Collaboration that changes the world
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Welcome to the world of tomorrow, where the Catholic Education system is based on a network of empowered, collaborative clusters located around Western Australia.
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It’s 2020 we now have a Leading Learning Network made up of over 35 clusters.
What is a cluster? It’s a group of 5 to 13 schools that come together around a hub to collaborate, share ideas and resources, as well as the best teaching techniques and practices.
This is having a powerful effect on student outcomes and staff satisfaction. The community’s resources are being put to much better use.
http://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip-13703894-stock-footage-graph-drawn-on-a-blackboard.html?src=search/ni1r9DpjIoaHoQebPM_-hw:1:31/3p
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We created these clusters back in 2017 because we knew that the siloed and top-down model wasn’t working. This was obvious. Teachers were not connecting to other teachers in their geographical areas or around their passions. Communication was always directed up and down. Not across. This meant that lots of learning and sharing opportunities were lost. It also put the School Improvement Team under pressure to support fifty schools at once.The Leading Learning Network was sparked by their strong desire to leverage the profound combined knowledge of the community.
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We realised people could be sharing ideas, improving each other and learning the skills to do this and that it wasn’t fair to wait for the ‘expert’ to visit the school for ‘school improvement’. We saw that there is far more strength in a networked approach that empowers teachers to raise each other’s performance. We knew that roles, job descriptions and time allocation would need to be realigned to foster and spark this new way of organizing. We now have Leading Learning Connectors to support each cluster, Pedagogical Coaches that work across clusters and a Key teacher in each school that all work together to support a network of learning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJmNnA1FqTQ (0:45; 1:01–1:17)
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Why did clusters come about and which types are thriving?
The first type of clusters that formed where geographic.
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Some clusters are digital and physical – others are just digital.
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Geographic clusters enabled easy and meaningful collaboration around critical issues such as better transitions between primary and secondary school and better sharing of pedagogy, curriculum and community resources.
Other clusters are driven by subject matter. They started local but worked so well that most clusters also have national and international connections.
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Let’s check out what a cluster could look like.
[Zoom into the South-West Cluster –schools like CBC, Seton, Christ the King School]
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There are six schools in this cluster. The cluster hub – the collaborative space – constantly has multi-school programs, as well as single-school activities, taking place.
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It is a professional-enrichment environment, makerspace and community hub.
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Today at the hub
Schedule of activities
May 11, 2020
Space 1 / Space 2Virtual and augmented-reality workshop – new tools for science education / English teachers’ workshop – screenwriting for middle-school
Challenge-based learning in biology / Presentation of design projects for early-childhood community engagement
Roots of Empathy workshop for educators / Crowdsourced funding workshop for upper-school arts projects
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Meet Samantha. Samantha is an experienced teacher who came into teaching in another era – in what now feels like another world. But she is thriving. The time she spends at the cluster hub gives her the chance to mentally reboot and she loves staying in touch with them through their virtual cluster platform.
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She and the other science teachers in her cluster share lesson plans, online resources, new techniques and what is and isn’t working.
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Teaching has become much easier.Working together – more brains on the task –means that positive changes and teaching innovations are much easier to conceive and execute. Just take lesson planning and activities. The team collaborates in live documents online, benefiting from one another’s investment in lesson planning. And they have been hosting guest lectures and great new programs to share whole chunks of curriculum across their geographic cluster.
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Meet Gordon. Gordon is a new principal. Gordon has found the fellowship of the other principals in his cluster very enriching. He participates in two different workshop groups at the cluster hub. One is on being a Lead Instructor. Everyone knew how important it was for principals to take on the responsibility of lead instructing, but now Gordon has other principals who have been doing it for ages mentoring him on the ground. They and a Pedagogical Coach have supported him. Another of Gordon’s groups is around community engagement – it brings in industry and businesses from around the local area to workshop job-readiness skills so that educators can learn from the horse’s mouth what employers really need from their future employees.
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Meet Brody. She is a Key Teacher at a school in the South-West Cluster. Brody has just returned from a professional placement in Finland and she’s a total geek for sniffing out and researching the best and newest education tools, techniques and technology. Brody loves her job. She is the person who unlocks the expertise and knowledge that clusters can offer. She finds out how people in the cluster can best help each other.
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Susie is a Leading Learning Connector. Her love of learning and connecting meant that she was a perfect fit for this role. She is responsible for a cluster of 7 schools. She loves discovering what they truly need, figuring out the best ways to make the most of the resources they have and supporting them to get the professional development that will stretch them to be their best.
The clusters make the most of the community connected to them. Tony’s wife is a fashion-designer and several classes have been into her studio. She came and judged the design competition that was held across the cluster. A group of students have also set up an online recycled-clothing store and are raising money for a local charity. Brody finds unlocking all this potential – which translates to learning and engagement for everyone’s benefit –really fulfilling. She also complements the collaborative efforts of teachers, principals and other educators with her own best-practice knowledge. The digital resources she and the community have access to make her job much easier to do.
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The new physical hub – the collaboration space –moves every two years between the schools in the geographic cluster. It is a wonderful environment. Teachers and principals and collaborators from the community keep the space humming all year round. It’s energetic and that energy flows back into school and communities. Clusters had been tried before, but in 2020 they are reaching their potential.
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The change is measureable. More students and parents are deeply engaged in school, learning and the community.
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All this school improvement is measurable and is even being documented in the national news because it is having an amazing impact on the life of the community.
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What are the principles of the creation of clusters?
● A clear educational benefit and demonstrably better student outcomes through professional enrichment, collaboration, resource synergy, student opportunities and community assets
● They made sense in terms of the sharing of knowledge, know-how, resources and innovation development
● Cluster delivers a new level of capacity to change, agility and staff engagement and delight