this purpose in education. And when you think about it, we're all having an impact on students.

And so we talk about them learning and thriving. We talk about them achieving and prospering. And how do you achieve that? That almost only happens through the interaction between a student and the people in a classroom, teacher or the students. Most of the time that's where that change occurs. So really everything we do, it's got to be focused on that moment.

And yet, because we need our systems in place and a whole host of things to really kind of focus down on that moment, those moments, that space in between. The student, child, an, an educator, whether that be in preschool or schools, focusing on that moment because that's where it makes the difference.

So there [00:09:00] is something about making sure that we are always operating in service of principal or a preschool director, their staff, in order to make the biggest difference to students.

Sometimes it feels like we ask people to do things to serve the system. And wherever we can, you know, there are some things where we have to do that. There's some national requirements for data collection, you know, even things like our finances. There's some requirements that we should have. But really asking all of us to say, 'is what we're doing really serving as best it can the people in schools and preschools to make the biggest difference they can to children and students'.

Dale Atkinson: Now at a meeting of principals recently you flagged a book by Helen Timperley, 'Leading Professional Conversations' I think it was called, as a, it's a bit of a touchstone on what leadership should look like and feel like under the Strategy. Can you talk us through the key learnings from that book?

Martin Westwell: Yeah, I think the reason why I was talking about Helen's book, and it goes back, I mean, this has been Helen's work for a long time, right? And she wrote a piece for the, for AITSL back in [00:10:00] 2015, 16, which was along the same sort of lines.

And really it's about the kinds of conversations that we have as leaders. And when I say "leaders", I kind of mean all of us, right? So in almost regardless of our role within public education, we're all leaders. You might have a formal leadership role or when we're providing a service and, of course, educators interacting with kids being leaders of learning and development. So we're all leaders. And what do those conversations look like? And Helen's book is particularly about kind of school leaders and people in that kind of leadership role.

But what she's saying is that the sorts of conversations that we need to be having. And much more of those kind of coaching conversations. And of course, when you're having coaching conversations, you're not telling someone what to do. That's, that's not what we're doing in coaching. You're kind of asking questions, you're prodding, you're getting people to think. And I definitely think that in a learning organisation, the way that we should be leading is through learning. We should see leading as a learning activity.

And so those conversations are kind of a prodding conversations they're [00:11:00] bringing out people's thinking. They might be putting two ideas together that just don't go together. So that natural tension that then kind of comes out of that, again, to stimulate thinking. The conversations have to be those kinds of conversations.

Anytime in leadership where we're using our positional power, things have probably gone wrong to a certain extent. Where we're using the kind of hierarchy of the organisation, things might have gone wrong. And you know, don't get me wrong, we have to have some structure to just get things done and there are some things, you know, some requirements.

So we've got NAPLAN, so we need to be communicating through our system when the NAPLAN test window is and this and that. That shouldn't be our starting point, that should almost be the kind of footnote of information that needs providing. The sorts of conversations that we should be having should be the conversations about the, it's the human conversations.

And Michael Fullan talks about systems having, you know, being in danger of having a kind of "bloodless paradigm". It's all about data, it's not about people. It's all about a transaction. It's all about training teachers to do this thing and do it in this way. [00:12:00] And he calls it the "bloodless paradigm". And he's calling for a shift to a human paradigm.

Where we're recognising the, kind of, the motivations that people have, what they bring to this social enterprise of learning. Because it is a social enterprise. Because it's a, it happens because of social interaction. You can, you can transfer information online, you can, that's quite easy to do. But when we know that, you know, we want to encourage somebody who's struggling with something, we want people to grapple. You want people to kind of look into each other's eyes and go, kind of, 'yeah, I trust you. I'm with you on this. We can do this thing together'.

There's a social interaction that's, that's going on there. So those coaching conversations that Timperley talks about, I think really helped with that. Recognising that this is a human paradigm, these are human beings interacting with each other, working together, grappling with the same sorts of things. And it's those conversations that we need to be having rather than more kind of compliance conversations.

Dale Atkinson: You touched in there about becoming a learning organisation and the importance of learning as an individual. What [00:13:00] have you personally learned from the process of developing the Purpose Statement and the Strategy?

Martin Westwell: So much. So much. Where to start?

You know, there's been some things. So some things about kind of, you know, just us as a system and the human system. Let me try and pick out a few. Some of the things I already knew, but have just been reinforced, just about the kind of, the commitment. You know, we talk about the moral purpose of educators and just how much that kind of shines through. And when it does shine through, the joy that comes from that, about, you know, letting educators be educators, letting teachers teach.

And, you know, when you do that the joy that comes with it. That's been really great learning. That was something that we'd intended through the Strategy. You know, we'd really come at it from that point of view to create a bit of space. And there's loads more work to do to create space for educators and leaders. But to create a bit of space to allow that joy to come through. And I think we're starting to see that happen now.

So it's, one of the learnings is it's doable. You know, there's this latent joy, you know, alright joy that's already [00:14:00] being expressed, but there's more of it that can be released in our system. I think there's something there.

One of the things I've seen as well is, you know, like we talked about before with the Strategy, we're setting out the choices that we're making as a system. This is the direction that we're going in. This is what's important to us. And you can criticise that and say, 'well, if you're not going to tell educators what to do, it's either a thousand flowers blooming, or it's just confusion for people'. Well, what I've learned is that that's not the case.

Some people need some support. Some of those coaching conversations we're about, you know, to draw out some of that thinking. Some people, you know, want to try this thing out but perhaps just need a bit confidence, a little bit of nudging along. But what I have seen is so many of the responses at a site level when people have taken that time to stop and think about where we're heading, how this connects with where they are as a school and as an individual professional and as a team of professionals, when people have done that and stopped and thought about it, there has been so many different responses. Almost all of them have just been fantastic, you know. [00:15:00] Really different action, but really bringing out the kind of heart and soul that we'd intended from the Strategy.

Again, I think there's still a distance for us to go. There always will be. There'll always be changes. There'll always be something that happens in the world, the students will, they'll change, the demands from society on educator and educators will change and we'll need to respond to those. But I do think we're in a, you know, a really positive place in South Australia. And, in fact, getting more and more national and international attention because of the work that we're doing.

Dale Atkinson: Flash forward a year from now, what do you want us to be talking about?

Martin Westwell: I think the conversation that we would need to be having would be about the impact that we see. You know, the road to impact. So, you know, so if last year was kind of looking at the big picture, getting the international thinking into our thinking, bringing all that together, this year being about us taking control of that story.

This is our story. It's South Australia's story. The introduction of some of the Australian curriculum, the adapted Australian [00:16:00] curriculum subjects this coming year. I think, you know, we really need to be saying, 'this is the impact we're starting to see. This is the change that we're seeing'.

And so if you take that kind of good and emergent practice notion, in a year's time what I think where we'll be as a system is we'll be able to see the things that we really want to amplify across the system. Might have been occurring at site level in some of the pilots and things that we've been trying out and saying, 'well, how are we going to amplify those things?'

We'll be clear about some of the things that are not working for us and we'll have to dampen those things down. So I do think we'll start to see almost kind of the output of the evaluation. Yeah, we've had some successes, we've had some things that have not been so successful and then building on those and, and make sure that the system can take those on and we can grow and learn further together.

Dale Atkinson: Grow and learn further together. Professor Martin Westwell, thanks for your time.

Martin Westwell: Thanks Dale.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today we join you from the Convention Centre in Adelaide where we've just finished the Numeracy Summit. And I'm joined by Francis Su, who is the Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, and also a former president of the Mathematics Association of America.

He's been a keynote speaker with us. Thank you very much for joining us.

Francis Su: Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Dale Atkinson: So firstly, what drew you to mathematics and maths in the first place?

Francis Su: I was fortunate to have parents who instilled in me the value of a, of a good education. And I think I got interested in math when I first began to see, get a glimpse of the beauty of maths.

So I give an example, one of my parent's friends came over to the house once. And I remember I was a little kid, you know. I was learning how to add stuff at the time and he said, "Oh, can you add all the numbers from 1 to a 100?" And, of course, you know, I, [00:01:00] I didn't know how to do it, so I just started doing 1 + 2 + 3. It seemed very, really hard. And he said, "no, no, no, no, let me show you an easier way".

For the listening audience, I'm just going to do this with the numbers 1 through 10. And he showed me a beautiful way of adding the numbers 1 through 100, but we'll do 1 through 10. So he said, "imagine all the numbers lined up in a row, 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way up to 10. Yes? If you grab the first thing and the last thing in that list, 1 and 10, what do they add up to? Eleven, great. Now if I move in from both ends, so now I'm grabbing the second thing and the second to the last thing, that's 2 and 9, what do they add up to?

Dale Atkinson: Eleven.

Francis Su: Good, and then 3 and 8 add up to?

Dale Atkinson: Eleven.

Francis Su: And if you keep moving in from the ends in pairs, you basically get 5 pairs of things that add up to 11.

Dale Atkinson: Now you're going to test my mathematics here, right? You might, yeah?

Francis Su: What's 5 x 11? I mean, at that point you could probably figure that out any way you wish, but you'd see it's 55 and you're like, [00:02:00] 'Oh, I remember, I remember seeing this and thinking, "Whoa, that was a pretty cool trick"'.

Like suddenly this thing that seemed really hard became really easy if you looked at it the right way. And that's one of the ways that beauty pops up in mathematics. You use symmetry, or in this case, something that is anti-symmetric, but you, you, you take advantage of structure and you say, 'ah, suddenly a hard thing becomes easy'.

Dale Atkinson: And it is that beauty and clarity, I think, that people who enjoy mathematics, really enjoy about mathematics. But it's sometimes, I think, communicating that beauty to people who may be anxious about mathematics or maybe find it more challenging.

How do we do that thing with people who maybe don't feel like they're able to access the skills?

Francis Su: Yeah, well, mathematics is, it's an odd subject because it's a subject that is very important, very useful, as we know. And it's, you know, the backbone of science and engineering and a lot of the, the data revolution that's happening even as we speak. But a lot of that is computational [00:03:00] and the beautiful side of, of math isn't really seen until you explore it, until you start playing with the ideas.

And so I think we need to give kids more opportunities to just play with the ideas. The one thing I often talk about is if you think about what people normally think of math, they think of arithmetic, right? And you know arithmetic is, it's true, it's part of what you need. You need a solid foundation to do maths, you need to have arithmetic. But if that's all it is, it's kind of boring, right? Like it's kind of like, 'gosh, we could get a calculator to do that, right?'

And so, why do I need to learn this stuff? That's the question kids often ask. And so, how do you get kids excited about math? Well, it's the same way you get them excited about other things that motivate, that stimulate them. You, you go in through the human desires they have, right? The desire to know, to understand.

So, for instance, you might give them a puzzle that has a, an interesting aspect to it that makes you want to go, 'Oh, I wonder how you, how [00:04:00] did you do that?' If you can motivate a kid's curiosity in that way, then they'll be more motivated to learn, to learn maths.

Dale Atkinson: So that seems like one of the things that educators can do or try to access.

What are some things that, perhaps, we need to stop doing in the classroom and elsewhere?

Francis Su: So one of the things that I've been changing the way I teach is thinking about my assessments. So I like to distinguish between skills and virtues. So skills are things that people traditionally think of as math. Like learning your number facts, knowing how to factor a polynomial or use a quadratic formula.

Virtues are aspects of character that shape our attitudes, our habits. And with a virtue, a virtue might be something like creativity; persistence in problem solving; courage to tackle problems you've never seen before. A skill, unfortunately, is something that, it's all the stuff that people think of as traditionally math, and they say, "why do I need to know this stuff?" Right, like, most of us never need to know how to factor a quadratic in our lives, why are we learning it? [00:05:00]

Well, actually the reason we learn maths is not just for the skills. Some people will use them if they go on to a career in science and math, but most people won't. The reason we learn maths is for the virtues, like the habits of mind that it builds, the dispositions that it builds.

And so one thing I realised even after many years of teaching was if I say I value persistence but I only give traditional assessments, like exams where you're graded on whether the answer is right or wrong, then I'm not really sending the same message in my assessments that I'm sending in the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: That is a huge step-change for a lot of education and for education systems. To kind of move away from this idea that there's a bit of data that comes out at the end of any learning process which tells you how well you've done that learning.

