Explore how small schools can navigate curriculum change through purposeful collaboration, planning, implementation and reflection through Michelle and Bianca's experience. Hear how Assistant Principal, Curriculum and Instruction (AP C&I) teams, communities of schools and the NSW Department of Education phases of curriculum implementation resources can strengthen teacher practice and build collective efficacy. Discover practical approaches that help schools contextualise curriculum implementation to meet the needs of their setting. Most importantly, explore the leadership shift that supports schools to move beyond managing change toward continuous improvement.

Michelle

The following podcast is brought to you by the school and system leadership team in the Curriculum Directorate of the NSW Department of Education.

The podcast focuses on teaching principal and subject experts sharing their experiences to support all. These individual experiences are only one of many ways schools can work towards curriculum implementation. Welcome to our podcast, small school, big impact bite-size strategies for leading curriculum. Our focus in today's session is enacting a new syllabus.

I'd like to recognise the ongoing custodians of the lands and waterways where we work and live. We pay respect to elders past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in New South Wales achieves their potential through education.

Today, we're exploring a few ideas to support enactment of a new syllabus. These sessions are like reaching out to the brains trust, not because any of us think we have it all nailed. Usually it's the opposite, but because together sharing ideas that can be used, improved, and innovated upon all helps build our collective understanding.

I am for those of you who I've not met before, the leader of K to 12 initiatives, which spans a really big portfolio including STEM education, Aboriginal education, professional learning, coordination, effective teaching practices, and school and system leadership, which is home to the small and unique schools team. Which is where the idea for this teaching principals podcast emerged. Trying to find willing teaching principals, one of whom I've got with me today, who we can persuade into recording a conversation with us that we can then share with colleagues across this vast landscape of New South Wales. Giving you all a chance to tap into conversations that might offer you a new idea or some affirmation at a time, and a place that works for you.

So today. We wrangled Bianca Rhodes, who gets to work in the gorgeous little village not far from Grafton, where B's husband plays the bagpipes in the Jacaranda festival that takes place every spring. And when she's not listening to that magic at home, she's TPing it up with about 72 students near the river at Grafton.

So Bianca, I'm gonna hand over to you to tell us a little bit more about your school.

Bianca

Thanks, Michelle. Yes, we're very lucky here in Ulmara. We sit in beautiful Yaegl country on the northern coast of New South Wales. I'm very proud teaching principal. I have been in the role for five years now and my school, Ulmara Public School. We've got 72 students as you mentioned and we run stage based classes. So I've got a kindergarten, stage one, stage two, and stage three class, which is fantastic. I've got a range of teachers here. I've got some very experienced teachers. I've got some highly accomplished lead teachers, and one or two teachers that are quite new to teaching as well.

It's a beautiful place to come to every day.

Michelle

I wonder, in thinking about Enact, could ask you to share a little bit about some of the processes that you went through in the maths and English work. Because my bigger question is what's been the same and different over time, how you're addressing the CHPS syllabuses compared to how you might have addressed enactment of maths and English might be really neat just to share some of the work that you and your network have done in particular in the enactment of mathematics and English.

Bianca

Absolutely. Yeah, Michelle. One of the resources that my AP C&I use a lot is actually the websites under each phase. And those reflective questions, they're perfect for me as a teaching principal because they are at both levels in which I operate, therefore teachers and then therefore leaders as well. So that guides my thinking and my planning a lot around where we're at.

So when we were in the enact phase of the English and math syllabus, we set up through our Clarence Valley community of small schools, a couple of communities of practice which were really beneficial for the staff. So we had a community of practice operating for teachers. So K-2 staff, 3-6 staff because our K-2 staff were a year ahead of our 3-6 staff when units of work was released. So they were fantastic because they provided the staff with an opportunity to really delve in and have a look. And this is really important, I think, Michelle. Not delving straight into the units of work. We went back to looking at the syllabus, looking at the pedagogical changes in the syllabus and those core differences between the old syllabus and the new syllabus. So that I think there was a risk of us delving straight into the units and not having that prior work and not really building that prior knowledge and learning so that we can, it's almost like we were trying to ease the cognitive load of these teachers, right? And linking it to the other schemas that existed around learning and pedagogy before we jumped straight into the units of work. So they were really efficient and we got some great feedback from people around those. So they weren't just focused on resource building that was definitely a part of them, but they were also focused on improving the knowledge as well around those techniques and the syllabus documents. And then we also led a community of practice for the AP C&Is in our Clarence Valley community of schools, and that focused on how they could support their teachers through these changes.

