Evolve: New Principals

Establish yourself in your new role as principal with this transformative program.

Successful school leaders have a positive impact on student outcomes, including academic achievement, engagement, social and cultural competence, and wellbeing.

Evolve supports new principals to thrive as school leaders by building their strategic, people and technical capabilities, creating strong support networks and strengthening behaviours that sustain health and wellbeing practices.

Principalships are highly complex and exercised in a variety of contexts. Evolve has a strong focus on personalising and contextualising your learning to enhance your expertise and experience.

• Build a high-performing culture. Apply evidence-based practices to improve student outcomes, establish professional trust, and increase staff resilience.  
• Navigate complex school challenges. Use data and shared leadership to lead collaborative problem-solving processes that overcome school-wide challenges.  
• Audit and optimise your school. Develop the systems and technical tools needed to lead improvement while meeting your principal accountabilities.  
• Design Annual Implementation Plans. Lead strategic improvement plans that bridge the gap between high-level goals and classroom-level results.  
• Continuously improve your leadership. Increase your ability to influence and create impact through critical self-reflection and sustained professional growth.

Our facilitators understand the nature of the principal role and have designed a program that is tailored to your needs and context, without creating a significant time burden.

Roles

Designed for newly appointed first-time principals.

School sectors 

This program is available to the following school sectors:

• Victorian Government
• Catholic
• independent. 

Delivery

Online intakes

Over 8 months, you are expected to engage in and contribute to: 

• 13 virtual workshops (2 to 4.5 hours each)
• 3 peer learning group sessions (90 minutes each)
• self-directed learning (5 to 10 hours).

Blended intakes

Over 5 months, you are expected to engage in and contribute to: 

• 3 face-to-face workshops (8 hours each)
• 6 virtual workshops (2 hours each)
• 3 peer learning group sessions (90 minutes each)
• self-directed learning (5 to 10 hours).

Workshops

Virtual workshops are delivered across 13 sessions of 2 to 4.5 hours each.

Virtual workshops are designed to support you to make progress with current challenges and problems from your specific school context, as you strive to improve teaching and learning. Key topics include:

• knowing yourself and your context for effective school leadership
• assessing and creating the conditions for school improvement
• enabling and resourcing the hard work of school improvement
• mobilising stakeholders for school improvement.  

The virtual workshops are interactive and explore research, provocations and case study scenarios.

Peer learning groups

Peer learning groups are facilitated sessions for 5 to 8 participants from similar school contexts, providing you with an opportunity to develop a strong support network.

These groups provide a formal and confidential setting to discuss concerns with peers. You will be supported to discuss, question and reflect on your shared challenges and aspirations for the principal role, as well as receive expert advice and support from the facilitator.

Self-directed learning

Self-directed learning activities in your own time (approximately 5-10 hours across the program) are designed to support your learning. They include:

• undertaking pre- or post-workshop readings
• contributing to discussion boards
• completing workshop evaluations
• exploring supporting resources, materials, questionnaires or articles.

Learning outcomes

The program is designed around 3 integrated strands of work:

• Strategic leadership: how to effectively problem-solve to establish and enact priority improvement goals.
• Technical leadership: how to develop and use resources, systems, and tools to lead improvement and meet accountabilities.
• People leadership: how to optimise self, others, and school culture in the pursuit of improved equity and excellence outcomes for students.

You will gain knowledge and understanding of:

• the accountabilities of the principal role
• strategies for effective goal setting
• processes that support collaborative problem solving
• models that support the establishment of effective relationships and build trust
• how to improve teaching and learning
• how to build a school culture of resilience and wellbeing.  

You will develop the skills to:

• critically reflect on your leadership development and behaviours
• analyse data to identify challenges and apply effective problem-solving processes
• influence and build a culture of trust within your school community
• effectively lead the development and enactment of Annual Implementation Plans
• develop and use resources, systems, and tools to lead improvement.

We significantly subsidise costs for all participants.

Financial support

Victorian school participants may be eligible for additional subsidies.

Fees and financial support