Hands On Heads Literacy Coaching 

Dear Principals

Happy week 8 of the term. 

I imagine the anticipation of the current NAPLAN testing has brought with it a mix of emotions- hoping all has gone well for you, your teachers and your students.

At the moment, there seems to be many schools, especially in the Years 5-9 space, who are looking at transforming their literacy blocks or their English classes. One common question is, What happens to our students who can capably read and write?

What’s next? It’s only natural for teachers (and leaders) to feel concerned and uncertain when change is present. We often see teachers resisting change or holding on to previous practices because they’re scared or they may not feel confident or comfortable in their teaching practice to try something new or different.

Take this group of Year 5/6 teachers I’m currently coaching, after having the privilege of working alongside them last year. In 2024, they were bringing about new and explicit initiatives to embed novel study and literature study units into their literacy practices- and the teachers had no idea where to begin. At the beginning of 2024, I asked them how they were feeling, and here’s some of what they described:

• ‘Hesitant.’
• ‘Worried about the change.’
• ‘How will it look?’

By the end of the year, when I asked them how they were feeling about having transformed their literacy blocks to incorporate explicit teaching of literacy, language and literature skills, student agency and choice, and having provided students with the opportunity to collaborate, problem solve and be creative (yes, it can still happen in a literacy block!), they had this to say:

So if you and your leadership teams are finding it difficult to transform literacy blocks or English classes to align with your school’s initiatives, remind yourself (and your teachers) to try, give something a go and see what’s possible…

Have a great week.