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.

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 back to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from South Australia's Department for Education. Today's episode is all about our people, our teachers, our leaders, and the people working in support roles, and also in central office. We think everyone from time to time deserves to be recognised for the stuff they do and deserve a bit of a cheer too.

That's why we're reminding you that nominations for the 2022 Public Education Awards will be open soon. With me today is Abbey Woolley, who is part of the team that oversees the awards each year. And I've got to tell you, I was there last year, it was an amazing night. Welcome Abbey.

Abbey Woolley: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Dale.

Dale Atkinson: Well, it's nice to have you. We all know it's hard to find some time to reflect on our achievements, particularly under the current COVID settings, and everyone's working incredibly hard. But I imagine the awards create a valuable opportunity for people just to take some time out and recognise the fabulous work they do.

Abbey Woolley: Indeed, they do, and a lot of the cases teachers are inherently humble. And so, it's nice to showcase and recognise the excellence that is out there in the department, and the awards give us that platform.

Dale Atkinson: So, they've been around since 2011. There's a little bit of a change that's coming in because normally individuals have self-nominated for the awards. So that's been the previous kind of set up. This year, what we're saying is that applications can also be submitted by a colleague on behalf of an individual. So why has that change been made?

Abbey Woolley: I guess it's been made because we really are looking for the best of our best, and like I mentioned, teachers can be humble and not necessarily want to put themselves forward.

We recognise that there are many outstanding staff that are reluctant to recognition, or simply not recognise the impact that they have with the students or their community. So this year, like you said, peers, leaders, and colleagues, we're asking them to consider if they work with an outstanding individual or team, perhaps that they should consider applying for them on their behalf and they can submit that application in collaboration with the person. But they indeed do need to seek consent obviously before submitting, or they can just tap them on the shoulder and say, hey, I think you're brilliant. Why don't you apply for an award this year?

Dale Atkinson: One of the things that really stood out at last year's awards is the sheer breadth of categories and the incredible range of things that people do that are amazing, but that they can also be nominated for. So, what are the types of things we're looking for and why should someone enter or be entered for the awards?

Abbey Woolley: We all know I guess that teachers are extremely passionate about what they do -   teaching and learning, and we really want to share their stories and showcase outstanding practice impact.

And that really does contribute to the department's world-class vision. Winning a public education award is a recognition of an individual team or the whole of the school community really. And it gives schools, preschools, and children's centres the opportunity to share their expertise and be recognised for that outstanding impact.

Dale Atkinson: And so what's the process of applying? What should people do and how do they get that underway?

Abbey Woolley: We've put together an application guide, which will be available at schools in a hard copy, but we do also have an online copy of that. So, visit our website for that. But, to apply, the first step is looking at the application guide, choosing a category, perhaps discussing that with your leader or your peers. And I guess when you're choosing that category, making sure that it is a category that you can most comprehensively answer all the criteria for it. The next step is seeking endorsement, because your line manager or principal will have to endorse your application before it goes any further in the process and then of course writing your application, this can be done on our online platform, or we have also provided some Word templates that are available on our website. Just in case you do want to collaborate or work on your answers offline before submitting online. We do say use plain English, read your application thoroughly before submitting it. We've just put those tools in place to make that a little bit easier for people.

Dale Atkinson: What are some things that people can think about to make their application kind of stand out for the judging panel?

Abbey Woolley: I can't stress enough, how important evidence is. Our judges are looking for evidence. Evidence is key, evidence, evidence, evidence. So, you know, real examples and details of lessons and the impact that they've had on learners, practical evidence of high quality, inspirational teaching, or approaches that enthuse, engage and motivate others, examples of how you have actively involved families in their child's learning, using quotes from students or colleagues to back up an argument or piece of evidence that you're providing. And I guess finally think about any additional opportunities that you or who you're applying for have created for children and young people for an example, extracurricular activities, or how you may have actively lived the public sector values, you know, and for more information on what makes a good application, we do have some more tips and tricks online if people want to explore that further.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, perfect. I mean, I think one of the things that kind of stood out at the awards last year from the videos of the awards' recipients, was just how the flow on effect of the work they did impacted their colleagues or the children they're working with, to try and drive those improved outcomes. And I think that's really one of the key things that we're looking for in the awards.

Abbey Woolley: Absolutely. And I think that, you know, showcasing this excellence and showcasing the fact that it is transferable, it's inspirational, but in a lot of the ways, these stories can be transferred into other sites and, and other central applications.

So that's what we're really after that, ripple effect of impact.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, and one of the great things about the awards is that winning an award contributes towards some professional development that people can get. All the winners receive $10,000 in a prize towards professional development. All the finalists receive $2,000 towards their professional development. What sort of things can the prize money be spent on?

Abbey Woolley: Yes. So, I guess there are many ways over the years that I've seen the prize money be spent. It can be used to either support you or your team's professional development. Some of our past winners have used the money for training or up-skilling or coaching. Some other examples of further tertiary study, attending conferences or events specific to your field of interest. And we've had previous winners and finalists learn from other jurisdictions as well, but you may not be aware that you can also spend the prize money on learning resources for the school or community, which is a great way to look at how that can be spent, and for it to benefit children and young people. So, some examples of that are e-learning tools, software, or hardware to support that, books, films, flashcards, anything that you can think about that you'd find in a classroom.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. I mean, one of the great things from awards winners is what I've seen previously, as it creates this kind of virtuous cycle of continuous improvement. So, they're away, they're using some of this money to work on some of their skills or to create these collaborative practice teams and really bring some of the knowledge back, extend that out to the broader school and partnership community. It's really impressive. It's great stuff.

Abbey Woolley: And I think Dale, like, that's what we want to get across. Winning an award impacts the whole community for the individual or team. That's really something that we would really love applicants to know.

Dale Atkinson: It's an amazing thing. Who are some of the previous winners that stand out for you, and what they've gone on to do?

Abbey Woolley: There are so many over the years, I've been with the program for, this is my fifth year now. And there's just been some incredible people that I've seen win, and be finalists. A few that do stand out to me, Antoinette Jones was the 2018 winner of the leadership award. She was the principal at the time of Mitcham Girls School, and she was very, very humble. And when we were filming at the school, she was very much about showing us what everyone else was doing, not necessarily wanting to put the spotlight on herself. And in true Antoinette style, she spent her $10,000 on providing a professional learning opportunity for her whole staff and invited community along and some surrounding schools to be a part of that. So, they all did a course on respectful relationships.

So, I think that that impact was felt quite heavily at that school, with her winning. Another lady that won, was Peta Thompson. She was Peta Tooley at the time of winning, and she was the recipient of the 2018 Early Years Teacher of the Year Award. Peta spent her money on a tour of Reggio Emilia, and she wanted to deepen her learning of that approach. And she came back, and she's since authored a book called Settle Petal which is a book about dealing with anxiety and children. And with that, she put together lesson plans to really embed that learning and key takeaways from the book, into the classroom. Yeah. They're just two pieces that make me smile, but there are plenty more.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, it's a real launch pad to think, almost creatively, about how you want to progress your professional development and your career. And you want to help out the rest of the people at your site.

Abbey Woolley: Indeed. And we are always here. The team are always here to snowball ideas or workshop ideas about, any professional development that finalists or winners may want to just talk about, and we can provide some advice where possible.

Dale Atkinson: Okay. So, it's exciting. What are the key dates? What do people need to know?

Abbey Woolley: So, applications are open from the 1st of June for the whole month. So, the 1st to the 30th of June applications will be open. On the 26th of August, finalists will be announced. After that time, we will go into a period where we will actually go out to sites and central offices, and film finalists, because at the award ceremony, we premiere a 1 minute video clip of them all. So that will be happening. And after that point, winners and finalists are invited, as we've mentioned, to attend the award ceremony, which will be held on the evening of the 4th of November at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

Dale Atkinson: And it's a fantastic night. It is one of those great opportunities, great, rare opportunities that educators have from across the state to get together and really celebrate the thing that we do, which is an amazing thing. Abbey, thank you very much for taking the time to chat with us. We're really hoping that this kicks off some conversations in those staff rooms and in corporate office and everywhere else about, you know, maybe somebody who's really worthy of being recognised or maybe get people thinking about, well, yeah, actually the work that I do is worth being, given some, recognition. So, thank you Abbey. Thank you for taking the time to chat with us today.

Abbey Woolley: Not a problem, Dale. Thanks for being here.

Dale Atkinson: And thank you everyone for listening. If this podcast has got you thinking about applying for an award or nominating a colleague, make sure you visit our website at education.sa.gov.au/awards or you can check out the show notes from today's episode, which can be found at education.sa.gov.au/teach. Catch you next time on Teach.

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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education

Georga Tyson: And I'm Georga Tyson, Largs Bay school teacher.

Dale Atkinson: Now imagine going overseas to study a teaching technique or, having a bit of space to write a book or create musical performances for the kids.

Well, public education awards winners have gone on to have those kinds of experiences while further developing their careers.

Georga Tyson: Today, we're catching up with some previous winners to hear what they're up to now and how the award changed their teaching career and how it could change yours. Joining us today, are Kilparrin music teacher, Lucy Standish, who won the 2019 Community Engagement Award, and Gawler and District College reception/year one teacher, Peta Thompson, who won the 2018 Early Years Teacher Award. Welcome to you both. And congratulations on your achievements.

Peta Thompson: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Georga Tyson: Why did you both decide to apply for the Public Education Awards?

Lucy Standish: I applied because I knew we were creating something really special that year. And that's why my principal nominated me.

So we were doing a big performance, the Music for All project and had that coming up. And so, I wrote the application with that in mind of what we were about to create. That was seen as something that was going be really special.

Peta Thompson: I had dreams of going to Italy to do some training in the Reggio Emilia approach.

But I knew that I would never be able to fund it on my own. I am really, really passionate about community and bridging that gap between home and school, and the whole Reggio Emilia approach is about the whole child, the community, the parent, the teacher, all raising and educating the child.

And I just dreamt of being able to go over and do that. So, I thought, well, this is the perfect opportunity for me to be able to actually obtain that.

Dale Atkinson: So tell us a little bit about what that experience is like going to Italy and what you learnt from there.

Peta Thompson: Oh, well it's phenomenal. Firstly, I don't speak any Italian so that was the biggest challenge.

