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[On-screen text: Inclusion Outreach Coaching. Applying an evidence-based approach to improve student outcomes at Trafalgar Primary School. The Education State / Victoria State Government / Department of Education]
Cameron Nicholls: We’d identified amongst the cohort of our year one two students that appeared to have some sort of developmental language delay.
Megan Waters: And we were sort of pulling from our own tool belt and the things weren't really showing that big of an impact.
Cameron Nicholls: And so we knew that this was going to need some extra expertise to best meet the needs of those kids.
[On-screen text: Inclusion Outreach Coaching aims to improve the capabilities, practice and confidence of the education workforce to build inclusive practices and, in doing so, improve student outcomes.]
Cameron Nicholls: The Inclusion Outreach Coaching program really is a co-constructed program. It's something that is designed by the school for the school with the support of a coach rather than top down or more directed.
Megan Waters: And I think it's really important that the coach is deeply involved in a way where they're coming in and doing observations and you're not led by a gut feeling, you're actually led by evidence and data.
Rachel Morgan: Every school's in a different place in their journey. So being able to meet the needs of what their problem is and being able to grow the school from that spot to their next point. That's all very individual. There's no two schools really that are at the same point in their journey.
Cameron Nicholls: After our initial investigations with Rachel we then needed to formulate our goals and targets.
Rachel Morgan: And we’re then designing an action plan around what's the work going to look like and what we'll be doing in our collaborations together?
Megan Waters: The smart goal was around improving Tier 1 practices. And then we delved a little bit deeper into the classroom environment.
Cameron Nicholls: One of the benefits of the Partnership Agreement that we enter into, it gives us a really clear scope and timeline for setting out on our journey to achieve these goals.
Rachel Morgan: And it makes us accountable, when we get to the end of this work we've been doing, we can say, well, have we had fidelity in what we've been doing so that we can then measure the success of the work that we've done?
Cameron Nicholls: Through the monitoring phase of our project we're already starting to see within the first six months some really significant improvements in our students literacy results, which have actually translated into significant improvements in whole school performance in that area.
Rachel Morgan: But I think that there's also been success in terms of the classroom environment. So, when you walk into a classroom at Trafalgar, you know that there's supports in place that help everybody achieve their goals and achieve their aims.
[On-screen text: The Education State / Victoria State Government / Department of Education / Victoria State Government – Authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne]
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