Committees

IDEAS

IDEAS! When you think about this word, what comes into your mind? In our context it stands for: Innovative, Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools. At Mackellar Primary School, our focus is to enhance learning outcomes by valuing the work of educators and their classroom. 

Our IDEAS process is being facilitated by Dr Joan Conway and Dr Dorothy Andrews, from the University of Southern Queensland. The staff at Mackellar have been discussing ways in which to incorporate the process of IDEAS within our school. 

To begin, an IDEAS Committee was created to drive this work. The committee have presented their learnings from Joan and Dorothy to the school staff and have begun to implement those ideas within the school. This has been an invaluable professional development process that has provided the resources and knowledge to equip the staff towards working collectively as a school community to form a shared vision and pedagogy towards our future. 

We started this journey by partaking in the Diagnostic Inventory of School Alignment (DISA), providing us with information that highlighted areas for school improvement. It identified challenges and successes that build a positive school community. This data was collected from students, parents and staff members via a survey. 

The IDEAS Committee presented the data from the survey to the whole school to enable a thorough data analysis. Overall, the responses from parents and students were extremely positive and indicated that the school has much to be proud of. However, we can continue to strive towards excellence and improvement. A school report card has been formulated, and previously published in our newsletter, outlining our successes and areas for improvement. 

Throughout the year, the IDEAS Committee have facilitated very successful meetings with the whole school staff. Our first steps were to celebrate and recognise Mackellar’s history. We acknowledged the school community by sharing our own values that align with our teaching, and Mackellar’s values to gain ideas of a shared vision. 

The IDEAS Committee is excited to continue working with Joan and Dorothy. Staff at Mackellar are enthusiastic and eager to continue this process. We can’t wait to continue our next steps towards future growth at  Mackellar Primary School. We hope that you are as excited as we are. 

Regards, 

Stephanie Sousa

IDEAS Committee Leader