Leading School Improvement

Enhance your capacity to drive strategies for improvement consistently in your school.

Leading School Improvement will develop your leadership capabilities and dispositions to enable you to use adaptive expertise to solve complex problems of practice. It will support you to explore and construct an evidenced-based theory of improvement that articulates the role of leadership in enabling and driving school improvement, while also connecting you with like-minded peers.

You will develop instructional and shared leadership practices, including how to be strategic, flexible and agile when implementing short-, medium- and long-term changes in line with your school strategic plan.

You will use resources to understand the relationship between student learning and wellbeing outcomes and will undertake a self-assessment to diagnose your school’s current stage of improvement. This will set a direction for you to plan an improvement approach that aligns to your school strategic plan, annual implementation plan and FISO 2.0. This program can support school leaders to engage with work around the implementation of the VTLM 2.0, the approach to teaching reading and the implementation of Systematic Synthetic Phonics F-2.

Learning will be contextualised through a strategic improvement project addressing a challenge you have identified in your school context. This improvement challenge will be a focus during program workshops and activities, enabling you to clearly define the problem and solutions.

Audience

Roles

Designed for school principals, who have the option to invite up to 2 other participants such as: 

• an assistant principal
• a member of their school leadership team
• system leaders, such as SEILs, can apply individually.

This program caters to all school principals and educational leaders regardless of location, context and size. Small school and special school principals have been considered in the design and delivery of this program and are encouraged to attend.

School sectors  

This program is available to the following school sectors:

• Victorian government
• Catholic
• independent.

Some content may contain information aligned with Department of Education priorities or initiatives. 

Facilitators

Delivered by Ernst & Young, a global provider that brings together bespoke teams of education professionals with extensive knowledge and skills across a broad range of disciplines.

The facilitation team brings a wide range of experience in learning design and development, and expertise in various aspects of education from leading the implementation of school improvement reforms, change management, adolescent psychology and academia.

The team comprises:

• Bruce Armstrong, former deputy secretary Department of Education and subject matter expert
• Michelle Bickley-Miller, former school principal and subject matter expert
• Dr Sonia Sharp, partner, People Advisory Services
• Jill Tulloch, associate partner, People Advisory Services

Structure of program

Over 4 months, you will engage with and contribute to: 

• 1 online orientation session (1.5 hours) 
• 3 workshops (22.5 hours) 
• 3 online peer learning sessions (3 hours) 
• self-directed learning tasks (10-15 hours) 
• optional school improvement thought leadership webinars (1-2 hours each). 

Orientation  

The orientation session will involve team introductions, a program overview, a summary of how to navigate AcademyOnline and high-level descriptions of topics covered in the program.  

At this session, you will also be introduced to your peer learning groups and provided with a framework for how these will operate.  

During orientation, you will learn about  the key frameworks, modules and other important resources referenced throughout the program, as well as clarify expectations of what’s required ahead of each of the workshops.  

Workshops 

Workshops will be delivered over 3 full days and explore the following topics:  

Workshop 1: leadership to make it all happen 

Examines the centrality of leadership for school improvement in the context of both your leadership team and your own leadership knowledge, capabilities and dispositions. It will look at how improvement typically occurs within schools as well as the stages of school improvement.  

Workshop 2: building capacity and learning from others 

Builds on the understanding of leadership for improvement through learning to build teaching capacity. There will be a panel discussion with principals who have successfully driven improvement through their schools, based on a theory of action for leading consistent improvement and change.  

Workshop 3: implementing and embedding continuous improvement and next steps 

Explores the role of data and the importance of articulating success criteria. You will also showcase your strategic school improvement project and receive feedback from your peers. You will reflect on the feedback, discuss next steps and how you will apply your learnings in your school.  

Peer learning sessions 

Provide the opportunity for peer-to-peer connection, networking and learning. Each triad will consist of participants from 3 schools, matched where possible, based on school context. The sessions will be guided by topics intended to encourage reflection on the previous workshop, preparation for the upcoming workshop and preparation of the strategic school improvement project. 

Self-directed learning 

Self-paced learning activities include reading resources and completing tasks that will guide you in self-assessing your leadership approach, assessing your leadership team’s culture and effectiveness, evaluating your school’s stage of improvement, and crafting a clear improvement initiative and narrative tailored to your school. You will be provided step-by-step guidance throughout the process. 

Thought leadership webinars 

Engage with contemporary research and practice from national and international experts related to school improvement, while having the opportunity to continue to connect with your peers. 

Attendance requirements

To successfully complete this program, you will need to: 

• attend, and actively participate, in all workshops and peer learning sessions 
• complete the required pre- and post-workshop activities 
• present your improvement plan at workshop 3 and provide constructive feedback to peers. 

Learning outcomes

You will gain knowledge and understanding of how to:

• evaluate you and your team’s leadership strengths and areas for growth, with consideration of how to link these to your professional development plan
• explore evidenced-based theories of improvement that articulate the role of leadership in driving school improvement and apply it in the context of your school’s journey
• diagnose the current stage of improvement in your school and set a direction and plan for achieving the goals that align to your school strategic plan and annual implementation plan, which could include implementation of the VTLM 2.0, your approach to the teaching of reading and Systematic Synthetic Phonics F-2 , aligned to FISO 2.0
• develop processes that engage staff and other stakeholders to engender trust and support change for your school improvement initiatives.

You will learn the skills to accelerate school improvement by developing leadership excellence by using relevant knowledge to solve complex problems while building relational trust.

By successfully engaging in this program, you will also exercise your dispositions of interpersonal courage, empathy, open-mindedness and perseverance.

Fees and financial support

Department of Education fully subsidises Victorian government schools.