Find your starting point

Year one Foundations for Literacy Success

You have a program. You want it to work for every student.

Get the core right, and prove it with data.

Some or all of the following may sound like your school.

• We have a program in place, and would like our results to be more consistent from classroom to classroom.
• We would like to be clearer as a school about what an individual teacher can adjust in our literacy teaching, and what needs to stay the same.
• We follow our program's pacing guide, and would like to understand how to use data to decide when students are ready to move on.
• Our word level instruction is pitched at year level, and we would like to know how to target it to what each group of students is actually ready for.
• Our staff can describe what they do in phonics and spelling, and we would like them to understand why it works and how it shows up in the data.
• We know something is not working for a group of students, and we would like to understand whether the issue is the program, the way we are using it, or something else.

And for your leaders

• As a leadership team, we would like to be more confident leading conversations about literacy instruction with our staff.
• We would like a shared way of understanding where each of our team members is up to, so we can support them differently.
• Our year level and middle leaders are strong teachers, and we would like to build their capability to lead their teams.

Year two Leading Learning Success

Literacy is working. You are ready to replicate your success in every curriculum area.

Every subject, every teacher, decisions grounded in cognition.

Schools starting here can say yes to all of these.

• Our word level instruction is consistent across our primary years, and our data shows students are retaining what we teach.
• We want one shared, responsive approach to instruction across every curriculum area.
• Most of our students are achieving well, but we still have a group whose data we cannot move. We would like to understand how to target instruction more effectively for greater impact on student outcomes.
• We have done some work on engagement norms, but want our team to understand how to use them intentionally rather than to tick a box.
• We have done some professional learning in cognitive load, but would like our teachers to understand it deeply enough to use it as the basis for decision-making in their classrooms.

And for your leaders

• We have observations, data conversations and planning sessions in place, and we would like them to respond to the experience and needs of each teacher rather than following one script.
• We would like our middle leaders to coach with confidence, not just organise their teams.
• We would like to lead robust conversations about instruction without them becoming personal.

Year three Cultures of Clarity

The lesson is strong. The unit is next.

Widen the lens to instructional design.

This is where the journey leads.

• We use a responsive, cognition-aligned process for creating units of work.
• The same design process works for writing, science and HASS, not just literacy.
• A new teacher can walk in and understand how we teach, because it is documented and it is lived.
• Disciplined thinking is normal here. Decisions are made against well-understood instructional principles rather than preference.
• What we have built survives teacher turnover.

And for your leaders

• Coaching and development are part of how the school runs, not an extra that happens when there is time.
• Our leaders use the same model to plan projects and initiatives, not only to support individuals.
• Leading this work no longer depends on one or two people.

Cultures of Clarity is available to schools completing Leading Learning Success, and it is discussed at the end of that year.