So I actually went to the town of Reggio Emilia and it's a two-week course where you are immersed in the learning and the schooling over there. There are conferences every day where you hear from parents of kids who go to their schools, you hear, from community members and how they actually have a part in the child's education.

And yeah, you get to visit schools and look at the setup, the wonderful ways that they approach education, which is looking at the whole child. So I was really, really passionate about the community aspect of it. And I took so much of that away and have implemented that into the way I teach now as well.

Dale Atkinson: It's an amazing night, it's an incredible time to spend with your family and celebrate now the great things that can be done in teaching. Can you just explain a little bit about what the experience of the evening was like for you?

Lucy Standish: Such a fun evening. The Public Education Awards really put on a great, great show and I think my category was quite late in the night. And so the tension was, you know, happening the whole throughout the whole evening. And I was like, I'm not going to win. I'm not going win. And then I won and had to go up and make a speech. And then it was just fantastic. Yeah. We had lots of Kilparrin staff come along to support me as well. So, it made it a really fun night. How about you, Peta?

Peta Thompson: Yeah, the whole process actually was really enjoyable from woe to go. Once you put your application in, you don't think you're ever going to be selected. And then, a couple of months later, there was a little envelope in my pigeonhole and it was like the Willy Wonka's golden ticket and I remember opening it and seeing you're one of three finalists and you've been invited to the celebration, the awards night. And so again, you go along, you think, oh no, it's not going to be me. You see the videos of the other people that you're up against. I remember not eating a scrap of food because I was so nervous staring at my meal, thinking, oh my gosh, then yeah. They call your name out. And it's a huge celebration. Lots of staff and friends were there as well from our school. And then it's just a whirlwind after that.

Lucy Standish: I even had Eddie Betts come and, um, tell me that I was the finalist so that was a pretty special moment.

Peta Thompson: Was that you? I saw that.

Georga Tyson: How would you say winning the award has changed your teaching journey or what impact has it had?

Peta Thompson: It's changed me as a person forever. It is something that I really could never have dreamt of. It's incredible. As a teacher, as an educator, you know, every single day, we're always trying to refine the process in what we do and reflect on our teaching, and I just gained so many skills and so much knowledge about children and how they learn and why they learn the ways that they do.

And that really shaped my pedagogy and what I do in my classroom. I could not thank the education awards team more for the opportunity they gave me.

Lucy Standish: Yeah. From the moment that Eddie Betts walked in that was, you know, really exciting for my whole school and Kilparrin. The students still remind me of that moment, but after being a winner, it's really shown the music education that we are, um, doing really amazing things at Kilparrin with our music.

And partnered with SASVI as well. And with Connecting the Dots in Music, we are really innovative in our field and people are recognising that. Music Eviva in schools has also approached me and my colleague at SASVI, Lily Gower to run some professional learning for them on diverse needs and just making a difference with Kilparrin students who have multiple disabilities, deaf and hard of hearing, vision impairments, sensory needs.

We need to make sure that everyone is having an accessible music curriculum.

Dale Atkinson: Now, before we came on air, you were talking to us a little bit about performance that you had a couple of weeks ago. Can you just explain a little bit about how that works and how that reaches out into the community?

Lucy Standish: Yeah. So we've just put on our second Music for All project. And this time it was called The Nest. The first one was Fancy Pants. We were lucky to have Connecting the Dots in Music. Emily G is the project manager. She's a friend of mine and has contacted me again and said, look, we've got to do this.

So, we've been working on it for a couple of years. COVID's got in the way. We were lucky that Tia Martin, who also works for Connecting The Dots in Music, she was our lead teaching artist and she was able to get some grant money from Carclew, which made it possible for us to put it on. And so last week we had musicians in our school that were teaching artists.

And we all created the music with our teaching artists. They got to know our students. They got to know our students' ways of communicating, because most of our students at our school use alternative communication. So that was a fantastic week. We created the music and then we put on a big performance at the end of the week.

Dale Atkinson: Ah, sounds amazing.

Georga Tyson: Incredible Lucy. You were also planning on heading overseas before COVID disrupted the plans. What did you hope to use the funds for?

Lucy Standish: I had planned to go to Helsinki to the International Music Education Conference, where I was going to speak about the project that we did the Music for All project and yeah, that didn't happen. So, I'm really interested to see what they do in Helsinki, because there was a special education music centre there that seemed really interesting and very similar to students at Kilparrin as well. So maybe that's something that I might do. I'm just waiting to see how travel goes for a bit.

Dale Atkinson: There's a lot of opportunities. So that’s, you know, a bit exciting. Now, Peta, your focused on writing a book called Settle Petal to help children manage and reduce their anxiety. Why was that an area you wanted to write about?

Peta Thompson: I'm really passionate about children's wellbeing. And I think as a reception, year one teacher, I see a lot of anxiety in kids, especially starting school and you know, a lot of separation anxiety from mum and dad.

And I'm really passionate about getting the wellbeing intact of the child before delving into the curriculum. I love that saying that no child can learn unless they're in that state of relaxed alertness. And so, when I was looking for resources, there are so many amazing wellbeing resources out there, but nothing that I could find that specifically targeted anxiety and I suffered terribly with anxiety as a child.

And sometimes I knew why, sometimes I didn't know why, it was just a feeling. I wanted to create a resource that opened up that discussion with kids, and also with families. So, I created a teacher resource. I'm really lucky when I met my partner, his family are also in education and his beautiful sister, my sister-in-law Emma Thompson. She's also a reception teacher at Salisbury Park Primary and she's an artist as well. And so, I said, hey, I've got this book that I've written, and I need an illustrator. So she said she would love to do that. So, we collaborated, and we came up with Settle Petal.

So, it's designed as a teacher resource. It comes with a resource pack of activities for teachers, but it's also really important for parents as well. It's a great resource for parents to have a discussion with their kids and open up those lines of communication. At the back of the book, there's a whole heap of, talking points and discussion points that you can do as a classroom teacher, or you can do as a parent.

Georga Tyson: And what was the book writing process like while working as a teacher?

Peta Thompson: I mean, as, as you all know, teaching, the list never, ever ends there's always something to do. But I actually found it therapy for myself, go home after a long day at work and I think about the kids and what could I have done differently and how could I have supported them more.

Am then I would just sort of delve into a, you know, couple of hours a night here or there and, and write the book. And I found that really helped me shape the storyline. So, the process was phenomenal.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the things that kind of stood out about one of the things you said a bit earlier was around, it took someone else to nominate you to feel like you could then go and apply for the awards. And I think that is something that characterises a lot of teachers, which is a natural inherent modesty about the work they do. So, what advice would you give to anyone who's either considering nominating or considering nominating someone else?

Peta Thompson: Yeah, look, none of us think we're special. We don't think that we do anything special from day to day. Every single teacher is, you know, a miracle worker, the things that we do every day change the lives or impact the lives of kids, you know, constantly. And I would just say, if you can nominate yourself, go for it.

If you've got something to share, whether it's big or small, absolutely. Throw your hat in the ring and have a go. You know, this has been a life changing experience for me, and I've never considered myself lucky. I've never won a meat tray in my life. I didn't think there was any chance that I would be a contender, but you know, it doesn't come down to odds and a raffle.

It's putting what you do onto paper and sharing the things that you do in your classroom or in your school community and, you know, having a go. So absolutely. If you've got something to share, go for it.

Lucy Standish: Yeah. And I was lucky enough to be a judge last year. And I was really like, it's just so exciting to read about what other people are doing and you're doing something special at your school, you know, give it a go.

Georga Tyson: And what's next for you both?

Peta Thompson: Teaching. I've got 26 little people, report writing, yep, all of that. More books are on the horizon for me, I want to do a series of wellbeing books. And the beautiful thing about being in a classroom is you can see the need for things, so I'm getting my inspiration from that.

That's kind of the next direction for me. I'm also incredibly passionate about literacy in the early years. So, I would really like to get into doing some mentoring around explicit instruction.

Lucy Standish: After just finishing our Music for All project last week, just looking towards how we're going to create another one, version 3.

We're all excited from last week at school. Got to get our minds together and create something new, again.

Georga Tyson: Lucy, when you first did Music For All, were you imagining that you would go on to do a second and a third?

Lucy Standish: Not at all. No. I think before leading up to it, there was so much work involved, creating it and working out the model of how it was going to work. Now we've got the model sorted, we know how it works. We know how we could do the second one. We tweaked it here and there as well. Yeah. We are hoping that other schools will also see what we've done and then they'll continue and create something like what we did last week.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's the great thing about the Public Education Awards is that it's a wonderful recognition of, some personal achievements, but it also provides a real beacon to other schools, other teachers, leaders on really great practice out there. And, it's incredibly, incredibly motivating. So, I'd like to thank you, both Lucy and Peta for joining us today.

Peta Thompson: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: It was wonderful to hear your story and thanks to everyone for listening. You still have some time to apply for the awards for yourself, or on behalf of a colleague.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on Teach.

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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the state's Department for Education.

Georga Tyson: And I'm Georgia Tyson from Largs Bay School. Today, we are talking about one of the most complex things that is taught in the classroom, the skill of writing, which is also a focus at the 2022 Literacy Summit that brings together international, national, and local experts in the field of literacy improvement.

Dale Atkinson: That's right. And we are lucky to be joined by a couple of those experts now in the form of the department's very own Bev White, our Assistant Director, Literacy and Numeracy Policy. And from the UK professor, Debra Myhill, who is Professor of Education at the University of Exeter and also keynote speaker at the Literacy Summit.

Welcome to you, Debra.

Debra Myhill: Hi, good to see you well, hear from you.

Dale Atkinson: Nice of you to make some time available to us. So, you are coming to speak to us about the dimensions for learning to write, which is one of the most complex things that can be taught in the classroom. Can you talk to us a little bit about why it's such a complex learning area?

Debra Myhill: Well, I think it's because it makes such a high demand on brain power, on mental processes, because you are trying to do lots of things at once. But at the same time, it's making high demands of your language skills and what you know about language. And at the same time, you have to understand what the expectations are about writing.

So, it is very, very challenging to manage. And unusually, writing stays challenging as we get better at it. So even experienced writers find writing a challenge, but they've changed the bar as it were. So, it doesn't get easier, the better you get.

Dale Atkinson: But does it get easier to teach, the better you get?

