school management
Wise words
The time we have in classes and at school is precious and limited .
School leaders share tips on how to better manage workloads .
By Emilie Lauer
More than 90 per cent of teachers across Australia said they do not have enough time to prepare lessons effectively , a Grattan Institute survey has found .
To combat the problem a recent webinar from the Institute introduced three school leaders who shared the strategies they employ in their school to reduce teacher ’ s workload .
TRUSTING EDUCATION SUPPORT STAFF The first school to share their strategy was the Elevation Secondary College , a new government school in Melbourne with a low socio-economic and multiculturally diverse cohort .
Assistant principal Sonia Loudon said “ we would not be able to do what we do if we didn ’ t trust and invest in education support staff to perform tasks for or alongside teachers ”.
At Elevation Secondary , education support staff take on teachers ’ other duties such as playground supervision or homework clubs , student support groups , phone calls to parents and more .
“ This gives teachers an extra one or two hours a week , where they can collaborate with each other and have extra time to plan their lessons ,” Loudon said .
Loudon believes it is important and necessary to see both teachers and education support staff as equals .
According to her , the key to efficiently using the help of education support staff is by “ matching the skills and experience of the staff to the gaps that the school has ”.
“ We invested some time and money to upskill our education support staff but we have absolutely made that back already with the time saved ,” Loudon said .
SHARING HIGH-QUALITY RESOURCES AND LESSON PLANS Docklands Primary School principal Adam Bright implemented a culture of shared curriculum resources and lesson plans .
According to Bright , the first step to develop high-quality shared resources is to have some clarity around the pedagogy and what is the best way to teach the curriculum .
“ I knew that I wanted our school to be ‘ knowledge rich curriculum ’, meaning our content would be spelled out in detail and we know exactly what we are going to teach in the year levels ,” Bright said .
In certain subjects , Docklands Primary School brought experts on board to help assess the best way to teach the curriculum .
In literacy , the curriculum was developed by an expert with a background in speech pathology and primary education .
Bright says sharing resources saves teachers a considerable amount of time . “ Individual teachers avoid spending hours searching for resources on Google , as many teachers elsewhere currently do ,” said Bright .
Once the curriculum is well established , teachers have more time to focus on their classroom , how they deliver their lessons and respond to students ’ needs .
Docklands Primary School is also using extra resources available online to help teachers in their everyday classes .
However , Bright mentioned that these resources aren ’ t free and need to be planned in the school budget accordingly .
MANAGING THE CALENDAR TO AVOID DISRUPTION At the independent Ballarat Clarendon College in Victoria , time is an essential and valuable resource .
“ The time we have in classes and at school is precious and limited , we need to be careful about what we do with that instructional time ,” said Head of Curriculum Reid Smith .
They manage time by using an Outlook calendar called ‘ Calendiary ’ which allows staff from different departments to set up and share a list of all the activities they have planned for the students through the year .
“ We discuss via group meeting week by week what our students will be doing . It also allows us to better understand the priority of other parts of the school that we aren ’ t always involved in ,” Reid said .
The college also uses a simple but effective shared document which highlights all the classes that will be delivered at the school for each subject and year .
“ We have a knowledge rich curriculum that we know extremely well . We know what we want our students to learn in each subject and it has been refined and shared over the years .”
By combining both documents , Reid believes that it allows the school to choose which events students will attend while limiting class disruption .
“ We decide what events are a priority and how we can manage them without too much class disruption .” ■
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