Conference Agenda

Objectives:

Data is the lens through which we increasingly view our world. Yet, understanding how to engage with data can be challenging. There is a need to provide students with authentic experiences to investigate their own science questions using a variety of datasets (NASEM, 2016, p. 2). Researchers in Puerto Rico have been developing a professional learning network of teachers, scientists, and learning scientists to support teachers in implementing the Data Jam model (Bestelmeyer et al., 2015) in which students use long-term ecological data about the El Yunque national forest in Puerto Rico to develop their own investigations and use data as evidence for a scientific argument. The objective of this session is to introduce participants to the outcomes of the professional learning network and engage the participants in a sample professional learning network activity centered around a data-based investigation of an environmental phenomenon in Puerto Rico.

Educational importance for theory, policy, research, and/or practice

The guiding theory for our work engaging students in authentic scientific practice is legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Lave and Wenger define all learning as movement from the periphery of a community to centrality within the community. Their framework reveals several key characteristics engaging students in communities of practice in formal education settings: (a) engaging students in scientific practices, (b) using scientific tools, (c) learning the language of science though building social bonds with other members of the community, (d) developing learning sequences in which students learn scientific practices in the opposite order than how they are completed in practice, and (e) supporting development of scientific identity.

Teaching is a profession where teachers are isolated from the communities that they are teaching about. This work extends the notions of professional learning networks to include not only a peer network but also practicing scientists and learning scientists. To support teachers in shifting their practice towards authentic scientific practice, we first engaged teachers in authentic scientific practices through professional development and then embedded teachers within a professional learning network with other teachers, practicing scientists and learning scientists. As teachers implement Data Jam in their classroom, they bring samples of students’ ongoing work and data analyses to monthly Virtual Lab Meetings to discuss issues related to their teaching practice and students’ scientific investigations. Through structured protocols, teachers receive input from their peers, scientists, and educational researchers. Our findings reveal that exposure to authentic practices through student investigations and interactions with scientists develops teachers' scientific identity and capacity to support student investigations.

The format and approach(es)

We will provide a short presentation on the theoretical background, Data Jam model, and teacher outcomes. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in a simulated virtual lab meeting with student artifacts to gain experience with the professional learning network model to support legitimate peripheral participation.

Connection to the conference theme

This presentation fits within the Professional Learning Networks Network and addresses the overall conference theme of providing a model of professional education to support school improvement in data science.

The Networks of Inquiry and Indigenous Education (NOIIE) started in 2000 as a school-to-school network in British Columbia focused on changing the outcomes of learners through formative assessment. Twenty-three years later, our focus has expanded to changing the experiences for all learners by using a shared framework, the Spiral of Inquiry. Central to this work is our shared commitment to equity, quality and social justice that is reflected in one of our three main goals: Every learner will cross the stage with dignity, purpose and options.

The Network has grown to include schools in several international jurisdictions. Our joint mission is closely connected to the Congress theme of quality professional education for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement and, in particular, to the sub theme of leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably.

Increasingly we are witnessing a phenomenon across the networks that we describe as catalytic affiliation. Catalytic affiliation is a conceptual idea that can unpack the complexity of relational ties that thrive in inquiry networks. It also helps explore how social practices such as kindredness, authenticity, relational agency and reciprocal aligned beliefs work in tandem to deepen and accelerate systemwide improvement and innovation. Catalytic affiliation is more than a practice of individual leaders; it is a characteristic of networked learning spaces deeply anchored in shared repertories of learning, action and commitment, attracting and broadening professional engagement.

The purpose of this innovate session is to illustrate the ways in which the phenomenon of catalytic affiliation is evident in the experience of network leaders through imagery and metaphor. In the process, we invite others to explore the concept of catalytic affiliation and the implications that this has for high quality professional learning in very different policy environments

We live in a time of rapid and complex social, economic and political change. Compounding challenges such as technological advances, population growth and sustainability require new ways of thinking and working. Many students will go on to work in jobs that don’t yet exist. Creativity, communication, critical thinking, adaptability, and teamwork are already recognised as key attributes. There is a disconnect between the current educational experience for many students and what they need to thrive in this increasingly uncertain world. What and how student learn needs to be re-designed in many instances.

Quality professional education must support Educators to not just react to these fundamental challenges, but to reimagine and lead change. Teachers and school leaders need their own creative mindset so they can improve teaching & learning to support students to capitalise on the opportunities in life now and in the future. To achieve this, there needs to be a mechanism for supportive, high-quality professional education that does not just reinforce the status quo but challenges Educators to think differently about what, how and why we educate young people today.

The UCD Innovation Academy has ten years experience in delivering a Professional Certificate & Diploma in Creativity & Innovation in Education. This programme invites Educators to revisit and reimagine their education practice in an immersive, experiential environment. Specifically, they have the opportunity to develop their creative mindset, explore new approaches to teaching & learning and develop their leadership capacity for effecting change.

This programme is based on robust evidence of what makes effective professional learning for Educators. Active learning underpins the design of the programme. Educators are engaged in the same style of learning promoted for students, often going through their own transformation with regards to how they view themselves as both learner and teacher. Collaboration and community of practice is at the heart of the programme, with time to share and learn together, as well as individual reflection built in. The programme culminates in an Action Learning Project whereby Educators are supported with mentoring and coaching to contextualise and embed the learning for their setting.

This Innovate session will be a hands-on workshop. Attendees will participate in a 30 minute creativity sprint which will demonstrate some of the active-learning methodologies that we use in the Professional Certificate & Diploma in Creativity & Innovation for Educators course. Attendees will engage in creative collaboration, explore their own creative mindset and experience first-hand a range of teaching techniques that develop student attributes such as communication and critical thinking.

The significance of this course from the UCD Innovation Academy should not be underestimated. Retaining high-quality educators, who are committed to and have the capacity to lead change is essential. Educators who have completed the programme often remark that it has reignited their passion for the job, they have reconnected to their moral purpose and are now more confident in their ability to lead school improvement. Professional education is not just for the minds, it must also be for the heart.

This paper presentation focuses on results from the first two years of pan-Canadian research seeking to examine how teacher education programs support, nurture and sustain well-being. In keeping with antiracist and anti-oppressive calls to action in Teacher Education, a holistic model focusing on mental, emotional, physical and cultural conceptions of wellbeing guided the research questions. In year 1, the questionnaire was disseminated to the Senior Administration of Teacher Education Programs. In year 2, the questionnaire was disseminated to teacher candidates enrolled in Teacher Education programs. The results provide insight on the theory and practice of preparing teachers with well-being as a foundation for their professional lives as leaders in education.

The theoretical framework for this study is interdisciplinary, drawing on research in positive psychology (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008; Ben-Shahar, 2008; Keyes & Annas, 2009; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), positive organizational scholarship (POS) (Carr, 2004; Gallos, 2008; Luthans & Youssef, 2007; Roberts & Dutton, 2009), and work-related learning (Fenwick, 2008; Smith, 2020). Supported by this framework that connects wellbeing and professional learning, this research responds to a need to examine pre-service programs across a variety of educational settings, and to explore future policies and practices from a more holistic perspective (Alexander, Gerofsky & Wideen, 1999; Authors, 2010).

This multi-year research project is designed using a mixed-method approach (McMillan & Wimmer, 2008) to identify and describe programs, practices, and policies for promoting well-being across teacher education sites in Canada. Qualitative data from the questionnaires were inductively analyzed using the constant comparison method (Gay & Airasian, 2003; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Quantitative data analysis included frequency counts, means, standard deviations, and percentages. Finally, the data were compared and contrasted with the themes derived from the review of related research on fostering well-being in teacher education programs.