Debra Myhill: Yes, I think it does. I think because for very young children in particular, there is a stage where they're working very, very hard on simply managing to get words out onto the page, even at the level of, you know, the motor skills to shape letters, knowing how to shape words, writing lines, writing fluently, all of that for very young children means that they can't focus quite so much on the writing itself because you're so busy getting ideas out. Once you've got past that phase and that's become more internalised and automatic, it does free you up to think more about the text itself and what you want to do with it.

Georga Tyson: And what are some strategies teachers can try to support their teaching of writing?

Debra Myhill: Well, I think the strategies really rely on teachers having a strong grasp of these three dimensions of writing. What I was saying earlier about the mental process is that's a cognitive dimension. What I was saying about the language is the linguistic dimension and understanding expectations and being an also sociocultural, if you really want to bring in strategies to help children, you have to think about what is it I'm trying to help.

So, if you do have, just going back to those transcription skills, very young children who are still struggling to write fluently, you might want to play some games that really just get them doing lots of writing and shaping. You may be wanting to teach them how to hand write particular letters and give them practice at that.

So that would be targeting the transcription. On the other hand, if actually they were struggling more with thinking processes around planning, drafting, and revising, because they're older children, some of the explicit things that teachers can do is to explicitly look at how you revise or how you outline text rather than just giving instructions to do revision. And that would probably be looking at a very focused issue. So don't say, let's look at how we revise this story. We might say, let's look at how we revise the characters we've described in this story. So, I think the key thing about strategies in the classroom is that they match the learner's needs in the classroom and that they will draw differently on different dimensions depending on those learner's needs.

Dale Atkinson: So, one of the things we were speaking about in an earlier podcast about the science of reading in particular, was the need to be really deliberately sequential about how you build the learning in that child through an understanding of their individual needs. Does that go doubly, triply so when we we're talking about dimensions for writing?

Debra Myhill: Yeah. In general, I think it really does because you have to know where every child is at in order to know what it is they need to do next. I mean, one of the other reasons that writing is a challenge to teach, as opposed to a challenge to learn, is that writing is multidimensional in terms of the things that you have to learn to do. So, you've got the basic act of learning how to write words and how to spell them or learning how to punctuate. But then you've got learning about how to write argument or learning vocabulary or learning about sentence variety. So, there's so many things you could be looking at, at any one time. And so, it's really worth knowing what is the children need next. The one exception would be, is not to put a feeling on children's imagination or creativity, because I think even very young children who may not have wonderful spelling skills, can come up with wonderful ideas.

So, there's a real thing about don't limit what they can do because often that demotivates children, so let the imagination and the creativity flow, but then what they produce really look at closely in terms of explicit teaching and incremental learning. So, I think the learning is often incremental. The one thing where it differs from, I think from reading, I wouldn't want to make too big a claim on the reading side, on the writing side is that learning is incremental, but it's also spiral or recursive. So, you know, your six year olds can be really good at creating a story, particularly they might do it orally and then write it down. But you know, you have great novelists who are still working on creating a story. Learning about writing is both incremental and spiral or recursive.

Georga Tyson: And what is the connection between learning to read and learning to write?

Debra Myhill: Symbiotic. I think the thing about learning to read and learning to write is they really do go hand in hand and, sometimes there's a bit of a myth that you learn to read first and then you can learn to write, but there's a lot of research that shows that as we learn to read, it improves our capacity to write. But likewise, as we develop as writers, it improves our capacity to read, they're really interrelated processes. So, I would always say, you know, when you are teaching, reading, think about how you might involve writing with the teaching and reading.

And likewise, when you're teaching, writing, draw on excellent reading texts and children's own reading experiences in order to help them think about being a writer and being an author.

Dale Atkinson: That's great advice. What, what advice can you give us about engaging children in the writing process itself?

Debra Myhill: Do you mean the writing process? The planning, drafting writing? Or do you mean writing generally?

Dale Atkinson: Well, all of it. Yeah.

Debra Myhill: Well, I think one of the things that we know from talking to a lot of children and young people is that sometimes they really dislike writing in school, because we make it a little bit dull even though some of them love writing outside of school.

So, I think absolutely at the heart of being able to do all this incremental explicit targeted teaching is also creating a classroom climate, which is conducive to writing. So, we often talk about creating a, a community of writers. In the classroom. And that might involve things like using writing workshop approaches, where children are given plenty of time and space to write, using things like free writing, where you just sort of effectively dump ideas on the page to get going is very motivating.

And that free writing of course is not drafting. It's just getting ideas out. Sometimes, I mean, certainly in the primary schools here where we've worked with the primary schools, having what the teachers here called messy books, where they've got space to write about what they want to write about prior to writing it in a more perfect form for an audience that can really, really work.

So that sense of valuing children's ideas, desire to write alongside, they're being explicit about teaching them things. And I think part of that is also about a community of writers where you create lots of opportunities for collaboration and conversation about writing. One of the wonderful things about collaborative writing and that could be collaborative writing as a whole class where the teacher leads it and, and does joint composition collectively, or it could be collaborative writing, probably in pairs. I think collaborative writing in bigger groups is slightly harder to manage. One of the real benefits of that kind of collaborative writing is that you have to offer ideas and justify why you're making those choices, which is a real learning conversation about writing.

So, if you have to rewrite a paragraph from a science book as a narrative, and you're doing that in a pair in order to do that rewriting, there's got to be a lot of conversations about the writing choices you make and the value is in those conversations. And I think the other thing that's linked to the collaboration and conversation is lots and lots of opportunity for sharing writing, not necessarily always in very formal ways of celebrating finished pieces.

But just regularly reading aloud, work in progress and trying to create that climate where children can say I don't like that sentence, or I don't like that word and can talk about it with others to seek peers’ advice. And of course that grows with age. You wouldn't expect necessarily your youngest writers to be doing that, but you start the habit early by having classrooms, which create that climate for being a community for collaboration and for conversation.

Georga Tyson: Why do you think teachers find teaching writing challenging?

Debra Myhill: I think, I mean, that's a, it's a difficult question to be absolute about, but I think there's two reasons. I think one is that teachers themselves may not be enthusiastic writers. Teachers are more likely to be enthusiastic readers than writers.

And of course in primary schools, we know that they're not always even enthusiastic readers. And I think if you don't write yourself, it's quite hard to understand that sense of being an author. That sense of power as an author you want to try and make your reader feel in a certain way or think in a certain way.

And also if you don't write, I think it's very easy to forget what the experience of being a writer is like. You know, when children get stuck or go off track, those are experiences that most of us have when we are writing. So, I think that's one whole strand of it is that teachers themselves don't have enough experiences as writers to share and be aware of what children are doing in the classroom as, as authors in the classroom and then contend to make it a rather formulaic approach. You know, you must plan your writing without understanding, for example, that, you know, not everybody plans in the same way, or some people have to write first and then form the plan.

But there's one thing I think the other thing though, is back to the thing I said earlier, that from a teaching point of view, when you're teaching writing, there's so many different strands of writing you could be teaching at any one time from, you know, how to shape your letters, to spelling, the punctuation, combining sentences, all the way through to paragraphing text structures. And all of that is what you might say is the form aspect of writing. But you've also got all the things about how do you create the right images for your reader? How do you express strong opinions in an argument? How do you write a scientific text that makes you sound like an expert? So, it's bringing together all the time, writing different aspects of being a good writer.

And I think the risk is that we could spend too much time on one end of it and not enough on the other. And depending on classrooms that can work both ways. You know, you can have classrooms that are brilliant at all the content side and the ideas and the thinking about what you want to say, but not enough explicit teaching about the text itself. Or you have it the other way around where there's just too much emphasis on the form, which just demotivates children about the purpose of writing, which is all about communicating ideas. So, a balanced approach, but it is challenging.

Dale Atkinson: Well, this is a challenging area and made a little less challenging thanks to the conversation with you, Professor Myle. Thank you very much for your time.

Debra Myhill: You're very welcome.

Dale Atkinson: Thank you. And we are lucky to be joined by the department's very own Bev White, our Assistant Director, Literacy and Numeracy Policy.

Let's talk a little bit about the Literacy Summit. What is the point of the Literacy Summit?

Bev White: The point of the literacy summit is really to bring the research to classrooms to actually support leaders and teachers to understand what the current research is and how that can really influence and support the choices they make in planning and teaching for writing and in particular in 2022, it's about learning to write and writing to learn. So, we've had a, a focus on reading for a number of years now, and we do know that people are really keen to learn more about writing. So, we are hoping that we are going to deliver a series of presentations that will support schools to learn together and to really develop their programs.

Dale Atkinson: Now it's a really comprehensive program with a number of speakers from right across the world, internationally, nationally, and locally. Who can come along? And, and what sort of experience are they going to have?

Bev White: We have 10 speakers. And the fantastic thing about it is it's on demand. Once they're loaded up onto plink, you can access them anytime you like.

You can access them during staff meetings, you can use them to support pupil free days. You can do independent learning if it's a real interest for you as a teacher. Anybody who has a plink account in the education department can access the presentations.

Georga Tyson: Who are some of the other speakers and what do they discuss?

Bev White: Well, we have three keynote speakers. So, as well as Debra, we have Steve Graham from the United States. He is a world-renowned leader in the teaching of writing, both reading and writing actually, and talks a lot about the things that really make a difference. The evidence-based strategies that teachers can use and because he and his colleagues have done so much research in teaching writing, he actually has the research data to support what he's saying. So, he's talking about evidence based practices for teaching writing, and he makes connections to reading and learning. So, a very powerful presentation from Steve Graham.

Our third keynote is particularly for the early years, so preschool and the early years of school and that's Iram Siraj. A lot of our preschool educators will remember Iram from, last year. And she's talking about the essential precursors to teaching, reading, and writing and talks about the meaningful conversations that you need to be having in those early years environments to build the language in preparation. Those are our three keynotes. The rest of the presentations are more focused presentations. So, we are looking at focusing on either a particular area in teaching writing, or a particular audience. So, we have Tutita Casa who talks about writing in the mathematics classroom. But how do you teach writing in Maths so that you're actually supporting children to reason and to explain their thinking in, in mathematics. So, it's like using writing to improve your learning of mathematics. So that's one of my favourites. If you're a science teacher, we have Gail Forey, he talks about teaching students to talk and write like scientists and really goes into how you teach the language of science to improve content knowledge and to improve writing and oral language in science. We have a presentation from Dr. Damon Thomas from the University of Queensland. Now, this is an extended presentation because Damon is talking about meta linguistic understanding.