What do we need to be thinking about in that assessment space, in that evaluation space, to make that the reality for us, our [00:06:00] kids?

Francis Su: Yeah, we need to value the process in, in find ways to value the process. So I'll give an example of something that I do now is I often ask my, my students to reflect on a problem. Let's say this past semester when, you know, at the end of the semester I might say, "think of a problem that you wrestled with that you struggled to solve and didn't solve and reflect on, explain to me why the struggle itself was valuable".

That's, I think, an example of a, of a reflection that it's, you know, in some sense it's formative assessment. You know, I don't worry too much about, you know, I give close to full credit for almost any thoughtful answer. My students do a lot of really healthy introspection through that. And often they write these wonderful responses that show me that they've grasped this idea that math is actually about building persistence and problem-solving.

That the struggle itself is valuable. That even if you don't solve a problem this time, that act [00:07:00] of exercising your persistence muscle will pay-off down the line with some other problem.

Dale Atkinson: Can I talk a bit about standardised testing? Because every student in year 3, 5, 7 and 9 is going to sit down and be tested in various different domains, one of them being mathematics, mathematics capabilities.

That sends a certain signal. The results have been interpreted in a certain way and used in a certain way to rank schools, rank schools performance based on that dataset. And I understand this is an issue that is not universal to Australia. It's something that happens in the United States as well.

How do we shift the narrative with our parents, our families, to indicate that that outcome is not indicative of the quality of education or how well their kids are doing overall?

Francis Su: Yeah, it's a very, it's a very hard question because basically you can say whatever you want in the class, but what kids remember is the stressful test, right? Whatever that is.

Are you saying that you could change, that there's a possibility of changing the [00:08:00] assessments? Cause that's the first thing I would try to do.

Dale Atkinson: Okay.

Francis Su: Is to change the assessments so that it, it values process more than just outcomes.

Reflection is one way that I try to do that. There needs to be a lot of serious thought about, about how to change assessments. Now, one of the things that's hard is that the, the kind of assessments that need to be done for this to be done right often involve a lot of human labour to grade. So, the people are, you know, used to grading math exams as automated, right?

Like just something I could feed through a, through a computer. But ultimately, I think that's self-defeating in the sense that it's hard to measure things. If we're trying to measure the virtues, some of the human virtues, those things are actually often hard to measure in an automated exam.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, absolutely.

I saw a clip of John Cleese, the comedian, talking the other day when he was giving a lecture from a number of years ago where he was talking about the link between creativity and the childlike ability to approach things with a [00:09:00] sense of play. Is that important in mathematics?

Francis Su: Yes.

Dale Atkinson: And how do we activate it at kids?

Francis Su: Yes. Well, I mean if, if you have the luxury of changing 'K through 6' education, then I think play needs to start early in, in people's experience with mathematics, mathematical play needs to happen. And you know, what does that look like? People often think of play as just gamifying something, turning everything into a game, right?

That's, I think a, maybe not a, a rich view of what it means to play. So to play with an idea is to allow kids to tinker, right? To give them an interesting question and then allow them to wrestle with different ways of solving the, that puzzle or problem and might even be collaborative in some ways. But play looks like trying things out. It's maybe not that different. It has, it shares some features with the way people play a game, right?

Every time you play a game it's a little different and a lot of play involves trying out different strategies on the, on the field whatever they are. And looking [00:10:00] at something from many different perspectives, right? Your, your perspective and your opponent's. That, that's what we do when we play a game, don't we?

And these things are very valuable in mathematics as well. Like looking at a problem from multiple perspectives is actually the key to experiencing joy.

Dale Atkinson: So I think the areas of impact we're going after in our Public Education Strategy are really looking at wellbeing, learner agency, equity and excellence, effective learners.

What are the connections that you see between mathematical flourishing in those areas of impact?

Francis Su: Well, I mean, I think of, of flourishing, certainly flourishing is a, a notion of wellbeing, right? And it's not the same as, as just being happy. Because you could be flourishing even in a very difficult circumstance. I like to think of it as, often involves realising one's potential. And so, even in a hard circumstance, you might rise to the occasion to address some challenge that you're facing.

And so, wellbeing is a huge part of what it means to flourish. The, the [00:11:00] idea of equity or the inequities that we're trying to address, you know often I think can be more effectively addressed when you begin to value each person, dignify each person as a competent mathematical learner, right?

We've written-off too many kids as not "cut out" for math. And that's often we have a gender bias in that and a racial bias sometimes enters into that. And so often people ask, well, people are saying, "we need make our systems equitable, and we do. But I think fundamentally, if you want to change the system, you have to, and you want kids to have, have excitement and agency over their learning, you have to appeal to their humanity.

And certainly there are structures externally to them that maybe prevent them from learning, but for each person to have a productive, exciting relationship with mathematics, we have to give them opportunities to experience that joy and stop thinking about maths as just creating better human calculators, right?

We don't need better human calculators. Our [00:12:00] world doesn't need that, right. We have calculators, right? And that's not to say kids shouldn't learn how to do their basic maths and become fluent and have, you know, automatically be able to do certain skills. But it is saying that like, hey, you know, what does the world need now, especially in the age of AI? What they need are people with human virtues, be people able to think, who are able to look at the output of some computer program or some AI ChatBot and say, "Hey, something's not quite right here", right.

Someone who's, we need people who are creative. We need people who are able to, to reason, to, to, to quantify, to define, to abstract. Right, those are all virtues. Those are aspects of character that we need. We want to shape in our students through a great maths education. It can't just be about skills.

Because skills, as I like to point out, skills are going away. The coming AI revolution, all the jobs if they depend on skills, those jobs are going away. [00:13:00]

Dale Atkinson: Professor Su, thank you very much for your time.

Francis Su: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: And if you'd like to hear more from Professor Su or any of the speakers at the Numeracy Summit, those presentations are available on plink and you'll be able to find those in the show notes with this podcast.

And if you'd like to look for some extra resources, check out the Number Sense courses on plink, which have got a lot of professional learning that's available for you.

Thank you very much for your time. See you next time.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today we are at the Adelaide Convention Centre where we've just wrapped up the Numeracy Summit. And I'm joined by two of our keynote speakers: Doug Clements who's the university professor at the Kennedy Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Learning, and Executive Director of Marsico Institute for Early Learning, University of Denver. That is a mouthful, Doug. That's a lot. And I'm also joined by Julia Sarama, who is the Kennedy Endowed Chair in Innovative Learning Technologies and a professor at the University of Denver. Thank you very much for joining us too.

First of all, you've been here to talk to us about learning and teaching with learning trajectories. Can you tell us a little bit about what learning trajectories are?

Julie Sarama: Wow, that's a big question. My daughter who works in communication, our daughter who works in communication, told us it's a horrible name because it's not that difficult a concept, but it's a pretty complicated name. But pretty [00:01:00] much what it is, is a three part thing.

And one part is a sequence of goals, like a curriculum, like you have here. And then, so we have a goal, a learning goal about math that we want to keep in our mind. And then we have an understanding of children's development that will help kids meet that goal, that kids will go through to meet that goal. And then we have the third part, which is all the kinds of interactions, instruction, activities, environmental things that'll help move kids from one level to another. That's the easy way.

Doug can probably give a little more background as to what those levels are in terms of, it's not just saying kids can add two-digit numbers and then add three digit numbers. It's not that kind of thing. It's a little bit more complex than that.

Doug Clements: So, what the levels are, are qualitatively different ways of thinking about a problem [00:02:00] and about how you would address that problem.

So, yeah, it includes incremental growth, such as two-to-three-digit number addition and stuff. Or for younger kids, you know, count to 5 before you count to 6. But the main thing is the conception, procedures, strategies, and the like that constitute a level of thinking so kids will learn numbers 1 to 5 in a very different way than they learn numbers from 6 to 10.

Their understanding of it, they're often called the "intuitive numbers", you know, because fingers in one hand and experiences like that, they're often very intuitive. Kids can do more with those numbers far before they can do larger numbers. And it's not just that the numbers are larger, but a different way of thinking about it.

So we try to capture those kind of qualitative differences in something that [00:03:00] Australian researchers call "growth points", and those are broad levels. We often have levels in-between those growth points because we're searching for those that are most instructionally relevant to teachers.

Kids are at this level, where do I go next? That's the developmental progression understanding. And then, how do I get there? That's the teaching strategies that Julie explained.

Dale Atkinson: How do educators access this and what's the step change in their teaching of mathematics that we're looking for if they engage with this as a way of approaching the kids?

Julie Sarama: Well, I'd say the first thing is we really try to turn what is typical mathematics teaching on its head. The way I was taught to teach math was to think about what your goal is, turn it into an objective, and then come up with a good lesson that helped kids meet that objective. Not thinking very much about who the children were in front of me, but really thinking about what was the content, right?

So, [00:04:00] taking an example say from kindergarten. If I was trying to teach kids to add numbers like 10 + 3, 10 + 4, 10 + 5, what I'm doing is thinking: 'How am I going to go in and make this relevant to this group of kids?' I know nothing about those group of kids. I'm 100% focused on the content and how I'm going to break down this content, maybe model it, maybe do some fun activities or whatever to teach that content.

We're doing kind of the opposite. We're starting with where the children are. So we have a goal, okay yeah, I want kids to learn addition. But the next step is figuring out what the children know and use my understanding of children's development to know what do I do next. And so I'm really going to differentiate my instruction based on what my children do.

And that's just such a flip. And so when we hear teachers say, "Alright, I tried that, you know. I tried doing 10 + 4 and they just don't get it", or, "I have my stars who get it, [00:05:00] but I have some kids who don't get it. What do I do?" My very next question is always, what do they get? What do they understand? What are they doing?

Well, they're still counting on their fingers. Okay, what are they doing when they're counting on their fingers? What is their idea of addition? Because there's no child that knows nothing. There's always some strength that they're bringing to the table that we can use to build from.

And although I taught, I thought successfully, for a long time doing what I said in the beginning, I've been saying for a while now that it's like giving directions without finding out where the person is, right? It's like somebody calling you up and saying, "I'm a little lost. I'm trying to get to your university. Can you give me directions?"

And me saying, "okay, get to my house first and then follow me and I'll take you to the university". I mean, the very first question you say is: 'where are you', right? 'Where are you?' And then you try to figure out how to get them there. And that's our approach. And there's lots of ways for teachers to access information on it.

Doug Clements: That's so good. And to just randomly think [00:06:00] about the 10 + 3, 10 + 4, what do kids know about those numbers that are going to be the sum? So, many kids have no idea that 13 means 10 + 3. Our language, and most Romance languages, hide the fact with words like 15, and 11, and 12, and, and the like.

So you might first say when they count those, what do they know about those and everything? Let's see, let's talk to them about it. So, 11, what does that mean? You know, and this kind of stuff can build that understanding as opposed to saying, "let's do a worksheet. I'll put 10 + 3, 10 + 4, 10 + 5 on the worksheet and have them fill in those answers".

If you do that, actually, kids will get all the answers right because they'll copy the 1 and copy the 3 from the written problems with no understanding of what that means quantitatively and no way around the difficult [00:07:00] language that we have. That's 11 and 12, 13, et cetera.

Julie Sarama: That actually made me think also of if kids do the worksheet say that's, again, a standard way. 'I'm going to do a worksheet. Maybe it's not the best way to teach that'.

But you're like, 'Okay, now they're going to practice it. They're going to have a bunch of these to do'. For the children who get them all right, get the gold star, that's it. They're just like, 'Great. They know it. I'm happy'. And again, with the learning trajectories approach, when I say, "what do they know?", it's also going to be, "they know this plus more".

So we're going to meet them where they are and challenge them. So it's differentiation at both ends. We're not only focused on children who might be struggling with a concept, we're very much trying to include kids who can sometimes sit in math class for a year, honestly, all of kindergarten, maybe all of first grade, and really never be learning anything new, and feel pretty good because they're always getting that little gold star.