Based on responses from administrators and students across teacher education programs in Canada, wellbeing is a consideration in the design and delivery of pre-service preparation. While intellectual, social, and emotional wellbeing tend to be the most familiar aspects for including in programs and policies, attention to cultural and spiritual wellbeing emerged through the survey responses emerged as important areas for further consideration. Student responses varied and at times, provided responses that were contrary to the administrators’ responses. Findings from this study highlight the importance of supporting and promoting wellbeing as a foundational part of formative and early professional learning experiences in pre-service teacher education. Overall, the findings inform initial recommendations for a holistic perspective to support and promote teacher well-being during pre-service education that take into account multiple pillars of wellbeing. Survey results provide additional insights on the theory and practice of preparing teachers with well-being as a foundation for their professional lives as leaders in education.

Recognizing the importance of professional learning as pathway towards school effectiveness, the findings from this study inform policy and practice to support teacher development from a foundation of wellbeing as integral to initial teacher education and continuing professional development for teachers.

The under-representation of minority ethnicities in the teaching workforce in Scotland has been a long-standing and persistent issue (e.g. Hartshorn et al 2005; BBC 2015; Hepburn 2017, Arshad, 2021). The aim of the study reported in this paper was to contribute to ongoing discussions about this issue. Informed by semi-structured interviews with minority ethnic teachers in Scottish schools, the study offers insider perspectives into the factors that affect recruitment, retention and progression of teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds, with a specific focus on teacher education and the probation year. Kholi (2021) suggests a need to understand how minority ethnic teachers negotiate their professional identities, and considers whether their personal identities actively or consciously affected their teaching. Whilst schools can be important sites for children and young people to encounter social justice, so too, are they sites for teachers to encounter social justice. Yet some minority ethnic teachers appear to feel confident in utilising their cultural and linguistic skills while others choose to assimilate in order to ‘fit in’. This potentially oppresses minority ethnic teacher’s identity (Beijaard and Meijer, 2017).

This paper draws on qualitative research conducted with minority ethnic teachers from the West of Scotland. All were educated in Britain but selection criteria ensured a mix of different cultural and religious backgrounds. Focus groups enabled their responses to be analysed, in order to explore their experiences and perceptions of their contribution to the profession. It was also important to seek their views on responding to the needs of the minority ethnic children they teach and whether they felt that their cultural, religious and linguistic skills were of benefit to all the children they teach. Critical race theory provided a useful lens to examine the teaching lives of minority ethnic teachers, with respect to the particular issues they face because of their culture, religion and language (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Bhopal, 2018).

Findings throw light into the influences that shape the participants as developing professionals and enable them to negotiate the complexities associated with their minority status. In addition, findings show that equality of opportunity symbolised by the offer of a place in a teacher education programme is not sufficient to ensure that individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds have a fair chance at completing the programme and the probation period. Unless the challenges associated with their minority status are recognised and appropriate support is put in place to counteract them, these aspiring teachers are less likely than their majority-status peers to experience success. An unsuccessful outcome can be devastating on a personal level and will contribute to the perpetuation of existing disparities in the representation of minority ethnicities in the teaching workforce in Scottish schools.

The recommendations for Teacher Education Institutions and Local Authorities arising from this study can be useful not only in relation to student teachers and probationers from minority ethnic backgrounds but also in relation to aspiring teachers from other under-represented groups.

The concept of teacher academic optimism (TAO) is gaining importance as a framework for understanding in-school factors that influence student achievement. It emphasizes the interplay between teacher efficacy, teacher trust in students and parents, and academic emphasis, and has been shown to be a crucial determinant of a teacher’s ability to optimize learning opportunities (Chang, 2011; Hoy et al., 2006; Woolfolk Hoy et al., 2008). Even after controlling for background variables such as socioeconomic status (SES) and migration background, research shows a positive correlation between TAO and student outcomes (Ates & Unal, 2021), underscoring the significance of academically optimistic teachers. Despite the potential promise of the concept, there still is limited understanding of the factors that influence TAO and whether teachers are equally optimistic in different classroom contexts. Therefore, this study focuses on the extent to which the subconcepts of TAO vary with classroom composition, educational track, and with teachers’ perception of academic optimism at the school level.

Data were collected in Antwerp, the largest city in Flanders (Belgium) and with a (for this study) relevant variety of secondary schools in terms of ethnicity and SES. Via stratified clustered systematic sampling a total of 1061 teachers from 37 secondary schools participated in the study. The adapted (and validated) Survey for Academic Optimism (Lelieur et al., 2022) was used to map out teacher and school academic optimism (SAO). We also surveyed the compositional features and the educational track of the class group the respondents had in mind answering the TAO items. Data were analysed through Bayesian multilevel structural equitation modelling. Model comparison showed a clear hierarchy of fit, as measured by the dWAIC (McElreath, 2020), in favour of the model with intercepts, school random effects, fixed effects, and school academic optimism effects for each one of the sub-scales within teacher academic optimism.

Our results illuminate the importance of considering the effects of educational track in understanding variations in teacher trust in students and parents. In schools with a similar level of SAO, educational track, rather than students’ background characteristics, plays a determining role. Specifically, students in the vocational finality have teachers with lower levels of TAO compared to students in other finalities. Previous research has highlighted the heightened risk of lower learning achievements among students in vocational tracks (Van Houtte & Demanet, 2016), but the presence of optimistic teachers has the potential to reverse this trend. Additionally, our study contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the pivotal relationship between SAO and TAO. To foster inclusive and effective learning environments, policymakers and educators should prioritize investing in SAO. This includes cultivating a teaching team that believes in its ability to educate all children, fostering a trusting environment that actively involves students and parents, and maintaining high expectations for all students, regardless of their background characteristics or educational track.

This proposal is closely related to the subtheme: Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability.

Chile has a highly privatised and marketised school system where schools are individually accountable for their performance and, ultimately, responsible for their sustainability (Carrasco & Gunter, 2019; Falabella, 2016; Zancajo, 2019). In this context, which would propel schools apart, recent policies and reforms are deliberately encouraging them to join mandated networks and work collaboratively under shared goals (Bellei, 2018; Pino-Yancovic et al., 2019). Nevertheless, to date, questions on how schools relate to others in such contrasting conditions have not been empirically addressed.

Considering this, this paper aims to explore to what extent schools build relationships of collaboration and support; and, if so, inspect who they turn to, and examine the motives driving them to get together.

To fulfil these purposes, this study adopted a Mixed Method Social Network Analysis approach (Bellotti, 2014; Borgatti et al., 2018), a conceptual and methodological framework concerned with the relational structures schools and their communities are embedded in. Empirical data was yielded between November and December 2022 through Ego-centric Network Map interviews (Altissimo, 2016) with sixteen primary school headteachers from an urban school district in Santiago, Chile. Interviews aimed at collecting data on relationships schools forge to support the work they do daily, acknowledging features of the networks, drivers, and the content of these bonds.

Findings show that schools and school leaders make use of both policy-framed and individual means to engage with schools that are similar in terms of their structural characteristics, forging networks that are mainly locally rooted, and diverse in terms of their size and the strength of their ties. Moreover, the research reveals four main ends driving schools to work along with others: i) to innovate in teaching and learning processes, ii) to provide administrative and managerial support, iii) to secure students’ smooth transitions to secondary education, and iv) to organise joint extra-curricular activities.

