Forming a capable and collaborative implementation team is one of the first steps for getting ready to implement an evidence-based teaching practice in your school. An effective team will help build a unified purpose and direction and help ensure other implementation activities are achievable.
This video showcases an example of an implementation team at Mount Hutton Public School in New South Wales. The team leads their school’s efforts to embed explicit instruction in maths and writing to improve student outcomes.
In the video, you’ll hear leaders’ insights into structuring an implementation team and ensuring the team uses a deliberate and structured approach, as well as their reflections on the benefits of leading implementation through a team rather than relying on one person. You’ll also see snippets of a team meeting, with members:
- identifying their school’s current stage of implementation
- discussing enablers and barriers data
- reflecting on classroom observation data
- monitoring implementation outcomes.
This video is part of a set of resources about leading implementation through a school implementation team, including:
- the leading implementation module, which provides an overview of leading implementation through an implementation team
- a practice resource on building and operating an effective implementation team, which details the why, who and how of leading implementation through a team
- an implementation team meeting practice guide and template, which helps with planning for and facilitating regular implementation team meetings.
Acknowledgements
AERO extends its gratitude to the staff at Mount Hutton Public School, New South Wales, for their support and participation in this video.
More information
You can find more information about AERO’s deliberate and structured approach to implementation in our resource collection Implementation in schools: A deliberate and structured approach.
Transcript
[On screen text] Building and operating an effective implementation team at Mount Hutton Public School
Trinity Hook, Principal, Mount Hutton Public School: Mount Hutton Public School is located in the Lake Macquarie region of New South Wales. We have an ICSEA value of 946. We've got 23% of our students who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. We've got 13% of students who speak a language in addition to English, and we've also got over 40% of our students with at least one disability and often more.
We have 9 classes, and that includes 3 inclusive education classes. One is a multi-categorical class, and 2 are emotional disturbance classes. On our team, we've got 18 classroom teachers and 11 school learning support officers.
Around half of our team has or is sitting in their first 3 to 5 years of teaching experience, but we've got others that have been in the profession for up to 30 years.
[On screen text] Mount Hutton Public School’s implementation team is using AERO’s deliberate and structured approach to implementation to help embed explicit instruction in mathematics and writing.
One of the first steps we took when we were setting up our implementation team was to build our consistent understanding of the evidence-based teaching practice that we were going to introduce, and also how we would implement that across the school.
We knew that we had a small team so that I could actually include all of our assistant principals in that implementation team, and that would help build capacity across all of our leaders to be able to implement that with our classroom teachers. Some of the roles that we've got in our implementation team currently are experts in evidence-based teaching practice, and they deliver the professional learning and coaching for our staff.
We have an expert who has a lot of experience in collecting and analysing data, so that person helps us track where we're up to and what our progress is. And we also have a fantastic communicator, so that person is involved in letting staff know what we're up to, what's happening next, and planning things out and scheduling timetables and things so that we can stay on track.
Alex Milne, Assistant Principal, Mount Hutton Public School: Our school implementation team meetings run weekly for 50 minutes. To facilitate these, we have a working agenda to help us track through the key implementation components and guide our decision making. It's allowed our implementation team to discuss these as part of everyday language. Using the stages of implementation, we plan for sustainability every step of the way.
So we could definitely say that we're past explore and prepared, as everyone agree with that. We're definitely delivering, and at the moment, we are doing our second coaching round. So, once everyone finishes that round, we'll be able to look at where we sit with that next week.
Rebecca Jacobs, Assistant Principal, Mount Hutton Public School: Some of the data that we actually use as a team, we took from the enablers and barriers surveys that we did, and as a team, we were able to identify those barriers and reduce those, giving confidence to our teaching staff to be able to implement our evidence-based teaching.
Alex Milne: We completed the enablers and barriers activity for writing ready for our implementation plan in term 3, and I think we can, I think we know that we came up with quite clear enablers and barriers, which was good.
Rebecca Jacobs: We also had data from our structured observations, which enabled us to make decisions about where we needed to head to next, and what we needed to strengthen and what we already had, well and truly put in place.
The checking for understanding has been a really big one because I've noticed too that a lot of teachers are using that checking for understanding, realizing that it's probably not at the percentage they would like it to be, and throwing it in their reviews the next week to make sure that their students are really, really practicing those skills, and then we're getting that confidence of students actually having that understanding. So that's been awesome.
Alex Milne: There are definitely things that we discuss with our implementation team meeting that we don't necessarily discuss at our exec meeting, because we've got the implementation plan and the stages that we go through to make sure we're hitting our outcomes.
Trinity Hook: So, before we finish today, I just wanted to check on the health of our implementation outcomes and how we're travelling along.
I think we're pretty good with our acceptability and, and feasibility that our staff understand that it is something that we should be doing and that we have all the resources to be able to implement it. Do you agree that we're probably sitting in focusing on our fidelity and our sustainability, so with our finishing our coaching cycle, we're certainly making sure that we have fidelity, and creating the rest of those resources helps us in our sustainability.
Alex Milne: Yeah, absolutely.
Rebecca Jacobs: We have found that leading implementation through a team has been vital. It's really helped us work towards sustainability of the evidence-based teaching practice. I think if there was just one person leading the implementation, you run the risk of the actual practice deteriorating. If that particular staff member happened to leave the school, then I don't believe the sustainability and fidelity would be reached.
Alex Milne: If I was going to give advice to another school, I would say to clear the calendar and make the implementation a priority, because we know that improving teaching practice improves student outcomes.
Keywords: evidence-based education, organisational change, school change, continuous school improvement