Doug Clements: It reminds me of the true story of an interview of a first-grade kid who went up to his teacher in England with a paper that had something like: 10 + 3, 10 + [00:08:00] 4, 10 + 7, repeated and repeated and he did 3 and he turned it in. She said, "What about the rest of them?" And he just looked at her and said, "How many do I have to do to show you that I understand this?"

But normally we'd have the kids finish that paper regardless of whether they understood it before they started the paper, and then go to the back room and play or something. No future challenge. And like Julie said, the research is very clear that kindergarten in the United States, and I would wager in Australia and many other countries, is a place where we teach kids what they already know. And, unfortunately, our view of teaching is, of mathematics especially, is often, "well, it's good practice for them".

Is it really, you know? Or is it just a lack of new challenges that'll keep kids both interested in mathematics this year and the next. And, you know, our responsibility to make sure those kids have something interesting to learn.

Dale Atkinson: I think there's a, [00:09:00] perhaps a degree of comfort and ease in handing the worksheet over for an educator. It's not a simple thing to do. But it is, it seems like the worksheet as an approach asks less of the educator in terms of their confidence to do the thing. Can you talk a little bit about how we encourage educators to take that step and move into the space that you're describing?

Julie Sarama: I try to encourage teachers to engage as professionals in trying to take a scientific approach truly, right? In trying to understand where their children are developmentally and appeal to their sense of professionalism. When we conduct professional development, we talk about being in a safe space. We understand that many people who are teaching young children may not have grown up with a really good math attitude themselves.

They might not feel very comfortable with math. And so we say, 'we're going to make mistakes, we're going to try things out, we're going to do it in front of each other, and it's just going to be good'.

And I kind of say, "look, if you're going to go and learn how to drive a car, and you went to a classroom [00:10:00] only, and you sat quietly, and then you got behind the car, it would be bad, right?" so, "you're going to drive the car on the road by yourself" is the same thing as, "you're going to be in the classroom with the kids".

This is your chance to work with an instructor and "try driving" where we "still have brakes on the side" and we can help you if you make a mistake. So we have to engage and we have to try.

And so a lot of our professional development is very much hands on. It's not teachers sitting and listening. It's them trying things out, and, in role playing and pretending. There are different levels of thinking. You know, we play charades. What if you can, you know, everyone knows a level of thinking and teachers can ask them questions and figure out what level of thinking they are to really learn it.

But I guess that the other part is rather than teachers coming to something and saying, "Look, I've done this math teaching this way for a long time and I don't want to give it up. This is what feels very comfortable for me. And almost a sense of loss over being told what I've done for a really long time, all of a sudden you're telling me, isn't good enough. [00:11:00] You know, I've always played the dot game that kids do for six months and they really aren't learning anything, but it's a fun game and they like it".

Rather than saying, 'You know, you have to give that up', we try to say, 'Keep focusing on the kids', right? So our questions are always with teachers. What are your children thinking? What level do you see your children at? Only you know. You're the teacher. You are the professional. You have the power to differentiate activities. No one can tell you. A calendar can't tell you how high to count. The number of children can't tell you what your, you know, for attendance can't decide all your arithmetic problems. You're the instructor. You can make those decisions and try to empower them.

So it's about really urging them to be scientists, to be professionals, to make those decisions. Because, in the end, we all want children to learn. I would say that not one teacher we've worked with doesn't care about children learning math. They really do want to learn. They just don't want to quite give up what they're comfortable with, like you said.

Dale Atkinson: So how can teachers access and start using these learning trajectories within their own work?

Doug Clements: We have a [00:12:00] website called 'learningtrajectories.org' the name of it is: 'Learning & Teaching with Learning Trajectories'. But that's the address.

It's based on about a quarter century of work in developing the learning trajectories, validating the learning trajectories, and then making what Julie just said about professional development work for teachers and giving them a resource. For instance, lays out learning trajectories for counting or the like, and teachers can hear about the goal which is often more than they think. Teachers of very young children will often say, "I teach them rote counting. That's the most important thing. They count to five and then they count to 10".

And we try to expand that saying, "first of all, even for verbal counting, we don't call it 'rote counting'", we're not arguing with the teachers, "use our phrase".

But we are trying to make them understand that, for instance, when kids learn to just count to [00:13:00] 6 or 10 or something, they're just verbally counting, sure, but they know that 9 is a big number compared to 2. For instance, they might be able to recite the whole alphabet, but they don't think that "G" is really big and "B" is very small.

So they understand something about sizes or quantity is increasing. That's a relative term, a relative understanding of counting that's mathematically coherent and interesting. When they start counting, and maybe you want to tell the story real quick of the child counting and getting stuck at "39" for a second.

Julie Sarama: Right, it was just that a child goes: "39..." and then says, "What comes after 3? Oh, I know, 4". And then says, "Um... Okay, 40".

And so that kind of was just a good illustration of a child who understands that "1, 2, 3, [00:14:00] 4" is directly mapped onto "10, 20, 30, 40" and so she was into 39, which means that she knew what came after 3, which was 4, she got 40, which told her what happened next. Which is really cool and show that it's not rote.

Doug Clements: Patterning, in the numerical sense, rather than just "red, red, blue, red, red, blue", kind of patterning, sequential patterning. And it's also structure. She understands mapping the structure of single numbers onto the structure of decades.

Julie Sarama: Right.

Doug Clements: It's amazing. And that's coming from kids who are, again, four or five years of age, compared with kids who are taught more like it is a rote process. I don't know research in Australia on this, but I do know in the United States, at least a little while ago when this research was conducted, it wasn't till fourth grade that the majority of kids knew that 50 had something to do with 5. Fourth grade.

Because if your mindset is: 'this is rote', the way you're teaching it [00:15:00] and the way you lack discussions, math talks with kids, can convince the kids that it's just memorization all over again. And they miss that, the beauty of the structure and pattern.

Julie Sarama: So the 'Learning Trajectories' website usually has a video that will talk something like Doug did about how important counting is. And then it'll have all the levels of kids counting from, hopefully, birth through third grade. And videos of what you can kind of look for and a good written description. And honestly, the good written description, sometimes when I try this out with groups of teachers, the written description can be more helpful for people because it really puts the different things, the different parts of the understanding there.

And then below that are instruction activities, kinds of things, your routines you can add to your day that will help children achieve that level. So that's all there on the website. We have several topics. We have lots of resources for parents, teachers, people who [00:16:00] are engaging with the website in a sort of a professional learning community because it can be overwhelming.

Sometimes I say it's like a recipe website where it's like everything is on there and you look at it and you could be like, 'I have no idea what to make for dinner'. But if you can go in there and say, 'Alright, I have chicken. Give me some chicken recipes’. And then you're like, 'I still don't know', you need a way in.

And sometimes professional learning communities can give you that way in. We can look at what we're planning to do. We're just like, 'okay, the next couple of weeks we're going to be working on, keep going with the same, we'll say geometry. And I think we're going to be learning about shapes. Let's look at about the levels that we think our kids are going to be. Do a little bit of reading and watching those videos and seeing if any of those activities make sense'.

Dale Atkinson: Well, if you're interested in what you've heard here today, speaking with Professor Clements and Professor Sarama, the information on the learning activities, how to engage, support and extend each learner on the 'Learning & Teaching' and Learning Trajectories tool, the website link is below in the show notes.

Also, you can access the [00:17:00] Numeracy Summit presentations on plink, where you can see Professor Clements and Professor Sarama giving their presentation. Doug, Julie, thank you very much for your time.

Julie Sarama: You're welcome.

Doug Clements: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to teach a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. And today I'm joined by a couple of academics from Flinders University, Professor Sally Robinson, Professor of Disability and Community Inclusion, and Professor Gerry Redmond, Professor of Public Policy. Thank you very much for joining us.

Sally Robinson: Thanks for having us.

Gerry Redmond: Great to be here.

Dale Atkinson: So tonight we're at the Student Wellbeing Leader conference, where you are both, keynote speakers, and we're talking about supporting the safety and wellbeing of autistic and neurodivergent students. Can you tell us a little bit, first of all, how do we define neurodiversity?

Gerry Redmond: Look, neurodiversity is relatively recent term, and it's not yet a clinical term. So it's used as a means of people to identify themselves in terms of having diverse, needs, supports and also talents to what's seen as general in the population. [00:01:00]

And in practice, neurodiversity tends to cover, people, for example, who are autistic or who have ADHD or perhaps dyslexia or a whole range of different conditions that are fairly common, particularly in school going populations.

Dale Atkinson: And what are the, what does the research tell us about the proportion or the number of neurodiverse students in our schools?

Gerry Redmond: We don't know exactly. This is really interesting. We know it's high. We know it's increasing, but it's very difficult to give an exact number. What we do know is that about 1 in 5 students in our school system does have some kind of support for learning that's associated with disability. [00:02:00]

For example a very high proportion of those, by far the majority would fit into one of these neurodiverse, categories such as ADHD or autism or dyslexia.

Dale Atkinson: Is the prevalence increasing, or is it just that we're becoming better at understanding some of the issues?

Gerry Redmond: Again, we don't know. It could be both. It's certainly the case that we're becoming better at understanding these issues. It's also the case that we're changing and developing our views as to how these issues should be defined.

So it's really that we're looking at a moving picture here. And I would expect that over the next several years we will see an increase simply because we know there are some groups where these conditions are not diagnosed the extent that you would expect. But we don't know where it's going to end up.

Dale Atkinson: So Sally, what does the research tell us about, how learning is different for this group of students? [00:03:00]

Sally Robinson: Well, the research that we did was seeking the perspectives of students and educators and parents about what helps students to feel safe and supported at school. So we weren't really looking at learning.

We were looking at social and emotional well-being and safety. We were particularly interested in a ‘what works’ approach, rather than looking at really dwelling in the negative experience that students have at school. There's not very much that's known about either of those things, the ‘what work’s or the ‘what doesn't work’ from the perspective of autistic students, though. So when we came into this research, we were surprised to find out how little was known from a research perspective, from students own point of view. And so it's been a very interesting research project for us to really focus on prioritizing students points of view about what helps to support their learning.

Dale Atkinson: And what did you hear about what can help support their learning?

Sally Robinson: Well, we really [00:04:00] came up with four key areas that we focused on The relationships that are really core for students in supporting trust and a sense of confidence. The practices and programs that help to scaffold those relationships, a continuity in the support for students, and the continuity that supports the practices and programs and the systems level things that can support change.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the things, particularly for the audience and our listeners, is largely a group of educators and teachers is what does the research tell us about, that relationship between autistic students and their experience in their relationship with teachers?

Sally Robinson: Well, like all students, relationships are primary. That's a very human thing for everybody, isn't it? But there were lots of barriers for students about forming trusting relationships. And I want to really emphasize that the barriers [00:05:00] weren't with the students themselves, so much as they were with, relationships between students and people who they could have reliable, trustworthy, consistent relationships with.

So, for example, students told us about things that they would have set up with, teachers that they knew well. So strategies that they would use when they got overwhelmed or they really needed some time out of a busy classroom for a few minutes to help decompress when they were getting a real sense of sensory overwhelm.

And then, they would have a relief teacher who wouldn't uphold the strategies that the students were using really successfully. Or they would have a go to person who really understood what was going on for a student when they were feeling really overwhelmed and they were starting to melt down. Somebody who could help talk that person down and to feel successfully able to continue on with their learning if their go to person was away, they didn't have other trusted relationships with somebody. [00:06:00]

So that the sort of, you know, consistency of relationships and having relationships with more than one person, was lacking. For some students, for lots of students, actually, there was some fragility in relationships with peers and so difficulty with friendships and navigating friendships and sometimes the culture of the school environment wasn't robust in really supporting students to feel that they were valued and that they really belonged and that they were people who were an important part of the school, and that made it difficult for them.

Every student has a hard time in school sometimes, but when you don't feel a really strong sense of belonging in your school and like you're an important part of the school, it's much harder for you to re-enter into the school community again.

Dale Atkinson: So what are the changes in practice and approach that schools should be considering in this space?

Sally Robinson: So in terms of relationships, students and families both really wanted to see stronger, proactive, visible responses to bullying and interpersonal harm as well. [00:07:00] So that it was really evident, that teachers, school leaders, and other support staff in schools responded when anybody experienced interpersonal harm. Because if you can see anybody who is experiencing harm receives a strong response, an effective response, an empathic response, then you feel confident that somebody is going to respond if that happens to you.

