Our work with systems

We have worked with numerous systems to develop comprehensive reform strategies and specific:

• Curriculum design initiatives where we work with systems on the steps to design, write and evaluate system (or national) curriculums

• Curriculum implementation approaches and specific policies to evaluate, monitor and continually improve how the curriculum is implemented in schools. This work has highlighted the need in most systems to better understand and then link policy to improvements in what is taught and assessed in classrooms. We survey thousands of teachers and school leaders each year on how they implement the curriculum and feed that information back to systems so they can better improve and target initiatives to support teachers and school leaders improve curricular practice in schools and classrooms.

• Leadership development strategies with clear leadership pipelines, recruitment and development planning, leadership development programs with built-in evaluation and procurement approaches, and evaluation and monitoring systems. A specific focus for Learning First has been the development of system leaders.

• Teacher development strategies that address recruitment issues that link to teacher training providers, have effective development programs with built-in evaluation and procurement approaches, and establish structures and practices to develop teacher expertise in different subjects.

• School improvement strategies, including the development of an explicit and effective school improvement model that articulates the steps leaders and teachers should take to continually improve practice and outcomes. This is then reinforced with school improvement planning (practice and templates) and links to other policies such as curriculum implementation, instructional model and teacher professional development.

• Evaluation, data and accountability systems that reinforce continuous improvement across a system in curricular, assessment and teaching practice. This regularly requires restructuring data systems to collect less but more targeted data to evaluate and monitor the key drivers of school and system improvement.

System improvement requires a strategy that has explicit linkages between critical components of improvement. This means, for example, that effective leadership development is linked to school improvement planning, curriculum implementation, the system instructional model and so on.  This has been a key finding of how high-performing systems develop policy and strategic change and has been a strong feature of our work with systems.

Successful school reform requires trust, courage, and a commitment to staying the course. We build long-term relationships with leaders at each level of the system based on honesty, integrity and deep experience and expertise. These relationships enable us to help systems further develop the skills and capabilities of their people to ensure sustainable improvement.

Our clients include federal governments in various parts of the world and state and provincial governments in Australia, the United States and Canada. We do considerable work with curriculum authorities in several systems, and work with systems on how to connect curriculum development and implementation to other policies for meaningful change in classrooms. We have conducted research and advisory work for several high-profile organisations such as the OECD, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Centre on Education and the Economy.