Maryborough Regional College

Story recorded in 2001

The Palmerston Campus of Maryborough Regional College has recently brought about a significant change in the delivery of its curriculum at Years 7 & 8. The campus has successfully implemented the Team Small Groups Model and is focussing on planning and delivering Integrated Curriculum across both year levels. The Gatehouse Project has provided important principles, data, strategies and motivation to assist the process of change. One staff member described it as giving permission to continue the "dreaming about how the school might be".

Background

Maryborough Regional College is situated 185 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, Victoria, in the Central Goldfields Shire. Maryborough is a regional town of approximately 8500 people, with mixed employment opportunities. Some growth industries, such as printing, provide employment opportunities, but as other industries have recently experienced closure or downsizing and most employment is on a casual basis, there is little sense of job security or permanence. The community has high levels of unemployment, especially youth unemployment.

The dual-campus college was formed in 1994 through the amalgamation of the technical school and high school, creating a complex interplay of very different school cultures. The Junior Campus comprises 380 year 7 & 8 students (aged 12-14) and the Senior Campus comprises 582 Year 9-12 students (aged 14-18). Many of the students attending the school come from local small towns, smaller rural settlements and isolated farms, and many are from single parent families. Given the broader social climate of the region, a substantial proportion of students at the school receive government funding for their studies and there are few students from families with languages other than English.

When the school was approached at the end of 1996 to become involved in the Gatehouse Project, the leadership team quickly saw the opportunity for using the project to adopt a more proactive rather than reactive approach to addressing the well-being of its students. The school had a Student Welfare Co-ordinator and a Chaplain and their work had tended to be largely focussed on responding to the needs of individual students. Year level co-ordinators' roles also had a large component of student support, but again, this often meant responding to individual students, often in crisis situations.

When the Gatehouse Project was outlined to staff, there was broad recognition that emotional well-being was key to all the issues the school was wanting to address. It was quickly seen within the school that the project didn't belong in a Key Learning Area, or just with student support staff, but needed to belong to everyone. It was seen as a way to link and address all of the different issues affecting student well-being. Moreover, the idea of enhancing emotional health was seen to be important not only for students but also for everybody in the school community. The Gatehouse Project resonated with what the school wanted to change.

How was a team established?

Establishing a team to work on the issues raised by the Gatehouse Project initially revolved around the enthusiasm of some outstanding individuals in the school, who provided the leadership and vision to put ideas into practice. Modelling of the Gatehouse Project's philosophy was important, particularly the theme of promoting positive regard through:

• the professional development activities and the critical friend from the Centre for Adolescent Health
• through the College Principal, who encouraged staff to take risks and try new ways of doing things
• through other key staff who found that the Gatehouse Project gave them permission and resources to really focus on building more positive student-centred classroom environments.

For student support services staff, the project provided a framework for extending their work into broader areas of prevention and early intervention and to contribute to policy and program development in areas that were not traditionally considered student welfare.

Over time, different staff members have been involved in the project team. The core of these staff have been:

• members of the leadership team
• year level co-ordinators
• junior sub-school co-ordinators
• student support staff.

How did the school use the data from the survey and school audit processes to inform planning and determine priorities?

Understanding the theoretical framework that underpinned the project was important. Returning at regular intervals to the three core themes of security, communication and positive regard has helped to keep the work focussed as new developments occur. Initially, the student survey data gave good justification to addressing concerns that had already been discussed in various school forums. In particular, the student data strongly supported the need to start by addressing:

• peer relationships and bullying in the classroom
• engagement of students with teaching and learning.

The school team did not:

• focus intensely on individual measures within the student data
• adopt strategies which focussed on single issues.

The school team did:

• use the data as a steering mechanism, a broad-brush profile of the school's areas of strength and areas for further improvement
• use this profile to support a whole school approach for promoting connectedness to school, engagement in learning and emotional well-being
• use the student data and audit process as reference points against which they could consider what they were trying to achieve
• see that the issues identified by the student data and the school audit suggested a need for a more holistic approach to promoting the well-being of students and staff.

What strategies were used to address identified priorities?

