Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Hello, and welcome to the Coaching in Education podcast series. I'm Leigh Hatcher. I'm in conversation with Belinda Wall, Principal of Woonona High School in Wollongong, and President of the Illawarra South East Secondary Principals' Council. As you'll hear in our Skype conversation, she's the school counsellor who moved to be a school Principal, and coaching has been an important part of that pretty unique transition.

Belinda Wall:
Initially I was appointed as a District Guidance Officer, which is equivalent to a head teacher supervising a team of school counsellors, but we have a base school that we're attached to. The school that I was attached to included me as part of their executive team. I would attend all of their executive meetings, and would participate in planning normal executive activities in school. There happened to be a number of times when they needed someone to relieve as Deputy Principal and the Principal would ask me to do that on an intermittent basis. It just segued into the opportunity to remain for a little period of time. Then, I applied for a position and more successful in attaining a position as Deputy Principal.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
How did the staff cope with that?

Belinda Wall:
The staff were fine because they had seen me performing the role previously. The students actually were really fine too because I maintained my counselling allocation initially, and so when I looked at the roles and responsibilities of the Deputy Principal, I obviously took on the counselling role of those year groups that were not part of my role as a deputy. For example, if I was looking after years seven, nine and eleven, then I would chair with the other school counsellor in the school and I would look after students in years eight, ten and twelve for any counselling matters. After a while, we didn't need to use that as a discriminator because the students happily would talk to me as either the counsellor or as deputy.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Okay.

Belinda Wall:
Initially, I even started using the counsellor’s office when I was using my designated teaching time which is counsellor time. After a while, I just stopped doing that because the students were really comfortable with it. To be honest, the skills of the school counsellor are highly invaluable when you're a Deputy Principal.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
I'm sure.

Belinda Wall:
Working with students, parents and staff - and it’s not that school counsellors don't talk to students about consequences, and repercussions of choices that they make. It was a natural occurrence that everybody was happy with.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Okay.

Belinda Wall:
When I moved from that school to another school as a Deputy Principal, I actually did take up a teaching load. The reason I did that was one of my responsibilities as the deputy at the new school was to coordinate and organise curriculum across the whole school, the time tabling, curriculum [inaudible 00:03:14]. I really wanted to get back into the classroom, so that I had an on the ground understanding of what staff were doing.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
How did coaching play a part in all that? Actually inform that process at three levels of application?

Belinda Wall:
When I was full time school counsellor, and district guidance officer, the therapeutic approach that sat well with me was a solutions focus based approach. When I started looking at coaching, it was very much a sign having that solutions focused and looking at planning forward it and not dwelling on the past, and what happened previously, but looking about what's happening currently. What are the options to move forward and have can we best do that? It sat very well with the way that I had been working, if you like, with young people, and with staff and parents in my role as Deputy Principal and also as Principal.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Yes.

Belinda Wall:
When the opportunity arose down here in Illawarra for executive staff to engage in the two-day Leadership Coaching program, I jumped at it because I feel that they are a wonderful structure that would allow my executive to use. Secondly in 2013, here at Woonona High School, we undertook a whole school evaluation. Lots of recommendations came out of that evaluation, but one of the recommendations was that that staff had clearly indicated that they would like the opportunity to engage in more professional learning. We completely restructured the way where we offered the professional learning here at the school. We developed cross faculty groupings that we called Teacher Learning Communities. The reason we went to that model was so that staff were really focused on the pedagogy of teaching, not on the content of the syllabus. In sharing their practice, and in sharing how we could best improve the outcomes for our students, coaching sat really nicely with that because we had Teacher Learning Community leaders and they were teachers identified in the school. They were identified based on their capacity as future leaders.
To allow them to have the structure to work with staff who range from being early career teachers through the staff that had in excessive 13 years’ experience, we needed a structure that would allow them to ascertain the best way forward, and coaching, and the structure of coaching allowed us to do that. We began by training our learning community leaders with Growth coaching, and we use that every time we had professional learning down in terms of collectively - what's our goal? What's the reality of the situation? What are our options? What's the evidence? When will we do this by?
Even as recently as last night when we had a twilight professional learning session, we had the pleasure of having Ann McIntyre here with us, and coaching was very much a part of that. Both our learning community leaders used coaching, and also our head teachers, when we broke up into faculty groups also used the coaching answer.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Great stuff. Great stuff. You've also thirdly got a connection with Wollongong university. It's been quite out there too…

Belinda Wall:
Because of our approach to professional learning and the significant improvement that has resulted in the student learning outcomes based on that, we were identified to work in partnership with Wollongong University to develop models of this practice to support pre-service teachers in their transition from university into the profession. One of the ideas that we proposed to the University was to actually use Growth coaching as something that our mentors can use in supporting pre-service teachers in their transition from university into the profession.
All of our teachers, not only participated in a mentoring workshop that was collaboratively developed by the staff here and also, Wollongong University personnel, but they also engaged in peer coaching and also coaching to the Australian standards. There were two workshops that they participated in. Again, it's using the solutions focused, planning forward, supporting our early career teachers, and our pre-service teachers because how we've used it, we've actually triangulated the professional learning that occurs here in the school, in that we team up early career teachers, that is teachers within the first couple of years of their teaching, with our experienced and wise teachers here at the school, with our pre-service teachers. Whenever we have professional learning, there is a triangulation of learning, and they're all learning from one another, but using the coaching method to allow that to happen.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
You're listening to the Coaching and Education podcast series. I'm in conversation with Belinda Wall, Principal of Woonona High School in Wollongong. So, across such a range of participants, how did it all work out? What difference did it make?

