Thanks, everyone, for making time to come today.
We've got together as a smaller group from the PLC
to really take the discussion
around the development of our classroom observation tool
a little bit further so that we...
WOMAN: My name's Lyn Kirkby
and I'm Director of Professional Learning
at Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College.
Monte's an all-girls independent Catholic school
and we're located in North Sydney.
There's about 1,100 students here
and we're from year 7 to year 12.
As part of my role as Director of Professional Learning here,
I initiated a range of professional learning communities
that would provide opportunities for teachers
to participate in some area of leadership or mentoring
in an area that they chose
and classroom observation is one of those areas.
We've got 40 now of our 120 teachers here
who have undertaken an accreditation level
so that's variously had...
Lots of ways where we've had teachers
being observed in the classroom and doing observations.
So we just need to take the next step.
One of the key documents that I think we referred to today
is our Monte learning and teaching statement.
I think we've got a couple of copies of that around
if we need to refer to that specifically.
And the really good thing about that
is that we built it up collaboratively with the staff
and it is underpinned
by that research into the nature of feedback
and how we might give that in the classroom
with the readings from Fullan and from Frank Crawford and so on.
So I think that that will really add some good value to the discussion.
So, really, where we go now
is to sort out how we might take our current observation tool
and really improve that
to be a much better reflection of where things are moving for us.
So what sort of thoughts do people have
on where we might go with that and how we might move forward?
Well, if we take this teaching and learning statement
that we've built up here,
it seems to be a lot of the standards that AITSL are referring to anyway,
but they've been couched within our Mercy tradition
so that seems like a really good place to start
and to build on as a framework for the tool.
What do people think?
Well, as Jo said, it has those things in it,
but I think the fact that the staff have come together
to help us build that document and they've reviewed it as well
means they're already familiar with that.
We're not trying to introduce something that's new.
I mean, I think that's probably the way to go.
Do you see any problems with going that way as a structure, Chris?
I do have some concerns over staff involvement
in the process of rolling this out -
whether the peer becomes judgemental
or whether it's actually developmental.
We must have the staff as part of the process of developing it
so they have an element of ownership with it.
People are very concerned
about observations within their classroom.
We're all very proud of what we do
and nervous of other people coming in and judging us.
I'm pretty sure that the beginning teachers
won't have a problem with this
because they're really used to being observed,
but it is the...
Not the older members of staff,
but the more experienced teachers
who have been teaching for 10, 15 years
will see it as an imposition.
So that's something that we're really going to have to overcome.
Some of those issues will really need to be sorted through with the staff
to make sure that people really do feel
that it is a professional learning activity
as opposed to a judgement activity.
And I think to help with that involvement of staff
we need to really look at the educational outcomes for the students
and how this document that we're going to produce...
"Well, where's that going
"in relation to student outcomes, educational outcomes for students?"
One of the interesting things when you look at this document
is it really does pick up
on those physical and social and intellectual needs of students
and I think we'll find that there are very explicit things
in our own statement here at Monte
that we'll be able to draw on to make sure that those needs are met.
All in all, the group was nicely balanced
and I think we're probably well placed now to move forward
and we'll use that Google doc that we've set up
to really now work collaboratively
on creating a first draft of this observation tool.