School+-+Rutherglen+PS

=Rutherglen Primary School= This year I am coaching in three different schools. I am at Rutherglen Primary School coaching two teachers in Prep Grade, one day per fortnight. This is very little time however these teachers are very competent and have volunteered to be coached to improve their practice. This is a team-teahing class with the same literacy focus for both grades. My key role in this situation will be assisting in planning activities for differentiation. I have managed to timetable myself at the school when they have their planning time so this hopefully will lead to more meaningful independent activities.

As part of my responsibilities I have produced a Coaching Implementation Plan for each of the schools I coach. These plans are driven partly from Region and also from the school. I have used the schools' Year Level reports and AIPs as a basis for these plans. Using these plans supports me in my work and keeps my eye on the ball. The key Improvement Strategies are specific in regards to building teacher capacity in the teaching of literacy. Cathy Toll says a coach is someone who helps teachers identify their strengths, help teachers "grow'" those strengths and helps teachers to develop new strengths. A coach provides job-embedded professional development to build teachers capacity for informed decision-making. Grey areas of coaching duties that are related to coaching - student evaluation, planning or implementing whole-school professional development and sharing information with parents. Even though these plans have been written at the beginning of the year, through de-briefs and coaching conversations my coaching partners determine the focus for our coaching sessions/observations.

=Rutherglen High School= In this school I am working with the Year 7 & 8 Humanities teachers. Both year levels run team-teaching classrooms. Three out of the five teachers have taught in a team teaching situation last year. The other two members are new to it. I will be 'team coaching' where a common litercy focus will be decided upon for planning, implementation, observation and reflection. We plan to do this at a fortnightly meeting. Teachers will also be observing or noticing each other during the sessions for evidence of the focus to bring back for reflection. Through timetable constraints, I will attend this school three days one week and one day the following week.

Four out of the five teachers in these teams are very enthusiastic about the coaching and professional learning. They are keen to do professional reading and complete tasks for our PLT meetings. However I am having difficulty with one member. This member is new to both team teaching and to teaching Year Seven - she has been an English VCE teacher previously. This teacher is feeling threatened by having her teaching "on show" to the other teachers. I am adding to her stress by being there as well! She is the older member of the team and is not enjoying the team teaching at all. In our coaching conversations, she says everything is bothering her and that I am the equivalent to the old District Inspectors! I have tried to build a rapport with her - outside of the classroom we get on quite well but as soon as we are in the classroom she gets all defensive and feels threatened. The other two teachers in the team get quite frustrated with her. She was given some responsibility to teach the class but the other two teachers felt the need to take over as very little learning was happening. I have decided to step back from coaching her and continue to coach the other two teachers because I feel she is using the "coaching" as the reason for her stress and I feel it is the team teaching that is the major stress factor where her practice is being observed.

=Yarrawonga P - 12 College= For first term (probably second as well) I am working with the Grade 5 & 6 teachers. There are five teachers in this team. We will be working similiar to Rutherglen High School ie. team meeting with a common literacy focus for planning, implementation, observation and reflection. The difference here is that I will observe individual teachers and give individual feedback as well as group feedback in our refelction time. I will be in this school two days per week. At this stage I will be working in the Grade 5/6 team with the intention of going to the Year 7 & 8 team in term two. I think this will need to be in term three as I will have had very limited time in the grade 5/6s.

The work at this school I feel was very successful. I have worked with the Grade 5 & 6 teachers on a common focus. eg scaffolding learning with the gradual release of responsibility. The four step process I used - One of the new teachers to the school (graduate 2 years out) was having a few problems adapting to planning as a team (she came from a small country school where she taught grades 3 - 6 and planned by herself) She would often go off on a tangent and teach something different that was not in the plans. It took me quite a few weeks to build up a relationship with her. Once trust was established she opened up to me that she didn't know how to teach the text type in the planning. This was a turning point for us. I used the same 4 step process I use with the students to demonstrate the teaching of the text type with her. She emails and rings me regularly to ask questions and clarify her thoughts. I am continuing to coach her this term as well as the Year 7 English team at the secondary campus.
 * 1) I do, you watch
 * 2) I do, you help
 * 3) You do, I help
 * 4) You do, I watch.

=Hume Region= As part of my role as Hume Region Literacy Coach, I will be implementing the Hume Region Literacy Strategy into all of my schools. This strategy is base around the three Ps - Provision, Personalisation and Professional Learning. All schools have this in their AIPs so the work I will be doing is aligned with the school's strategic plan. I need to ensure the Hume Region Assessment schedule is adhered to and I have key dates for data collection. I attend Hume Region one day per fortnight for the School Improvement meetings, our coaches PLT meetings and administration purposes.

Each fortnight I have to submit a report to region. These reports are uploaded to the Ultranet for my Manager of the School Improvement Unit to view. At the end of each year, all coaches write a yearly report. To gather information for this report, I surveyed my coaching partners and at times included their quotes in my report. Attached is my 2010 yearly report and a couple of examples of my fortnightly report I upload onto the Ultranet.

=I used to think ........= that data was something you collected at the beginning and end of the year for the Principal and Region and you really didn't look at it again. Perhaps at the begiining of the year to group your students and in an informal way when reflecting on practice. //This worked because ....... This didn't work because .......//

=Now I think .........= that data can be used for a number of purposes. This data can be analysed and used to inform your teaching, to assess where the student is at a particular point in time and how a student learns. It can be used as a starting point for challeging teachers to think about their students and their practice. It can be used to recognise and celebrate successes. It can be used by students as well as teachers. Data can be gathered from a variety of assessment forms.

Wendy your shift in thinking of how Data can be used should enable you to lead many of the teachers in your schools to also use it in creative ways. Is there opportunities for you to sit with teachers to discuss and unpack the evidence you take from data? Are you looking at all types of data such as students work, anecdotal notes, and student feedback? I look forward to continuing this conversation when we catch up in a few weeks. Joan