Unlike most research addressing school networking where the networks under study are setting the boundaries of the inquiry, this study provides an account of all the social worlds in which schools are intertwined. By doing so, this research seeks to expand current notions on the way schools relate to others, challenging assumptions on individualisation that usually are part of scholarly discussions on processes of privatisation. At the same time, it sheds light on relational perspectives to understand processes of school improvement that are not commonly addressed by the literature.

Considering the above mentioned, this paper seeks to contribute to the ‘Leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably’ ICSEI congress sub-theme.

Ensuring that every learner learns successfully is an urgent global challenge. To address this, ACER has committed its expertise and resources to make a significant contribution internationally. We work in partnership with education systems to drive ongoing, sustainable improvements in teaching and learning. This work is underpinned by our suite of evidence-based holistic improvement frameworks (tools), which assist education systems, schools, and school leaders in their improvement journeys. Such frameworks help establish common understandings of what improvement looks like in terms of observable, measurable practices to guide improvement foci, strategies, planning, and monitor progress.

Our flagship improvement framework is the National School Improvement Tool (NSIT). The NSIT reflects the interrelatedness of a broad range of practices at different levels in a school (highlighted in research, Robinson et al., 2017, Yatsko et al., 2015) and has been used successfully by schools and education systems in Australia and internationally since 2013. It consists of nine domains of practice with accompanying performance levels to support schools to deeply reflect on their current practices, paving a clear pathway for improvement. ACER determined a need to develop a second iteration of this tool, renamed the School Improvement Tool (SIT), drawing on the most recent international research, including our own, to ensure its fitness for purpose in informing sustainable school improvement.

This presentation highlights key learnings from research and practice that informed the development of the SIT. A comprehensive review of research on school improvement, school effectiveness and school leadership confirmed the robustness of the nine-domain framework. The SIT reflects learnings from an extended evidence base, new developments in the field, changes to common terminology and 10 years of evidence from NSIT school reviews.

Examples of themes that have been strengthened across the SIT include a more explicit focus on student wellbeing and engagement as well as student learning. Inclusive practices and the consideration of student perspectives to support sustainable school improvement have also been amplified. Fundamentally, it reflects a shift in the focus of school improvement research from student academic achievement outcomes to educational outcomes more broadly (Scheerens & Ehren, 2015). Another key theme that has been strengthened is collective efficacy and collaboration, reflecting compelling research findings in relation to school cultures characterised by high expectations (e.g., McAleavy et al., 2018) as well as distributed leadership (Leithwood et al., 2020), and ongoing professional learning of teachers and school leaders—directly related to the conference theme.

The SIT was published in 2023. Feedback from professional learning with school and system leaders and its application in schools across three Australian jurisdictions strongly endorses the shifts in emphases from NSIT to SIT and the value of the SIT as a tool to guide school improvement.

The SIT is a practical tool that can be used in any school setting internationally to enable schools to make judgements about where they are on their improvement journey and guide improvement-focused actions. At a policy level, it provides a unifying framework that can assist in ensuring system-wide consistency in school improvement efforts.

A school district's most important work is to ensure the highest quality of instruction for students. School district leaders typically don't invest in meaningful, ongoing development of building leadership capacity within their own team (Meyer & Vandermolen, 2021). The intent of this study was to shift that reality through the development of a thought partner relationship between superintendents of local school districts and former school administrators from a regional intermediate school district. The purpose of this partnership was to build strong leadership capacity to include a laser focus on learning and teaching. Results include superintendents appreciation of having a thought partner, an increase in classroom observational practice and various indicators of moving the needle toward instructional leadership.

Research questions included the following:

How to increase leader capacity for cohesive and collaborative leadership in support of improving teaching and learning for all?

Does having a focused though partner/coach have a positive impact on superintendent instructional practices? What is the impact?

How do superintendents influence the improvement of instruction and what leadership is needed for superintendents to better be able to focus on learning and teaching?

How does leadership coaching evolve over the course of the coaching relationship?

The theoretical perspectives for this study included Hall and Hord's (2011) Six Shared Functions for Facilitating Change as well as Smith and Smith's (2018) Big-Five High-Impact Instructional Leadership Practices and the Web of Support for Learning Improvements (Knapp et al., 2014). The authors also used language from Marzano's District Leadership Map (Marzano, 2018) and Cognitive Coaching (Thinking Collaborative, 2023) since those were frameworks local districts used for growth goal setting and evaluative purposes.

This study was a case study including multiple data sources to enable investigators to understand how superintendents utilized the knowledge, skills, behaviors and strategies they acquired by engaging with their thought partner on a consistent basis.

Primary data sources included semi-structured interviews. The tool used to conduct these interviews was the Concerns Based Adoption Model. Additional data sources included weekly huddle artifacts such as minutes, agendas, meeting recordings, data collection instruments and self assessments in which both the superintendent and the thought partner utilized on a consistent basis.

A principal is the second leading indicator of student performance falling only to fall behind the classroom teacher (Grissom et al., 2021). Similarly, when there is high principal turnover or a less effective principal leading a building, student achievement is negatively impacted (Grissom et al., 2021). Therefore, it is important to support building level leaders with professional learning that is meaningful and will bring results of increased leader performance. The purpose of this practice and subsequent study was to build the capacity in superintendent and central office leadership and support so that they may, in turn, engage in strategies and instructional focus to support their building level leaders (and teachers and students).

The conference's theme is "Quality Professional Education for Enhanced School Effectiveness and Improvement." Through this study, the investigators strived to provide quality professional learning to impact learning and teaching.

Focus of Inquiry

Staying in Science is a ten-year, longitudinal study funded by the National Science Foundation that investigates how authentic, mentored science research experiences in out of school settings may support youths’ persistence in STEM. The study encompasses youth who are currently in college or early in their careers in the workplace. The goal of the research is to understand youth persistence in STEM, and to identify the specific practices of educators, professors and mentors and features of institutional settings that either support youth in STEM careers, or divert them from their path.

Theoretical/ Conceptual Perspectives

We investigate core concepts in community of practice theory such as identity, sense of belonging, practices, and peer and mentor relationships (Lave & Wenger, 1991), and explore the degree to which those elements impact STEM persistence. In this second stage of the study, we focus on institutional practices and educational experiences that contribute to a sense of belonging or othering and strengthen or attenuate youth identities as someone who can do STEM work.

Data & Method

Our mixed-methods study gathers data from participating youth (N=358), including annual surveys, social network analysis, and interviews (N=30). We include a group of youth as co-researchers who provide feedback on instruments, analyze data, and report findings. Survey instruments includes a bank of items that gather data on youth sense of belonging or othering, experiences with microaggressions and racism, as well as flourishing. Interviews explore students’ educational and work experiences at the course, degree/major and institutional level.

Findings

Participants represent groups historically marginalized in STEM: 76% identify as people of color, 46% have one or more parent born outside the US and 39% are first generation college students. Participants in our study intend to remain in STEM: 75% of participants planned to or were majoring in STEM in college. Survey and interview data revealed a set of strategies and practices by educators and educational institutions that either contributed to youth sense of belonging or othering, and that supported and guided them or diverted from their paths. For instance, our social network analysis revealed that STEM mentors named as effective in youth networks were not simply providing guidance and advice, but helping youth feel a sense of belonging and acceptance in their field of interest.

