The National Curriculum is here: Are you ready? Part 1: Effective Faculties Presentation to NSWETA annual conference August 2011

Background ARC/NSWDET study : What are the variables and processes leading to outstanding educational outcomes in terms of …academic success?

Factors contributing to HSC success in previous study 1.School background 2.Subject faculty 3.Personal qualities 4.Relationships with students 5.Professional development 6.Resources and planning 7.Teaching strategies

2. Subject Faculty Faculty as a team -sharing programs, resources, teaching ideas -set a climate for individuals within the Faculty -whole-Faculty programming -whole-Faculty rapport with students -Faculty identity within the school -success breeds success by attracting students -success set up in Years positive climate well-organised, easy access to resources experienced

7-10 study the most salient feature of our findings: Pedagogy as an expression of Faculty culture

English sites as ‘interpretive communities’ (Fish, 1989)

Interpretive communities(2) A shared definition of the work to be undertaken: - a common view of programming and unit construction with or without detailed Faculty programs - remarkable consistency of approach in lessons : ‘Faculty brand’

Interpretive communities (3) Characteristic engagement in the act of interpretation, involving production, dissemination and debate -continuous and systematic acts of interpretation of Syllabuses and other sources - each Faculty was an ‘engine of change’ and development and one of its major functions was the review of itself, its core business and the refinement of its practices (eg led by Year co-ordinators)

Interpretive communities (5) A set of shared assumptions, ‘rules of thumb’, and interpretive strategies which exist prior to any individual act of interpretation - emanating from a struggle to fashion conventions and landmarks of practice from Syllabuses and from the need to crack the code of the individual contexts in which they teach.

Interpretive communities (6) and (7) A continual contest between interpretations waged by individuals and groups resulting in constant change within the community The practice of rhetoric to persuade others of the validity of interpretations -Despite the ‘Faculty brand’, units and programs did not remain the same: interpreting Syllabuses and chasing the most effective methods for their students >>> lively and collegial debate about good practice. -Forums? Year meetings, facilitated by Year Co-Ordinators / staff meetings, which were dominated by professional development.

Interpretive communities (9) Rites and practices of initiation for new members - professional development drew new teachers into the ethos and standards of professionalism of the Faculty.

Faculty leadership fostering the strong sense of common purpose fostering the sharing of ideas and resources mastery of, and passion for, the subject itself - extensive subject and subject-pedagogical knowledge taking the lead in understanding new concepts, familiarising the staff with them and initiating implementation, thus making change less threatening for staff democratic but a leader mentor for new staff leadership by example effective micro-managers, eg in setting up workable structures encouraging experimentation and innovation in the staff. originator, organiser and facilitator of professional development in the faculty fostering culture of high expectations: by staff of students, by staff of each other>> of staff by students fosters group-ownership and participation in professional and personal development for staff >>>

Aspects of pedagogy in one school using texts as models for writing, esp. of aspects of structure prevalence of discussion and acceptance of students’ oral language imaginative recreation as response to texts tendency to deal with short texts, but whole texts: poems, news articles, short stories, ads

A proper school reading diet would be perhaps 90 per cent extensive, unsupported and largely unmonitored reading in well-written content-rich texts (and)…10 per cent (as) a small amount of well-supported intensive reading of rich and relevant texts that produce reading difficulties against which one can pit one’s wits…the 10 per cent need to be dense enough to fuel the formulating process with some power; they need to be interesting enough to make it seem worthwhile to the readers to summon the effort that deliberate reflection requires; they need to be ‘generous’ enough to invite the reader to stop and reflect (Moy & Raleigh, 1984: 165)

Aspects of pedagogy in one school (cont’d) encouragement of higher order thinking ‘What are the effects of…?’ ‘What are your reactions to…?’ how to use evidence stress on terminology building notes from student responses

Independence: Choice Modelling and demonstration, then: negotiation of texts the openness of topics in which to apply new skills choices of topics across a unit of work: student sense of voice and control the open-ended nature of tasks, especially in the expectation that students would produce their own “readings” of texts and that their own sense of "design" would be brought to bear on a task lots of modelling, but students encouraged to ‘transform’ models: ‘guaranteed minimum’ of skills

References Fish, S. (1989). Doing what comes naturally: Change, rhetoric and the practice of theory in literary and legal studies. Durham/London: Duke University Press. Moy, B. & Raleigh, M. (1984) ‘Making sense of comprehension’, in J. Miller, Eccentric propositions.London: RKP