A significant number of North Coast Department of Education (DoE) principals, teachers and schools continue to engage in a major innovative pilot based on the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement. Professor David Townsend from Alberta, Canada is a leading world authority on this approach and has been working directly with schools to nurture school growth. This initiative has broadened to have a national and international impact having partnered with school districts in Alberta and British Columbia as well as representatives from the other Australian states.
Internationally, schools are experiencing significant reform, shifting the educational focus and demanding new approaches to school- and community-based planning and management.
Our project has allows school communities to explore, in a contextually appropriate manner, new and innovative ways of developing a successful school- and community-based school improvement programs, whilst drawing upon a significant body of evidence of best practice from Australia, Canada and the rest of the world. The project has focused on providing support in the form of coaching, resources for schools to consult, gather data and determine appropriate responses, resulting in increased capacity for schools to provide highest quality materials and personal and learning support to students.
A feature of the initiative has been the strength of the partnership between schools, the DoE and Southern Cross University. This project has demonstrated that such a partnership is mutually beneficial, bringing about increased appreciation each others work and demands but more importantly improved outcomes for each partner. The partnership with colleagues from across Australia and Canada has been effective in developing understandings of context, challenges, plans, and outcomes from engaging in the project. The project has moved in a self sustaining phase with teams moving between schools on a voluntary basis providing support for generative dialogue sessions. The project runs annual study tours to Canada. Increasingly Directors -Educational Leadership in NSW are building generative dialogue and collaborative inquiry into the models of leadership development they are building across NSW.