Educational Importance for Practice and Theory

Our participants represent a population at the center of concerns about equitable science participation; they are passionate about STEM and have strong prior records of achievement in STEM. A network of knowledgeable adults able to support their development and persistence is critical to their success. This project shares findings about the practices, routines, and structures that educators and mentors have enacted that have been either critical to youth success or diverted them from productive pathways. We focus on sharing strategies that K-12 educators, as well as college and university faculty, can implement in their educational settings to support students who have been historically marginalized, responding directly to the ICSEI call for research that can inform leadership in education.

Context

During the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers and school leaders sought to maximize the effectiveness of remote teaching and of technology-enabled teaching. As Covid-19 recedes, such innovations can be retained to help shape education reform.

Doucet (2020) highlights formative assessment and timely feedback to online learners as crucial elements of remote learning. Remote schooling proved problematic for some students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) - how students are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning. If implemented successfully in class, formative feedback—the process by which students learn how well they are achieving and what they need to do to improve their work—can help develop students’ SRL and improve their achievement. This study explores the link between digital formative feedback and SRL and how school level initiatives amongst staff in one jurisdiction might foster enhanced practice. Three questions guide the research.

1. To what extent can digital feedback enhance students’ performance, especially in relation to high school chemistry?

2. To what extent can digital feedback enhance students’ SRL?

3. What school-level strategies are employed to develop the capacity of high school chemistry teachers in relation to digital feedback?

Methodology

The study adopts a qualitative approach, including two data collection methods: a systematic literature review (Gough et al., 2012); and analysis of selected school websites. The literature review examines the relationship between digital feedback, students’ SRL and performance. The research is framed through Zimmerman’s (2002) conceptualization of SRL as a three-stage process involving Forethought, Performance, and Self-reflection, exploring how these stages are reflected in digitally-mediated formative assessment in practice. The study is situated, in part, in the context of chemistry teachers in International Schools in China. Relevant professional development and assessment policies drawn from school websites in two Chinese cities are examined to determine how formative assessment, and particularly, digital feedback, is used in teaching and what collaborative capacity-building practices are employed across teachers within a school. Qualitative data are being generated and thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) is used to extract relevant themes and draw conclusions about the research questions.

Emerging findings

Preliminary findings from the literature review highlight the dearth of information specifically related to digital feedback in chemistry, suggesting an under-researched area. Some research shows that digital formative feedback is beneficial when applied in classroom (Barana & Marchisio, 2016; Bhagat & Spector, 2017); facilitates mastering knowledge and skills by influencing students’ motivation; and helps inform subsequent instruction. The review is being broadened to include conference proceedings and grey literature. Some studies link students’ self-regulated ability to enhanced teaching and learning generally, but with relatively little focus on the digital context and remote learning evident during the pandemic and since. There is evidence of some inconsistency between teachers’ technological content knowledge and how to embed technology in practice (Wagner, 2021). This study aims to bridge that gap, including an emphasis on the policies and shared practice in schools that are used to inform and facilitate teachers in building their confidence and competence in digital formative feedback.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences and concerns of three teachers from one post-primary school engaged in the Instructional Leadership Programme. Although the literature reports on a variety of contrasting views on professional learning it also identifies common characteristics of effective professional learning designed to bring about a change in teachers´ instructional practice (Borko, 2004; Desimone, 2009; Wei et al., 2009; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 2011; Darling-Hammond, 2017).

The Instructional Leadership Programme (ILP), a two-year professional learning programme, is designed to extend and refine the instructional practices of post-primary teachers in Ireland. Teachers and school leaders attend the ILP on a voluntary capacity. The programme provides schools with the opportunity to address specific school improvement requirements around teacher practice. Schools benefit from school improvement when school principals and teachers have the opportunity to identify and pursue their own specific professional learning needs.

The Concern Based Adoption is the framework used to explore how an individual’s concerns influence implementation of an innovation. It provides information on how teachers will adapt to change and provides a framework to anticipate future needs (Hall & Hord, 2015).

Research questions

1. What are the concerns of teachers engaged in refining/extending their instructional practices?

2. What experiences supported teachers engaged in a professional learning programme?

A case study approach informed the design, data collection and methods of analysis for this study. The Stages of Concern questionnaire was administered three times over a year and a half to the three teachers to understand their concerns. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain an understanding of the teachers experiences of changing their practices.

The data collection and analysis was aligned into four phases.

Phase 1- Stages of concern questionnaire in October 2019

Phase 2- Stages of concern questionnaire in March 2020

Phase 3- Semi-structured interviews between June and October 2020

Phase 4- Stages of concern questionnaire in June 2020

Findings

Teachers highest and second highest scores report that teachers are working towards implementation of instructional practices. The results also showed high-levels of collaboration among the teachers to learn more information about their new practices.

Teachers’ experiences of the characteristics of the ILP and professional learning supported them with implementation of instructional practices (the extended period of time, adequate period of time between sessions, teachers attending the programme in a team and modelling of the practices).

This study provides a unique perspective of teachers implementing instructional practices while engaging in a professional learning programme. Exploring these perspectives is important for two reasons. First, the results identified teacher concerns implementing instructional practices on their post-primary classroom while engaging in the ILP. This provides insight into a largely undocumented area of research in Ireland. Findings from this paper have the potential to contribute to research on teachers’ response to change and can contribute to future design of professional learning programmes.

Second, given the paucity of research related to professional learning in the Irish education system this study encourages further exploration into educational change focused on instruction in Ireland.

1. Introduction.

Karlsudd (2021) introduces ‘inner inclusion capital’ as the factors related to the teacher’s

competency in inclusive education (IE), for example, knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. Malaysian

Education Development Plan 2013-2025 for IE requires the involvement of both government preschool

teachers (GPT) and non-government preschool teachers (NGPT). A study by Amar Singh et al. (2018)

highlights that the parents of special educational needs (SEN) pupils get the lowest support and

assistance for full inclusion (FI) from government schools compared to non-government schools. This

study focuses on the ‘inner inclusion capital’ of GPT and NGPT towards teaching the preschoolers with

autism as these pupils are the most in FI at government preschools (MOE Special Education Data 2020).

2. Problem statement.

Findings of past studies show that GPT have low levels of ‘inner inclusion capital’ to teach

preschoolers with autism in IE (Mariani et al., 2017; Jongkulin et al., 2019; Al Jaffal M., 2022). The

conditions of the ‘inner inclusion capital’ of NGPT are not known to the researcher. There is a need to

determine the current levels of ‘inner inclusion capital’ of GPT and NGPT and whether there are

differences that affect FI in preschools.

3. Research objective.

The research objective is to determine the levels of ‘inner inclusion capital’ of GPT and NGPT

and to identify differences between them for FI in preschools.

4. Research questions.

i. What levels of knowledge about autism do GPT and NGPT possess?

ii. What are the levels of attitudes and self-efficacy do GPT and NGPT have towards FI in

preschools?

iii. Are there significant differences for the knowledge about autism, attitude, and self-efficacy of

GPT and NGPT towards FI in preschools?

5. Research method

This research was conducted as a questionnaire survey. With the help of two State Department

of Educations, the questionnaire was distributed to 150 teachers through a google. form during the

covid-19 school closures. From the demographic information obtained, the respondents consisted of 75

GPT from non-FI preschools and 75 NGPT from FI preschools. The data was analysed using descriptive

and inferential statistics.

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6. Research findings

GPT have low score levels for knowledge, moderate for both attitude and self-efficacy.

Meanwhile, the score levels for NGPT are moderate for knowledge, high for both attitude, and selfefficacy.

