School Shifts The Focus To Staff Performance

The Age

Monday September 17, 2007

Denise Ryan

When teachers at Seabrook Primary School learned that a world expert on educational leadership was going to sit in on their classes recently and quiz them about their teaching practices, some felt a little daunted.

But Seabrook Primary school principal Lyn Jobson had no qualms about letting Professor Richard Elmore from Harvard University assess the quality of her staff's teaching.

Mrs Jobson was already familiar with the professor's research, which indicated that Australia has wider variations in teacher standards than many other OECD nations. And she believed he was right.

"We asked, 'Is it reasonable to have a child in one class performing well below students in the class next door when we know the difference in standards is because of the individual teacher?' We have got to take some responsibility here."

Mrs Jobson says many educators are tentative, failing to address the issue of poor-performing staff. She resolved three years ago to ensure that all teachers at her primary school in the western suburbs - a school of 570 students that she and key staff started from scratch 10 years ago - were performing to a high level.

"Teachers can't be seen as competent professionals if they don't tackle the issues in their profession."

These efforts have paid off, with the school winning the leadership team award in the education department's 2007 excellence awards.

Mrs Jobson says inconsistent teacher quality can be addressed by first getting staff to agree that high standards are expected, then by sharing skills and knowledge.

Some staff left Seabrook as a result. "We lost a few staff, not because they weren't good teachers, but because they found the changes a bit challenging," she said.

Many teachers like to work autonomously, she says, and can find assessment by their peers confronting.

But, she says, sharing skills raises morale and removes isolation. For example, if a teacher is having problems managing students, she refers them to another teacher with expertise.

"The first teacher does not say, 'You shouldn't be saying that to me', because we have got a culture of best practice and so we are prepared to tackle any issue."

Raising standards is better than using formal processes to remove poor teachers. "That is a long, tedious path," Mrs Jobson says.

Professor Elmore gave the school positive feedback.

"He said he could see in the classes that the teachers were working in a highly professional manner and had deep knowledge of why students were doing class activities." -- DENISE RYAN

© 2007 The Age

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