Feeling part of the community of learners so that there are diverse learning strategies, for everybody. And I realise that these are things that are resource intensive. They take time, they take skill. So it's easy for me to say it – It takes a lot to implement it. Building acceptance, building welcoming building a sense of value across the school community for diversity.

And that, you know, schools are places for lots of different people and the kind of practices that build trust, you know, the ways that that teachers, proactively demonstrate that they are trustworthy people. That they respect students, that they value students when there's a vacuum and students can't see, especially if they find it a bit hard to navigate social relationships. [00:08:00]

If teachers don't show and say and tell that they value and respect people, sometimes you can fill that void with thinking that people don't value and respect you. So it's really important to show and tell that you that you do.

Dale Atkinson: That sounds very relatable. Gerry, in terms of system responses, what should we be considering as an education system and as groups of schools and preschools?

Gerry Redmond: That is a really difficult question. Okay. To start with, I think you need to recognise that schools are part of communities, and what happens outside schools also impacts what happens inside schools. So if you're thinking about systemic responses, you need to be thinking about how we as a society, support and help develop young people with a whole range [00:09:00] of different, needs and disabilities.

So for schools it's about recognition. It's about providing the adequate resources. It's about, linking up with other services. One of the things that came out from our research was often a lack of coordination with other, for example, health service or disability services outside of the school. So, it's a really tricky thing. At the very basics it’s about developing positive relationships, teachers and students developing positive relationships, students developing positive relationships with each other, whatever the characteristics.

But that it is a lot more likely to take place in a situation where it's this broad systemic change and where schools are more welcoming, but also society is more accepting and welcoming and perhaps less unequal than what we often experience today in Australia. You know, that is a very significant challenge [00:10:00] for all of us.

Dale Atkinson: What are the experiences in your research? What have you seen? Is there anything that has jumped out that's really, kind of, impressed you in terms of the way that a school or teacher has approached this?

Sally Robinson: Some of the strategies that we saw from educators were really lovely, creative, thoughtful strategies that didn't require resourcing, but had really good impacts. And students and families and teachers all talked about them as effective. So an example of that was a teacher who had a practice of morning and afternoon check-ins with her class and they were just a really nice way of taking the temperature, the emotional temperature for her group. And they didn't single anybody out. Everybody was part of that.

It only took a few minutes – morning and afternoon – but it was a way for her to check in with anybody who needed a little bit more support about whether their emotional regulation was a little bit out, whether their sensory issues were a bit out of kilter, [00:11:00] whether she needed to have a little bit of extra communication with home that afternoon about the fact that the day hadn't gone so well for that student, and so at home, they needed to provide a little bit more support.

It was just a really nice, responsive strategy that didn't call out anybody for being autistic or not autistic or neurodivergent or not neurodivergent. So there was, there were quite a few strategies like that which were really thoughtful.

Dale Atkinson: Just a kind of, present mindful consciousness and being very thoughtful. I'm going to give you both a magic wand and give you the opportunity to wave it at one specific area. Is there one thing - Gerry, you first – that you would do if you had control of the education system that you would change?

Gerry Redmond: Oh, I'd like to have control of the entire country!

Dale Atkinson: I'll give you that.

Gerry Redmond: Look, I think it's really important that schools are adequately resourced to support students with a whole range of diverse needs. I think that is absolutely critical. [00:12:00] It's also critical, however, that families are supported as well in raising their children because as all the education documents tells us, children's education is, if you like, a co-production between families and schools.

Dale Atkinson: Very good. Now, if you could hand your magic wand over to Sally, what would you do?

Sally Robinson: I'm going to use my wish to make sure that children's priorities and their concerns are heard at all levels of the education system. When we talk to kids in our research, they said a whole lot of stuff in their groups that you'd expect about being full of bravado. And they would do this and they'd respond to that and they would challenge the bullies in this way, and they would, you know, do all of this sort of brave stuff.

And then when we found other ways of helping them express their views more privately, more quietly through worksheets and other ways of talking, they shared a whole lot of more private, quiet concerns and worries and fears, really sad things about feeling lonely [00:13:00] and feeling worried and feeling frightened, and those things really matter. They really, really matter about, you know, if kids are really terrified of going to high school because the bullying might get worse, but the bullying is already bad, we actually really need to know that, and we really need to be responding to that.

It's not okay that kids are feeling like that, but they're covering it up with a whole lot of bravado about “I'd make a sword and I'd whack them”. So to find the layers, through the way that kids talk, to find out what's really worrying them so that we can really respond to it and do something about it.

That's what I do with my magic wand.

Dale Atkinson: Both excellent, very challenging things in a very, informative and challenging conversation for our educators to address. So thank you very much for your time. Sally, Jerry, thank you.

Sally Robinson: Thank you.

Gerry Redmond: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education, and today we are talking about the South Australian Curriculum for Public Education and specifically the languages component within it. And I'm joined by Miriam Parsons, who's the Manager of Languages and Bilingual Schools within the department, and Amy Goodrich, who's the Indonesian Specialist Teacher at Kilkenny Primary School. Welcome to you both.

Amy Goodrich: Thank you.

Miriam Parsons: Thanks for having us.

Dale Atkinson: First of all, Miriam, to you, what is the purpose of language learning in primary schools?

Miriam Parsons: We really want students to understand what learning a language is about. Not so much focus on the content and communicative competence as perhaps being in the past, to being able to compare the languages, bring the languages that they know already from home, English and their mother tongue languages, or [00:01:00] languages that they've learned previously in primary school, and make sense of the target language through making connections and comparisons through those languages so that it's more about their place in the classroom, who they are, their identities as expressed through language.

And to take those understandings to their secondary learning, whatever that language may be.

Dale Atkinson: So what are the dispositions that we're looking to unlock in the students when we teach them a language?

Miriam Parsons: There are many. And we've been working towards developing, focusing in on particular dispositions that we think are really emphasized and highlighted through learning a language. Things like community mindedness, empathy, being inquisitive, curious about language learning, making those connections between languages and wanting to know more.

But really, the human element of being a good human being and understanding the world and people around them and wanting to interact and communicate with others in [00:02:00] the class, in their families, in their communities and beyond.

Dale Atkinson: So within the organisation of the Australian Curriculum version 9 and what we're doing in South Australia with the SA curriculum for public education. Why have we looked at languages as one of the first that we’re leading out on?

Miriam Parsons: We'll have curriculums for all 8 of the learning areas. Languages happens to be one of the first 4 that we've developed and put up prototypes for, for teachers to start to explore and look at. And this is a three year process, so there's time for teachers to engage and look at all 8 learning areas along the way. but we're really excited that languages is one of the first 4 to be offered to teachers to get involved and get familiar with. And one of the real advantages of that is that we have time to promote that real purpose and understanding about what languages is about, and that higher purpose that languages is more than just a code, [00:03:00] more than just… we've got AI now so AI can do that direct translation.

And it's timely in that the changes that we see through AI, making teachers question, “well, what is my role as a language teacher?”, and the broader community to questioning what the purpose of language learning is. And so we can take this opportunity to really say, well, languages is about that higher human purpose. It's about the co-creation co-construction of meaning. It's not about getting it exactly right, but it's about using language to connect as human beings and going beyond just the literal communicative, purpose of learning a language.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. That's really – It's a really interesting area. Now you can't talk about curriculum without talking about pedagogy at the same time. What are the pedagogical changes that might come about from the emerging approach?

Miriam Parsons: Yeah. Already our language teachers are drawing on the languages that students bring to the classroom and using them as resources. [00:04:00] But this is making that visible for teachers. So the pedagogies will allow students to participate in really meaningful, authentic learning experiences that draw on connecting the languages that they know and saying, yeah, that's okay. Bring your language, your home language, your understandings of English.

How does that compare to the language that we're studying now? Whether that be Spanish, Chinese. How do we connect and make sense of all these languages, so that students, making those connections for themselves and having opportunity to explore them in a safe environment and to demonstrate and be comfortable with their identities and expression of self in the classroom.

We really want languages to be an area that promotes wellbeing through social interactions. And we know that there's a real focus now in schools on social cohesion, on building that sense [00:05:00] of community. And that languages practice – the activities of the languages classroom – can really help students to engage in that and then take it out beyond the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: Now Amy, who's our Indonesian specialist teacher from Kilkenny Primary School. You were nodding along to a fair bit of that. How does it reflect in your own practice, in your in classroom activities?

Amy Goodrich: It's just really exciting to be honest, because that's the direction that I like to go. And now knowing that that's where the South Australian curriculum is heading, it's just really validating for a lot of those little extra things that you put into your day by day, to, you know, improve even the life skills of the students. So it's very exciting.

Dale Atkinson: Can you talk a little bit about what those little things, extra day to day look like?

Amy Goodrich: Things like, you know, when you're building empathy, you got to look at, you know, other people's, you know, body language, the expression in their voice [00:06:00]. Pulling apart more than what just the language is. When we're talking about, grammar points in Indonesian, for example, I could just talk about how we add this prefix or how we add an extra word to turn it into a command.

But instead we look at what does this say about Indonesian people that they want to soften every command. It tells us a lot about the people themselves and the culture. Just little things like that.

Dale Atkinson: So there's depth of learning and comprehension that goes into that, that must be really exciting to see children pick up.

Amy Goodrich: Yeah, absolutely.

Dale Atkinson: Can you talk a little bit about how the new language curriculum will positively impact students more generally?

Amy Goodrich: I think because we're focused on things like empathy, inquisitiveness, those are useful. [00:07:00]

Dale Atkinson: Can you talk a little bit about the interplay between this approach to learning and student wellbeing and how those things support one another?

Amy Goodrich: Yeah. I think one of the key parts of the curriculum is it has a ‘why’ for everything. You know, and each language teacher has so many reasons why they think their language or that culture is so important, or language in general is important. But this document actually states why these things matter.

And children who can connect with the reason for their learning are happier, more successful learners. So just knowing why they're there, why they're doing it – I think it's going to be really impactful.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it sounds exciting. Now, Miriam, we're talking about primary school languages at the moment. One of the things we know is that as students get a bit older, we tend to lose them from the language streams and they move into different focuses.

What are we looking to achieve by creating excitement and interest and engagement with languages in the primary area.

Miriam Parsons: As Amy said, if students know why they're there and what they're doing and where it might take them in terms [00:08:00] of their next steps in learning, and they can see the transferability of the skills through the capabilities and transfer those skills to a new language, they're more likely to be able to build and be interested and enthused to continue.

If they're only focusing on being a perfect native speaker of a language, which is not realistic in primary learning, well, for anyone, then we're not setting ourselves, setting our students and teachers up for success. By focusing on the transferable aspects of language learning, developing a love of language, and enjoying being in the moment in activities that are meaningful to the student.

Dale Atkinson: Focusing on students in the primary areas and their engagement, in doing that, what are we hoping to achieve as they transition into secondary?

Miriam Parsons: We want students to understand that what they bring from one language, they can transfer to another language. So even if they [00:09:00] take up a different language at a high school, then they've still learned things in primary school that they can apply and build on in the next language that they learn.

And also if they stop learning language and come back to it later in life, that they've had a positive experience of learning at primary school or early secondary and have something to build on in the future and a real appreciation for those, human attributes and qualities that they've developed through their language learning experiences early on.

Dale Atkinson: There’s an enormous expression of empathy through the learning of a language, but also, you know, resilience there because inevitably you're going to fail quite a bit as you as you move into that area. But what a capability builder in terms of teaching children how to learn. What an exciting area to be working in.

Miriam Parsons: And to be positive about interacting with different languages and cultures around them. So knowing that they may not speak the language of the person that they're sitting next to in the year 11 classroom, but that [00:10:00] they have some intercultural skills and communicative capability to be able to engage and form relationships with people and work out ways of making meaning and building relationships with others.

Dale Atkinson: So, Miriam, the public school system is going to be working together to refine this curriculum over time. How can educators get involved?

