Unpacking school improvement

This month, the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) released an update to the pioneering tool that has underpinned school improvement in Australia over the past decade, and helped improve teaching and learning in thousands more schools around the world.

In an interview with Teacher magazine, ACER’s Director of School and System Improvement, Professor Pauline Taylor-Guy discussed the research behind the new School Improvement Tool.

‘Fundamentally, school improvement is about day-to-day practice in the classroom,’ Professor Taylor-Guy told Teacher.

‘We believe a school can always improve, regardless of its starting point. The common goal, then, is to continually improve practice using a broad range of evidence to identify a narrow, sharp improvement agenda and plan, and monitor growth and impact over time.’

Professor Taylor-Guy said research shows school leaders play a critical role in facilitating and sustaining school improvement.

‘Our review of research consistently identified the importance of school leader practices relating to instructional leadership. These include setting of the school’s strategic direction based on examination of a range of data, promoting a productive learning culture characterised by high expectations for staff and students, and effective implementation of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment, including differentiated teaching and learning,’ Professor Taylor-Guy said.

According to Professor Taylor-Guy, leaders should begin their school improvement journey by establishing current levels of practice. This helps identify where the school might direct its improvement efforts.

‘School improvement is most impactful when leaders develop a narrow and sharp improvement agenda to ensure a focus on a small set of targeted strategies, which are evidence-informed and have been tailored to the school’s context,’ Professor Taylor-Guy explained.

ACER’s School Improvement Tool is a research-based framework to help guide this process. Like its predecessor, the National School Improvement Tool (NSIT), it consists of 9 interrelated domains that describe the different areas of practice that research shows make an impact on student learning and wellbeing.

‘The School Improvement Tool is structured around the same 9 domains [as the NSIT], but the domain names now include a continuous verb to emphasise the ongoing nature of school improvement,’ Professor Taylor-Guy explained. ‘The revised domain names also speak deliberately and expressly to the critical role of school leaders in school improvement.’

Specific themes that have been strengthened across the School Improvement Tool domain descriptions and characteristics include:

• student learning, wellbeing and engagement, including student agency

• inclusion

• alignment between curriculum, assessment and pedagogy

• stakeholder input, particularly student voice

• broader conceptualisations of data, student engagement, and promoting an orderly environment

• school context

• evaluation and impact

• collective efficacy and collaboration.

Performance levels for each domain have also been updated, based upon the extensive literature review and over 10 years of experience in NSIT school reviews.

‘Those familiar with the NSIT will notice that the new School Improvement Tool performance levels contain more detailed descriptions of the extent to which the domain characteristics are evident in a school. This should enable greater precision in use of the Tool and may also provide more specific indication of where schools might put their future improvement energies,’ Professor Taylor-Guy said.

To support education systems, schools and teachers in their school improvement journey, ACER offers tailored professional learning about our approach to school improvement. Schools then undertake a self-review using the School Improvement Tool, or commission ACER to conduct this on their behalf.

‘From this set of first steps,’ said Professor Taylor-Guy, ‘the School Improvement Tool provides guidance on where a school might direct its future improvement efforts.’

To learn more about ACER’s school improvement services and tools, visit our website.

Read the full article:
'Expert Q&A: School improvement', by Jo Earp, is published in Teacher.