So a lot of teachers are asking for support with functional grammar and Damon delivers. He talks about what you need to teach in the English curriculum in the early years of primary, the middle years of primary and upper primary in terms of functional grammar and the language features that are going to support kids to express their curriculum learning.

And it's pretty full on, but I'm sure that schools will love it. And it's the resource that teachers can go back to many times to really build their skills in that area.

Dale Atkinson: Wasn't an incredible array of speakers that’s available to us. What a resource for all the teachers and educators out there.

Now these can be accessed online. There’s a lot of different ways that people can get them. We’ll include links in the show notes and information on our website, to make them available to you. So, what would your message be to the teachers out here listening and thinking, oh, I should get involved in that.

Bev White:

I think you'll find it incredibly valuable. Like we say, it's all very current research. It really builds on what we've been doing in South Australia for a long time, but I think it really helps teachers understand why teaching writing is so complex. And when we look at all of those three dimensions and bring them together and you get the whole picture, it's almost like, ah, now I get it. Now I know what to look for in my students, and now I know how I can help each one of them to improve.

Dale Atkinson: If you've liked what you've heard from Professor Myhill or from Bev, with the excellent rundown of the keynote speakers and the presenters who are going to be at the Literacy Summit 2022. Please tune in, check the website notes and, get involved.

Thanks very much for listening.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on Teach.

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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education. Our guest today is Jess Moroney. He's the principal of Stirling East Primary School up in the Adelaide Hills, with a student enrolment of around 550 kids, and just participated in the Future Leaders program, which provided the tools and resources to reflect on his leadership style and capabilities.

And when he was appointed as a leader, he was also provided with the program's leader advisor service, which helps connect people to experienced leaders for ongoing coaching and mentoring. So, Jess, thanks very much coming in.

Jess Moroney: No worries, thanks for having me.

Dale Atkinson: So you're the principal of Stirling East Primary School. Can you tell us a bit about the school?

Jess Moroney: Yeah. So, as you mentioned, we have about 530 students from reception to year six. We have those spread over about 19 classes. Adelaide Hills, very cold this time of year, but, lovely group of kids and highly experienced and expert teachers. So very fortunate to be there.

Dale Atkinson: So, was it always your intention to become a principal or is this something that you kind of fell into?

Jess Moroney: Yeah, and it seems a very common theme amongst most leaders that I had no ambition in being a principal, sort of started off as a specialist PE teacher for quite a number of years and transitioned into the classroom. And I guess then found opportunities where I was in, acting in leadership positions and quite enjoyed it. It just sort of eventuated that way.

Dale Atkinson: So, what was it that drew you to those leadership positions in the first place?

Jess Moroney: I think it was being able to influence larger and larger groups of students. Initially in a classroom, you have your, you know, 30 odd children in front of you and then through leadership position sort of coordinator roles, you have a chance to work with larger groups and more teachers and more children, and yeah. Seeing that opportunity to improve yourself and improve others, and eventually that has the student outcomes attached to it.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah, right. So, tell us a little bit about how the Future Leaders program helped you make that transition smoothly.

Jess Moroney: For me, it was that turning point of realising that I was probably ready. I went down the path initially I was certified as a lead teacher back in 2015 and was really keen on leading from the classroom working two or three days a week in a leadership position. The balance in the classroom was fantastic for me.

And I guess I never really knew that I was quite ready to not step away from the classroom, but to take on a full on leadership position. And I guess the Future Leaders program was one that gave me the confidence.

The feedback that I received was essentially that I was ready and most of the learning now was to be done on the job in a formal leadership position. So, it was almost the kick that I needed just to take the plunge and apply for some positions.

Dale Atkinson: And what's the biggest change that you have transitioning from being a teacher into those leadership positions and being a principal?

Jess Moroney: I think for me, it was quite surprising how similar it actually was in the sense that I guess the difference is rather than having 30 students in front of you, you have you know, a number of staff who require their own levels of differentiation, support, challenge. And so, I guess the difference was working more with adults rather than children. And on a day to day, I guess you often get people when they're emotionally charged, could be, parents could be, students could be adults.

The big difference is probably the end of the day. You're pretty drained. Sometimes you can have challenging conversations from the start of the day, right through to the end. But all for the right outcome.

Dale Atkinson: So, you made the transition in the last couple of years to Stirling East Primary. What year did you start there?

Jess Moroney: I only started there at the beginning of this year. So previous three years at Lenswood Primary, which was sort of polar opposites, it was three classes, 65 children, small community school, but incredibly rewarding place to be as well.

Dale Atkinson: And how have you found it? Because obviously, I would say during COVID 19 times, not the easiest time to transition into a leadership position, how you found that and the challenges?

Jess Moroney: Look, to a certain extent, it was probably not a bad way to start at a new school that everything could be paired back.We talk about week zero and the first couple of days, which as a new leader coming in could be high pressure. At times I just had the opportunity to talk to the staff and you know, this year we had four days to get ready for the hybrid approach to some students online, some face to face. So, we basically took the pressure off and said, get in, get organized, get ready. And I just had the chance to get in and meet the staff and all hands on deck, as opposed to putting on a big professional learning series.

Dale Atkinson: And was the mentoring relationship that you managed to develop ahead of time and throughout the last couple of terms, was that something that was helpful in that scenario?

Jess Moroney: Yeah, I think you mentioned the leader advisor program, which was fantastic when I first stepped into a principal position. So, I was appointed a leader advisor who I hadn't met previously and didn't know a huge amount about my context other than what I'd shared with him. And often I'd see a pop up in my, my calendar as I had a three hour meeting with my leader advisor and thought, what on earth are we going to talk about for three hours? And every time I walked away and just thought, you know how remarkable it was just to have someone to bounce ideas off of and have those conversations where, you know, you're probably tossing up which way to go with some bits and pieces going on in the school and having someone who was sort of non-judgmental and just there to support was great.

Dale Atkinson: And so what are the sort of challenges that you're bottoming out with your mentor?

Jess Moroney: The day to day challenges that you have around certain contextual situations happening with staffing and, and students and families. And I guess just speaking with someone who's been there, done that before, and just knowing that these challenges are real and just being a sounding board really.

Dale Atkinson: That sounds like a really kind of positive thing. And, and not just during those three hours, there's accessibility isn't there, outside of that time as well.

Jess Moroney: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I always knew that my advisor was on the other end of the phone whenever I needed. And he would often just touch base from time to time just to check in and see how I was going and was there anything I needed. I think he was also a good reminder that as a leader, you had to make time for yourself as well. So, he'd often gimme a call and just say, look, if you're still working, put tools down and go out and do something and you know, that was great.

Dale Atkinson: And obviously a sort of different dynamic, different relationship than, you know, the mentoring relationship that you might have with your education director, there's a bit more freedom and flexibility there I'd imagine.

Jess Moroney: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, when I was reflecting on mentors, the leadership team and the education director within that is fantastic, but it was also nice to have someone who probably sat outside of that sphere. And you could just speak completely openly about everything that's going on and ask a couple of those curly questions as they popped up yeah.

Dale Atkinson: It was a bit easy than, uh, sometimes talking to your boss, I guess.

Jess Moroney: Yeah, absolutely.

Dale Atkinson: We're talking about one of the big challenges, I guess, under COVID situations for kids, for teachers, for all of us, I think is being able to manage the day to day work of, you know, trying to lift the academic achievement of the kids, but also supporting the wellbeing of your employees and supporting the wellbeing of the kids. How have you managed to balance those things?

Jess Moroney: Look, we had a bit of a trial run at this, that when I was at Lenswood, we had the Cudlee Creek bush fire sweep through just prior to COVID time. And so that was a pretty challenging time to be a leader and be a teacher and basically be anyone in that community.

I learned from that experience initially of essentially, we just had to pair back anything off of the calendar that wasn't absolutely necessary at that point in time. And that was hugely beneficial for the staff wellbeing, I guess we looked at everything and if it wasn't highly important right then and there in terms of educational outcomes for kids or wellbeing for staff and students, get rid of it for a short amount of time or permanently, and just focus on the things that were really important for us then and there.

So that's then continued through into COVID times and we're still right in the thick of it. And I think I'm finding now more than ever we're finding that staff are pretty flat. We've been working basically running on adrenaline for the last couple of years and ongoing changes that you can't necessarily prepare for too well.

So again, we are just back to, I guess, analysing everything that we do in a school and asking the question, how important is this right now? And can it wait?

Dale Atkinson: And so, what are the priorities that you've landed on for Stirling East?

Jess Moroney: One of the things that's been a true leveller, you know, right through the bushfire time and the pandemic is making sure that, you know, your key priorities remain consistent.

Just having that level of knowing what we're focusing on. We've maintained the site improvement plan, albeit we've given ourselves the capacity to say that some things can wait when we're tracking how we're going. If there's a couple of things that are still sitting in the orange or red for the second part of the year, that that's okay.

But we've probably just narrowed our goals and stuck with our initial goals of what we had on our site improvement plan and keeping everything else aside for now.

Dale Atkinson: Part of that leadership responsibility is deciding what you can green light, what you can red light, how you prioritise these things. And that's part of the challenge, isn't it?

Jess Moroney: Yeah. And I think, even though we are pushing ahead fairly heavily with our site improvement objectives, I think it's also knowing how we can alleviate some of the pressure on the staff there as well. And having conversations with my teachers, making sure that they know that we appreciate them fully, but often actions can speak a lot louder than words.

So rather than just thanking them, we've looked at ways that we can alleviate the pressure on them in a day to day or looking at ways that we can support them through it with additional release time or being a bit innovative to release each other in some of the challenging moments where they're busy writing reports, you know, interviews, assessment, schedules, those sorts of things, how do we help them through that.

Dale Atkinson: Just back onto the program a little bit, obviously it provides you a bit of feedback about your strengths and areas where development's needed, what sort of assessment process did you undertake to look into your strengths and areas for development?

