Create: Middle Leaders - Impact Case Study

Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership Impact Case Study

Create: Middle Leaders

Driving change from the middle Laurimar Primary School is committed to developing every child's unique potential as a resilient and resourceful learner in the 21st century by actively investing in its teachers.

Maree Magnabosco had already exhibited strong leadership qualities as year 6/7 transition teacher at Laurimar Primary School. As a way to build her capacity to lead both student learning and a significant restructure of the teaching team, the Principal, Jason McBean, encouraged Maree to attend Bastow’s Create: Middle Leaders program.

Maree actively pursued a journey of discovery over 18 months, emerging with a stronger understanding of who she is as both a learner and a leader. She also developed the confidence to become the initiator of fundamental changes at the school, including playing a key role in a major improvement to the school’s learning spaces.

Participant: Maree Magnabosco Teacher, Laurimar Primary School

Through workshops, small group collaboration and strong support from principals, Create fosters development of the knowledge, skills and understandings of teacher leaders as they lead and inspire others to address the unique learning needs of students and teachers in their own school contexts.

Giving Maree and two other staff members this chance to develop their leadership capabilities through Create at Bastow is a clear reflection of Jason’s belief in the power of teacher leaders and the importance of ‘having that middle tier that's really strong’.

Bastow | Create: Middle Leaders

With increased capacity to coach, mentor and share their knowledge, these three teachers became ‘teaching and learning leaders’, working as role models to other teachers to improve daily classroom practice and drive improvement across the school.

‘They still teach, but they now have the time and space to reflect, improve, inspire and support. It's a much more effective model,’ says Jason.

This structure aims to ‘shift the mindset of teachers’ by providing very specific and targeted professional learning and developing shared language and practice to improve student learning and achievement.

‘These leaders are in the classroom working and helping teachers,’ says Jason. ‘It’s a way to look at teacher practice through a student lens, so the leading teachers are really there for the students and to ultimately improve their outcomes, but the teachers are going to learn along the way.’

For Maree, empowering a small group of teacher leaders makes perfect sense because they work ‘on the front line’ dealing with students every day and are an important part of the school leadership team.

‘We're the conduit between the teachers and the leadership team—we've got a foot in both camps.’

‘These leaders are in the classroom working and helping teachers,’ says Jason. ‘It’s a way to look at teacher practice through a student lens, so the leading teachers are really there for the students and to ultimately improve their outcomes, but the teachers are going to learn along the way.’

Jason McBean

Pictured: Maree Magnabosco with student

Pictured: Student Bastow | Create: Middle Leaders

‘We have introduced new meeting schedules and time to discuss student data...

And all of this was inspired by the Bastow program.’

Middle line of five As a result of the three teacher leaders attending Bastow, Laurimar Primary has experienced a quiet revolution with a restructure of the school and workforce plan.

This restructure is based around recognising that one team leader will struggle when dealing with multiple responsibilities, such as running a classroom while managing student welfare, transition, reporting, lunchtime clubs and other daily tasks.

To counter this, the five teaching and learning leaders, including Maree, teach their own class two days each week and then spend the other three days working across other classrooms.

‘So what we did was create a teach-and-learn structure,’ explains Jason. ‘We’ve got this line of five … for two days they are teaching and then they're in other classrooms...

It’s been fantastic and I'm really comfortable and confident that this is going to be a huge success over a period of time.’

As a member of this new teacher leadership team, Maree is passionate about the power of this structure in a primary school setting.

‘We have introduced new meeting schedules and time to discuss student data,’ explains Maree. ‘And all of this was inspired by the Bastow program.’

Five leading teachers is a significant financial investment for the school, but it means that these teachers can be in other classrooms in a coaching capacity.

This structure also makes it easier to make decisions because there is a clear understanding of what's actually happening within the classroom.

‘By making us leading teachers, Jason is acknowledging the impact that middle leaders have on the school’, says Maree.

Maree also believes that the new leadership structure makes it easier for parents to understand that there’s a teaching and learning leader who’s overseeing curriculum for their children.