Belinda Wall:
The difference that it's made is that it's given them an actual structure because we're starting with the development of the goal. It's a very futures focused approach. Because it's focused specifically and deliberately on their day-to-day practice, teachers see it as a useful thing. It's not just sitting down having a conversation about, "Oh, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could? How about this? We could try that." It's very directed and very structured, and it has the timeframe around it of, "Okay, by the next time we come together as a learning community, which may be five weeks’ time, this is what I will have, I've taken to do. This is what I will bring back with me to our next session, so that I can show or demonstrate how I have put in place what we have agreed to here in our own learning community."

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
That actually works?

Belinda Wall:
Absolutely, it works because people are making a commitment both as a group and also individually. The collective responsibility and accountability is built in within that, because they've all agreed that, "This is the goal. This is what we've agreed to as a group. We are all happy with this. We've discussed it. We know where we're at in each of our different faculties, but this goal is one that we have all agreed to. This course of action is one that we have all agreed to."

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Yes.

Belinda Wall:
It also allows for differentiation within that. For example, if the goal is to use feedback structured within the next assessment task, what they bring back to the learning community is differentiated. It may be that you have one staff member that's coming back saying, "Well, I've actually rewritten assessment task and I've embedded that they've got practices within that. This is my report back on how that assessment task actually went into the class."
Another one may be, "Well, I'd really like to really have a lesson observation to someone coming out in and looking at me using feedback techniques and make sure they speak, and I will bring back the results, discussion that emanated from that listen observation." It does allow for differentiation based on what the individual teacher wants basically to improve in their practice, but it still sits within the umbrella of that goal that the group had agreed to.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Can you tell me the difference that this has made to the students? That's really been helpful in bringing structure and clarity to so many processes, but how's it affected students?

Belinda Wall:
Well, we've had great results over the last few years, and we've received a lot of really positive publicity due to that, and it's because we have an unrelenting focus on our professional learning here at the school. Our professional learning is all about reflective practices and practices that improve student learning outcomes. Our students now are picking up on the language. One of the things that we've been looking at in terms of our assessment practices here at the school is using feedback. Using feedback in an informative way that informs students on how they can improve their current performance by putting it in place with the strategies that the teacher suggests.
We're embedding that within our assessment tasks. There's a common language in the school now, around that, around feedback, around formative feedback, and around feeding forward as we like to call it. We're feeding forward to the next measure of how a student is performing. Students now are using that very same language, and are asking for feedback, are asking for, "When is my draft due to be submitted by, so that I can receive feedback on how I'm going?"

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Fantastic.

Belinda Wall:
... And are preparing for the next task, or if it's a summative assessment, if it's an exam, the same practices according to play. The student is very much are using the language as well

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
How do you feel about that, seeing how that's rippled through?

Belinda Wall:
Oh, it's fantastic that students have ... We've seen that shift from students being passive learners, and just taking onboard feedback from teachers and saying, "Just give me the mark," to very much about, "Well, when can I submit a draft so that I can get some feedback, so that the work that they're submitting is the very best quality work that they can submit based on the formative feedback that they've been receiving from their teachers along the learning process."

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
One question. An important question, have you experienced any blow back at all from coaching?

Belinda Wall:
No, not at all. It's been a very positive experience here at the school and I think it's because we have embedded into what we do. It's not what I refer to as a ‘bolt-on’. It's very much part of the structure of how we organise our executive meetings, how we structure our faculty meetings, and how we structure our professional learning meetings. They’re goal directed, they're future focused, and they have time constraints on them, so that by this time, we had agreed to do whatever.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Yes. Yeah.

Belinda Wall:
It's developed collectively. That has been the one thing that has really made a difference, that sharing of pedagogical practise across faculty groupings has been amazing.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Final question. Is there a what next for coaching, in how you're looking to build on this?

Belinda Wall:
Sure, but what next in terms of our assessment practices, and this is about the focus about professional learning is here is peer and self-assessment. We’re developing structures within the school for students to self-reflect on their learning and to have the strategies and skills to be able to assess their own learning, and also to give feedback to one another on their learning. Not only are they using the expertise of the teacher, but they're also using the expertise that sits within the classroom. They're very clear about what the learning intentions are. They've watched what their learning should look like. We see coaching as something that will sit very nicely with that in terms of students coaching one another - and also, staff coaching students in terms of setting their learning goals, and how they may go about achieving them.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
Yeah.

Belinda Wall:
Look, I think we have had such a significant buy-in from staff and from our students in terms of looking at best practise here, looking at the evidence that we had during the school, but the world really is our oyster in terms of the willingness of our staff to engage in that rich dialogue around professional practice, but also our students clearly understanding that they also have responsibility for their learning, and we are supporting them in such a structured way that allows them to accept that responsibility for their learning and to really show great improvement in their goals.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
What a wonderful thing to hear from a Principal, "The world is our oyster." Belinda, thank you so much indeed for your time. Great story. Thank you.

Belinda Wall:
Okay. Thanks, Leigh.

Leigh Hatcher (presenter):
You've been listening to the Growth Coaching International Case Study podcast series. I'm Leigh Hatcher. Check out some of our other great podcasts in this series Inspiring and educational. They're atwww.growthcoaching.com.au