Miriam Parsons: Yeah, there's many ways that teachers can get involved, but particularly through direct feedback through our website that people can go to. There'll be ongoing testing, refining happening in schools and through that will continually be working with teachers, working together to say, oh, well, this perhaps needs a tweak or a shift or a change. So there'll be different ways that the curriculum evolves and is refined as we move forward.

Dale Atkinson: Amy, what's it been like to be part of the process so far?

Amy Goodrich: As a teacher, it's nice to be acknowledged that we [00:11:00] do have something to put forward. That our opinions count, that our practice, you know, can inform future practice. And that, you know, we are the specialists – it's not just a title – we are specialists in our area. And it's great to be noticed. It doesn't feel like a top down curriculum. It feels like I can really get involved in this because I was part of building it. And I guess it makes it a bit more user friendly for teachers as well, because they were a huge part of the process.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And it's going to be an ongoing, collaborative, iterative process. And we'll have some notes in the show notes below on where to find the resources, but also to be involved in further development. Miriam, Amy, thank you very much for your time.

Amy Goodrich: Thank you.

Miriam Parsons: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education and today joining us down the line from Gladstone Primary School is Principal Jodie Zwar. Welcome Jody.

Jodie Zwar: Thank you Dale. Lovely to be here.

Dale Atkinson: It's lovely to have you. So let's talk about what a successful transition for children from preschool to school looks like. What is it that your school does that tries to make that a success for young people and families?

Jodie Zwar: We're really lucky here at Gladstone. [00:01:00] We have a site-based preschool, so we have our kindy children on site 2 days a week and then on a Thursday 3 days a term and for us it is embedded and a part of the way we work. We're really lucky in that we have a building that has our kindy and our reception-one class in there. So they work together all the time and especially in terms 2 and 4 where there is a door connecting, so they can open the door on a Wednesday afternoon and we have children working within both spaces.

So it's beneficial for both our kindy children for stepping into that reception space the following term and also great for our reception children who really like to work in the kindy space and then go back in there and be within that environment.

Dale Atkinson: And what are you looking to achieve through that sort of transition process?

Jodie Zwar: We're really looking for it to be just the next step in learning, going from one to the next. We look at them as classes, so they move from one into the other – that’s seamless – they're used to having met the teacher, working with them. So it's really, really smooth. They also come into the school yard on a regular basis. So, fantastic at recess time in terms 2 and 4. Those students at a starting school, they are putting on their little high-vis vests and coming with the kindy teacher and just getting used to being in a bigger yard and having experience with older children.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah it sounds like great exposure for them. [00:02:00] You mentioned before we came on air that there are 4 kindies within your catchment area. Are there things that you observe that are different between those primary and kindy kids who've had that exposure to those that haven't had it?

Jodie Zwar: We find that it is quite normal. They don't know any difference. So they settle in really quickly and having also their kindy teacher who is actually their reception teacher one day a week also really helps make that seamless. So it's just normal, it's a part of the whole big picture of their education.

Dale Atkinson: And what are the educators picking up through this process of collaborative work?

Jodie Zwar: They work together really, really well. They've worked together for a couple of years. So they have regular meetings. We have learning teams, so we have an early years learning team that includes from preschool up into year 2 and they work together just to get that smooth transition right across and programs that work across all of them. That works very, very well between those and they also work together with looking at data and students and how they're going so what learning plan they're using within the kindy, what they're doing, where their goals are at. That is transferred to the reception teacher so then they can make that continuous and smooth.

Dale Atkinson: So there's a lot to be gained in [00:03:00] terms of the individualised learning for those students and young people as they come across.

Jodie Zwar: Absolutely, so that is that real focus within a preschool, the curriculum and if you're working on their goals, their language, their social skills and then how can we build upon that when you move into the reception space.

Dale Atkinson: And what's the extension of that in terms of engaging with the families?

Jodie Zwar: For us having a site-based preschool also enables us to have occasional care as an option and also play group. So we are having families that come in at a very early stage with their child. So in play group they're playing and getting to know other people and socialising then through into occasional care and then into our kindies. So we're building relationships from very early on in with the child to get them ready. So parents also feel really comfortable in that space.

Dale Atkinson: And that parent connection is just so important, isn't it?

Jodie Zwar: Absolutely, that is huge. So with the new Mid-year intake into kindy last year, I had a parent come and speak to me. She was quite concerned about having had already had a child start school at the beginning of the year. And kindy, what was that actually going to look like for her second child who would be starting mid-year? So she had many questions about that. So I sat down and had quite a long conversation with her.

Dale Atkinson: Interesting! How much additional work does it take to approach it in this sort of way, as opposed to perhaps being a bit more passive?

Jodie Zwar: It does take a bit more work, but I think the benefits completely outweigh anything else. We really want that child to be settled and comfortable in our environment, whether that is in the preschool space or in the reception classroom, and for the parents too. [00:04:00] So it does take a bit of work but it is so worthwhile in the end when you see that child so comfortable within the spaces.

Dale Atkinson: And what does it mean to have 2 intakes across the course of a year in terms of how you schedule the work and allocate some of these tasks to your team?

Jodie Zwar: It has been a shift in headset. I was a reception teacher when we were doing those sorts of things and having the four intakes a year and then not having that for a while but it's just been a change of headset for us. So looking at our continuity of learning plan that we did within our portfolio for each site and looking at how we're going to map it out, what are we going to do when. So then we make it manageable for ourselves to be able to provide the best outcomes.

Dale Atkinson: What are you learning together as a portfolio? What are the opportunities for you to share the information and the knowledge that you've gained through this experience?

Jodie Zwar: Our partnership and portfolio are fantastic. So we often get together and we've had someone focus on that continuity of learning within our portfolio last year. So for all sites having that continuity of learning plan for every preschool going into reception. So for both the kindergarten and for the school to be on board together to make sure it's all planned out to make that the smoothest transition possible and that possible.

And having a site-based preschool does make that slightly easier in that we're one site where we can all just come together. [00:05:00] But we do have three site-based preschools, so we could all get together and have those conversations and support each other in putting those plans in place. So that was very, very helpful in setting us up for the mid-year intakes.

Dale Atkinson: So a good collaborative learning experience by the sound of things.

Jodie Zwar: Absolutely.

Dale Atkinson: So what, if anything, would you do differently for next year's mid-year intake?

Jodie Zwar: I don't know if I'd do anything differently but our next step is putting an information package for families into one document. [00:06:00] So we still have 2 documents, so starting kindy and then starting school. So for us we're really getting the message that we're one site. It is kindy to year 6 and putting all of that together so when families come to enrol in they get all the school information as well, we're one site this is how it all works. So just sort of streamlining that process is our next step.

Dale Atkinson: And does that also feed back into the activities of your teaching staff as well?

Jodie Zwar: Absolutely, so we're finding when we have our reception teacher working and then she actually comes out and does a curriculum role. We have our kindy teacher step in to that Reception-1 classroom. So we're finding that she has brought the intentional play through and changing those concepts. And the way we go about teaching within the early years, but our Reception-1 teacher is very experienced and also has that headset as well. So they work together to bring across both of those together, so the traditional as well as bringing through the intentional play and that child focus.

Dale Atkinson: [00:07:00] It seems like a lovely kind of flexible approach to meeting those little people where they are.

Jodie Zwar: Yes, yes and it's lovely to see them grow and we had transition full day last week and looking at our older children in the 5-6 class racing over to welcome our new children into the preschool and having our preschool children come into the Reception class and watching all those conversations and those older children being involved and encouraging them and being a part of it. It was a lovely moment to see.

Dale Atkinson: So, Jodie, [00:08:00] what does it take in terms of organising the school day? How is that different for you now?

Jodie Zwar: I suppose the other one big change for us has been that we are releasing our kindy teacher for lunch and doing that. It's been done by myself as the leader and our reception teacher. So on a Tuesday I go in there and release our kindy teacher and then I'm in there having lunch with the children and building relationships. And then on the Wednesday our reception teacher is in there and she is actually working with them and having lunch and building those relationships in preparation for coming to school. [00:09:00] So that's been a really big change for us and worked really well.

Dale Atkinson: And so that must be a positive right through for you, your kindy teacher, your reception teacher and for yourself as well in terms of the reward.

Jodie Zwar: Absolutely and it's great to have those conversations and get to know them so that when they pop down into the office they're quite happy to pop their head into my office and see how I'm going and what I'm doing.

Dale Atkinson: That does sound absolutely perfect. Jodie, Principal of Gladstone Primary School, thank you very much for your time.

Jodie Zwar: Thank you very much, Dale.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to Teach podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education and today we're heading down to Naracoorte High School, which is one of 40 schools from across Australia and New Zealand participating in an ongoing research practice partnership with the University of Melbourne.

It's known as the New Metrics Project, where educators are working with researchers to explore new ways of assessing and recognising student learning, which goes beyond traditional academic achievement. Today we're joined by Lynette Corletto the Principal, Felicity Slotegraaf, the Senior Leader of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Year 8 Cultural Studies Teacher, and Eliza who's a Year 12 Student and House Leader.

Hello to you all.

Lynette Corletto: Hello.

Felicity Slotegraaf: Hi.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Lynette, first to you, what is the New Metrics project?

Lynette Corletto: So New Metrics is a research practice partnership. Essentially, it's a collaborative venture between the forward-thinking schools that have been selected and the University of Melbourne. We are undertaking research projects that lead [00:01:00] innovation and development in the assessment and credentialing of complex competencies.

Dale Atkinson: So what does that look like in Naracoorte High School?

Lynette Corletto: So for Naracoorte we have been working intimately with developing frameworks for agency and learning. Our teaching staff over the three years have trialled and tested the frameworks added to them and utilised them within their planning for student learning and then assessed the complex competency to test its validity.

We feed that back in to the university at points across the year and then we get some feedback from Melbourne Uni and we keep developing practice. So for us, it's about the teachers engaging in the thinking, moving beyond the traditional academics, and the measures for academic achievement to capture the full range of student competencies in the learning activities that they design.

Dale Atkinson: So I think it's quite a good week to have this conversation [00:02:00] because you've just received your NAPLAN results as all schools have across the country, which obviously focus on a narrow pan of academic outcomes. How does it shift the mentality, Lynette, by looking at things in a broader sense for your school?

Lynette Corletto: We’re really looking at supporting our educators to confidently teach, assess and report on the things that matter. So we assess the things that matter and unfortunately (maybe, that's my take on it) in Australia we have been locked into this narrow thinking around literacy and numeracy and what we know about our young people is there is a range of skills and capabilities that they need to develop to be able to thrive.

So we're challenging our teachers to look beyond an A to E grade. It's not about getting rid of an A to E grade, but to actually create opportunity for that capabilities development. We want our teachers to use the curriculum [00:03:00] as a tool and really dig deep into learning design rather than teaching to the test or teaching to the achievement standard, which is how we were taught for a very long time through teacher training, curriculum area, PD, pull the achievement standard apart, look at the existing structures. We're not interested in continuing in that way because it actually doesn't represent the whole learner. It doesn't show what our young people are capable of and it doesn't have any utility beyond year 12.

Felicity Slotegraaf: I did want to pick up on what Lynette was talking about there because I know we've talked a lot about teachers and learning design and those sorts of things. But one of the key drivers for us is actually, we believe that our purpose here is about developing the whole person. So when students leave us, it's not just about developing their literacy and numeracy. It is about that, but it's not just that. It is about developing what traditionally were the soft skills because we know that we've got students here who, [00:04:00] when they leave us, what they leave us with doesn't fully represent who they are as a person. Those skills that they have that perhaps aren't academic base are not being recognized in the traditional sense of the way school's set up at the moment. So that's part of our driver here and why it's important for us, because we really feel like all the young people who are here, should be able to leave us with a representative of who they are as a whole person, not just their grades or the numbers that they get at the end.

Dale Atkinson: So to support them in that work and support you in that work, you've, you've come up with a set of complex competencies that support the assessment. What does it look like for Naracoorte High School in terms of what's unique to you, do you think, and what would be universally applicable across all schools?