Jess Moroney: And it was quite interesting because this was probably four years ago now. So, prior to coming in for the podcast, I had to look over my feedback again and I just realised how spot on it actually was about me, my personality, my leadership style. So, it was a pretty rigorous process. There was some self-assessments that you carried out a range of different surveys and then there was the day itself, which I probably won't speak too much about because I think the best thing about it was that you didn't really know what you were going into, but it was highly contextual in terms of putting yourself in scenarios that will become your every day to day as a school leader. So, then the feedback, I guess, that came from that was how you observed in different leadership scenarios.

So, for me, I found that the strength that came out were the bits that gave me a nudge to say, yep, you're ready. And the areas to developers, still things that I'm working on now, so it was pretty much spot on.

Dale Atkinson: And so how have you folded that into developing your own sort of personal development plan and the path to leadership?

Jess Moroney: Through the Future Leaders program, a development plan was created as well. So, it gave a few internal professional learning series that were worthwhile having a look at, but then also some external ones as well. So, one of those for me was the Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability courses, which through our portfolio, we engaged in. And then I guess I've just kept some of that feedback going. And some of the bits that I knew I had to work on in my PDP each year, with my education director. And so, yeah, I've just been sort of sticking the course with that one.

Dale Atkinson: So, like something that's incredibly focused and detailed. And if you go into it with an open kind of mindset, looking, thinking about what you can do to develop, that's where the richness of the conversation comes in, isn't it?

Jess Moroney: Yeah. And I think we all get into education, you know, knowing that we're always learning. As a principal, I'm always learning that I go back into the classroom and at the end of the day, I'd analyse my teaching and learning. Like I would expect my teachers to then likewise, at the end of the day or week, you have to have a look and reflect on areas where you've gone well and some of the areas that you need to rethink.

Dale Atkinson: What are the next stages for you four years in? How does this develop as a program for you?

Jess Moroney: For me, I think, as I just mentioned, I'm still, you know, still learning that I'm fairly early in my principalship. So, I guess it's just taking the time to look at what are the areas, where, and I think you have to celebrate the success along the way.

So, you take the time and look at the areas where you think you've done reasonably well, but conversely, the bits that you still need to develop as a leader. And when I look at the feedback from the future leaders, the areas that were highlighted are still things that, that I'll be working on for a number of years to come.

Dale Atkinson: So, what are some of the things that have surprised you about going from being purely a teacher in the classroom to being a principal.

Jess Moroney: I think, initially how similar some of it is, obviously contextually it's different, because you spend a lot more of your time working with adults than you do children, but the skills that you're required to be a quality classroom teacher or a teacher in, in any area are still very relevant as you move into leadership.

Probably one of the biggest surprises I had was how many interruptions you have in a day, and high quality and important interruptions. You'll often sit down to do something at nine o'clock in the morning, and it's still sitting there untouched at the end of the day, because they've been really pressing things that you prioritise ahead of whatever you had planned for the day.

So, I think I learned very early that you never leave anything to the last day to get it done, because that'll be the day where you have children needing your staff, needing your parents, needing you. So that's probably been the biggest challenge is to probably prioritising your time and managing that.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the things I've observed about principals is their ability to segment the day into very effective, productive 15 minute segments is an incredible skill.

Jess Moroney: Yes. Yep. And, and very needed.

Dale Atkinson: Jess Moroney, Principal of Stirling East Primary School, thank you very much for joining us and talking about the Future Leaders program.

Jess Moroney: No worries at all. 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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education.

Georga Tyson: And I'm Georgia Tyson, Largs Bay school teacher. Today, we're talking about trauma informed practice and how you can accommodate the needs of students who have been through trauma.

Dale Atkinson: And we are joined by three very experienced people in this area. We've got the Department's Senior Social Worker for Children in Care, Tanya Russo, Senior Advisor for Child Protection, Deidre Lockley, and Merryn Gomez, Assistant Principal for Inclusion and Wellbeing at Eastern Fleurieu R-12 school, a school that is implementing trauma informed practice across all their five campuses.

I think that's right, Merryn is that correct?

Merryn Gomez: Yes, that's correct.

Dale Atkinson: It's a lot of campuses, I guess the first question for people who kind of aren't sure. And this is perhaps for, for you, Tanya and you, Deidre is what is childhood trauma? What do we mean when we talk about that?

Deidre Lockley: So trauma is anything that means that we have a response that we feel is overwhelming.

It might be to a real or a perceived threat. It overwhelms our capacity to cope, and it feels like things are outside of our control. And often it means that we respond in a way that is based on fear rather than what is actually happening around us. In the department, when we are talking about trauma, we're talking about trauma that occurs for children and young people in our schools.

And usually we mean trauma that's relationship, complex, relational trauma. And so that means that the trauma is stemming from experiences of abuse and neglect or sustained witnessing of family and domestic violence. And what that means is that often children and young people can have feelings of hopelessness and shame they're associated with that.

So it's not an individual stressful event that can cause a trauma. Like we might have a car accident that we find traumatic. When we're talking about trauma informed practice, we're talking about complex trauma that is the result of abuse or neglect or sustained family violence.

Georga Tyson: And what should teachers be aware of in terms of whether their student might be experiencing trauma? Are there signs of it say difficulty concentrating?

Deidre Lockley: So sometimes people may not know exactly what's happening for a child outside of school. Often there's confidentiality when other people are involved, whether it be a psychologist or child protection, but things that we notice in schools are things like difficulty in concentrating, like you mentioned, but often it's more than that.

We might see behavioural difficulties. One thing we know about trauma is it impacts the development of children and young people, and that's because it's happening at that really early stage of their life when their brain is developing. And they're also developing understanding of relationships and complex trauma happens in relationship.

And so that means that sometimes they don't know exactly how to maintain a relationship or create new friendships. And we know that when we are in a classroom, the key way children learn is through that relationship with the teacher or the relationship with their peers. So sometimes we'll see that as a difficulty as well.

Tanya Russo:I think another difficulty that a lot of teachers see is around memory as well, and about their ability to retain information, which can be quite frustrating for some teachers. So it might be that they'd forget their belongings or be disorganised as well. And that was also a really difficult thing for young people in school, because obviously we are relying on a lot of their memory to do their learning and, and to be ready to learn in the classroom.

Dale Atkinson: So what are the types of things, Merryn, that you're observing as a frontline educator at the moment. Are you seeing those sorts of behaviours playing out in the classroom?

Merryn Gomez: Yeah, we are certainly seeing those behaviours R-12. We are in reception to year 12 school, so we're able to have that whole sort of educational journey to reflect on and it doesn't matter what year level, I guess, or what age a student is in. If they have been impacted by trauma in those early years, or as their brains are still developing, then it will impact the way that they are able to cope in a classroom. And for some students even walking through the door of a classroom and being in a situation where they are around a group of peers and not I guess experiencing that felt sense of safety for them as an individual can come out as behaviour difficulties. So that is certainly something that I think every teacher at the moment can relate to and something that's really important for people to be aware of that there is always more to the behaviours that we are seeing and it's our job to understand them.

Tanya Russo:I was just going to add to that. We may not always know what the triggers are and the children might not be able to articulate that either. Because I think some teachers do want to know, you know, is there way I can prevent this? Or is there something that I can notice in that young person or prevent from happening, but we might not always know what they are.

Because it could be a smell. It could be a tone of voice. It could be the look of a person. And I guess that makes it a little bit tricky for teachers. So, we really do need to get them to know the children, to sort of identify what those stress cues are and really observe them and record, because that is a bit of a tricky thing, understanding their triggers.

Georga Tyson: You mentioned there, you know, about supporting the teachers. What is available to teachers to help accommodate the needs of students who have been through traum?

Deidre Lockley: So, we have a series of programs or professional development that's available to staff within the department around trauma informed practice.

They range from the Strategies for Managing Abuse Related Trauma program, otherwise known as SMART. We've been working alongside of the Australian Childhood Foundation for the SMART program for 17 years now. And so people can access that online through plink, through face to face training that we often hold at at EDC, but we also provide that in schools for the whole school, if they'd like it, or for small groups, if that's say a school has a small set of SSOs who they would like to provide some more information to around trauma, we have the SMART program, but then we have a large program called the Trauma Aware Schools Initiative. And that's where we have non-government providers who are experts in trauma, come and assist our schools to really build strong understanding of what trauma might mean, what it might look like in their school and different approaches that they might take. And I think Merryn will talk a little bit more about that in a minute and what it means in her school, but we've had over 200 schools in the last five years, undertake some kind of training through that initiative.

We also provide scholarships each year to graduate certificate in Developmental Trauma programs. We have a master classes for school leaders in Implementation of Trauma Informed Practice. We have an online learning community for anyone who undertakes any of this kind of training in Flinders Street, we have a team called the Child Protection and Trauma Informed Practice team who will very happily chat about any of these in more detail, if that's useful.

Dale Atkinson: So, Merryn, what was your journey as a school and professionally, individually at Eastern Fleurieu what was your journey in terms of coming towards implementing more trauma informed practice at the school?

Merryn Gomez: So, Ian Ken, our principal, identified pretty early on that we were seeing some really challenging behaviours across all of our campuses and that a lot of those students were sort of being stuck in that cycle of suspension and exclusion and relationship rupture without the opportunity to repair and reflect and look at how we were doing things and how we could do things differently.

So in his sort of investigation we thought what can we do differently? How can we look at this differently? In another way, he came across the Trauma Aware Schools Initiative, which Deidre talked about and signed us up straight away as a leadership team. And what that meant was that he was able to choose between three external providers to provide some training to all of our staff. Initially, we went as a whole leadership team and R-12 leadership teams and we did the four day Berry Street education model. That looked at understanding trauma, its impact on students, in a really practical way where there were strategies that you could take out of that and implement in your classroom the next day. The experience that we had as leaders involved in that training, it had so much impact on us that we actually decided that our entire R-12 staff, so teachers and SSOs included really needed to be immersed in that training and that understanding to be able to have the impact that we wanted to have on our students. So, from there, we went on to put our whole school through that four day training, interrupted here and there by COVID, which was really, really tricky, but that was the initial steps.

And from there, what we did was we identified a key team of leaders across our R-12 staff who would be the key implementation team. And we called them the, the TIPI team, the Trauma Informed Practice Implementation team to work on our whole school strategy and our whole school approach. And to monitor the effectiveness of that.

Dale Atkinson: What has the effect been? What have you seen?

