Building a culture of ongoing learning and research engagement for staff

As part of St Catherine’s School’s Towards 2025 Strategic Intent Four – exemplary staff, our teachers participated in a range of initiatives in 2023 that allowed them to engage in educational research both inside, and outside of our campus, and thus keep their practice up to speed. Below is a description of some of the projects.  

Teaching Excellence Program  

Four St Catherine’s teachers recently graduated from the Teaching Excellence Program, a year-long professional learning initiative for experienced teachers facilitated by the Academy of Teaching and Leadership. Throughout the year, we worked alongside colleagues in the State, Independent and Catholic sectors on improving our practice through action-research.  

After completing an individual mini-inquiry in Term 2, we were then teamed with colleagues in other schools to complete a collaborative inquiry. Topics included the following:  

‘How might we refine our formative assessment practices to design the next steps for our students’ learning?’ Miss Kirrilly Wootton, Grade 5 Mathematics.  

‘How can we avoid cognitive overload and improve inference through removing extraneous material?’ Mrs Lisa Gionfriddo, Year 11 English.  

The Program was a fantastic opportunity to connect with like-minded colleagues from throughout Victoria and allowed us to consolidate our practice, as well as share our expertise with our peers.

Research Invested Schools Network  

The Research Invested Schools Network (RIS) was launched in 2021 by Dr Hugh Chilton and Dr Caitlin Munday from the Scots School in Sydney. The Network brings together research-leads from schools all over Australia who are committed to engaging with educational research.  

St Catherine’s has been a member of the Network since its inception. This year, myself, and Ms Jessica Basa, one of the learning coaches for our PLTs travelled to two schools on the Sunshine Coast for an insightful two-day conference devoted to professional learning and sharing practice.  

It was inspiring to hear from colleagues who are implementing similar initiatives around staff learning and innovative programs. We were privileged to share our three-year process for building collective teacher efficacy as part of our former Principal, Michelle Carroll’s Menzies Fellowship, which culminated in the construction of the St Catherine’s Teaching and Learning Framework.  

Ngarrngga Project: University of Melbourne

A signature program at the University of Melbourne, the Ngarrnngga Project is a collaboration between the Faculty of Education, Indigenous Studies Unit, and Indigenous Knowledge Institute. The project invites educators from all over Australia to increase their confidence and competency in teaching First Nations content through trialing curriculum resources in their classrooms.  

Over 30 St Catherine’s teachers attended an online PD session introducing teachers to indigenous knowledge frameworks, while four teachers will continue to participate in the research project and curriculum trials. We are extremely pleased to be part of such an exciting initiative and look forward to hearing about the learning from our colleagues.  

Professional Learning Teams

While we are enjoying the benefits of engaging with educational research outside of School, the most impactful means of transforming our practice comes through the action-research conducted as part our Professional Learning Teams.  

The PLTs are now in their third year and invite teachers to select a key element from Teaching for Thinking and our T&L Framework as a focus for action-research inquiry. Some notable projects in 2023 included the Science Faculty’s Literacy Initiative, which sought to improve student competency in the sciences through a focus on increasing student knowledge of scientific terminology and text types. Expanding the Framework into the co-curricular space, Mr James Brown, Head of Performing Arts designed a tracking tool to articulate the kinds of actions required for students to exhibit agency in their student leadership roles.  

In 2024, we look forward to continuing to find opportunities for our staff to adopt a research mindset in their practice given the well-established link between teacher excellence and continuous learning.