One-Way ANOVA analysis between the scores of GPT and NGPT showed significant

differences (p < 0.05) for the attitudes and self-efficacy, but insignificant for knowledge. Both GPT

and NGPT failed to score more than 50% correct answers to the knowledge of autism construct.

7. Educational importance

Results show that the attitudes and self-efficacy of NGPT with FI environment are higher than

the GPT in non-FI environment. It indicates that establishing more preschools with FI settings can

improve the ‘inner inclusion capital’ and the quality of preschool teachers’ professional education in

enhancing the effectiveness and improvement of IE in Malaysia.

This research project is situated within the context of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Ireland and seeks to understand the changes made to ECEC practice during Covid-19 restrictions. Given the relational nature of ECEC, Covid-19 restrictions impacted key aspects of ECEC, such as emergent curriculum and child-led practices, partnership with parents and wellbeing of both children and educators.

In particular, the research explored:

How did educators experience the closure and reopening of ECEC settings?

What changes were made to practice?

Did educators see an impact of such changes on children?

This paper focuses on findings that have significant implications for practice currently and into the future.

The chosen research design was a qualitative approach and set within an interpretative paradigm. This approach allowed for ECEC providers’ (i.e. owners, managers and educators) experiences, interpretations and shared meaning to be captured through semi-structured interviews, held at three points in the period March to December 2021 and analysed using inductive reasoning and thematic analysis.

Research suggests that COVID-19 has caused trauma, individual as well as collective (Sherwood et al., 2021), both in society at large and in ECEC environments. Traumatic experiences may leave a legacy which lasts for years, resulting in emotional distress, difficulty sleeping and behavioural challenges (Barnardos, 2018). Indeed, research exploring children’s response to crises indicates that the effects may even be experienced across their lifetime (Kar 2009; Le Brocque et al. 2017). This is particularly true for young children who may lack the cognitive and verbal capacity to process such monumental events (Durbin 2010). Yet, UNESCO (2020) frames the Covid-19 pandemic as an opportunity to rethink such areas as curricula and learning. Inspired by a report from ERSI (Darmody, Smyth and Russell, 2020), examining the impact of Covid-19 closures on ECEC, and a study by ECI (2020), looking at the implications for children’s wellbeing, this research presentation directly explores the lessons learned from adapting ECEC practice during the Covid-19 pandemic and specifically draws out implications for future practice and further research.

Findings arising from the research include:

Educators’ well-being was significantly impacted by a multitude of factors relating to Covid-19. The pandemic exasperated feelings of burn-out and frustration in the ECEC sector, contributing to an existing staffing crisis, the impact of which is currently being felt.

Emergent curriculum and child-led practice were challenged, yet important learning regarding physical environments and play equipment also emerged, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the environment as a third teacher.

Educator wellbeing appeared to impact on educators’ perception of child wellbeing and educational provision, including educators’ ability to implement high quality practice and being attuned to children’s needs and wellbeing.

Relationships and partnerships with parents were impacted, including drop off/collection times, informal conversations with parents and inviting parents/family members into the setting. Many settings have since been reluctant to go back to an ‘open door’ policy regarding parents.

The research has informed an Erasmus funded project investigating sustainable, inclusive practices post-Covid, exploring lessons learned from the crisis response to Covid.

The purpose of this ongoing research is to study politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis, 2006; 2011) in the policy and practice of Swedish early childhood education and care (ECEC). Belonging has been described as “fundamental to any child’s well-being and happiness” (Woodhead & Brooker, 2008, p. 3) and is related to connectedness, community and engagement (Allen et al., 2018). Previous research on school belonging has pointed out its importance for both educational outcomes and students’ engagement (Nix et al., 2022). In a society characterised by globalisation and social inequalities, belonging has become a highly contested and topical issue (Yuval-Davis, 2011). At the same time, there are high expectations that high quality ECEC will prevent social exclusion (Morabito et al., 2013). While belonging is a central concept in ECEC frameworks in countries like Australia and New Zealand (Erwin et al., 2022), it is less commonly used in the Nordic countries (Piškur et al., 2022). Results of recent research has shown that Nordic ECEC educators think that it is important to support children’s belonging, but there are complex power relations and potential value conflicts embedded in this work (Berge & Johansson, 2021; Eek-Karlsson & Emilson, 2023).

This research project consists of four sub-studies, which are guided by the following research questions:

1) What is expressed in transnational and Swedish national policy documents regarding children’s belonging?

2) Which contextual factors influence early childhood educators’ work to promote children’s belonging?

3) Which innovative processes and critical incidents can be identified in early childhood educators’ work to promote children’s belonging?

4) Which ethical and political value systems regarding children’s belonging are expressed at the macro-, meso- and microlevels of ECEC?

The study is based on a critical ecology of profession (Urban, 2008), which provides a systemic understanding of the professional work of ECEC educators. The meaning-making of educators is in focus when studying how their pedagogical work is related to policy and contextual factors influencing their work. Politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis, 2006; 2011) is used as a conceptual framework to analyse processes where belongings are constructed and negotiated. According to this framework, belonging is viewed as a power-loaded, multi-layered phenomenon (Yuval-Davis, 2006; 2011). A multimethodological approach is used, which includes policy analysis, focus groups with ECEC educators, participant observations in ECEC centres and stimulated recall where video observations of educators’ interactions with children are used as stimuli in interviews with educators. The focus groups, observations and stimulated recall will be carried out in three Swedish ECEC centres. The research is currently at an early stage, which means that this presentation will focus on the overall systemic perspective of the research topic, with tentative results from the first sub-study (policy analysis). The overall study has implications for both policy and educational practice, since it offers insights on how children’s belongings are constructed and negotiated through ECEC policy and the work of ECEC educators.

The research and development initiative, Culture for Learning (CFL), is aimed at fostering a culture of optimal development and learning for children in early childhood education in the former Hedmark county. CFL involves early childhood education authorities, the educational-psychological service, kindergarten leaders, and all staff members across 22 municipalities.

The objective of CFL is to ensure that children and youth grow up in a culture that promotes educational attainment and active participation in societal and professional life. A coordinated and innovative effort to enhance children's well-being, learning, and development contributes to the achievement of the following goals:

• Enhancing children's linguistic and social competence, preparing them for future educational and societal engagement.

• Facilitating the professional development of all early childhood education through collective and coordinated competence-building within professional learning communities.

• Actively utilizing various assessment results and other data at all levels of the education system to improve pedagogical practices.

Moreover, the CFL project in early childhood education serves as a longitudinal intervention study, complementing its focus on improvement efforts. The purpose of this intervention study is to examine the extent to which the various interventions within the CFL project have realized their intended objectives.

A comprehensive online survey has been conducted in all kindergartens, encompassing assessments by children, staff members, leaders, and parents regarding the quality of kindergarten provision. Three surveys were administered at three distinct time points: T1 (2017), T2 (2019), and T3 (2021) across more then 150 kindergartens. Approximately 8,000 four- and five-year-olds, 12,000 parents, 1,800 staff members, and 160 kindergarten leaders have participated in these surveys. The surveys cover a wide range of factors that research has shown to significantly correlate with well-being, development, and learning. Kindergartens have access to their own results through an interactive online result portal, enabling them to extract results for all respondent groups.

Pedagogical analysis serves as a core tool for analyzing and developing interventions in kindergartens within the Culture for Learning framework. Collective professional development initiatives have included learning caravans and workshops targeting different levels within the kindergarten sector. Furthermore, various online competence packages have been established for leaders at both kindergarten and municipal levels, as well as for all kindergarten staff, providing relevant theories and research-based knowledge. The implementation of competence packages has occurred within professional learning groups in each individual kindergarten. These packages have covered thematic areas such as relationships, language, parent collaboration, and pedagogical analysis.

