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Leading Schools Fund Project

Project Resources and Facilities

We believe strongly that students learn better in a good learning environment. Teachers are more innovative when the learning environment provides opportunities to expand their pedagogy.

Cost: $240,000

Our "Agora" - This multi-functional facility will become the project "signpost" signalling to students, staff and parents the importance of our project. The proposal will provide the capability to deliver curriculum in non-traditional ways in the secondary system whilst utilizing the latest in Information Communication Technologies some of which will be in an adjoining multi-functional facility. This multipurpose outdoor facility will be of functional importance providing flexible classroom applications in team teaching, gender split classes, mentoring based classes (including secondary with primary), larger audience delivery & performances, reading pods and small team learning pods.

Figure : Concept plan of the "Agora"

This facility will also have the capacity and flexibility to be used for co-curricular activities that are undertaken outside of timetabled class time. The aim is to empower students with increased responsibility for usage in non-curriculum time. This venue would be suitable for activities including:
- Setting up a radio station.
-Debating competitions and public speaking are also areas being further developed within the curriculum; both these areas would benefit from a more public venue.
- SRC meetings and forums.
- Performances.
- Passive recreation.
- Student managed activities.
- Extending our music programs to cater for a wider range of student musical interests.

The Middle Years of Schooling Innovations and Excellence Portland Cluster (2005-2007) will have "developing leadership" and "increased responsibility of students as learners" as it's main foci. Public speaking, responsibility, organisation and team skills are all key planks to the leadership program. Having suitable facilities to work with vertical groupings of student leaders, and also allowing them ownership for utilisation of a venue in non-contact core curriculum time will send signals to all of our students that we value more than just curriculum delivery. The Agora will provide a central focus area connected to arts, technology, careers, science, drama, media, PE and canteen areas and this will encourage cross-discipline and multi-task approaches to curriculum development. Students will experience alternative delivery environments that encourage flexibility in curriculum design eg. small group and large group strategies, as well as indoor and outdoor settings. Improvements in ICT will allow connectivity in the open area encouraging further use of laptops as a learning and communication.

Staff
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1. Action-Research Teams (ARTs):
The 3 extra teachers (under LSF) are enabling teachers to be released from classes for a semester) to undertake work action - research in these teams. Release time is used for team meetings, data collection / analysis / development / documentation, team teaching, peer mentoring / observation. All school teaching staff will have the opportunity to take part in an ART at least once during the three years. The focus of these teams will be on better understanding the student's learning journey and on researching student engagement issues. Their task is to develop engagement strategies that can be firmly based in the class-room context. The strategies developed by the Action Research teams will be trialled in classes and the students in these classes will become partners with teachers in the Action-Research program. As the strategies they develop become more refined the results will be fed back through KLA groups to other teachers. In this way the whole staff will start to become more involved in the action-research process.

2. Specific Leadership Support:
We are using experienced leadership staff to work closely with small groups of enthusiastic teachers in the Action Research Teams (ART's). The ART's are supported by a LSF Leadership Group consisting of three PCO's and three LT's (Managers of Effective Teaching and Learning - one from each sub-school). In addition to participating in an ART, the leadership team will assist the ART's by developing frameworks, assisting in facilitating, monitoring progress, ensure team effectiveness and undertake executive officer type roles. Our "Le Card" reporting program will be enhanced in terms of analysis of learning behaviours and engagement.

3. Targeted In-service Activities:
Specific whole school and team in-service activities will be used to support change in pedagogy. Those identified so far include training in "Habits of the Mind" - Art Costa and "PEEL - Learning about Learning". We anticipate in-service needs in the areas of deep contextual learning, ICT in deep learning, Individual goal setting, mixed ability program planning and teaching, assessment for learning, applied learning, authentic assessment, teacher-student negotiation and teacher-student process discussions. Visitations to other exemplar schools will also be considered.

4. Performance & Development Accreditation:
We are in accreditation scheme, thus providing a framework for improving our performance and development systems within the school. Our intention is to build on an existing staff culture of investigation and improvement and, through the most extensive internal Professional Development/ Action-Research program ever under-taken in a school in our area. We already have one member on Teacher Professional Leave.

5. Critical friend support:
Two critical friends are working with us - Dr. Chris Cope, La Trobe University, expert in "deep learning" with ICT and Dr. Ian Mitchell, Monash University, expert in learning behaviours (PEEL - Project for the Enhancement of Effective Learning) and professional learning teams.