PREPARATION FOR FIRST PRINCIPAL MEETING
BEFORE YOUR FIRST MEETING WITH THE PRINCIPAL OF A PARTICIPATING SCHOOL
· The 137 schools participating in the Bump It Up implementation have data that identifies a high proportion of students in the middle 2 NAPLAN bands and a great capacity for improvement.
· Review the Director PSNSW Resource Pack on One Drive for your Network to analyse:
- School data and top two bands target/s for the participating school/s;
- Planning and monitoring template for participating school/s;
- Bump It Up strategy paper, Fact Sheet and Timeline for communication
- Research papers including What Works Best
- What Works Best Matrix.
· Use BI and SMART data to identify strengths in participating schools NAPLAN, HSC and other data to acknowledge this as part of your first meeting.
· Review participating school/s’ current School Plan and 2015 Annual Report.
· Identify risk/s and plan mitigation strategies (in consultation with ED PSNSW, if needed) for potentially contentious issues.
· Expectations for participating schools: Understand that Bump It Up implementation requires planning, monitoring and reporting. You are required to provide close supervision, guidance, monitoring and resource coordination to these schools.
· Telephone (or visit) your participating school principals by COB Wednesday 27 July 2016 to give preliminary advice of the school’s inclusion in Bump It Up. The Deputy Secretary SO&P delivers the Bump It Up strategy formal announcement to participating schools via direct email to the respective principals by COB Thursday 28 July 2016. Your initial conversation is to advise the Principal/s of the schools identified to participate in the Bump It Up strategy using information drawn from key message content below so that they have some background provided through person-to-person (or telephone) contact before the email is sent.
· Between Friday 29 July and Tuesday 2 August, forward the items from the Director PSNSW Resource Pack from your One Drive account to your respective Principals of participating schools and include the First Meeting Discussion Topics (see below) for their consideration prior to your first meeting. Your initial meeting should take place by Monday 8 August 2016.
The key messages for your initial telephone and email contact includes:
All public schools were advised by Deputy Secretary School Operations and Performance on 5 May 2016 that they are required to explicitly address the Premier’s Priority in their school plans and report progress in their school reports. To assist school planning, additional reports showing the proportion of students in the top two NAPLAN bands for reading and numeracy were added to each school’s SEF data for inclusion in their respective 2016 Annual Report.
137 schools have data that identifies they have great capacity to meet the Premier’s Priority of increasing by 8% student achievement in the top two NAPLAN bands. The data has identified students in your school have good reading and numeracy skills with great capacity to improve achievement levels in the top two NAPLAN bands. Your school will be asked to implement locally - developed initiatives that suit your context, to sharpen the focus on the reading and numeracy skills of students in the middle bands to take them to the next level.
In our first meeting we will consider your school’s needs and data in relation to the aims of Bump It Up and establish our follow-up meeting times. I will provide you with further information about Bump It Up that will assist in preparing for our next meeting. I also ask that you consider the questions below that will form the basis of our discussion.
BUMP IT UP STRATEGYPRINCIPAL’S FIRST MEETING DISCUSSION TOPICS
The topics in bold below will frame our initial discussion. The questions are there to generate discussion rather than detailed analytical coverage. Preparation will help inform our conversation and identify the areas for closer attention and analysis in the coming weeks.
1. Strengths:
a. What are the strengths in Reading and Numeracy student achievement at your school?
b. How was this achieved, and how do you know?
2. Areas of Student Need:
a. What are the areas of greatest need for Reading and Numeracy advancement of students performing in the middle bands of NAPLAN? How do you know?
b. How are you currently addressing these? Is this planned and documented?
c. What has been the impact of your current or recent activity used to address these needs?
3. Areas of Teacher Need:
a. What appear to be the needs of teachers to further advance middle performing students achievement in reading and numeracy? How do you know?
b. What has been the impact of current / recent activity employed to address these needs?
4. Areas of Executive Leadership Need:
a. What appear to be the needs of executive leaders to further advance middle performing students achievement in reading and numeracy? How do you know?
b. What has been the impact of current / recent activity employed to address these needs?
5. Areas of School Parent/Carer Community Need:
a. What appear to be the needs of the school parent/carer community to further advance middle performing students’ achievement in reading and numeracy? How do you know?
b. What has been the impact of current / recent activity employed to address these needs?
6. Areas of School Administration, Structure and Policy Needs:
a. What appear to be the needs of the school administration, leadership structure and policy areas that might leverage further advancement of middle performing students’ achievement in reading and numeracy? How do you know?
b. What has been the impact of current / recent activity employed to address these needs?
7. Area/s of “What Works Best” that might be targeted to frame next steps:
a. What resonates most strongly with you from “What Works Best” in taking next steps to improve reading and numeracy outcomes at your school? Why?
b. What has been the impact of current / recent activity used to address this / these areas?
8. Area/s of other research or models that might be used to frame or inform next steps:
a. What other research or models exist that you may have already ear-marked for inclusion in taking next steps to improve reading and numeracy outcomes at your school? Why?
9. Understanding the planning, monitoring and reporting requirements of Bump It Up.
10. Initial thoughts on support and resource requirements.
11. Other questions and next steps.