Something changed

A day at the Australian School Improvement Summit

Dr Ben Jensen

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Yesterday was the second time I have attended the Australian School Improvement Summit organised by Elena Pasquini Douglas and her team at The Knowledge Society. This event brings together people from across Australian education who are committed to the science of learning, including explicit teaching and a knowledge-rich curriculum. There are school and system leaders present and, due to Elena’s superior networking and advocacy skills, philanthropists, politicians and journalists are also keen to engage.

This year’s event marked a watershed and it’s not just one reached in my mind—it was a main talking point of the summit.

Back in 2015, when I first became involved in researchED Australia, attendees were noticeably focused on phonics and structured literacy. The big name speakers were experts in these areas and there were probably as many speech pathologists in attendance as there were teachers. This was welcome because we had a big problem with early reading instruction. However, I knew that in England, where researchED was founded by Tom Bennett, many of those most engaged were secondary teachers. That seemed a distant prospect in Australia in 2015.

I was reminded of this in conversation with Natalie Wexler. Natalie gave an exemplary keynote speech on the equity case for a knowledge-rich curriculum. She is an engaging speaker who eschews jargon and who will be speaking at a number of events while she is in Australia, not least Saturday’s researchED Sydney. However, the tale she told of America was similar to my experience in Australia in 2015—the American debate, by and large, is about phonics and little else. I suggested Natalie take heart from our example, although she highlighted structural issues—chiefly, the extreme decentralisation of education in the U.S.—that may prevent a similar evolution. Even if the whole of the rest of the world is talking about something, I guess it is still possible for Americans, in general, to not notice.

After Natalie Wexler, we were in for some bad news. Dr Ben Jensen of Learning First had 20 minutes to brief us on his findings on Australia’s curriculum. One statistic that stood out was Learning First’s calculation that the Australian Curriculum: Science contains about 57% less content than the average for similar school systems. This puts a statistic to the qualitative argument I have made for some time. Two thirds of the science curriculum is just waffle about ‘science as a human endeavour’ and so on.

Ben also explained the curious paradox as to why teachers complain that such a thin curriculum is too crowded: it is a failure of sequencing. For example, England carefully sequences knowledge of body systems right through primary school and into secondary and yet Australia does not mention it until Year 8. However, when it is mentioned, it is with a broad statement that would be impossible to teach to students who had not experienced that sequencing and would indeed, at that point, represent far too much to introduce. What is to be done? I am currently of the view, which I think Ben shares, that we cannot reform this mess in any meaningful way and will have to develop our own grass-roots solutions.

Lisa Holt of Rosebud Secondary College then spoke to us about her school’s experience with Classroom Mastery—a whole school approach to behaviour. Lisa has visited us at Clarendon and it is time for us to visit and learn from Rosebud. I am particularly impressed with their idea of a routine for everything. As Lisa explained, the young staff have leaned into Classroom Mastery, but the experienced staff are also on board because they see its benefits. That is a strong reform.

Murat Dizdar who heads up the New South Wales education department then spoke. He seems to be on board with the science of learning, but his focus was more on personal anecdotes and the way he has sought to improve the working life of teachers in New South Wales.

We then moved into an interesting panel discussion on educational technology, a panel discussion on improvement in complex contexts and a panel discussion about school leadership that I took part in. In this last panel, I made remarks to the effect that in my experience, most teacher education in Australia actually makes trainees worse prepared for the classroom. I was then challenged by a couple of teacher educators in the audience. I believe this was a worthwhile debate.

Yesterday evening, we headed to dinner to listen to Elena speak and then a discussion between Sir Nick Gibb, former UK schools minister, Erica Stanford, New Zealand education minister and Courtney Houssos, New South Wales education minister. Courtney Houssos is covering this role for Prue Carr as Carr attends to her health. Nevertheless, Courtney Houssos is highly knowledgeable on education, a subject that has interested her since her party were in opposition.

What was notable is that this panel represented both sides of politics—the centre-left and the centre-right. Education should not be a left-right issue; it should be an effectiveness issue led by the evidence and that is how these politicians see it. They are unusual in taking a genuine interest in their brief and reading the literature. This is exquisitely valuable to our education systems. Too many education ministers are just passing through on their way to what they imagine is a more glamorous role. They either take the advice of (non)experts in universities and the bureaucracy or imagine general principles they learned in the third year of their economics degree will be sufficient to fix things. Neither works.

The same dynamic was apparent last year when Sir Nick Gibb, who is a former Conservative minister, appeared alongside Ben Carroll, Victoria’s Labor education minister. Not only were they on the same page, they spoke eloquently of facing the same frustrations. This is not a party political issue, or at least it should not be.

So, has something changed? This was the question asked in various ways throughout the day. Are we on the brink of an irreversible shift or are we just in a room with likeminded people?

Both.

Sir Nick Gibb and his co-author, Robert Peal, have recently released a book, Reforming Lessons, about how change was achieved in education in England over the last decade-and-a-half. In a chapter titled ‘The Network Effect’, they explain the importance of a small group of dedicated individuals and how they, collectively, can transform policy and practice for the better.

That is the group that Elena and The Knowledge Society brought together yesterday.

That is the group that you are a part of.

Together, let’s make a change.