The Australian Context: National, State and School-Level Efforts to Improve Schools in Australia

Abstract

Australia, like many countries, has a history of colonisation and extensive controlled and humanitarian immigration, with this shifting from an Anglo-Celtic emphasis to include, in succession, an emphasis on migrants from Europe, Asia and Africa. This chapter provides several perspectives on evidence-based school development in this changing context. The first focus is on national school-wide improvement initiatives: IDEAS (Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievements in Schools), which utilises professional learning communities to improve student outcomes; and PALL (Principals as Literacy Leaders) which provides principals with literacy and leadership knowledge to support teachers to improve student reading performance. The second perspective explores the state level through considering work at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in terms of evidence-based teacher training through the development of a clinical teaching model, and evidence-based school improvement through the Science of Learning Schools Partnership. The final perspective is at the school level, where the development of two schools in challenging contexts are described: the first a school formed from the closure of three failing schools; the second a school that was at the point of closure when the current principal was appointed to turn-it-around.