Special Publication

staff professional learning

Professional Learning

Growing Deep, our national Lutheran Education Australia Framework values every employee as a leader. One of its core vocational practices is the following: 

Ongoing improvement and innovation Improvement in Lutheran schools and early childhood services is guided by its values, vision and mission. Excellence is pursued through a culture of reflection, collaboration, innovation and creativity. Evidence is gathered to develop and implement improvement plans and policies for the continuous development of teaching and learning, the institution and its facilities. Ongoing professional learning encourages all members of the community to achieve high standards and develop their service and leadership capacity.

 

Professional Learning at Good Shepherd Lutheran School is enacting our vision statement “Active and connected, growing for LIFE.” Teachers as learners impact students outcomes as they inquire, grow and immerse themselves in a world of change and opportunity.

 

 

The Australian Professional Standards for teachers, developed by the Government organization AITSL, make explicit the elements of high quality teaching. Teachers at Good Shepherd record a personal professional learning log, and are accountable to the professional standards for teaching.

The following learning principles underpin learning for all members of our community:

Professional learning at Good Shepherd can be divided into three key areas of:

  • learning that supports the whole school development plan;
  • learning that supports team development e.g. Stage and staff teams; and
  • negotiated learning which supports the individual’s personal growth according to individual interests, past learning and previous feedback.

Learning Principles -  Learning teams focused on one learning principle and set a yearlong goal/growth area and met regularly to give feedback and share their learning in this area. This led to highly focused growth across each stage learning team.

 

The whole staff focus learning areas were:

  • Embed the Good Shepherd Lutheran School Learning Principles (LP’s) into your learning through Assessment, Moderation and Feedback in the Good Shepherd context.
  • Assessment practices including  the Learning Progressions in the Australian Curriculum
  • Learning and Curriculum – The transdisciplinary planning as a stage team. 
  • Good Shepherd as a school which embeds and grows a Culture of Thinking. 
  • Agile and flexible learning spaces

AISSA Metapraxis project – the Learning Innovation Team, led by Director Learning Innovation embarked on a three year project in partnership between AISSA and the University of East London. In 2022 the team participated in the first AISSA Learning Impact Symposium at Pulteney Grammar school. The symposium was a celebration of the research undertaken by the schools involved in this project and one other. Our research and work was documented in a global research paper.

Our work was also captured in a 5 part podcast series through "The Learning Futures" site. Good Shepherd's work features in the following podcast:

The Learning Innovation Team unpacked and developed a model for mapping the growth of teachers and students using a High Impact Map. This map is particularly innovative as it helps teachers track student growth in the capabilities and dispositions contained in our learning principles. This tool will map collaboration, communication, empathy, critical and creative thinking etc.

 

Lutheran Education South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia (LESNW) - Leaders in Lutheran Learning Communities (LILLC) - The Director Senior Primary, Director Junior Primary, Director Learning Innovation and Director ELC were involved in leadership days with a focus on the LEA Growing Deep Framework. Using the framework and working within the Compassionate Systems Leadership, they are developing strategies for collective leadership. 

 

Lutheran Education South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia (LESNW) - Lab 1.5. The 4 Directors (Director JP, Director SP, Director Learning Innovation) began a journey of leadership learning and goal setting, facilitated by LESNW. The learning is based on the LESNW adopted leadership framework approach "Compassionate Systems Leadership", including Theory U and Growing Deep. 

 

Professional learning of staff is coordinated by the Director Learning Innovation. In 2022 staff were involved in the following professional learning activities:

Learning that supports the whole school development plan:

Learning that supports team development e.g. Stage and staff teams: 

  • Several of our teachers attended ‘Equip’ Professional Learning days to support them in teaching Christian Studies. Teachers who had undertaken this course were certified as Accredited to teach Christian Studies in a Lutheran school.
  • Various Learning Support workshops for the teaching team throughout the year, led by our Learning Support teachers including ILP's, differentiation.
  • Ongoing professional discussions at team and whole teaching staff level on matters of curriculum: unit evaluation, inquiry, transdisciplinary curriculum, Christian Studies,  Mathematics and Cultures of Thinking.
  • A focus on Mathematics: quality assessment tasks, familiarity with version 9 of the Australian Curriculum.
  • Specialist teachers: compare and contrast the new version 9 of the Australian curriculum with version 8, which has been used for a number of years. This includes mapping changes on content, concept, skill acquisition and assessment and the changes across year levels.
  • Professional learning discussions and development of curriculum at a Connected Schools level including ICT, Integrated Curriculum, Music, LOTE, Principal meetings, Directors meetings, Director Learning Innovation meetings.
  • Connected Schools Learning leaders beginning to plan the 2023 conference for all our staff in our sites of learning.
  • Valuing Safe Communities training was undertaken by new staff members.
  • GSPV Reconciliation Action Plan (led by RAP team)
  • Collaboration - what is it for teachers and students?  Including: supporting team ongoing growth and success; quick fix or fundamental solution? (led by each member of the Leadership team)
  • Systems awareness Thinking approaches for staff and students. 
  • Stage 1-4 focus on Spelling, various workshops led by 3 champion teachers.
  • Whole of staff 2-day Spiritual retreat
  • STEM @ GSPV (led by Digital Innovation leader)
  • Australian Curriculum – various training opportunities through the Association of Independent Schools of South Australia (AISSA).
  • Cultures of Thinking: Theory; practice; thinking routines; 8 Cultural forces – what is happening now and where to next?  Led by the Director Learning Innovation.
  • Leadership professional learning for our teachers with Positions of Additional Responsibility (PAR).
8 Cultural Forces.pdf
  • Ten teachers/leaders attended the Australian Conference on Lutheran Education in Melbourne, with the theme being "One Voice, Many Paths."  There was a strong focus on inclusion and wellbeing in the keynote presentations. 
  • Teacher Action Research Presentations: throughout the year teachers presented to their peers a learning focus from their personal Professional Learning Plan. These presentations were of a very high standard and have been collected to curate a repository of expertise across the school.