There has been a positive development across all areas assessed by the survey respondents from T1 to T3. This includes improvements in children's social, linguistic, and motor skills. Four- and five-year-olds themselves reported experiencing an enhanced learning environment, with an average improvement of 0.15 standard deviations from T1 to T3. Additionally, there has been a certain degree of improvement in staff collaboration on pedagogical activities involving children, as well as their satisfaction and competence. Moreover, there has been a positive development in the pedagogical leadership in kindergartens, as assessed by both the leaders and staff members.

Extended education is an emerging field and being the principal of School-Age Educare Centers (SAEC) does not only mean pedagogical, operational and administrative responsibility, it includes also the responsibility for the aspect of care provided to the children during their stay at SAEC. In the educational practice of SAEC staff with heterogenous professional background act in various learning environments. The principals' knowledge and perceptions of the SAEC is decisive in order to drive organizational educational change (Meyer et al., 2022). Leadership in SAEC seems to be more complicated than in school (Boström & Haglund, 2020). Research on principals' work in SAEC is sparse in Sweden (Glaés-Coutts, 2021; Jonsson 2018, 2021) and non-existent in Switzerland. On the other hand, there is extensive research on how prevailing discourses influence successful schools: if principals and staff embrace the same rules, norms and beliefs over time and if there is mutual cooperation (Lomos et al., 2011; Scheerens et al., 2007; Seashore & Murphy, 2017). Therefore, it is both important and relevant to study this field.

The objective for this study is to analyze and compare principals' perceptions of their mission with a focus on SAEC. The aim is to generate knowledge about this unexplored area and to compare the professional practice internationally.

The theoretical perspective is based in school improvement theory (Fullan, 2010; Bredeson, 2002). Critical parameters emphasized are structure, culture and leadership (Höög, & Johansson, 2014). Internal improvement capabilities which seem to be particularly important for school improvement are communication, cooperation, skills development and leadership (Björkman, 2008; Grissom et al., 2021).

In this study a comparative content analysis (Krispendorff, 2016) is used as research method to analyze and compare the principals’ views on SAEC and their leadership. This method allows us to draw meaningful sense-making processes (Weick, 1995) and comparisons to make inferences about the similarities and differences between the two contexts. The sample consists of twelve interviews with six principals in each country.

The preliminary results show a growing awareness of the pedagogical role as principal in Sweden, emphasizing the whole school day. This blurs the boundaries between the school and SAEC which becomes problematic for maintaining the distinctiveness of SAEC. In Switzerland, principals acknowledge their lack of professional knowledge on the function of SAEC and the workforce’s skills. Principals face the dilemma to mainly serve parental needs as a professional and empirical orientation. The results also pinpoint how cultural values, norms, or ideologies are reflected in principals’ perceptions about their leadership.

The educational importance of the study is to extend the principals’ vision on SAEC and view a child’s entire school day to serve its individual needs. The connection to the conferences theme is that quality for professional education for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement begins in principals' understanding and leadership of their mission.

In recent decades, distributed leadership has become a prominent area of research and practice in education, generating significant attention, debate, and controversy in the field of educational leadership (Harris et al., 2022). Distributed leadership continues to receive global attention in the educational context, although its implementation and effectiveness vary across different countries and local contexts and, in some cases, is influenced by official policies.

This study explores the implementation of distributed leadership in different countries, comparing government-supported models with those primarily implemented through scientific processes. Focusing on Irish and Turkish schools as case studies, the study aims to understand leaders' styles, priorities, support systems, and perceptions of distributed leadership. It investigates the impact of distributed leadership on schools, compares it to other leadership practices, and explores strategies for enhancing its effectiveness in education.

Our study utilized a qualitative research approach, employing semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection method. We conducted interviews with school administrators who hold or continue their Ph.D. degrees in educational administration science and have experience with distributed leadership in schools in both Ireland and Türkiye. In this context, this study is based on a comparative case study. As Bartlett and Vavrus (2017) noted, the comparative case study approach provides the opportunity to compare and analyse different cultures and contexts using horizontal, vertical, and transversal dimensions.

The interviews were conducted with seven participants from each country, for a total of 14. To analyze the data obtained from the interviews, we employed meta-theme analysis, a qualitative method specifically designed for cross-cultural research (Wutich et al., 2021).

Among the common leadership approaches identified in the interviews with school principals in Ireland, there is a collaborative and inclusive style, emphasis on shared responsibilities, focus on the development and cooperation of all individuals, and open communication. In Türkiye, where more autocratic tendencies are observed, the leadership of the central bureaucracy at schools has a certain degree of leadership. was confined to the frame.

Distributive leadership in Irish schools shows regular formal meetings between middle and senior leaders, as well as informal discussions in hallways and staff rooms. There is a focus on sharing information, staying connected, and involving staff members in the decision-making processes. However, there are concerns about how leadership is distributed, the recognition of teachers' contributions, and the need for clear facilitation and support to create a positive and inclusive atmosphere for distributed leadership. On the other hand, distributed leadership practices in Türkiye feed school culture and improve decision-making processes. However, it has been concluded that the fact that schools are under the influence of central policies prevents school principals from demonstrating their competencies as leaders.

The research aims to explore the conceptualization and implementation of distributed leadership in schools, aligning with the conference theme of "Leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably" by examining how distributed leadership practices contribute to collaborative and sustainable improvements in school effectiveness and educational outcomes.

Due to their location and the composition of the student body, schools in challenging cir-cumstances face more difficult conditions. As a result, quality characteristics can differ. With a high proportion of students from non-privileged family situations (usually measured by the educational attainment and financial circumstances of the parents), these poorer so-cio-economic circumstances are often associated with special compensatory services pro-vided by the school. These schools need external support. The necessary additional support from the system can be provided within the framework of professionalization and advisory services. School leadership also plays an important role not only in school development and building up school development capacities but also in accessing external resources and moderating and mediating external interventions.

This paper examines the quality and benefits of a support program designed for schools fac-ing challenging circumstances, including various interventions and their impact on school leadership, school development and school quality.

This five-year longitudinal mixed methods study is based on a sample of around 150 schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Over a period of three years, half the schools experi-enced further measures to professionalize school leadership (coaching of principals, profes-sional development program) and support school development (additional financial re-sources, school development consultancy). The study assesses the quality and the change in the quality of school characteristics and examines the contribution of the interventions to these changes.

The analyses are built on two different surveys of staff and school leaders on the work situa-tion and on the interventions assessed each year. In addition to a descriptive evaluation of the quality assessments of staff and school leaders, autoregressive regression analyses are conducted to examine the impact of specific program components/interventions on selected school quality characteristics during the program period. Since the program was implement-ed at the school level, the analyses were conducted accordingly.

The results of the study show the very positive assessment of the program’s quality and ben-efits and its positive consequences on the quality of the organization. The regression anal-yses demonstrate that positively perceived outcome qualities of the interventions are associ-ated with improvements in numerous dimensions of school quality, such as cooperative leadership. For example: The school members’ positive perception of the benefits (β = .26**) and achieved goals (β = .28**) as well as their perception of an increase in compe-tence development (β = .25**), behavioral (β = .27**) and organizational (β = .15*) change through the school’s work with a process consultancy for school development is associated with an improved coordination of actions of the steering group as perceived by the employ-ees. Furthermore, when examining the effect size Cohen's d, it becomes evident that most schools involved in the program showed better development over time than the comparison schools, some of which even experienced negative development.