Merryn Gomez: Oh wow. That's a huge question. We've seen not only a change in student engagement in the classroom, but what we've also seen that was quite unexpected, was a shift in the understanding. I think of ourselves as educators and how our own brains were functioning and window of tolerance and the strategies that we could use for ourselves when we are stepping into a classroom or when we are alongside a student who is dysregulated to be able to ensure that we are staying regulated ourselves in order to be able to help co-regulate those students. So, we've seen a huge change in behaviour. We're still seeing some really tricky behaviours. I think we always will because that's the nature of putting that many kids in one place and trying to teach them. But what we are seeing is the way that we are responding to those behaviours has changed and the way that teachers understand relationships and the importance of that has really shifted in a positive way so that we are now able to intentionally plan moments throughout our day to create positive interactions, even with the kids who are resisting that the most. And what then happens is over time that builds into them feeling that felt sense of safety and being able to participate in learning in the classroom. So, it's been, I could talk for hours about the difference that we've seen in individual students. But an increase in engagement for sure. And a decrease in those difficult behaviours, but the most impact has been the change has been the change, that paradigm shift to understanding behaviour as communication, and then looking at how do we respond to that and how can we ensure that those ruptures and that cyclical suspension process, we can interrupt that and create more understanding for that student around self-regulation co-regulation and most importantly, repairing those relationships.

Dale Atkinson: It sounds like there's a really profoundly positive impact on the experience that the student has through this, but is there also a personal benefit to the teacher around their own mental health wellbeing, their ability to cope with these scenarios?

Merryn Gomez: I think when you walk into a classroom, right, and you've got 30 or so kids, and there's always going to be a few who you need to do things differently for, to get them feeling calm and regulated and to be able to engage in the learning.

And initially, you know, as a new teacher, you often think that when you're seeing those behaviours it's to do with your lesson plan or your topic, or the way that you've sort of structured that lesson. And look, it really can be, but it's often about those relationships. So, when you understand that as an educator, you're not so upset that your lesson hasn't gone to plan because you understand that at the moment, what that child needs is connection. And once I get that connection, then I can focus on the learning because if we don't have that connection, no learning is going to happen.

Georga Tyson: Merryn, how do you bring a team together to support a child?

Merryn Gomez: We use a team around the child approach that Ian brought in when he came to Eastern Fleurieu School. And it's around a set of protocols that bring all of the providers or stakeholders or important people in that young person's life together with a team around the child. So, we call it a TAC. And what we do is we work really closely with support services. And if the children and care team are in involved, any other providers, DCP anybody involved with NDIS and we bring everybody together and have a discussion about that young person, identifying their strengths, identifying what their growth points are and how we can support them to move forward.

Whether that is with a new enrolment in the school or whether it. Some difficulty that they're having or whether it is just things are going well. And it's a check in and a time to, as Tanya said earlier, celebrate those successes. The team around the child approach has been absolutely crucial in supporting some of our young people in care and has really been the difference between there sometimes being, I guess, conflicting priorities between different providers to bringing a whole team together with that young person at the very heart of every decision that is made and really making that clear. That is what that team is there for regardless of anybody else's sort of motives and wants and needs for that child, it's about them and what they need and the importance of working together so that we can create that consistent and predictable routine for them in an environment where they begin to feel safe and feel seen and heard is what makes that successful.

Dale Atkinson: That sounds like an enormous relief in some respects to have that awareness around, you know, your own professional practice.

Georga Tyson: Are we seeing more and more schools becoming trauma informed, more and more sites?

Deidre Lockley: So, we see more and more people who are interested both as individuals, but as sites. And I think that's because in every classroom and every school, we are seeing children who have more complex needs and more complex behaviours. And I think we have staff across our system who are really seeking to know how they can contribute and how they can help out.

We're also seeing that in other systems that work alongside us, like the Child Protection System, where we see more and more children who are coming into care.

Dale Atkinson: And who should teachers contact to access support?

Tanya Russo:So, for children that are actually being removed, so we've got the Children in Care service. So that service was established by the Department for Education in mid 2019 as a systems improvement response to increase and support education outcomes for children in care.

So, we actually sit as part of Student Support Services and work alongside the Multidisciplinary Team in Support Services. But we also work really closely with Deidre's team in the Engagement and Wellbeing section, but also with schools. So, a lot within our agency, but also across with DCP, in their service as well.

So what we realise, what we need to do is to improve the visibility of children in care within our department and really promote those trauma informed practice principles that we've been talking about, about a safe and predictable environments and I'm increasing those safe relationships with trusting adults.

And I guess our job really is about building that educated capacity to be empathic toward these children and have an understanding about what their needs are. Having opportunities to celebrate the success. Success for these young people might look a little bit different to others, so we need to really tap into that and celebrate those things.

But also, and that not give up attitude. These children have got a right to be educated as well, and they should be at school and a lot of our children in care, actually in part-time for a whole range of reasons, but we are there really to advocate at an individual level, but also at a system level about their needs and their right to be at school full time. As part of our role, we are actually identifying some of those system gaps and working collectively with DCP to work on those.

We have a joint action plan with DCP, which we work very closely with Deidre's team. So, every year we have a number of actions. It's about 11 actions for 2022. So, we have a joint commitment to try and identify and collectively support these young people at a really high level. And we know that from research that none of this can be done in isolation.

So, the children in care service can't do it on their own. And a teacher at a school can't do it on their own, really need to collectively do it with our policy people, but also alongside our DCP partners as well. So, and we really want to promote that school can actually be a place of healing as well. With those really strong relationships school can be one of the most protective factors that they've experienced before they were in care, but certainly afterwards as well. Because we do understand that some of the placement options for young people in care are not ideal at the moment. And there's lots of resource issues around that as well.

So, it's really about trying to support them. And we have a duty social worker available at our office, so you can contact us through Felixstow Education Office and we have a duty social worker to help and we provide some consultation and advice and information, and that could be from a child in care, being enrolled in a new school that could be about identifying what's the process around ISP funding. It could be about how do we use our transition funding money for children in care, or it could be that we can't get in touch with DCP, we don't know what to do. Because we understand that a lot of the communication barriers are impacting young people actually engaging in schooling too.

So, we need to sort of refocus on what the child needs and be really child centred about our practice.

Dale Atkinson: And we'll have information about contact details and other programs in the show notes. One of my final questions, I think probably for you, Merryn, is what's the message to other teachers and educators, other schools who might be considering undertaking some training in trauma informed practice?

Merryn Gomez: I think acknowledging that it's a journey that there's no end to, you know, we've been on this journey since 2018 and initially I thought we'll have a list of things to do, and then we'll be a trauma informed school, but it is certainly not a checklist and we can always continue to improve. And that's really a part of that continuous improvement cycle that all schools go through.

But I think that probably the key message that I would love for every teacher and leader and SSO to know is that as Deidre said earlier, she was talking about relational trauma. So, trauma that happens within relationships, particularly for young people where their brains are still developing. And the way that we heal brains from relational trauma is within relationships.

And as educators, as individuals and as collective sites and partnerships, we can actually make a really significant difference in healing trauma within those relationships that we develop. And if we don't do that, and if we don't do that together, then those young people's brains, they won't heal, and they will continue on that same process and that same cycle.

So, I guess what I want people to know is that every single one of us has the opportunity to have a huge impact on that healing and that it does happen, it happens in schools, in those little micro moments every single day. So, when you're running welcome circles or brain breaks or whatever it is that you are doing with your class, those moments of connection are the moments that are making a difference for those kids.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's a lovely way to wrap up the podcast. Merryn, Deidre, and Tanya, thank you very much for joining us to talk about trauma informed practice.

Tanya Russo:Thanks for having us.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on teach.

Teach podcast: death to the spelling contract

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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education.

Georga Tyson: And I'm Georgia Tyson, Largs Bay school teacher. This episode is all about spelling. Our guests today are literacy coaches who are calling for the death of the spelling contract and have some ideas for practical activities to support quality spelling instruction.

Dale Atkinson: That does seem extreme. With us, Ashlee Dewet-Cowland and Daina Wilson. Welcome to you both.

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Thank you for having us.

Dale Atkinson: So first off, can you tell us a bit about who you are and what your roles are?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Sure. So this is Ashlee. I've been working with the Literacy Guarantee Unit now for a year and a half and I have to say it is the best job I have ever had. In fact, it's not a job. It's just me doing what I'm very passionate about every day. I've been a JP teacher for over 22 years in Victoria and South Australia. So it's just been a very long journey to get to this point.

Georga Tyson: And you are working in schools as well?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Yes. So, part of our role as literacy coaches, we work in identified sites and work towards building quality evidence-based literacy practices in the school, leading to greater literacy outcomes for our students.

Dale Atkinson: What about you, Daina? Where have you come from?

Daina Wilson: Very similar. It is absolutely the dream job. So lucky to be working with a group of like-minded people who are passionate, and we get to talk all day, literacy, all the time. JP background. So came a bit later to teaching in my more mature years. And so have been teaching for around 10 years and have then come into this position with literacy coaches.

So the same, we work with a wide range of teachers across many different sites and working with them to improve their knowledge and understanding about reading development.

Dale Atkinson: So, you operate in schools, but you also provide some guidance through the literacy guarantee conferences. Now, the name of your seminar was ‘Death to the spelling contract, the fundamentals of quality spelling instruction’. What are spelling contracts and why do they have to die?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Well, it comes back to the purpose really, of spelling activities. But I guess if you want to go a little bit deeper, it actually is about teacher knowledge of spelling. And what we've found is, and I am putting it out there, I have absolutely used spelling contracts. In fact, I brought some along today to show you both that I call them chewing gum for the brain, because really there's no purpose often to these activities. And the reason for that is that teachers use them in place of explicit instruction because many teachers don't really understand how to teach spelling.

Spelling is a linguistic skill. And we didn't learn this at university. I'm lucky I have a linguistics degree, so I have some knowledge or I had some knowledge of language before I started teaching. But spelling contracts really, they lack purpose. When it comes to teaching children about our language and spelling.

Georga Tyson: I think what you're saying is true, there is a lot of unknown for teachers about spelling and absolutely the title, ‘Death to the spelling contract’, definitely hooked us in. And that's why we're chatting with you today, but how do you think the teaching of spelling has changed?

