School Partnerships
We spend the majority of our time working with partners in Victoria and Queensland across all school sectors. Our professional learning is tailored to the identified needs of the schools that we work with.
Why work with us?
Our professional learning experience is not a ‘one size fits all approach’. Goals and learning sessions are developed to reflect each school’s specific needs. We pride ourselves on our bespoke professional learning experience.
We offer a range of tailored ‘strategic actions’ including:
Mentoring, coaching and demonstrating
Refining use of data in order to plan authentic learning experiences.
Demonstrating effective practices and strategies in classroom.
Auditing, designing and aligning assessment tasks.
Aligning teacher’s beliefs to build collective efficacy across the school.
Establishing and strategising for KPIs with teachers and leaders at all levels.
Conducting learning walks.
Connecting ‘like schools’ to create professional learning networks.
Aligning curriculum documentation
Identifying and targeting skills and capabilities throughout the curriculum.
Establishing protocols for viewing data / evidence and comparing to curriculum.
Benchmarking student competency via rubrics, assessment criteria.
Professional learning workshops [whole school/teams]
Establishing productive professional learning partnerships.
Delivering research aligned and evidence-based professional learning.
Providing post session / between session follow-up and feedback.
Connecting learners invested in similar professional learning.
Online Learning
We offer a variety of online options for staff and student development that can be delivered via your preferred platform, including Zoom, WebEx, Google Classroom, Office 365.
Our online learning is customised according to each school’s needs. Workshops, planning meetings [small group or one-on-one] and class demonstrations are all options for this learning mode.
Workshops
An idea of the topics we cover:
Introduction to Writing: Theory and Strategy
Introduction to Reading: Theory and Strategy
Introduction to Vocabulary: Theory and Strategy
High Impact Strategies in the Classroom
Linking the Reading and Writing Workshop
Reading and Writing in Inquiry
Reading and Writing across Content Areas
Teaching Vocabulary in Meaningful Contexts
Writing - Improving Sentence Structure and Fluency
Rich Mentor Texts to Support Readers and Writers - Thinkers
Building Reading and Writing Stamina
Introduction to Reader’s / Writer’s Notebooks
Conferring with Readers and Writers
Summarising and Note Taking
Preparing for Test Reading and Writing
Developing ‘Thoughtful Learners’ - lessons in Thinking
Designing Authentic, Aligned Assessments
Leading with Purpose
Managing Change
Past workshops
Staughton Secondary College, ‘A Spotlight on Vocabulary – High Impact Vocabulary and Writing Strategies’, 2018/19
Strathmore Secondary College, ‘Creating and Maintaining a Reading Culture.’, 2018-2019
Westgrove Primary School, Writing Craft in Action : Classroom Demonstrations’., 2018-2019
Broadford Secondary College, A Workshop Series: Improving Student Writing Outcomes’., 2018-2019
Findon Primary School, ‘Improving Writing Outcomes through Focused Instruction and Mentor Texts’., 2018-2019
St Laurence’s, Padua College & Iona College, ‘A Workshop Series: Improving Student Writing Outcomes’., 2020
Our Ladies of the Southern Cross, ‘ How do we talk about writing and reading? Deepening our conversations.’, 2020
Kororoit Creek Primary School. ‘Exploring Non-Fiction Texts in Authentic Ways.’,2020
Derrimut Primary School, ‘Focus on Assessment: Designing Learning Grids’, Remote learning, 2020
Primary School Team Leaders, ‘Workshop Series: Leading Teams to Improve Literacy.’, Remote learning, 2020
Central Zone Primary Principals Association Ballarat, ‘Workshop Series: The Power of Networks for School Improvement.’, 2018/2019
Melbourne University, ‘Improving Outcomes for Students in Writing’. Workshop series UMNOS, 2014 - 2018
Bastow Institute, ‘Improving Writing Outcomes through Quality Instruction and Mentor Texts’., 2019
Wallan Primary School, ‘How Rich Texts Support Reading and Writing’., 2019
Yuille Park P-8 Community College, ‘Improving Writing Outcomes through Focused Instruction and Mentor Texts from Prep to Year 8’.,2019
DSSI School Leaders, Keilor Downs, ‘Deepening Pedagogical Knowledge around Curriculum and Practice’. Workshop Series for Team Leaders [4 Sessions], 2019
Montpellier / Torquay Primary School, ‘Improving Writing Outcomes through Focused Instruction and Mentor Texts’., 2019
St Bernardine’s Primary School, ‘High Impact Strategies for Readers and Writers.’, 2019
Penleigh Essendon Grammar P-12 School, A Literacy Workshop Series, 2018/2019
Ballarat Catholic Schools Network, ‘Improving Writing Outcomes’, 2018/2019
Mount Waverley Secondary College, ‘Planning for
Improved Instruction in Reading and Writing.’, 2018-2019
The Evidence
Jane, a teacher with 5 years’ experience.
By working with us, Jane was able to produce a tangible improvement in writing outcomes for her students over 6 weeks. Jane believed this progress was aided by:
Knowing how to diagnose and observe learning more accurately through connected, rich professional learning
Focusing on specific strategies and repeating them according to student work and observations
Giving students time to write and providing clear, specific feedback
Having high expectations for all learners
Studying tonnes of rich texts with students – letting the text do the work!
Jane now knows that her teaching makes a difference.
Year 3 Term 1 Week 3 Baseline
On a nice sunny day a nice girl lived in a invisable world with her invisible family. All of the invisable people could see everything but the visable people couldn’t see the invisable people and buildings. One day Jess and her big brother Toby went to the invisable world they called it. Jess said to her big brother Toby “Hey lets go and see the prison” Toby said to jess ”Ok!” So they secretly sprinted to the visable jail.
At the jail cops were EVERYWHERE. Then Jess acsidently bumped into a cop and got caught! Toby ran back to the invisible world and got the invisable police.
6 weeks later
As a tiny bolt from the dusty old workshop were the awakening of the rusty machines where about to come…”CRASH!” went the robots as they fell to the ground! To the biggest robot to the smallest. They all gathered around for the new baby robot that was born, Rebecca. Rebecca had a lovely shade of rose pink on her body with ruby red buttons on her chest and she had dark purple bolts on the sides of her neck added with pitch black wheels on her feet. Everyone adored her.
Nathan, Year 5 Teacher.
“Hannah’s work was supported by an extended focus on vocabulary and sentence fluency. The imagery she was able to create through her noun groups and single precise vocab was a result of visible thinking strategies such as: See, Think, Wonder & Visual Deconstruction which aligned to our mentor texts for that week. Additionally, we conducted some text orientation work, where we manipulated sentences to enhance meaning.”
Nathan took this learning in future units of writing.
Student work week 1.
Student work week 6.
