Create: Middle Leaders Program - Impact Case Study

Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership Impact Case Study

Create: Middle Leaders Program

Leading from the middle Before he entered the Create: Middle Leaders program, Ryan Oliver wasn’t convinced he had what it takes to be a leader.

Now, with several misconceptions about leadership well behind him, Ryan is confidently leading from the middle to achieve significant improvements in Carisbrook Primary School’s approach to teaching and learning.

Ryan, a leading teacher at Carisbrook Primary, says the Create program has significantly improved his confidence, working relationships and leadership ability. And the ripple effects of his transformation are having widespread impact across the school.

Participant: Ryan Oliver Leading Teacher Carisbrook Primary School

‘Create has changed my life, and I don’t say that lightly,’ says Ryan. ‘It’s been such an amazing journey and I hope many other people get the chance to experience it.’

He found many aspects of the Create program unexpected and surprising. In particular, he hadn’t expected the course to be so aligned with his specific workplace context.

‘I don’t think you’d find a more tailor-made or individualised professional development opportunity out there,’ he says.

‘When I’ve done other professional development, I’ve never felt they’re looking at exactly what I’m doing and making

Bastow | Leading from the middle

it really worthwhile for me, for my school and my context.

That’s what sets the Create program apart – the work was based around the context of the school I work in.’

Ryan’s greatest surprise was how quickly the program began to change his thinking and sense of self.

‘My thoughts about myself and my context changed in such a short time frame,’ he says. ‘It’s made me understand who I am professionally and enabled me to be more comfortable with that.

‘Once the change in my own thinking happened, I noticed that people back in my school were treating me a little bit differently – I seemed to be getting more respect and people were asking me for advice on a multitude of different things.’

Before doing the Create program, Ryan had doubted his own natural leadership ability. As a result, he’d modelled his leadership style on some of the people he’d previously been led by – and the results had been less than ideal.

‘I felt that I had to be the strong, confident person with all the answers and be up the front leading all the time,’ he explains. ‘Now, I appreciate that as a leader it’s okay not to know all the answers as long as you tap into the person who does have some answers and empower that person – and that could be anybody on your team.’

He’s now more comfortable and confident as a leader and views his relationships with colleagues differently.

Communication with his team has become more honest, frequent and rewarding. He also takes things less personally and has learned to let go and focus on what’s really important.

Participants in each Create program intake form small support groups that operate for the duration of the course, and often beyond. In Ryan’s case, he’s in a continuing support group with three peers from other primary schools.

‘The people in my support group are amazing – very knowledgeable, professional and supportive,’ Ryan says.

‘My colleagues envy that because, as teachers, we usually don’t get the time or opportunity to establish that kind of peer support outside our own school.’

Ryan says the program has cemented his love of teaching as a profession and his commitment to continuing professional learning around leadership.

‘My passion for the job’s still there and meeting new people through the Create program has kept the flame burning,’ he says. ‘Bastow’s definitely the place to go for any sort of educational leadership training. And to say that I’m inspired to continue my learning journey is an understatement.’

‘Create has changed my life, and I don’t say that lightly.’

Pictured: Ryan with fellow colleague Kate McLoughlin

Embracing the student voice Before attending the program’s first workshop, Ryan completed research into student attitudes to better understand his school’s context. This unique content, data and workplace context underpinned his learning while completing the program.

‘Not only did I get a chance to look at how my students viewed learning, but I also got to have that evidence analysed by the other people who were in the course,’ says Ryan. ‘So I came away with a wealth of information and perspectives that I’d never thought about before.

‘And an evidence-based conversation is always going to be more powerful back at my school,’ he says.

Having found his own voice as a leader, Ryan is committed to supporting the school’s efforts to incorporate ‘student voice’ and perspectives from the wider school community into its planning and practices. ‘Getting feedback is really important to help us understand how effective our teaching is,’ he explains.

The school surveyed current and former students, parents and staff about how they see the school, the quality of learning and what they’d like changed. This feedback will enrich the teaching team’s planning and the school’s new four year strategic plan.

Ryan is also working to incorporate student perspectives into his own teaching practice. He listens more closely to the students in his classes and asks their opinions about how they want to learn.