Daina Wilson: Well, I think a lot of it, and Ashlee and I have had this discussion over the last few weeks leading up to our conference presentation, and I think this is the catalyst of some change, is this knowledge and understanding behind our language and the structures behind our language. I think in the past few years, we've had a lot of resources and development into our junior primary sort of sector around teaching phonics and that early reading development and what's happened is that it's then teachers are going “well, what do we do next? So where do we go from here?”. And so, I think a lot of it, it has been about teachers really wanting to implement strategies and practices that create impact and create that improvement for their students, but not quite sure about how to go about it.

Dale Atkinson: So, what is the key to quality instruction in this area?

Daina Wilson: A lot of it is about evidence, so we know so much more about how the brain learns. There’s so much out there, research and evidence across multiple countries, multiple languages about what happens in the brain when we learn to read. And obviously then when we learn to read and write. And so that has definitely increased, I suppose, the conversations that come about, about how we teach reading and then obviously, and spelling which is the focus of ours.

Dale Atkinson: Why do you think some teachers might be stuck with the teaching of spelling?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: I found it when I was starting this science of reading, science of learning journey quite a few years ago, it was really hard to find information. And I wasn't sure where to look. We asked children questions. Well, what do you think about this? Well, if they don't know anything about a subject, they don't know what questions to ask. All I knew was that my students spelling in their writing, wasn't reflecting what I was teaching them in my spelling lessons or phonics lessons. So, it made me wonder, what am I missing here? What do I know from my background? So, I would bring in lots of morphology and vocabulary into my lessons, but other teachers weren't. So, it really led me down a path. I discovered Lyn Stone. She was probably one of the first people I thought, oh, okay, now I'm getting it. So, it requires this deep knowledge of how the English language works. And when we understand that our English language is made up of many different languages, Anglo-Saxon, French, Greek and Latin words that allows us to understand why we have certain patterns in our spelling. And so, all of this started to come into make sense to me. And so, it just led me down this path of learning more.

I ended up doing a master’s in leadership, but it changed my direction and actually brought it back to, well, how do we improve literacy practices in schools through transformational instructional leadership? And it was down one of those rabbit holes where I found more knowledge to help me. So, I think teachers are stuck because they don't know where to look for help.

Georga Tyson: Of course. I agree with that.

Dale Atkinson: Can you tell us a bit more about Lyn Stone and what it was that gave you that ah-ha moment?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: It was when she was talking about orthographic mapping and how children transfer knowledge from their short-term memory, into their long-term memory. And we have this place in our brain where we store letter patterns. And when we've learned things explicitly and we've mastered these letter patterns, and we understand when we use 'ai' and when we use 'ay' and can differentiate between them and I'm telling you right now, reception children can do that. Then that helped me understand how to hook that learning into my student's brains. So orthographic mapping, and as soon as I had that word, I thought, right, I'm Googling this and off I went, I discovered Lyn Aierie, David Kilpatrick, Tessa Daffern who will be coming out in October to our LGU conference. There's a lot of rot out there. So, you do have to be a critical consumer of research and articles and products, but really our goal is to develop teacher knowledge so that you don't need products. You can teach from just using your explicit instructional routine. So, a really good bank of activities and making spelling fun.

Dale Atkinson: So, what are those practical activities and, and where can teachers find them?

Daina Wilson: There's lots of really good activities. And again, in our presentation, we talk about these spelling knowledges. So, we talk about four spelling knowledges. So, we look at the phenology. So, the sound of our language, the sound within words. We look at the orthography, so the spelling choices and the spelling patterns. We then look at that morphology, so our English language is a morpho phonemic language. So, it's made up of sounds, but it's also made up of meaningful parts. And so that's that next level. And then the final level is that etymology or that origin of language. So, when we have a look at our kids' spelling patterns, we need to really understand which component or what stage these students are in, so we can really target the activities to the needs of our students. For example, if we are looking at that phonological level, students will be missing out letters. For example, if they're writing jumped and they're writing ‘jupd’, so they're missing out a sound within that word. We know that we need to do phonological activities. We need to make sure that they're being able to segment and hear those individual sounds within words. So, things like oral activities, manipulation, word chaining, sound boxes, Elkonin boxes, which also helps with the next level of that orthographic. So, the actual spelling choices that we make and Elkonin boxes which are now a fairly common strategy that is, is out there is a really great, powerful, easy strategy to use to really map those sound letter correspondences in words.

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Um, and it's really important that everything we do in spelling, children are writing it, because the more repetitions you have with writing the more that learning is going into that letter box in their brain, holding that learning in their long-term memory.

Georga Tyson: And what, what other resources are available to teachers to help them with spelling instruction?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: The best advice on writing spelling came out. So, you can find that on EDi. There's lots of great advice there for number one, the theory behind spelling. So, they talk about the four knowledges of spelling, and you'll find practical ideas in there to help you reinvent your spelling journey, shall we say? So that's certainly where you could look and what the beauty of the science of reading community and science of learning community is there's a lot for free. So, there's great Facebook pages, and I'm sure people are already on them. Reading Science in Schools, Sharing best practice, Think Forward Educators, well I could go on all day. They are fabulous communities where you can go online, people share ideas, just put spelling into the file section. You'll find lots of great ideas on there.

Dale Atkinson: And we'll include some links in the show notes for listeners if they want to access those a bit later on.

So, I am the father of a reception age daughter and you mentioned earlier that even at that age, they have an ability to understand while the sound may be the same, the letters are different. How does that work with someone so tiny?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: When I work with schools, I talk about a roadmap. So, when they're planning for learning, think of your roadmap in your head. And number one, I talk about having a scope and sequence. So, there are scope and sequences out there. And coincidentally, the department has just released the R to 2 phonics and spelling scope and sequence, which you'll find on EDi and watch this space because the 3 to 6 spelling scope and sequence is in development as we speak. These scope and sequences are developed, according to research about the most common or most frequently seen graphemes in writing or in their writing, it's actually based on the work of Carnine he came up with the idea that, you know, you should introduce these letters in this order order.

So, you have a scope and sequence. You need some really good explicit instructional routines in your classroom. So, you need to ensure that every day you are doing a daily review. So, you are reviewing the learning from yesterday, from last week, from a month ago. You are being really explicit with your learning intention, you are guiding them through the learning in small steps.

So, here's our new grapheme, repeat after me. Let's sky write it. Sky writing is hugely helpful, especially for reception children and beyond. Are they reading words with that grapheme? Are they spelling words with that grapheme? Are they leading to hand write that grapheme and when you put this together in a routine, what you're doing is you are reducing the cognitive load for those students.

They know exactly what they're going to do at every point of the phonics lesson. And you are guiding them through the scope and sequence in a logical order. So, you can find advice online through EDi. We've got our LGU instructional routine lesson plan on there that you can look at, but even better, you can watch our online phonics lessons. So, Our Learning SA, just navigate to the primary resources, literacy phonics, and watch our coaches teaching reception, 1 and 2 lessons. So, with that in mind, that's the roadmap. And so, you know that you are guiding your students through their learning. Logically you are matching that learning with decodable readers. So, they're reading these graphemes, they're practicing these graphemes in connected text. So, it's all part of this wonderful phonics routine that we go into schools and ensure that schools are using them. Because the department have actually, we don't mandate much, but we've mandated that, in the early years, students and teachers are using an explicit instructional routine and synthetic phonics.

Dale Atkinson: And I think that really draws us neatly back to the original premise of this podcast, which is death of the spelling contract. Cause what you've described there is really conscientious, deliberate, structured, ordered approach to education, which really makes perfect sense from the outside. And it sounds like it makes all the difference when you're in the classroom

Daina Wilson: Yeah. And exactly that point is we know, and people like Lyn Stone, who we've spoken about earlier, talks about the fact that we want to ensure the activities or the strategies that we are using are actually developing and improving their ability to use those skills. So, in spelling, we want to ensure the activities that we are using are helping them to map those spelling patterns or those generalisations of our language.

And we know that our language English is complex, but it is actually quite logical when you know the history behind it and the reasons why words are spelled in certain ways, there are logical reasons behind it.

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Absolutely. I mean, I'm just looking at this spelling contract here that I just downloaded off the internet, “use Scrabble tiles to add up the value of each spelling word”. So that's ultimately, it's a maths activity when you scramble letters and have to put them back. And what word is going to magically appear when I unscramble these letters. But put yourself in the shoes of a child, living with dyslexia, they don't have this ability to do that. So, they need this explicit instruction and systematic instruction. So, if we are teaching everybody with explicit instruction, a systematic instruction, then no child, theoretically, should be left behind.

Dale Atkinson: And I'm assuming here that the experience for the child is actually a bit better too, that the engagement levels go up when you approach it in this way?

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Yeah, absolutely. Just if I can share a little story, I was running a presentation yesterday in one of my sites and one of the teachers said, “oh, can I just share a little story? One of my boys told me what a great job I'm doing now. He actually gets reading and spelling now. So, he congratulated me on my new informed practices.” And I actually started crying in this staff meeting because the impact we are having on children by making small tweaks, leading to big changes, that's all we're asking just to rethink, you know, the activities you're putting in front of your students think about it, is this relating to their phenology? Is it relating to helping them understand letter patterns and where they are in, in words? You know, there's some great textbooks out there to help teachers. One of the first books I recommend to my teachers is The Next Step by Anne Italiano. Really simple way of identifying when to use this letter pattern. Why we use this letter pattern and here's some words that contain this letter pattern. Lyn Stone, Spelling for Life, is a fantastic resource. It actually instructs you in how to do a spelling lesson.

Dale Atkinson: Alright well, I am entirely convinced I'm on-board death to the spelling contract. Ashlee, Daina, thank you very much for joining us.

Ashlee Dewet-Cowland: Thank you for having us for having us.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on Teach.

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. I'm Dale Atkinson from the Department for Education. Today we're going to hear about the Special Education Resource Unit, or SERU. It's made up of a team of former teachers and disability experts who can provide advice and resources for educators about how to support learners with additional needs.

Rachel Scheuboeck is the manager of SERU and she joins us on the phone now. Welcome, Rachel.

Rachel Scheuboeck: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: Now, Rachel, this is a bit of an unusual job. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you ended up there?

Rachel Scheuboeck: I've been teaching, I think for about 27 years now, which is all horrifying to admit. I started off as a general teacher working in a mainstream site.

