A Learning Culture Creates Success

Schools have the most success when all teachers and leaders are working to the same goal, celebrating achievement and driving ongoing improvement. Without internal accountability this is not possible.

“Internal accountability occurs when individuals and groups willingly take on personal, professional and collective responsibility for continuous improvement and success for all students (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009)”

We have developed the T2L Framework to lead our discussions, writings, videos and Professional Learning about Leadership and School Improvement. With the 7 Foundations in place, ongoing improvement and internal accountability is possible.

  • Key Targets and Expectations

  • Internal Leadership Development

  • Ongoing Professional Learning

  • Resourcing

  • Coaching and Support

  • Assessment and Monitoring

  • Feedback

Developing Learning Cultures

Do my teachers look at student data and take ownership?

How do I get the teacher to take ownership of their performance?

How do I empower the teacher, so they believe they can make a difference?

How can i help teachers see they need to build stronger relationships with students?

When I thought about school improvement and establishing a culture, I didn't want to create a system where the leaders were the only ones taking responsibility.  I wanted this to be a team effort.  If External Accountability was driving my improvement then I needed an internal system to drive teacher improvement. I created an intensive professional learning plan for the first 12 months, but this alone did not guarantee uptake in the classroom.   We have all been to a great PD then never followed it up back at school.  It was the expectations, support and follow up that we put in place that ultimately led to our success. 

I drive past my local school each morning and they have a big sign out the front stating ‘High Expectations’  It’s easy to say and a great selling point for prospective enrolments.  But does it actually mean anything?  High expectations alone will not make a difference if the teacher doesn't have the capacity or support to improve.  Every change I put in place I had six key factors supporting it.

1. Key Targets and Expectations

Everything you present to the team needs to be linked to a long term plan.  It needs to be carefully planned with clear expectations of what it will look like in your school.

2. Internal Leadership Development

You have to have 100% support from all members of your leadership team when putting the plan in place. I would often take my leadership out of the school for the day and workshop our latest idea.  That gives everyone a chance to read the information, take it in and ask questions.  It also gives you a chance to see who is on board and who isn't.  You need to check in with the leadership every week when something is new.  There will be pockets of resistance and they will need your support.


3. Ongoing Professional learning 

One PD day isn’t going to make any difference.   They are a good idea to launch an idea, but you need follow up throughout the year.  I would sign the consultant up to a minimum of four days in the first year.  Day one to launch then follow up days to provide demonstration lessons, observations, planning advice  and additional workshops.

4. Coaching and support 

You are going to have different uptake of new initiatives for a whole number of reasons. To get everyone on board you need a plan for coaching and support.  This is where it is vital you put the time and effort into developing the middle leaders who are on the ground running the program.  They are having tough conversations with teachers about why they haven't tried the new ideas.

5. Monitoring

No matter what the change was I would put some sort of check and balance in place to ensure we were making progress.  It might be setting a target that 95% of students reach reading benchmark by the end or term or setting a date that each teacher had to have their individual learning plans in place.  Sometimes you have to be creative but you have to follow up.

6. Feedback

With all change there needs to be two way feedback.  You need and your leaders need to be providing feedback throughout the implementation period.  Plus you need to have time at the end of the term or semester to have a whole staff discussion about the positives and areas for improvement.  I would generally wait a little while so leaving it to the end of term is important as there can be panic and resentment about ‘another’ change as you want pragmatic and thoughtful feedback rather than emotion.

Without realising it, I had established a process of internal accountability across a number of layers of my school.  It is only on reflection that I realise this work created the culture I was looking for.  I strongly believe a lack of internal accountability is why schools remain stagnant and unable to achieve long term sustainable improvement.  

Elmore and colleagues (2004) identified “building a collaborative culture that combined individual responsibility, collective expectations, corrective action - that is internal accountability as the main features of successful schools”.  He added  “They also had transparent data on instructional practices and student achievement as key features”.

When I started as a principal I had a preconceived idea of what accountability of student learning would look like, but I soon realised I needed these processes across all aspects of my school.

Mark McKelson