Lynette Corletto: What would be unique is that we are an agricultural school. You know, we're based in the Southeast of South Australia and our young people come from a broad range of backgrounds. We have a very large community of new arrivals to Australia. We're working with meeting young people where they're at we had another one just this week arrive with [00:05:00] no English, in a new community, halfway through high school. There's so much that that young person is developing on a daily basis that we need to nurture and capture and represent. That young person and all of our young people, our kids, our town kids are all going to go on and thrive and our community wants us to be able to develop proud, resilient citizens and to empower them to be valuable members of our community, whether they stay in Naracoorte or they move further afield, to still be positive contributing members.

The unique nature of being regionally located and sitting in Naracoorte, but the transferability of everything we're doing is, all our kids, and the kids are actually telling us this, and the young people who've come out of high school are telling governments and telling policy makers very clearly ‘we are more than a grade, recognize that and actually support us to be able to represent the whole of who we are’ because nobody cares [00:06:00] what grades you got, when you're in the workforce, they care about whether or not you're effective at communicating, whether or not you can collaborate with the people in your teams, whether or not you are ethical in your decision making. These are the skills, these are the competencies that we want to develop and we want to be able to represent.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's a powerful message, I think. Felicity, you've been, as the Senior Leader of Curriculum and Pedagogy, sort of instrumental in piloting this with students in years 7 to 10. What's this response been like from the students?

Felicity Slotegraaf: When you kind of turn things on its head a little bit, which is kind of what's going on here, there's a lot of things to look at. There's learning design, there's logistics about what you can actually do in the existing structures of your school, do you need to change that? There's teacher knowledge, there's student knowledge, there's student thinking. It's been quite interesting and students have actually been challenged on what they actually think school is about and what you actually do in a classroom.

Traditionally, it's been a look of, okay. You tell me what to give you and I will do it and I'll produce it and I will give it back. This is kind of [00:07:00] changing that viewpoint so students, especially our senior year students as well, have really taken on the fact that it's about a process and it's not just about your product at the end and it's about who am I reflecting on yourself. Some students have really taken to that actually, rather than leaving it as just being ‘I produce something for you’. It's really thinking about the process. Who am I as a learner? What do I need to know? That's something that's really come out of the various pilots that we've done across year 7 to 10 and some that we've done in 11 and 12 in a different capacity. It's students really reflecting on themselves, who they are, what do I bring to the table, and then how can that help me? So it's really looking at learning as a process, not just as a production.

Dale Atkinson: It's probably a good moment to bring Eliza, your year 12 student in on this. Eliza, what's the feeling like, what's your experience of this been like?

Eliza: Being able to have a choice in my learning. I'm doing an ag course at school and we get an assignment and it's quite a [00:08:00] broad, like there's a broad range of topics we can choose from. So for example, we've just gotten an agri business assignment where we actually have to choose what enterprise we want to run and then like figure out: what do we know from that, what do we need to know, what do I need to learn to be successful in that business? And I think having that choice in what to do makes it more interesting.

Dale Atkinson: Does it feel a bit more connected to what you want to do when you leave school?

Eliza: Yeah, I think definitely it feels more connected to what I want to do when I leave school.

Dale Atkinson: In terms of having some sort of influence over what you're learning, what difference has that made in terms of how you feel about coming into the school day to day?

Eliza: I feel like it's maybe more excited to come into school knowing that I'm learning about things that actually excite me and I'm interested in.

Dale Atkinson: Back to you, Felicity. Is that something that you've kind of noticed across like the whole student cohort, that kind of enthusiasm being inserted?

Felicity Slotegraaf: I think initially students are a little bit, they withhold themselves a bit because it's different. It's not something that we usually do, the structures are different, [00:09:00] but once they get comfortable with it, for example, in our year 8 cohorts, we actually introduced volunteering in the community. That was part of what they were doing in our futures program where they had to go out, find somewhere they'd like to volunteer. Do all of the background communication behind that to get that up and running. Do the volunteering, reflect on it when they came back. They were really excited by that because they felt like they were part of the learning, it wasn't something that was just done to them. I sit in my chair and I produce this thing for you and then I get to go home. Once students get in there and have actually had an opportunity to show their competencies, to be able to be active in their learning and be a part of it, they're actually getting really excited about it.

It's just that initial stage because anything new, or slightly different, we all get a bit nervy about that. I think once they've had that opportunity, it's been really good to see students get enthused. It's been really great to see that, especially in our middle years, 7, 8, 9.

Dale Atkinson: Eliza, has it taken a bit more effort up front to undertake learning in this way, or does it feel like it's been pretty [00:10:00] smooth and easy to do?

Eliza: I feel like from a student's point of view, it's been pretty smooth. Like, there might have been a few changes where you get more variety in an assignment, but other than that, it hasn't, yeah, it's been pretty easy to transition to.

Dale Atkinson: In terms of organising the school day and organizing education components, Lynette, how's that felt as a leader embracing this approach?

Lynette Corletto: When we started three years ago, it was something that was unknown to the broader teaching group. We started off with some small scale pilots at Naracoorte High School, and we did that intentionally because you can't just roll a new pedagogical approach in a school without upskilling and providing opportunity for people to engage in the thinking. So we were quite strategic in creating collaborative spaces for teachers to engage with the research, to engage in the thinking, to explore learning design and to talk about curriculum in a [00:11:00] different way. There's been resistance. It's quite funny cause we've just come off the back of another professional learning day with the entire partnership and our teachers have come out of that and they've gone, ‘Oh yeah, we're so far ahead of the game. We just listened to Martin talk and this is what we've been doing for the last two and a half years’ but they were resistant and we had to change structures, we had to change the way we interacted as professionals.

There's been a lot of collaboration and a lot of reflective practice and we've been quite intentional in creating the space for that and the time for that. We've opened up classrooms so people are more comfortable to get feedback from their colleagues. We've opened up the way we plan so that we're collaboratively planning and we've tried to break down the silos between curriculum areas and moving into next year, our Science and HASS faculty teams, curriculum teams, held a collaborative planning meeting last week to actually look at environmental science and [00:12:00] the connections to geography and the science curriculum at year 7 and 8. And so they're now the champions of doing things differently.

Dale Atkinson: So there is a degree of having to be really methodical and thoughtful about this, isn't there?

Lynette Corletto: You can't do to people. Whether that's teachers or young people, we can't do to students and unfortunately schooling has been done to young people for a long time, but teaching to some extent has also been done to teachers with this top-down kind of approach in, ‘this is how we do things.’ And we've done a big piece of work around agency in learning that had to come with agency in teaching.

And we had to give the power back to the teachers and people are uncomfortable about it. ‘Just tell me what to do Lynette. Just tell me what to do’ Well, I'm not actually going to tell you because I'm not in that class with those kids and I don't have the relationships and I can tell you, based on the data, where they're at, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to take them from where they're at to where you need them to be next, or where [00:13:00] actually they are telling you they want to go. So this is your work.

Dale Atkinson: So there's a degree of trust in all of that as an approach. I'm interested, Felicity, in your view on how that environment is created where Lynette's been able to give people confidence to lean into this thing and how you've been able to work with your colleagues on that.

What does that look like and feel like?

Felicity Slotegraaf: One of the major kind of challenges was having the different headset around learning design and providing opportunities for not just reaching the achievement standard and the content descriptors. That was probably one of the major things we were looking for the alignment between our ambition, which is what everyone, and the South Australian public education direction at the moment is about, you know, developing these well rounded citizens, contributors to society. And then how does that match in with what we're doing in the classroom, our classroom practice? So to me, that was a big challenge and it's really been allowing teachers the freedom to trial things, [00:14:00] without having the, the fear of it going wrong, because it's actually okay to trial things out. And then you go, ‘Oh dear, that perhaps didn't work exactly the way I wanted it to, but I learned a lot from that and our kids actually still learned a lot from that experience’ And we have actually created this year along with the home group care pastoral care program. There's two sessions a week in year 7, 8 and 9. And we call it futures because we're talking about who are we going to be now? And who are we in the future? Where teachers have been given that freedom to be able to go, Okay, so if we're looking at trying to help our students have agency or to collaborate with each other or to communicate effectively, what sort of learning, design experiences can we have?

That we can actually allow students to practice these skills and then demonstrate them. And I think that's actually been quite positive because it's taken away the traditional Australian curriculum side of it that's sitting there, that pressure's not there. So it's allowed teachers to have a go with their learning design and now [00:15:00] what we'll be able to do going forward, which is what we're doing in this semester is looking at, okay, so then how do we assess that now that we're looking at our learning design? How do we assess these competencies? And then from there, we'll be able to roll into actual learning areas, the curriculum areas, and go okay, so it's possible here these are some of the activities that work. These are some of the tasks and learning design opportunities that we found have worked. So what might that look like when we're in our English class? What might that look like when we're in science? It's given a bit of a venue for teachers to have freedom to be able to use their ideas. I think that's been really important.

Dale Atkinson: What sort of conversations do you need to have with the parent community in this space? Has that been a challenge at all or has that been relatively smooth?

Lynette Corletto: We have a very supportive governing council and they are a fierce advocate for our school. I've been quite transparent with them about what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we're doing it. We report back in to them [00:16:00] about, you know, this is the pilot, this is what we learnt. This is where we're going next. They ask questions. What we're finding, however, is that people who choose to not send their children to our school need to justify their decision to go elsewhere. And so unfortunately that creates a narrative in the community that the things that we're doing are not beneficial for young people, even though the parents of the young people who are experiencing it can quite confidently articulate that their kids are thriving.

Dale Atkinson: It sounds like one of the many challenges of working and leading in a small country town, which are unique to small towns, but not always unique to leadership in school settings.

So all three of you, how would you summarize? Just quickly, in sort of three to five words, the experience of undertaking the new metrics project. I'm trying to see who looks most comfortable in this space. I'm going to go with…

Felicity Slotegraaf: Nobody, right?

Dale Atkinson: Nobody at all. Everyone's kind of leaning back. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with [00:17:00] Eliza first. So how would you describe the experience?

Eliza: I would describe it as more of a choice in my learning and the way I get to undertake an assignment or the approach I have towards my learning, like, is it relevant to what I want to do? How can I make it relevant to what I want to do in the future?

Dale Atkinson: So building on that Felicity, what would you say?

Felicity Slotegraaf: I'd say, so being in the New Metrics Project, I feel like has made us focus on students as individuals and as whole people. And to me, that's nearly the most important thing that's come out of it, that students are individuals, and we can develop them as whole people. I think that's really important that's what's come out of it for me.

Dale Atkinson: Lynette, anything to add to that?

Lynette Corletto: I love seeing the shift in teachers and I love seeing them embrace the young people in their classrooms or in their charge and really digging deep and finding what lights that student up and what connects that young person to their learning and then watching the [00:18:00] deep thinking from both the educator and the young person that comes out of that.

Felicity Slotegraaf: It's about people, isn't it? That's really what we've all talked about.

Dale Atkinson: It's about people, not content, which I think is a pretty good summary of the entire approach. Lynette, Felicity, Eliza, thank you very much for your time.

All: Thank you!

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name's Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. Today, we're talking about reading instruction and intervention within a multi-tiered system of supports with Dr. Kate De Bruin from the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education at Monash University.

Dr. Kate, thanks for joining us.

Kate De Bruin: Pleasure to be here, Dale.

Dale Atkinson: So first question, multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), can you tell us what that's all about?

Kate De Bruin: Really, MTSS is a framework for service delivery that takes as its foundation that all students are entitled to a high-quality education that's equitable and needs based where everybody has access to the benefits of high quality teaching in classrooms. Any child who needs access to any kind of support or resource available in schools and systems, can access that quite quickly without restriction.

Dale Atkinson: Where did this come from? What's the idea behind it?

Kate De Bruin: MTSS really grew up with dissatisfaction to the kinds of models of service delivery [00:01:00] that have been in place before.

So under these more traditional models of support services, a lot of times students access to any support that they might need was determined based on whether they could access funding. And there was a quite a sort of medical approach to that. Which said, look, you know, children who need this support service can only access it if they're funded and they can only access funding if they've got the right diagnosis or if they've got a level of impairment that meets a sort of minimum threshold.

What that meant was a lot of kids missed out. Kids might miss out for a period of time while they go through a diagnosis process. Or they might miss out altogether because they might have a type of disability that wasn't funded, or they might not quite have met that minimum threshold for impairment.