I've also worked in disability units and in a special school. I then worked as part of support services as a special educator and then as a manager, and I ended up at SERU as the manager about two years ago. And I guess the other part of my journey, which probably might give you a bit of a sense as to why I get a little bit passionate about this area is the fact that I have an 18 year old son now who has a disability as well. So, I was in disability before I had a son. But, it's not just professional, it's personal too for me.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. And so, the combination of personal and professional there is really brought you into quite a, an interesting place and fascinating insights, I guess, into what it means to educate a child with specific needs.

Can you tell us a little bit about what SERU actually does?

Rachel Scheuboeck: The reason I feel for me it's a really, really good fit is we are a service that supports not only our education department staff, but also families. It's really exciting to be part of an organisation which is quite unique in South Australia.

I'm not sure that there's another sort of organisation quite like us within Australia. We have a resource library which educators can use and access lots of different types of equipment or resources or reference materials or assistive technology. We've also got access equipment.

So, for students who might need some help around personal care, perhaps if they need a change table, they might need a hoist. They might need a specialised seating tool just to help them sit in the right position so that they can access their learning. We also have support through assistive technology, so for those individuals perhaps who have a physical disability or might have a vision impairment, we have support through a technology that might be on a laptop or an iPad.

That supports them in their access to education. We've also got some services that come out of our SERU as well. We've got the early intervention, deaf and hard of hearing support, which is for students from birth all the way through to school. And we've got a number of teachers and a speech pathologist who support families, young children and babies. We also have a conductive education service, which is quite unique and again, it's one of those services that a lot of people don’t know a lot about, but it really is concerned with physical movement and supporting movement through education. And conductive education is run out of three sites.

We have three conductors at the moment who support us. They all come from Hungary, which is where the training originates from. They provide support around getting the most out of students' physical needs and helping them to be as independent as they can. And the last service that we have is our inclusive practice team, which is our teacher team, which provides a lot of support around helping parents or educators to find resources that might have more of a chance of sort of supporting the student. And also providing training and development for teachers and SSOs.

Dale Atkinson: So, if you're a teacher listening to that, and that's such an extensive range of services and resources that are available, if you are listening to that and thinking, well, actually there is something that I could really use some assistance within this specific area. How do they go about getting help from SERU?

Rachel Scheuboeck: Well, there's probably three ways that they can access us. They can either give us a call and our fabulous admin staff will direct you in the right direction. You can just ring up and say, look, I'm looking for advice or support in this area, and they'll put you onto probably the best qualified person.

You can also use our web. We have a website, and through that we also have like even a catalogue of all our resources so you can actually even order things and borrow things through the website. And the third way is actually to physically come down and visit us. We are located on the same grounds as the Fulham Gardens Primary School, and we're at Henley Beach. We're not overly convenient for everyone, but we're in a great spot we think, near the beach.

But there is an extensive resource library here and you can come and have a look and see what we've got.

Dale Atkinson: Yeah. So, plenty of access points for any teachers out there interested in getting some assistance. Can you talk to us a little bit about what the experience might look like from start to finish for a teacher who gets in touch with you?

Rachel Scheuboeck: To register to be part of the library service it's a free service to all education department and staff. So, you can easily come in and register or we can send you out a registration form. It's also a free service for all families, regardless of whether they're part of the education department or the private sector. So, we do offer that support to all families to support their child with a disability

Once you've registered, you'll get a code. So, you can actually go on and use our online catalogue. You can see all the resources that are available, which teachers might use for things like trial and evaluation. For example, an OT might suggest that you try a wobble stool or a wedge to support a child who fidgets and isn't able to sit very still.

So, you might look and say, Oh look, I don't want to go out and buy one of those, I'd like to try it first, so you can ring up SERU, you can go on our website. You can say, have you got a stool that I can borrow so I can trial it? We can send one out. It all works through the courier, so you don't actually have to physically come on site.

It is great if you do come on site because you'll get to see lots of things, but you certainly don't have to. That way we can service all country locations as well. The courier goes out widely and we can get all resources out to the country or out to different sites or locations within Adelaide.

Dale Atkinson: One of the experiences in education in this area is the identification, I guess, for teachers that perhaps a student has a need but not an understanding of how to satisfy that need. Is that something that you can help with?

Rachel Scheuboeck: Absolutely. One of the things that we do try and do, we've got a number of staff in our teaching area who are our inclusive practice team, and those staff have amazing skills and expertise and experience. Most of the staff that we have here, have worked in a range of options.

All our admin staff know exactly who the right people are with different skill sets and different expertise. We have staff here who are really good in the learning difficulties area for those students who might have dyslexia. Or might be really struggling with their understanding of supporting their written skills or their reading skills.

We also have teachers here who are pretty well experts in the area of augmentative communication. One of our staff here has worked extensively within special schools and has a really, really good understanding of communication and supporting children's communication need. We also have teachers here who have done extensive work around personalised learning.

We have teachers who have worked really closely in support services and been special educators and worked really closely with a range of schools. We've got two teachers here who are experts in the area of inclusive technologies, and they will do family consults, they'll do teacher consults, they'll support finding the best fit for a child because there's lots and lots of inclusive technologies out there.

But what we need to do is actually find the best fit for the student. So, they're feeling in control. And we've also got staff who have expertise in the area of inclusion. So, it's a really wide range of skill sets, and you know, we also have people who've just got that broad overview of having worked with students with specific or significant disabilities or physical disabilities or autism.

So, we can really use skills of the people here to support teachers who might be at that point of like, what do I do? I've got a child, I'm not seeing any growth. How can I support them in their learning?

Dale Atkinson: What times of the day can teachers get in touch with you and parents get in touch with you?

Rachel Scheuboeck: We're open every day. On Tuesdays we close a little bit earlier because we have staff meetings, so we close at 3pm on a Tuesday, but every other day we're here from 8.30am to 5pm. In the school holidays we close at 4pm because we tend to find that people don't come in after about 4pm anyway. But we're available all school holidays and any day of the week up until five o'clock, except for on the Tuesday.

Dale Atkinson: Can you actually, just on a personal level, can you just describe one rewarding, memorable experience that you've had in the role?

Rachel Scheuboeck: Oh, I'm not sure I could think of one in particular. I know that there's so many things that happen on a daily basis, which I find incredibly rewarding. We had a situation recently in 2020, soon after the pandemic was announced, and we had number of parents that contacted us about online work for their child.

They'd been given some plans or programs from their teachers, but we have to remember at that point, teachers were trying to teach and do online learning. So, what they were able to produce for parents was not of the quality of what we're doing now, because they didn't actually simply have the time. So, teachers were providing a program, but it wasn't necessarily always differentiated. At that point, we had a number of parents that contacted us and said, my teachers given me, these ideas and these activities, but my child can't do them and I don’t know what to do.

And so, we actually as a team sat around and looked at some of the advice and ideas and then came up with some differentiated activities that the parents could try. And that was actually one of those points that you realised the parents were so grateful and we found that they kept coming back to us and saying, look, I've got this and I've got that.

It's not the case anymore because I think teachers are doing an amazing job of actually providing that wide variety of resources. There's a lot of things out there for parents with disabilities. But in that very, very early timeframe, we felt that we had a really amazing opportunity to really support parents and to support teachers.

And we ended up getting teachers contacting us as well, saying, I'm trying to send all these things out to my students. Can you help me with how I might differentiate this to some of the learners in my class who aren't going to be able to do it? So that was one experience that I think, you know, you think about these times where things have been a little bit tough and I think it sometimes brings out the best in everybody, and it was a really lovely opportunity to really work closely with some schools and also some families, and then getting that feedback of how that had gone and being part of that loop that, yes, this was working and thank you, that was helpful and helped my child to feel that they could participate.

Dale Atkinson: That's a really great illustration, I think, of what SERU is really all about, which is meeting the child, the teacher, and the parents at their point of need and providing that real expertise over the top of it, isn't it?

Rachel Scheuboeck: Yep. And it was having our extensive resource library, we were able to just package things up and say, come and pick them up from the door, or let's send them in the courier so that people had things that they could grab from their hand, you know, they could grab immediately and have, and could actually put into place straight away.

Dale Atkinson: So, what advice would you give to an educator who's listening to this today with a learner with some additional needs that they haven't experienced before?

Rachel Scheuboeck: What I can say is it's really important to take time, to get to know each individual student.

It's really important to know what motivates them and how to engage them, knowing what skills they have and what are their next opportunities. Listening without judgment and if they can't communicate effectively, giving them a tool or a device or a system, otherwise you get your unwanted behaviours.

Those sorts of little bits of insights really help us to direct and support and come up with some ideas and to work hand in hand in saying, perhaps this resource, or have you thought of this? Or is there something we could do to support you here? In that area of special ed, I've worked in it for many years, obviously, and it's one of those careers that I kind of fell into, not by choice, but I fell into it.

But I've stayed by choice. It's been the most rewarding place to have worked. I've met the most strongest, resilient, amazing individuals in my classes. And yes, they've often been challenges and at times it's been really, really hard. But keeping those realistically high expectations and never making assumptions is really, really important.

And it's one of those jobs where there's no two days are the same. We've got these amazing kids. It's such a rewarding place to work. And you know, it's one of those careers that I've found, I've been able to really have that sense of actually really making a difference. So, I would say, you know, you have to at times ride the wave.

At times it seems all overwhelming, but the benefits and the, that sense of actually finding that right resource or helping that student to actually overcome some behaviours or helping them to learn something are those moments that make it absolutely amazing and the most rewarding job, I think.

Dale Atkinson: Rachel, I couldn't wrap it up any better than that. Thank you very much for your time. That's Rachel Scheuboeck from the Special Education Resource Unit. It's down at Henley Beach, located on the grounds of Fulham Gardens Primary School. It's a team of former teachers and disability experts who can provide advice, support, and resources for educators about how to educate learners with additional needs.

Teachers can ring SERU at any time to talk to an expert. Actually, there are specific times, but they'll be in the show notes along with other information on how to get in touch. They can talk to an expert, go down and visit them, get a whole bunch of ideas and tools and resources to help that learner for free. And the child can try some of these tools out in the classroom. Find out what works for them before the family, or the school has to commit to buying them.

Rachel, you and the team are doing fantastic work. Thank you very much for your time and thanks for speaking to us today.

Rachel Scheuboeck: Thank you so much for taking the time to get in contact with us. We really hope that we can support and connect with some of the teachers out there.

Dale Atkinson: Thanks, everyone out there for listening and speak to you next time on Teach.

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. 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.