- A note from Michelle
- Congratulations to Kotara School and Broadwater Public School!
- Tullamore Central’s QTR journey
- Read our latest white paper, Supporting early career teachers and sustaining quality teaching in schools
- Join the QT Community!
- Upcoming workshops and webinars
- Recent publications and media
- Free QTR workshops for early career teachers and their colleagues
- QT Pulse: School Health Longitudinal Survey
A note from Michelle
Welcome to Spring and the September QT Academy Newsletter! As we fast approach the end of Term 3, there’s been plenty of QT Academy action with workshops from Brisbane to Ballarat keeping everyone on their toes.
In breaking news, it’s with great pleasure we introduce our newest member of the QTR Adviser team, Kate Shorland, who comes to us with a wealth of experience and a real passion for all things QT and QTR. Welcome Kate!
It’s been so exciting to see workshop participants from increasingly diverse locations and contexts, spanning most Australian states and even overseas. It seems the QT Model resonates with teachers wherever and whatever they teach. One participant, from our recent Ballarat workshop in regional Victoria, commented, “the Model is so respectful of teachers’ work because it acknowledges the complex work we do in classrooms – that unseen work at the coalface – day in, day out.”
On the PD front, our online workshops continue to prove so popular that we’ve had to split the upcoming September QTR workshop into two groups. There’s also growing interest in our programming and assessment workshops, as schools seek to embed the QT Model across all aspects of teaching and learning.
Finally, for a short burst of QT, join us for a member-only webinar – the September feature element is High Expectations. We’ve had two fantastic recent webinars presented by our PhD students which showcased some of the interesting research happening in the QTR space.
All the best for a restful break after what’s been a fast and furious term. We hope to see you soon at one our workshops or webinars.
Michelle Ware
QTR Adviser
Congratulations to Kotara School and Broadwater Public School!
Tuesday 5 September was a big day for the QT community. Two remarkable schools were honored and celebrated for their exceptional work. These outstanding achievements were acknowledged at two separate, prestigious award ceremonies, highlighting their incredible commitment to their students, staff and wider community.
Kotara School
Kotara School received the Secretary’s Award for an Outstanding School Initiative at the NSW Minister’s and Secretary’s Awards event, held at Sydney Town Hall. They were honored for their Quality Teaching Rounds Special Education project, an ongoing collaboration with the University of Newcastle founded on the belief that all students are capable of high achievement and deserve the best possible education. Congratulations to the Kotara team!
Broadwater Public School
Broadwater Public School won the Teacher Awards Special Contribution Award. The award recognised the outstanding strength and resilience of the Broadwater community in the face of the major floods that affected the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. The staff went to enormous efforts to reengage their students and the community in schooling following these traumatic events. Congratulations to the whole Broadwater school and community!
We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Kotara School and Broadwater Public School for their well-deserved recognition. Your dedication to excellence in education is an inspiration to us all.
Have you won an award recently?
We are always excited to hear about you and your school’s wins! We would love to champion your initiatives by highlighting them in our newsletters and on our website.
If you’d like to share your achievements with us, you can post it in the QT Community or send us an email at [email protected].
Tullamore Central’s QTR journey
We recently visited Tullamore Central School, in Central West NSW, and talked to principal Kelly Jesser about the experience of implementing QTR in the face of dire teacher shortages. Kelly spoke about the school’s unique approach to QTR and how it helps to build trust and resilience among staff. You’ll find an excerpt of the story below.
Implementing QTR in a rural school: Building trust and resilience
You may think that implementing QTR in a rural school would be impossible in the midst of a national teacher shortage. Kelly Jesser is here to prove you wrong.
Despite the challenges, Kelly, who has been the principal of Tullamore Central School since 2021, is running Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) across her school for all her staff.
To get QTR up and running, Kelly and her leadership team got creative by using elements of QTR Digital and other implementation modifications.
They first started with a professional learning community (PLC) of the three leaders to demonstrate how it could be done. Then they came together for the professional reading discussion. Next, they recorded a lesson for all three to code over the next 24 hours. Lastly, they came back together for the group coding discussion.
“We all walked away from the initial experience thinking, wow, this is powerful stuff,” Kelly said.
“The professionalism of the dialogue that comes out – it’s very much teacher talk. It’s not necessarily the stuff you hear in staff rooms – it’s very purposeful and directly related to student learning. What is it that we’re doing and why are we doing it? How can we improve?”
Read our latest white paper, Supporting early career teachers and sustaining quality teaching in schools
Teacher shortages are currently a high-profile issue of concern to parents, teachers, principals, policy makers and government. The impact of understaffed classrooms is wide-ranging, exacerbating untenable workloads and burnout among teachers and principals, affecting student wellbeing and academic outcomes, and further entrenching inequities in our education system.
The white paper unpacks the challenges facing beginning teachers and covers the key literature on teacher induction, including the variety between schools and education systems and the characteristics of effective induction practices.
The three key takeaways of the white paper are:
- In the context of widespread teacher shortages, strong support for early career teachers through high quality induction should be a priority.
- Opportunities to collaborate and form trusting relationships impact on retention and should be central to early career teacher induction.
- Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) is a research-backed approach to professional development that can support induction with positive effects for beginning and experienced teachers.
Join the QT Community!
Since the QT Academy launched three years ago, we aim to create spaces where you can come together to connect with each other, key researchers, QTR Advisers, and other teachers and community members who are equally passionate about all things education.
With this in mind, we’ve formed a QT Community Facebook group.
Here, you’ll have the opportunity to engage in vibrant conversations with teachers, principals, education students, and staff from both the QT Academy and the University of Newcastle’s Teachers and Teaching Research Centre.
Click the button below to join the QT Community Facebook group. We can’t wait to see you there and start engaging in enriching discussions together.
Upcoming workshops and webinars
Recent publications and media
Publications
- Harper, M., & Smithers, K. (2023). Fieldwork from A–Z? Exploring shifting identities in doctoral research in Australia and Zimbabwe. The Australian Educational Researcher, 1-17. https://t.co/4hz1CDGTjr
- The book, Community Matters: The complex links between community and young people’s aspirations for higher education, by Jenny Gore, Sally Patfield, Leanne Fray and Jess Harris is now available to order. Enjoy a 20% discount valid until 31 December 2023 by using the code ‘AFL03’.
Media
- When it comes to teachers, Professor Jenny Gore’s done her homework – Madeline Link; Newcastle Herald
- University isn’t right for everyone. Pushing young people to go can have devastating effects – Kristina Sincock, Felicia Jaremus, and Sally Patfield; The Conversation
Free QTR workshops for early career teachers and their colleagues
Funded by the Australian Government, Strengthening Induction through QTR aims to improve the morale, confidence, job satisfaction and retention of early career teachers across Australia.
The project will provide funding for 1,600 early career teachers and key colleaguesfrom schools across Australia to take part in QTR, with intakes twice a year for the next four years.
It is open to all Australian schools, across all states, territories and sectors.
QT Pulse: School Health Longitudinal Survey
The QT Pulse: School Health Longitudinal Survey provides schools with powerful data that they can use to develop an empowering environment for educators and ensure a positive school experience.
The QT Pulse Survey is a 10-15 minute online survey completed by teachers each term and offers your school prompt and meaningful data on key measures. The longitudinal nature of the QT Pulse Survey means that schools see their results over time and can easily view and track changes in staff members’ perceptions about the school culture and environment.
