St Agnes' Primary Learning Collaborative - a Journey for ALL staff

  Staff were given their own copy of the book 'Clarity'. Staff were encouraged to highlight, write, post-it note - whatever that assists their learning.

The team traveled to Kempsey to undertake a two-day workshop with Lyn Sharratt (zoomed from the States) and other schools in the Diocese engaged in the partnership. Throughout the two days the pre-conditions to school improvement were explored: the need to talk about practice, share craft and co-learn from knowledgeable others through walks and talks and the the importance of celebrating success of one another. Without this culture we recognized that no sustained change is possible. As a team, these 'conditions' resonated deeply with us and what we currently do. But the question became apparent, do we do this as well as we could? Key Learnings #1 The system alignment was becoming clear as we engaged with the learning on Day One. By reducing our priorities and adopting the mantra 'focus, align, feedback at every level' we, as a collective, can ensure student learning across every school in our Diocese. Strategic leadership in each school would bring about transformative...

The team was asked to complete Chapter One of 'Clarity' by Lyn Sharratt before attending the Professional Development session. The team would later on ask staff to also engage in this pre-reading. Notes from Chapter One are shared below. Introduction key points Clarity = being coherent and intelligible Collaborative professionalism in pursuit of school and system improvement: Professional (norms of engagement, trust & interdependency) Collaborative (nature, form, intentions in generating shared professional practice or professional capital) Collaborative culture of learning (environment) - 3rd teacher (net result of the care, attention and purposeful scaffolding of the teacher) Building the capacity for professional learning and system learning = 14 parameters  Deep conviction that all children can learn - authentic moral stance founded on principles of equity and equality. Principal - instructional leaders - to work alongside teachers at professional learning sessions, mod...

Towards the end of 2020 our Catholic Schools Education Officer encouraged each grade team to take a sample of writing from every child and mark it according to the Learning Progressions, specifically 'Constructing Texts.' The aim of this was two-fold: to upskill and familiarize staff with the progressions and to establish a 'starting point' for writing data across the entire school. Teams agreed after this engaging in this process the need to continue exploring/using the Learning Progressions for writing to inform their current learning and teaching cycles and pedagogy. The start of 2021 saw the need for us to continue to prepare for whatever this 'learning collaborative journey' was going to be. Firstly, we had to vote on a Collaborative Team to lead us through the learning.  The Principal, AP Learning & Teaching, Leader of Pedagogy were automatically on the team but a representative from each of the stages of the school were needed. Those chosen were tho...