What systems and structures did they have already in their schools? They're questions that come directly from that enact website around the reflective questions. So those things, like what systems and structures do you already have within your school that can help support these changes in the syllabus and these changes in pedagogy as well. So the AP C&I had a slightly different focus, but when they were combined, they had a really big impact in our schools around those. AP C&I being able to support at the coalface, the implementation and the actual teaching, assessing and reporting of the new English and math syllabus.

Michelle

And then as you've come to grapple with the CHPS syllabuses and the rollout of that, what's been different? If there's been any differences in the way that you're tackling enacting those syllabuses?

Bianca

So we tend to approach the syllabus implementation in the same way here at Ulmara Public School, and I know it's consistent across our network too. I always try and plan out the three phases of engage, enact, and embed.

So those overarching ideas are very similar for each syllabus. But then you're right, there are nuances that come in with the different ones. So for us at the moment, we're still in the engaged phase of the CHPS syllabus. The next steps will be enacting that and probably the biggest difference that we're looking at is contextualising that for our small school setting. What that looks like, and as you know, there are small schools within small schools. So, a small school here in Grafton that might be K to 6, will operate very differently from my school, which is stage based. So we are taking those scope and sequences at the moment, we're taking those key ideas and thinking about what they'll look like in the context of Ulmara Public School. The way we're supporting our staff remains the same though. We're still looking for those key things in enact that will be illustrations of practice that we can look towards, and that's where those explicit teaching strategies are coming in because they actually overlay beautifully across all KLAs. So that all will continue to be a focus for us, how we can put those in and using those great illustrations of practice that are there in the Department of Education websites. And then thinking then about, some lesson observations, providing feedback to the teachers. That cycle of, let's have a go. Let's look at it, let's implement it. Let's take five weeks, do a lesson observation, get some feedback, and move through that teaching and like learning cycle again with it.

Michelle

It's, it's almost like you do like a mini situational analysis each time. Coupled with like cycles of inquiry or, you know, depending on which framework. You use, plan, do reflect. Let's try some things around that and see what works, what doesn't work, and what we need to refine. And then let's figure out where we are. Next and it just keeps spiraling through. And in a way you talked about how supporting cognitive load of teachers, I think structures like that, then also help in idea of that making connections.

Part of explicit teaching too, right? Like you're then able to connect this learning that we're having here relates still back to this learning as well. Bianca, as we come to conclude our session today, thinking about or sharing with us an ignition ideas, what is one thing you think that teaching principals could use to light up their school tomorrow?

You've probably given us about 32, but what's your final one?

Bianca

Oh look, the final one probably Michelle, is actually about the teaching principal themselves because it is really difficult, like we are in such a privileged position to be able to move from that hotspot of the classroom and having a play with curriculum, to then also leading teaching and learning and leading change in our schools. But I think we actually have to make sure that we quarantine time for that as well, because we can fall into that trap of being stuck in that operational mode. And while there's definitely a need for that. And my own personal views on, I kind of like to look at my leadership in a continuum, and compliance sits at one end, and I understand that I have a responsibility for that and all of that.

But as far as I can sit at the other end, which is continuous improvement, that's where I like to sit because, and that's where I like my staff to sit with me as well, because then our work matters and it has an impact on student outcomes. So that's where I think my ignition idea comes from today, is to quarantine yourself some time. For me it's great if you can timetable it in, if you can make it a day when you've got an office person in a SAM or SAO, even better, because then you're not answering the phones when they ring and those sort of things too. And it's that real chance for you to focus on what's important, not what's urgent, because sometimes those urgent matters fill our day. But being able to have that weekly opportunity to sit down and look at those big reflective questions. Look at your school plan. Have a talk to your AP C&I if you're lucky enough to have them there on the same day. That's really critical, and I think it's something that we can owe ourselves to lock away that time, just an hour a week to start with, to really focus on those important things for our school.

Michelle

Thanks Bianca, and in wrapping up today then that's a really good shout out then to any of our teaching principal colleagues who have managed to quarantine some of their time to be able to tune in and listen to this episode of the podcast. In wrapping up today, I'd really like to thank you so much for finding some time for us.

To share in a really short, brief format, just some of the things that you are doing in your school and with your communities of school to support your teachers, be they very new and into the space as you have, as well as some of our more experienced colleagues into some pretty substantial syllabus change and thinking about that from the perspective of what is it that we can do to really continue to uplift and deepen our practice and understanding to support the students in our care.

Michelle: Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences. We look forward to listening to others share their experiences next time. Have a lovely rest of your day.