SMS – Facilitating teacher inquiry

The teachers’ inquiry fell out of seeking a solution to record the rich data around children that sits behind the quantitative data. We run the same sort of inquiry and coaching for the teachers as we do for the kids. There's a profile brief, about what's important to them, then it has their teaching inquiry, which is based around the school targets, and then the deeper inquiry that is stemmed out of interviewing the kids, and knowing their priority learners, and what practice they wish to look at and improve for themselves.

On one level, it follows very much the course of the year, and our charter and strategic plan, and they will get the PLD (Professional Learning and Development) that's targeted school wide with them, but what they do with that, and what grows out of meeting and talking with the parents and the kids, that becomes adaptive as the year goes on.

Once we've established that, and sat down with the teachers, and interviewed them, and coached them through their inquiry, we lock that in. They will have their goals in there. The second page is their priority learners, and you can open that self-populated list and there's every child, and there is a series, a pathway, which is represented by dots, and that is where the data is stored and collated for each child.

The third page is the rich story for the teacher. That is how their meeting and progressing with their inquiries are stored, and it’s stored over the length of the year, and anything of note is where they can upload a video link, a message, a kid talking, just to give evidence, and that's where they keep their evidence of their ongoing inquiry. Then there is, of course, that relates to the journal, and the journal is where they analyse their practice, where they store whatever they've attended.

The last page is the attestation page, and that is where the records are kept of the registered teacher criteria, practice analysis sessions, as well as class environment checklists, and what they're doing within their spaces to improve environments for kids. The beauty of the system is, it is self-managing by the teachers, because it is their inquiry. It is highly engaging for kids and for parents. It's simple. It's twenty-four hour accessible, and the teachers can add to their portfolios when they're anywhere.