So there were a lot of gaps in service delivery and over time, there were actually disproportionate growth in particular areas. So, in relation to learning disabilities, as they were called in the United States, particularly in reading and also [00:02:00] in relation to behaviour. There was some concern that there was skyrocketing numbers of students getting funded under these categories.

And there was some suspicion that perhaps either there was some issues in how students were being assessed for these. There were also some concerns the outcomes weren't good. So there was a look at how students access these support services and they found the outcomes weren't great.

Dale Atkinson: How does the framework apply across a classroom of students?

Kate De Bruin: It's helpful to think about the original seeds of the idea. These multi-tiered frameworks come from healthcare and the classrooms is a group of kids from the population. At a whole population level, we think about health services as primarily trying to prevent illness. So we do a lot of things to try to keep people as healthy as possible.

We might give quality education about healthy eating and levels of exercise. And we have mass population practices like vaccination and screening. And [00:03:00] then what we might do is provide some additional supports in place for people at high risk. We might provide free vaccines, for example, for populations who are at risk, like older people are entitled to free vaccines for certain conditions, we start cancer screening at the age of 50.

So the first population mass level is tier one. Those are the things we do to prevent illness in the general population. At tier two, we prevent illness in people at higher risk. And at tier three, what we're then doing is treating illness when that hasn't been prevented and we might provide medication or allied health treatment or hospitalization and so on.

So if we've understood that logic, we can think about in the classroom and say, what can we do to support the best possible learning outcomes and wellbeing outcomes and behaviour outcomes for all students in the classroom. And then we use those practices in teaching and creating a positive learning environment for every kid.

And then we say ‘who's not thriving here and what else can we do [00:04:00] quickly to ensure they are thriving or respond if they clearly aren't?’ At a class level it looks like high quality teaching, you know, creation of environments that are calm where all students feel they can belong and have their needs considered.

Dale Atkinson: So when we think about MTSS and the tiered system, what are the key components that sit within that?

Kate De Bruin: I'm often presented with people's triangles and they say, look, we've got an MTSS because look, here's our triangle. MTSS isn't actually synonymous with that triangle that's often used to discuss a certain component of it. MTSS is this proactive and preventative framework for quality instruction for everyone on the basis of need, but it's characterized by a number of important components and we have to have all of them in place to have that MTSS.

So, one of those components is that teaching and support should be coordinated across a sliding scale of intensity across tiers. Another is that evidence based practice should be used at each tier, yet a further one is around data based decision [00:05:00] making. Data should be used at a tier one. Where we screen all of our students responsiveness to Tier 1 teaching and learning environments and whether they're thriving.

We use data to make precise decisions to understand the instructional need of any student, whether that be small differentiation at Tier 1 or Tier 2 or 3 layered on top of Tier 1. And we also need to use data to monitor the progress of students receiving tiered interventions to make sure they're having the desired impact.

And that students are in fact going to meet intervention goals and graduate out of intervention back to tier one. At the heart of this is an assumption that all students can succeed at school with quality teaching and the right amount of support provided just in time, but we need all of those elements in place for this to work well.

Dale Atkinson: What do you say to educators? That sounds incredibly comprehensive and logical, is it more for an educator to apply this framework?

Kate De Bruin: It's a different way of thinking. People, once they learn a [00:06:00] little bit about it, they realize they are already doing a lot of the things that are actually essential to doing this well, they find that quite reassuring.

And they also often agree that the outcomes from the current system aren't optimal. There are kids that they think need support that aren't getting it. You know what I mean? So they, there's often actually agreement about the kinds of things that are really needed. And huge reassurance that what's in place isn't something radically different, but it may be some tweaks in how we pick up the kids that aren't succeeding and it may be some tweaks in how we think about what support looks like for those kids.

Dale Atkinson: So a high degree of nuance and judgment, can you talk about the difference between areas that need a point of differentiation and those that need an intervention when it comes to reading support?

Kate De Bruin: Differentiation is often quite misapplied or poorly understood. So in relation to reading, differentiation is what we're talking about when we're thinking about how we use that ongoing formative data that we collect in classrooms. So for teachers, for [00:07:00] example, in the early years of primary school, you'll be doing weekly checks to see whether students are learning those sound spelling correspondences that you're teaching. And if you can see that a couple of kids haven't quite mastered that concept that you introduced last week, you'll put, you'll put in place a little bit of practice. So that's what we call database differentiation. You might do small group targeted practice for those kids who need more. Differentiation is that data informed adjustment to instruction at tier one.

At tier two and at tier three, which are those higher levels of support. That's when you're putting in place something a bit more intensive. So tier two is additional instruction on top of tier one 30 minutes, four times a week in a small group. It's time limited and it's driven by data. So if kids are really struggling with a number of concepts and it might be that they haven't really acquired those new concepts yet, or they are not able to, you know, use them fluently and apply them well in [00:08:00] practice. Then you're going to do perhaps, you know, 12 weeks of really intensive practice and catch up for those kids. Or at tier three, you might even do an hour a day, five days a week, where they're going to get a much higher, what we call a much higher dose of intervention. That will always exist on top of quality tier one and ongoing differentiation.

Dale Atkinson: Have you got views on how you arrange the logistics of tiering these things out in the classroom and what teachers and leaders should be thinking about in terms of resourcing it?

Kate De Bruin: Schools have most of the resources they need, but they may not be allocating them in ways consistent with the data driven approach of MTSS.

Historically, we've had the categorical based funding model. It's taken time to change, and I'd want to shout out to the great work that South Australia's done in pioneering some revisions in those funding models. They are one of the leaders in Australia and change takes time and I'm sure any teacher listening to this is, you know, wanting to say to me, look, it's not perfect yet.

It's not, but it is, you know, vastly improved on where it was. We now have [00:09:00] needs based logic embedded in our system. And now we're trying to tweak to get that right. So the resources that schools may have to provide intervention should be provided to any student. Regardless of whether they get funding, regardless of whether they have any kind of diagnosis that points to them needing it, it should be based on any data that indicates that they need it.

So the other thing I was going to say is about grouping and that can really, and scheduling, and that can really vary depending on what kind of level of schooling we're talking about. So if we've got one of those, you know, kids in the first year of school, You may well be able to access intervention within the classroom because that will be very much reteaching what's already part of the curriculum.

So if we're talking about, you know, very basic code, simple alphabetic code that's being taught, that's able to be taught in the classroom alongside what's already going on in the classroom. It'll be different for older students. So if we're talking about a child in the upper years of primary or in high school where those foundational skills are no longer part of the [00:10:00] curriculum.

It would be much more difficult and undesirable to do that in the classroom. That generally means withdrawing children from the classroom. Now, there are really good reasons to avoid doing that where possible, because the moment you pull a kid out of class, they're missing out on something. Schools have a variety of ways they can think about that.

One of them is to actually reorganize the schedule. And I've seen schools that have done this incredibly well. where they have a block in the day and they term it various things. Some of them call it MTSS time, others call it what I need time or win time, where you have a block in the day where everybody gets something that they need based on data.

So no kids missing out on anything, they're getting the thing they need. If you're in a school where that's not in place, then you need to start making some really difficult decisions about what you pull children out of. And that's why it's always best to get kids succeeding from the outset and minimizing the number of kids getting pulled out for intervention.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that's a really interesting point. What about students who are highly proficient readers? How do they get [00:11:00] accommodated within the tiered system?

Kate De Bruin: They get accommodated the same way, they get data based differentiation from the outset. So if we're talking about children, let's say, in those first few years of primary school, and we know that children often start at very different starting points.

So if you've got children who've already mastered some code, they'll be present in the classroom while it's being taught. That doesn't do them any harm. And then you'll have that database differentiation where they may be pushed to apply that concept that's being taught in a more complex way. And practice that at, you know, a high level if you like. So differentiation works well for those students.

Dale Atkinson: What sort of duration of time does it take for a site to kind of implement this approach?

Kate De Bruin: There's a large body of work and research around what that looks like. And in general, we need to think of change as a series of steps and they need to be implemented fairly methodically and you need good buy in.

So if you've already got a high degree of buy in for change at the site, that may take less time than in another site where people feel very [00:12:00] hesitant or have some concerns about change and about letting go of things that they've done or starting to do something that feels very new. You really need to get good, solid amount of buy in and you need to implement things slowly and methodically rather than everything all at once.

If you were in a school that wanted to embrace MTSS. You would be very wise to introduce that perhaps by thinking first about the data that you're collecting. Are you collecting the right data? That's going to get you there to make good decisions and introduce that and then start at tier one. So you need to sort of build it slowly so that you are not asking everybody to change everything all at once. That can set things up to fail.

Dale Atkinson: So one of the things I know about educators is generally, if you're trying to convince them to do something new, They want to see the evidence base. What's the evidence base behind this?

Kate De Bruin: There's pretty good evidence behind MTSS and a lot of that has come from the United States. Different frameworks introduced over 20 years ago and in fact build on the research that came before that. So I might [00:13:00] delineate my response a little further. The components of MTSS are exceedingly well researched and there's good, you know, studies to show their impact. As an entire framework, we've got that kind of population level, system level data.

And there were two huge studies, now quite dated and it would be great to have them updated. But there were two very large studies that looked at the essential components of MTSS implemented at a system level. And they had really sound benefits for both the system itself. As in the, the funds were used better and got better outcomes and they got better outcomes for students.

And those outcomes were better for students academically. There were better behaviour outcomes. There were fewer referrals for intensive specialised placements, far fewer students ended up in that most expensive placement of all, which is a special ed placement, a vast drop in those numbers. So it was good for systems, kids and schools. It would be great for that data to be updated and to have some Australian [00:14:00] research, because people like to see that.

Dale Atkinson: Where have you seen this applied well?

Kate De Bruin: I've seen components of this applied well. There are some excellent schools, particularly primary schools, where starting at tier one has really been embraced.

And quite often that's done in a very inclusive way because it's gone along with understanding that there are kids with disabilities missing out. So, it's gone along with that, how can we start with high quality teaching for all of our students? Make sure classrooms and learning is accessible to everybody without exception.

How can we make sure any kid who needs support gets it in a timely way? We're starting to see some fantastic results in high schools as well. AERO have a lot of case studies on their website where you can look at high schools that have started to try to implement tiered interventions well and close those learning gaps for students who are really struggling and far behind.

Dale Atkinson: We'll include some of those, uh, notes in the show notes around the Australian Education Research Organization's research papers. [00:15:00] I'm joined by Dr. Kate De Bruin, who's the Senior Lecturer in Inclusive Education at Monash University. She is one of the many international experts presenting research evidence, informed advice and effective practices for literacy improvement at the 2024 Department for Education Literacy Summit.

Dr. Kate, thank you very much for your time.

Kate De Bruin: Absolute pleasure, Dale. Thanks again.

Dale Atkinson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. My name is Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education and today we're talking about students as agents of change and we are joined by Brenton Wilson who's the head of school wellbeing and learner agency at Kilkenny Primary School with Elliot who's a student there also at Kilkenny and also Narelle Christiansen who's the head of wellbeing at Avenues College who's joined by Joe who's a year 10 student there.

Brenton Wilson: Hello.

Narelle Christiansen: Hello.

Dale Atkinson: So firstly to you Brenton, can you tell us a little bit about this student agency project you've been doing within the portfolio and the impact that it's had for your students?

Brenton Wilson: I think a component of this program has been us being able to get together in a forum. So, you know, 90 kids together twice a year, just to sit down and have some discussions and working with each other and bouncing ideas off of each other.

So like a student forum situation has been really beneficial for Elliot, for our kids to get ideas off of other kids and listen to what's happening in [00:01:00] other schools and the chance for, myself, the classroom teacher, and our kids to sit around the table and have some really meaningful discussions that we probably wouldn't have otherwise has been a really beneficial factor of this.

It's not work that we're doing in isolation and school. We're doing this together as a partnership with 10 to 15 schools working together with a really good facilitator, running processes that we can then bring back to school and use it with our teachers and in our classroom. So that's been a really good part of this as well.

Dale Atkinson: And so Narelle, has that been a similar experience to what you've seen at your school?