The key vehicle for implementing change in the areas of concern identified became the Team Small Groups Model (TSG). This model offered the opportunity to create an authentic environment within which students could learn about and practice:

• collaborative learning practices
• conflict resolution processes
• problem solving strategies
• integrated and challenging learning experiences.

In order to implement the TSG model, the campus staff adopted some significant processes and strategies. These included:

• time for preparation for implementation. The staff committed a year to the process of professional development, both in-house and external. Much of this was staff led and staff initiated
• a commitment to staff receiving professional development as teams rather than individuals. For example, 10 staff attended the regional student welfare conference in 1997. This allows a more consistent and shared exposure to new ideas and reflection on current practice. It meant that specialist knowledge and skills were not held in particular people or positions
• student teams and teacher teams were multi-disciplinary and encouraged to work across subject boundaries. A striking outcome of this has been that when things were not working as well as they might have been, staff pitched in to address problems, for example rewriting curriculum documents
• integrated curriculum. In the first year an integrated unit across key learning areas culminated in an expo in the city town hall where students presented their team projects to an audience of over 1000 visitors. The feedback from this provided a powerful source of positive regard for students, teachers and the school community
• a focus on the dynamics of relationships, between students, students and teachers and college staff. Emphasis has been increasingly placed on negotiating, fairness, modelling of co-operative behaviours, being able to apologise and back down where appropriate
• the building of key principles of TSG and the Gatehouse Project into staff handbooks and job descriptions
• the involvement of student support staff in more mainstream areas of school life
• the involvement of college staff in providing professional development for teachers from other schools, a powerful source of positive regard and a means of reflecting upon and honing the shared beliefs and understandings of the teaching teams.

What role have teachers, parents and students had in developing and implementing these strategies?

Teachers

Teachers clearly had a key role in initiating change and maintaining momentum, especially through the teaching teams. Involvement of parents has been an increasing focus.

Student Support Services staff

Student support services staff has played a prominent role in keeping the key themes and principles of the Gatehouse Project at the forefront of the collective mind throughout planning and implementing new initiatives. They have also become more closely involved in policy and program development and classroom practice.

Parents

Some parents have contributed to development of policies, for example the anti-bullying policy. The exposition gave parents an opportunity to become closely acquainted with the learning experiences of their children. Greater involvement of parents in authentic activities remains a challenge.

Students

Students have increasingly been involved in the initiation of change. One way has been in the development of policy, for example through the SRC rewriting the anti-bullying policy for students by students. A most impressive example of student involvement in change has been the student survey of other students about the teaching and learning practices that create positive and negative attitudes to school. These were gathered, analysed, graphed and charted and presented back to the teaching staff. The issues which emerged from this survey again highlighted the key themes of security, communication and positive regard as cornerstones of good student-teacher relationships and therefore of engagement with school and learning.

What strategies implemented by this college might be useful for other school communities?

The key strategy of adopting a vehicle for change that involved all key learning areas and support staff and focussed broadly rather than on single issues has applicability to other school communities. Within that approach, some specific practices that have been effective include:

• leadership which encourages ownership of change by the whole staff and allows time for planning the implementation of change
• student support services staff who are involved in the broad spectrum of curriculum, welfare and management planning and activities
• staff meetings which are structured to aim for consensus and problem solving rather than adversarial contests
• Team Small Groups as a model for implementing a fundamental change of structure of classes and teaching styles to promote engagement, Cupertino, collaborative learning, problem solving and supportive relationships for both teachers and students
• establishment of teacher teams which cut across traditional subject areas
• physical spaces that promote staff interaction, both professionally and socially, i.e. a work staff-room where teachers from all key learning areas are located with spaces for both private work and shared work, and social staff-room with regular group activities such as Thursday shared lunches
• the linking of curriculum, student support and management when considering future directions for the school
• involvement of the whole school community in addressing bullying and harassment, for example in professional development and in developing policies and strategies for preventing bullying and dealing more effectively with incidents when they occur
• peer mediation, supported by student support services staff
• involvement in Middle Years reform, i.e. through the Middle Years Research and Development project.

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