Bastow | Leading from the middle

Priority teams improve student learning The cumulative learning Ryan experienced while doing Create has given him a practical repertoire of different ways to tackle and achieve change, while maximising the outcomes for students.

Undertaking a major change endeavour is a requirement of the Create program. Ryan’s change project was to establish priority teams involving all members of the school’s teaching team.

He initially established two priority teams, which were tasked with improving teaching and learning in literacy and numeracy. Their initial findings led to the creation of two more priority teams – one covering integrated curriculum and the other looking into specialist areas including art, Indonesian, health and physical education.

Every teacher in the school is in either the literacy or numeracy team and one of the other two groups.

Ryan leads the numeracy team and is a member of the integrated curriculum team.

The teams’ investigations identified a number of areas for improvement. These include the need to embed teaching that supports the real world application of knowledge, improves student wellbeing and instils positive behaviours.

‘Next term, we’re bringing together all our weekly and term planners to redevelop them from the ground up,’ says Ryan. ‘We’ll be focusing on what knowledge, skills and attitudes we want our students to learn, using the Know/Do/Be model; how we’re going to teach and

embed these approaches; and how we’re going to communicate that to parents and students.’

He learned about the Know/Do/Be model during the Create program and says it supports a ‘whole student’ approach.

‘We, like many other schools, have tended to focus our teaching on developing students’ knowledge,’ he explains.

‘They’ve got a good knowledge base in numeracy, literacy and other areas, so now we’re devoting more attention to teaching our students how to apply what they learn to real life situations. It’s a big task, but the whole team is on board and we’re really excited.’

The school is also introducing a new student wellbeing model and associated professional development.

The successful priority teams initiative helped Ryan overcome any remaining doubts about his ability to succeed in a leadership role.

‘Being able to see the priority teams come to fruition was extremely powerful,’ he says. ‘I’m particularly excited to see where our investigations take us and how we can teach more effectively.

‘The best thing is that we’re all on track to continuously improve, grow and evolve together.’

Transforming a manager into a leader Carisbrook Primary’s Principal, Barbara Wilson, says Ryan went ‘from strength to strength’ as he progressed through the Create program.

She says the fresh knowledge and ideas he has brought to their discussions and his willingness to be open to reflective conversations and learning are ‘a huge benefit’.

‘It’s really important as a principal to have a leading teacher I can have those deep conversations with around how we move things forward and how we support and develop people,’ explains Barbara.

She says the knowledge Ryan brought back from Bastow is being clearly translated throughout the school. For example, the priority teams and professional development sessions he initiated have deepened the teaching team’s awareness of students’ attitudes to learning.

At the time of writing, Carisbrook Primary is nearing the end of its four year strategic plan and has completed the investigations for its four yearly review. Barbara anticipates the new strategic plan will reflect significant changes arising from Ryan’s priority teams initiative.

‘As we started to delve into our school review with staff, the readings he’d shared, the thinking he’d done and the talks and conversations he’d had were coming back to us from other members of the team,’ she explains. ‘These investigations are telling us we need to look at more than literacy and numeracy in terms of developing our students; they have real needs in other areas that we need to address.’

Pictured: Ryan discussing program with Principal Barbara Wilson

Pictured: Colleague Shandelle Wood teaching class

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‘The best thing is that we’re all on track to continuously improve, grow and evolve together .’

Barbara says Create gave Ryan the capacity to look beyond the daily demands of being a leading teacher to consider the ‘big picture’. ‘It gave him the confidence to move into what I would call leadership rather than management,’ she adds.

She believes Create is ideal for anyone already in or about to take on a leading teacher or team leader role, because: ‘It gives them the knowledge and the confidence to look at their practice and understand how it can impact across the school, and that’s invaluable.’

Barbara is keen to give more members of her team the opportunity to develop their leadership abilities through Create and other Bastow courses and programs. And she emphasises that participants must have full support from their principal or deputy principal, so they can apply what they learn to achieve meaningful outcomes.

‘You need to be prepared to give the time for them to follow through and test out the ideas they bring back from learning at Bastow,’ she explains. ‘Because the work that comes out of this should be together-work.’

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