Narelle Christiansen: Yeah, just what Brenton was saying as well, like the actual experience of participating in the workshops and having that quarantine time to sit with your students and actually brainstorm and discuss and reflect on ideas, going through the processes, the activities, the really useful activities that then yes, you can take them back and do them with your students or with staff as well.

And also, you know, the value of actually hearing other schools and what they're doing and sharing [00:02:00] ideas. I know our students really enjoy being able to work with other students from other schools, and it's improved their confidence or built their confidence to be able to share ideas with their peers, to listen to ideas from other students and actually, I think just know that their ideas are valued has been really important for our students.

Dale Atkinson: Sounds like an incredibly rich and interesting and exciting thing to kind of lean in on. Can you talk about a few of the common themes that were coming up in those workshops from across all the schools?

Brenton Wilson: Because the strategy is so big, a lot of the schools just went into exploring, at this stage, around student agency and student voice and what that looks like back in the school. I think probably that was the big theme around, okay, we've got permission now to talk about this and to get stuck into this. So it was probably still in the early phases of, Okay, we've had two workshops, we've sort of got a bit of an idea now, our theme is now to go back and discuss that. A lot of our schools are still at a global level, [00:03:00] you know, what can we do as a whole school? We've sort of narrowed it down to a classroom level a bit more in our school, because we've sort of been doing this work for a while. The big theme was around how do we involve students more in the whole process?

Narelle Christiansen: I definitely agree. I think it was mostly around, yeah, student voice and learner agency. I think a few schools were also, looking into wellbeing and different areas of wellbeing as well.

Brenton Wilson: And around what that looks like for them, so it was really a global thing, but the individual context coming through, and everyone sort of left the workshops with ‘This is an area I want to explore, let's go back and explore it together as a school’.

Dale Atkinson: Will you be meeting again?

Brenton Wilson: I think the beauty of this work is that it's going to be slow moving work.

I mean, we can't just go in and do it and say it's finished and it's over. So, with time constraints, I think a term 2 and term 3 each year would be really good. So, I think our partnership's really keen to stay involved and just to continually chip [00:04:00] away at this over the next couple of years. We do have an online forum coming up in term 4 where we're going to explore a bit of wellbeing data to see how we can use that to work through the process we're using and how we can start to evaluate and find evidence around if these are the changes we're making is it having an impact.

So I guess we started sowing the seeds, and now we've got to work out how then we can gather evidence to say that these seeds are growing and we're paying attention to them.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that's great. Can you talk to us a little bit about the work that you're doing to empower your young learners in their learning?

Narelle Christiansen: We have only really recently become involved with the Students as Agents of Change, as part of the partnership project. We became involved because we've been doing a lot of work with our student leaders on looking at how we can actually restructure our student leadership team and our system. Because we're really looking at how we could improve student voice or gain more student [00:05:00] voice.

It's an area that we've been working on for a couple of years now, we've done a lot of work around student wellbeing and trying to improve student belonging, around safety and connectedness. But we were really looking to build on that and look at gaining more student feedback and student voice around teaching and learning.

When we heard about the Students as Agents of Change, the partnership workshops, that was a really good opportunity for us to invite our students to participate and start doing some more work around student voice and learner agency with our students.

Dale Atkinson: So Brenton, what is the program focusing on? What are you trying to activate when you engage with the students in this way?

Brenton Wilson: So I guess for us, as a school, we really want our kids to be working shoulder to shoulder with our teachers and our leaders, and just looking at how they can be activated in this process to focus on learning improvement. Our trials, as a result of this, have been students understanding the learning process and being involved in the learning process, and how they can contribute to that learning process [00:06:00] for better outcomes.

We're really looking this year at metacognition and self-regulation and how the kids can be involved in that through emotional regulation, but also through being self-regulated learners, around setting goals, around giving peer to peer feedback and in our junior primary area around having more voice through song and bee keeping. So primarily, as a whole school, we're working together with our kids and involving them in that learning process.

Dale Atkinson: So, Narelle and Brenton, Narelle, you first perhaps. What are you seeing that's different in terms of student behaviour and student engagement as a result of this process?

Narelle Christiansen: The big impact for me, in the past, a lot of the work we've done with our student leaders and around student voice, We've always got a lot of feedback around more building a positive school culture and, you know, running our house challenges and our special events.

We've been working in that area for quite some time. I think just from being involved with the partnership workshops recently, it's kind of like there's been a light switch moment for some of our students because [00:07:00] we've been asking for feedback, not about extracurricular activities, but it's more been around feedback on their learning, and the teaching and learning in the classrooms.

And giving them permission to have a voice about their own learning and how they can influence what's happening in the classrooms. It's about that working in partnerships with their teachers to empower them and give them a little bit more control over their learning.

Dale Atkinson: Is that a similar sort of experience that you've had Brenton?

Brenton Wilson: Yeah, definitely. I think for us, this is our third year as researchers in the project with the inner west partnerships. I think really the last couple of years have been around exploring our PAT data and having a look at that and question analysis. So this is our first year that we've been looking at the new strategy and doing some work around that.

I think the previous years around focus on the data and the testing has given kids a really good understanding of why we're testing and around a data analysis. They're a lot more interested in the data. So last year's PAT testing data, and if they've made improvements on this year's data, but they're analysing questions a lot better when they're doing their testing and understanding what the questions are asking.

We've seen a real growth in data just around that, around kids understanding what the testing's about and they're putting more effort into their testing because of that focus and the sort of, the skilling we've done with the kids with that.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it sounds amazing. So Elliot, I might ask you, what's your experience been like?

Elliot: Well, I feel like I can kind of choose what's going on in the school.

Dale Atkinson: What's changed? Like, is there anything that's kind of changed in terms of the classes for you?

Elliot: Well, we're doing peer to peer feedback so that we write a story and then we get a partner to give us feedback on that story.

Dale Atkinson: How is that different from the feedback you'd get from a teacher?

Elliot: Well, in this, the student gives you two good things that they like about it and one thing that you can work on.

Dale Atkinson: And is that something that, uh, you and your peers enjoy doing?

Elliot: Yeah.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, [00:09:00] nice. That sounds like something that's a little bit different, Brenton, in terms of how you might approach assessment and developing some of the programs of activities. Is it taking more work for you and the other educators to design that kind of interaction?

Brenton Wilson: Not really. So we've sort of been working in professional learning teams for probably three or four years now. And we've been trialling and doing our sprint work pretty well as teams, but. What we're trying to do now is infuse students into that process as well, bring them into that learning base around this is what we're trying to do as teachers, this is the trials we're doing, how can we involve you so that you're part of our success criteria as well.

So if at the end of this sprint we want teachers to have a chance to practice, Having the kids be involved in that, and what do we want to see our kids be doing more of and taking control of in their learnings? Before it was all the teachers giving the kids feedback, so now it's kids getting feedback from each other.

So they're understanding that feedback process, they're understanding the editing process, and then they're giving [00:10:00] each other feedback to promote the learning for the teachers getting involved. Probably what we want to see is our teachers doing less work and the kids doing more work in the space.

Dale Atkinson: Narelle, back to you. You spoke a little bit about how the engagement was, you didn't use this language, but less superficial and more ingrained in the actual day to day learning. Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like in terms of classroom activities?

Narelle Christiansen: We've only recently just started with this whole Students as Agents of Change process.

So where we're at more is we're participating in the first workshop, which was really useful for us to explore the new public education strategy with students and look at the areas of impact around wellbeing and learner agency. And because we already had the goals around trying to improve or widen the scope of our student voice at our school, it was a really useful workshop.

But we noticed that at the workshop. There was some misunderstanding about the concept of learner agency and what that meant for students, so we kind of took a step back and then we had another workshop at [00:11:00] school and really just unpacked the meaning of learner agency and what that looked like at our school, what the current situation is at our school and how we would like to improve on that and how students could be more involved and what that would look like in classrooms for us if students are working more in partnerships with our teachers.

So we unpacked that a little bit more and then we attended the second workshop. And from that, we were able to explore Learner Agency a little bit more with our students and set some goals and some next steps as to where, you know, how we can improve learner agency and have students working more in partnership with their teachers around their learning.

And I think we're at that stage where we, from the feedback that students have given from the workshops, is around that they're actually wanting to share their understanding of learner agency with their peers and also with their teachers and then it'll be a little bit more specific about what our next actions are from there and what that will look like in the classroom. So that's [00:12:00] about where we're at with our change process.

Dale Atkinson: So Joe, how has that changed your perspective on how you can influence the things that you're learning and what agency means for you.

Joe: Oh, it is obviously very early steps, but with those workshops we had those days, we got to all sit down, go through what it meant, get a much better understanding of what the student agency and all of those other areas and then we've just started getting all of our ideas together, doing lots of brainstorming, and then thinking about what we can implement. We haven't implemented a lot yet, we're still working on the action side of things, but it's definitely made me understand a lot more about how the whole process of student agency and communication between students and teachers and all sorts of things.

Dale Atkinson: What are the ideas that have been floated up by you and your peers? What are you seeing that you might be able to influence now?

Joe: Well, everyone has different ideas. There's something that I thought was personally interesting was that everyone had different things. There was [00:13:00] lots of students that were saying we need to work on some wellbeing side of things. There are lots of students saying we need to work on communication between teachers and students. Lots of ideas around having comfortable environments for people and having everyone feel like they have a say, everyone can have an influence. So that really was one of the main things we got out of that.

Dale Atkinson: And does it make you view teachers in the school differently going through this process?

Joe: A little bit, for me, not very much. That might be more so for some of the other students because this is new to a lot of them. I've been involved with some of these things for quite a while with the student leadership team, so I'm more just interested in how this student leadership program is going to evolve over time and how I'm seeing all of this stuff brought into it. But yeah, it's definitely added on to my understanding.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, that sounds really strong, really powerful. Thank you, Joe. So, Brenton, back to you. In terms of how that's changed the environment and the teaching practice within your school, what's the change [00:14:00] process been like for you and your colleagues?

Brenton Wilson: Yeah, it's gradual. So, it's taken time. So, this is sort of, I've been here five years, so we've sort of been chipping away at this for about five years now, just around how we can continue to involve kids in that learning process. I think the catalyst for us was a card saw that we did at our first researcher's day around, we used the strategy cards around metacognition and self-regulation, because that's sort of an area that we've been focusing on.

So we got the kids involved in that, and the number one thing the kids talked about was wanting to have more productive learning tools in the classroom. So we brought that feedback back to the teachers and we got them to do that card sort as well. And through the card sort, each teacher identified a different area.

So we've had peer to peer feedback. We've had goal setting. So there's a number of our teachers in the year level team, working on more productive goal setting strategies, feedback strategies, and then year six is looking at editing strategies. [00:15:00] Strategies that sort of gives them the power to be agents in their learning, for each other and with each other, but also promoting more learning dialogue in between. So the peer to peer feedback that Elliot was talking about is about getting kids to have productive learning talks with each other before the teacher gets involved in that. It's a bit of a change process that we're all working on like Avenues, still very early and we're just trying to do point of time, point of need work that's not too overwhelming for our teachers and our kids, but just keep chipping away at some new processes, new strategies and try and get them embedded into our practice.

Dale Atkinson: Sounds like an enjoyable journey.

Joe, if you had some friends from other schools who asked you about this, um, as a program and would you recommend it to them? And what would you tell them?

Joe: I think I would recommend it to them because it's always good for students to have that voice, that chance to make a difference, have an impact on their learning and people around them.

And I would probably tell them that it's just really [00:16:00] interesting to know more about the kind of logic behind how we're taught, those kind of background things behind what the teachers have actually given to us, and how we can, even though we see and we just go through it, it's actually we can make a difference on it, and we can shape it to something that's more suitable for us and I think that's a really positive thing. So I would definitely recommend it.

Dale Atkinson: Sounds like an excellent thing. Helping to influence your learning. All those sorts of activities that make a big difference in a student's sense of agency and their belonging in any environment, in any school, and their connection and relationship with their teachers.

Brenton, Narelle, Elliot, Joe, thank you very much for your time and good luck as you build and progress this into the future.

Brenton Wilson: No worries, thank you.

Narelle Christiansen: Thank you!