Processes that contribute to improving students’ achievement

In this week’s reflection, I will offer interpretative comments on the description of some of the processes I observed in the school that I think contributed to improving our students’ achievement.

Teachers as Equal

I believe that an environment and culture where teachers feel a sense of working with principals, vice-principals and heads as equals is important. This I think can be done through leadership distribution among teacher leaders such as subject coordinators, discipline coordinator, mentors etc. It is important to provide such collaborative structure where teachers will feel valuable. Already I know of teachers who feel appreciated about the principal asking for their inputs on school matters. What our school has going on right now seems to be in this direction. The principal and vice-principals are all attending department meetings, even the ICT PLC group discussion. They are participating as if everyone is at the same level. I do admit that there is initially a sense of worry about their presence in the meetings. But I think that if we persist with this approach, it will really work well with the teachers. And now in meetings, although heads lead in the meeting, there is always asking for inputs from teachers. Heads provide the initial thrust of discussion and then from that, the teacher leader looks at how the teachers are going to work with the group in order to have that happen. In this way, the teachers are all made to feel important.

Positive Results

Here I will illustrate how important all the school’s initiatives had been for bringing about improvements in students’ achievement. When there is assessment for learning (AfL), everything seemed to start at the same time. I personally cannot tell if it is because of the AfL, or because of the PLC’s, or if it was the structure remedial program (SRP), or it was the staff training and meetings – all these things just happening at once. All of them combined together, I believe has made us more accountable, more productive, and improved students achievement is the end result. Change in the focus on AfL is a huge factor. We now have all teachers focusing on real learning of the students and not just “covering of syllabus”. Also there is this embedment of the PLC in the weekly timetable. On top of the PLCs, there is also staff training on improving English language use for teaching and the facilitation skills and knowledge needed for PLCs. There is also staff meeting once per month. The PLCs is focused on academic teaching and learning. The staff meeting is for “housekeeping” – things we need to meet and talk about as a school. Even the change in focus around SRP (specific groups B3 →A1/2, measurable outcomes and attainable, realistic) goals this year has made a difference. I think all these play an important role in improving student achievement. If I were to attribute success to any one of these things, I will be inclined to think that it is all of them.