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Review brings down five recommendations

The Departmental Program Review on Teaching and Learning in years 10, 11, and 12 at Brisbane Water Secondary College has brought down five recommendations.

The recommendations were:

1. To align campus quality systems with the college vision.

2. To develop and implement a whole college approach to literacy.

3. To establish roles and responsibilities for the executive aligned with the college vision.

4. To implement strategies to increase expectations within the campus.

5. To provide training and development to support the campus vision.

All recommendations focus on supporting the campus vision. Here is the explanation of the recommendations provided to parents.

Recommendation one:

The campus quality systems need to be aligned to the college and campus vision to ensure that policies, procedures and organisation are consistently implemented and focused on the learning needs of senior students in an adult learning environment.

Specific areas for focus should include Student Welfare, Library, Technology, Communication, Programming, Teacher Support and Supervision.

Strategies for implementing this recommendations are as followed.

Use the college vision to develop alignment in the philosophy of the welfare practices of the middle school campus and the senior campus.

All strategies developed should recognise the need for welfare structures that are age appropriate.

Ensure that the transition from the middle school to the senior school has a strong focus on welfare practices.

Develop shared belief and practices regarding management of unacceptable behavior and consistency of approach and implementation in discipline matters.

Establish a library committee that will develop a vision for the library as an adult learning resource and develop an action plan to realise that vision and have representation on the campus finance committee.

Establish a technology committee with representatives from all Key Learning Area which will develop a strategic plan to ensure that technology resources support learning for senior students and technology resources are managed effectively.

Head teachers and senior executive monitor teaching programs to ensure there is consistent implementation of campus policies relating to programming for year 10-12 and that all teaching and learning programs are consistent with the key accountabilities in Leading and managing the School.

The school programming processes should ensure that consistent approaches to supporting and supervising teachers are developed and implemented.

The college principals continue to develop communication and collaboration across the college in areas such as learning, programming, literacy and student welfare.

Recommendation two:

A whole college approach to literacy be developed and implemented.

Strategies for implementing this recommendation are as follows:

Establish a college literacy committee under the leadership of the college principal.

The membership of the committee would include the district literacy consultant and staff from a range of Key Learning Areas from both campuses.

The committee would develop a college literacy policy. Develop and implement a as matter of priority strategies which focus on the explicit teaching of writing skills to the current Year 10 and Year 12 students. Develop a common college philosophy on book marking. Develop a college editing code and identify the training and development needs of teachers in the area of literacy.

Analyse data to identify literacy needs. Data analysed should include ELLA results from 2001 and 2002 and School Certificate results.

All faculties should identity the literacy needs of all courses.

Develop clear and precise processes that support staff and ensure that all staff integrate explicit and systematic literacy strategies into teaching and learning programs.

Teachers at the middle school campus will participate in training and development that will increase their understanding and knowledge of literacy assessment.

Consideration should be given to including teachers from the senior campus who express interest on the junior campus, in this training and development.

Recommendation three:

The senior campus establish roles and responsibilities for the executive which support the changed needs of staff and students on a senior campus and are aligned to the campus vision.

Strategies for implementing this recommendation is as followed.

Through consultation revise current role statements to ensure that there are clear expectations of the role of head teachers and the senior executive in supporting learning.

These expectations should be consistent with the expectations of DET.

Role statements for principals, deputy principals and head teachers.

The role of the head teacher in monitoring and supervision is documented and communicated to all staff.

The role statement should recognise the role head teachers and senior executive have in identifying areas for individual development, including the provision of positive feedback to teachers, supervision of teachers programs and the monitoring of mandatory requirements.

The role of all executive in welfare and discipline is documented and communicated to all staff and there are clear expectations of the role executive have in data management and using it to inform teaching programs.

'N' award processes should be reviewed and streamlined.

Processes should be developed to ensure that the administration and tracking of 'N' awards is centralised.

Campus executive could visit other schools to identify good practice in this process.

Through consultation identify the essential roles expected of executive and remove from the role statements responsibilities inconsistent with the expectations in the DET role statements.

Recommendation four:

The campus develops and implements strategies that will lead to increased expectations in all groups within the campus community.

Strategies for implementing this recommendation is as followed.

Build on the successful initiatives already achieved by the campus such as the positive image and impact of the new uniform and the celebration of sporting success.

Establish a media strategy to promote college and campus achievements.

Part of this strategy should include the establishment of communication protocols which focus on the development of high quality written and verbal communication with the community.

The process used to develop the strategy should be inclusive of all groups within the campus community.

Develop strategies to ensure that there is regular public recognition and celebration of student and staff success across the college.

Develop transition stragies that ensure students at the middle school campus are aware of the opportunities available to them at the senior campus.

Ensure that all staff have a detailed knowledge of student outcome data so that there are heightened expectations of what students can achieve.

Recommendation five:

The campus will ensure that the provision of training and development supports the achievement of the campus vision.

Strategies for implementing recommendation is followed.

The development of a campus training and development plan which focuses on teaching and learning and builds on the directions established by the learning conference.

Senior executive and head teachers support staff to develop individual training and development plans which are focused on achieveing the campus vision and which meet the identified needs of the individual.

The individual plans should identy staff with changed roles and the support needed to effectively undertake the roles.

Training and development opportunities should take into account the needs of those teachers who may move from the middle school campus to the senior campus.

Training and development provided for all staff in the use of data to inform teaching programs and practices.

A significant proportion of the staffing betterment achieved by the establishment of the senior campus be targeted to support strategic and targeted training and development.

At Woy Woy Campus staff meeting this week, we went through the Report looking at the findings.

These findings were checked against the strategies that the Program Review teams have suggested.

To implement the recommendations some project teams are being set up who will be responsible for making recommendations to the coordinating team.

The coordinating team will be responsible for coordinating the implementation of the recommendations.

It needs to be remembered that this exercise is about improving teaching and learning so that the vision can be achieved.

The school must implement the recommendations and the Department will be checking progress at the end of this year and throughout 2003.

The time line is therefore twelve to eighteen months.

The support and commitment of all of the school community will be needed in developing the necessary procedures and implementing them.

Students and parents are being asked to work with the school on the coordinating team and the project teams.

The coordinating team will comprise a student to represent each of years 8, 9, 10, and 11 as well as two parents.

Senior executive, teachers representing each of the Key Learning Areas, and a representative of the Support and Administrative staff will also be on this team.

The Project teams are student welfare across both campuses;library; technology; literacy across both campus; promoting student achievement; professional development and procedures.

School newsletter, August 16