Overall, the findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of school development programs on school leadership and school improvement. Based on these results, the interventions will be discussed in terms of their effects and the necessary conditions for successful implemen-tation, along with their practical implications.

A significant concern in many education systems internationally, is the recruitment to and retention of sufficient numbers of suitably qualified and experienced teachers in principal roles. This is a longstanding global issue and Scotland’s system is no exception. This paper reports firstly on findings from the authors’ research with experienced principals in Scotland through a Life History Narrative (LHN) approach, that illustrates key issues around support for new and long serving principals, with strong advocacy in the co-produced LHNs for mentoring to support principalship. Crucially, there is a need for mentoring support to be structured as an opportunity and an entitlement, with value placed on mentoring through allocation of time and resources, and facilitation of a safe space for critical conversations around the role and the challenges of headship.

Secondly, the paper reports on a district and university partnership in Scotland: 'The Headteacher (Principal) Mentoring Programme' from the perspectives of the university researchers, a district lead and a school principal. Development of the programme was supported by learning from the experience of colleagues in the Republic of Ireland, and lessons from the district’s previous mentoring model where lack of a formal structure or training meant that the mentor/mentee partnerships were not deemed to be impactful or sustained. The rationale and content of the programme was underpinned by this learning and also data from the authors’ LHN research. The programme involves:

• Full training for mentors: an ongoing professional learning experience for experienced principals in the district

• Mentoring for all principals new to principalship, as an offer and an entitlement in the district

• System leadership opportunity for the mentoring design team (comprising representatives from the university, district and schools).

Finally, the paper will present research methods and findings to date on the impact of the partnership programme, through a formative evaluation of year one. This research amplifies the voices of long-serving principals (mentors), new principals (mentees) and the mentoring design team (experienced principals representing all sectors in education) in six impact criteria around experience of the partnership, professional growth and practice, development of new skills and knowledge, confidence and wellbeing, motivation and job-satisfaction, and impact on student learning in schools and in the wider education system. The findings have implications for principalship support and continued professional learning, in particular relation to the design of mentoring or similar programmes at a local or national level. There are also propositions for the ICSEI community around how such a partnership may change the perception and representation of the principal role, in a time when the recruitment and retention are deemed by the World Bank to be at crisis level.

Education is central to securing a better future for students in Out-of-Home Care (OOHC; ‘students in care’). Education is essential both for a person’s own development and well-being; and for their contribution to society. However, the educational outcomes of students in care lag well behind other students internationally (Garcia-Molsosa et al., 2021; O’Higgins et al., 2015) and in Australia (AIHW, 2015; Knight & Rossi, 2018; Townsend et al., 2020). We argue that any intervention intended to improve school outcomes for students in care has a crucial prerequisite: that these students actually are at school and in class. Previous research has shown that:

a) Double the amount of absence per term: average of 7 days versus 3.4 days (Armfield et al., 2020).

b) More than four times the amount of chronic truancy (defined as 10+ days unauthorised absence in a school term): 46.3% versus 10.7% (Armfield et al., 2020).

c) Almost four times the proportion of students suspended: 23% versus 6% (Graham et al., 2020).

Children are placed in OOHC by relevant state/territory child protection services when the service determines that they are unable to live safely at home due to risk of abuse or neglect. There are three main types of OOHC provision in Australia: relative/kinship care (with a relative), foster care (with a non-related carer), and residential care (small group homes). There are 36,084 school-aged children (age 5-17) in care in Australia (AIHW, 2022). Of these, 14,949 (41%) were Indigenous (AIHW, 2022), which is a significant over-representation.

Educational outcomes for students in care are poor. Fewer students in care meet the National Minimum Standard in NAPLAN-Reading in year 3 (82% versus 95% nationally) and the gap grows for Year 9 (69% versus 93%) (AIHW, 2015). Only 57% of young care leavers (aged 18-25) completed Year 12 (McDowall, 2020), while 85% of 20-24-year-olds nationally have completed Year 12 or equivalent (ABS, 2020).

Addressing educational improvements for our most vulnerable cohorts of learners at system, school leadership, school community and teacher knowledge and capacity levels is an ongoing but often unresolved issue in schools with indicators that disruptions due to covid have made this an even more challenging space for schools.

This innovation presentation will discuss the research work being undertaken within ARC LP220100130, Fostering school attendance for students in Out-of-Home Care and the Learning Without Barriers Education Strategy. lwb.org.au/ctfassets/2SBT8kE6V77cWne8HWZnum/ Where the author leads the national education strategy as Executive Director of Education for Life Without Barriers and is a Lead partner with the ARC team in his capacity as an Adjunct Researcher at the University of Tasmania. This research will bring politicians, policymakers, educators, and the child protection sector together to shape innovation that ensures each young person in care meets their learning potential.

The focus of The SOL (Student Ownership of Learning) foundation has been on educational culture. During previous ICSEI sessions we were able to share our thoughts and practises on how to identify the educational culture of a school or a school system. Using the theoretical framework of John Macbeath, we developed a table game that can be played by all the participants of the school community: students, teachers, and school leaders. The game is not only an excellent tool to stimulate a debate on ownership, but it also generates data about how the whole school community thinks about ownership of learning. Is the school a formal, a pragmatic, a strategic, an incremental, a competent or a cultural school? The result of the game is then used to produce graphs and charts that help the specific school define the direction it wants to follow.

Currently our research path focuses on the ‘experience of ownership’. How does it feel to have ‘ownership” This is a more psychological, a more inward-looking angle. We developed a questionnaire to find out about these experiences. This is a new tool that can be used in different schools with different educational cultures.

The most interesting question is of course: how are the school culture and the experience of 'ownership of learning' related? That is what SOL’s new research is about. The first set of schools that SOL would be looking into is a group of so called ‘Agora schools’ in the Netherlands. These schools can be described as democratic schools. In the Netherlands exist twenty schools where students not only determine their own leaning content, but also their own learning style, and pace of learning. They are an interesting group to work with. SOL wants to investigate the relation of Agora’s liberal educational system with the kind of ownership students experience.

Further on in the process, Sol will also continue the same research with other types of schools. The outcomes will help to sharpen ideas on what the effects on school culture are to the experiences of learning.

During this innovate session we will share the theoretical framework of school culture, the way we use the board game, the way we define the ‘experience of ownership’, the Agora school system and the first outcomes of our new research with those schools. We are very interested in the feedback of all members of the ICSEI community.

A strategic priority for ICSEI involves supporting regional and virtual conferences and events that build on and extend the conversations and networking between our annual Congresses. To build on the conversations from the ICSEI 2024 Congress in Dublin, we are working on a regional event for July 5-6th, 2024 in Wales that will focus on issues of social justice, central to ICSEI’s purpose: “To enhance the quality and equity of education for all students in schools in all countries.” This invited innovate session will showcase the theme of the regional event in Wales, considering different aspects of the challenge of repurposing education for all children.

This regional conference is for educators who are willing to step up and step out of their local or national comfort zone, to lead the change with others, to share knowledge and to cross boundaries by learning from others working in different education systems. This conference is aimed at school leaders, teachers, policy makers and academics, who are interested in contributing to a cross-national, international, and global community. The programme will have a deep social justice theme and will focus on the possibilities of enhancing school effectiveness and improvement for all rather than for some. The conference will also have a practical orientation and will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience about leading educational change at the micro and macro level.