‘I think this sits really well with them. Whereas, in previous years, for example, the leader of a team would be responsible for everything. It’s too much.’

Space for active and engaged learning Laurimar Primary has a team teaching philosophy, with two teachers working in an open-plan classroom configuration for some classes.

Although Maree understands that open plan can work well for some learning situations, she saw distraction as a real issue when there were 120 students and at least six teachers sharing an open space, along with all their technology equipment. ‘[Laurimar] is a very open learning environment, which is the way schools are being designed and built,’ explains Maree. ‘However, I was finding challenges working within those spaces and so were other teachers. We felt that the spaces were working against us because of the noise and the visual distractions.’

Maree chose this issue as her change endeavour for the Create program. She wanted to find a way to make a significant impact on teaching and learning by improving learning spaces in the school.

‘It was a no-brainer,’ explains Maree. ‘I had to address the learning spaces and it was through the course that I learned the essential need for evidence – I needed to find the research that was relevant to our context.’

Maree began by gathering data from teachers and students at the school. She then looked into studies on sound waves and optimum noise levels in learning environments as a way to understand the science behind the issue.

Unfortunately, her initial presentation to the leadership team about her ideas for more flexible learning areas didn’t go quite as well as she had planned.

‘They weren't a fan of changing the spaces because it meant going against the school’s philosophy, so I left this first meeting feeling quite rejected,’ says Maree.

However, rather than accept defeat, Maree looked at her options and decided to push on and take time and space to develop her idea. She did more research and gathered more evidence on the science behind the idea.

‘I then presented the idea with the evidence all in one package so that they couldn’t actually refute what I was saying. And that’s what got the idea over the line.’

‘All of those ideas and how I approached that challenge all came from Bastow,’ says Maree. ‘Rather than thinking: “Okay, that's not going to work”, my response to that

rejection was very different to what it would have been had I not done the Create program.’

In response, the school has installed two sets of doors to allow for one existing area to be split into three working spaces.

‘So it’s flexible,’ explains Maree. ‘They’re bi-fold doors so they can be opened or closed. The teachers who are working in these rooms absolutely love it.’

Communicating and collaborating for change For Maree, Create not only taught her how to deal with obstacles and challenges, but it also gave her useful tools for effective communication and collaboration.

‘My whole paradigm for looking at things is different,’ she says. ‘We’re faced with challenges in many different aspects of our lives and it doesn’t really matter on the context, whether it’s at work or at home or with the students, it always comes down to communicating, listening and reflecting—these are great skills.’

Maree really enjoyed working with like-minded people with similar leadership values and was completely energised by the collaborative nature of the course.

‘The residential workshop was great for building relationships across the 40 of us,’ says Maree. ‘Using others as sounding boards, learning from them and hearing about their school’s journey was inspiring.’

Bastow | Create: Middle Leaders

Collaborating with the other participants also provided Maree with a real appreciation for what her school does well, including a targeted teaching plan so every child has a learning experience specific to their needs.

‘In this school there's 48 classes run by 53 classroom teachers, and having those five middle leader roles means there is a consistency of practice,’ says Jason.

‘These leading teachers work with every classroom teacher so everyone understands the learning intentions for every lesson. These are also visible to the students, which means they are also able to articulate those intentions.’

The course has also given Maree a much greater appreciation of evidence-informed learning as a way to achieve a targeted teaching program. The teams now integrate data analysis into their weekly meetings.

‘As well as looking at data, we're always bringing in different samples of student work depending on what area we're looking at and what we're planning,’ says Maree.

‘This provides a really clear picture of student progression and how we are meeting the curriculum, including where we need to change what we’re teaching. There’s no more guessing. There's no more assuming and there's no more generalising. It’s very specific now, and we have Bastow to thank for that.’

‘We’re faced with challenges in many different aspects of our lives and it doesn’t really matter on the context... it always comes down to communicating, listening and reflecting – these are great skills.’

Maree Magnabosco Pictured: Jason McBean and Maree Magnabosco

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