While educational inequality and inequity persists, our collective mission must be to create a world where success for every child in every setting is not just an aspiration but a lived reality. We cannot do this alone or independently. Working collaboratively is essential. Isolation is the enemy of improvement, so it is important that we learn across systems not to policy borrow or to replicate but rather to collaborate authentically and meaningfully across educational boundaries and fault lines. The moral imperative is to ensure that now, and in the future, all children and young people learn and live well, whatever their context, setting or circumstance. Education has never been so important locally, nationally, and globally right now. Creating the right educational future for our learners to survive and thrive depends on collective learning and collaborative action to lead the way for school effectiveness and system improvement.

This Innovate Presentation will examine the development of a school improvement framework for a network of 12 non-government schools in Australia. The complexity of this network is evident in that the schools operate in six different jurisdictions each with their unique regulatory and governance parameters. Central to the development of the framework is a broad understanding of governance consistent with words like networks, rules, power, authority, and its value as a central organising framework (Bevir, 2009; Stoker, 1998; Watterston & Caldwell, 2011).

In just three years the commitment and energy of visionary executive leadership and principals has enabled the enhancement of the capacity of school principals in developing whole system school alignment. The introduction of the resource, “School Improvement – A Learning Conversation”, has animated principals and executive leaders to consider how to link strategic intent to ensure improved learning outcomes for students. This process has been supported using the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) School Improvement Tool (2023) which describes the practices of highly effective schools and school leaders.

As the recently appointed Director of School Improvement for Marist Schools Australia (MSA), I have been charged with developing the initial strategic thinking of school principals and executive leadership for the implementation of new school improvement framework. The presentation will highlight the growing efficacy of school principals in the co-construction of a school improvement framework. This includes the development of metrics to judge the nature and efficacy of pedagogy, integrated reporting of specific data, its impact on leadership, strategic directions, decision making, and student feedback to enhance learning outcomes. Critical to success will be the efficacy and ultimately aligned professional learning for leaders and teachers to that end.

Two key questions have guided the meta-strategic processes used to develop whole school improvement and alignment:

How do we create an ongoing school improvement framework that celebrates and demonstrates the effectiveness of a school’s long term strategic growth in learning?; and

How can a school improvement framework and process be distributed, accessible, meaningful, and owned by all stakeholders?

This session will invite participants to engage in conversation in response to these questions. It is anticipated that participants will reflect on their own approach to school improvement to provide insight and further exploration of practice and policy in this critical area of leadership.

Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) is a large, multi-school system responsible for the education of 78000 primary and secondary school students in Australia that was faced with underperforming National Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Program (NAPLAN) data among its students. Determined to make a positive impact on learning and teaching outcomes, BCE initiated a system-wide review of each of its 146 schools using the National School Improvement Tool developed by the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER).

This momentous decision was a catalyst for change. BCE underwent structural transformation, establishing a School Improvement unit and reorganizing its Learning Services directorate for targeted school support. Each school was coached in the development of its own Explicit Improvement Agenda, drawing on insights and guidance from the National School Improvement Tool.

The journey was far from easy, but BCE persevered. Over the past three years, BCE has experienced tensions, discoveries, and necessary pivots. The presentation will provide an honest account of the highs and lows of this period of change, with insights that will be relevant to school leaders and policymakers around the world.

In recent years, BCE has transitioned from intervention to inquiry. The focus has shifted towards equipping schools with the tools to own their improvement agenda to lift system performance. This recent phase has witnessed a maturation in BCE's approach, fostering agency among principals and school leadership teams. Lessons have been learned about authentic collaborative work between BCE and its schools and the importance of peer accountability to enhance professional practice.

A key outcome of this improvement agenda focus has been the imperative of cultivating partnerships in the design of learning and teaching methodologies. These understandings have informed BCE's next steps, which look to the future with renewed purpose in delivering high performance across the system to maximize student achievement.

This presentation will be of interest to anyone who is passionate about improving student achievement. It will provide insights into the challenges and opportunities of system-wide change, and the importance of building leadership and teacher capability to drive improvement.

Objectives or purposes of the session:

We will present a program for leadership training for leaders and leadership groups. The purpose of this session is to challenge how educational leadership programs usually are conducted and to engage the participants in the session, helping us with coherent thinking, active support, feedback, and involvement to innovate future prototypes on leadership training.

Educational importance:

Educational research tells us that educational leadership is important to increase the students’ learning, and recent findings shows that there is a need of more practical training on leadership skills to accomplish this.

The format:

We will facilitate a process where the participants contribute by exploring what we have done so far, and what we should further address. Municipality leaders will present their use of this collective leadership development that have included their school leaders who have taken part in this development. School leaders will present their use of the program and we will present the objectives and goal for the program.

Our submission is connected the conference sub-theme “Policy and practice learning to support teacher and school leader development”. We will present our work through an involving method as an innovate session. The network this session will connect with is Educational Leadership Network.

Part 1: Practical, International Leadership Development (PILD)

The purpose of PILD is to develop leadership that provides leaders with efficacy and skills to achieve more equity and inclusiveness in their education systems. We do this to develop personal and professional competences in the leadership role. Together with the researchers we provide practical exercises to develop leadership skills on different theme. The participants get access to direct dialogue and sparring with the researchers regarding the municipality's/county municipality's, early childhood centers or schools’ challenges and initiatives.

Part 2: How municipality leaders use the program to develop collective leadership

In this part of the session municipality leaders/district leaders, will present how they have worked with the school leaders within their municipality to improve their leadership skills, both individually and as a group. The municipality leaders will demonstrate how they have been on a personal and professional journey exploring new ways of conducting their leadership, and how they have worked on developing the professional learning communities for their school leaders.

Part 3: How school leaders use the program to develop schools

In this section, school leaders will present how they have used their expertise to lead their own schools’ development. During the session they will demonstrate some of the tools they have used in their schools and present the way they have seen change among their teachers and discuss the next step for their development.

The format and approach(es) that will be used in the session to engage participants in the exploration of the area of practice:

During the innovate session we will engage the audience in various activities to demonstrate and to explore new ways of developing leadership training in education.

Target 4.5 of the UN sustainable development goals focuses on the fact that all individuals should have equal opportunity to enjoy education, achieve at equal levels and enjoy equal benefits from education. Unfortunately, research suggests that educational disadvantage exists across the life course and education sectors including the transition from second to third level with limited research available on the effectiveness of interventions which increase second-level students’ aspirations and progression to third level (Ní Chorcora, Bray and Banks, 2023).

Trinity Access Programmes' (TAP) Schools of Distinction programme aims to address the challenge of low progression rates to further and higher education, among students from low socio-economic backgrounds. By implementing evidence-based core practices in mentoring, leadership in learning, and pathways to college in partnership schools, TAP aims to increase aspirations and progression for groups that have been marginalised.

This paper presents research on the observed impact of the SOD programme on students’ college readiness. It aims to provide guidance for school leaders, policymakers and practitioners on what types of interventions work.

Methods

The paper uses data from a broader study on widening participation (Tangney et al., 2022) which surveys over 3600 students attending schools which have a disadvantaged status in Ireland. All schools included in the study are linked with the university widening participation outreach programme. Students were asked about their level of engagement with the core practices, as well as self-reported educational outcomes on their college readiness. College readiness in this instance refers to four validated self-reported measures; active engagement in education, educational aspirations and goals, college application efficacy, and students’ confidence in college success.

Findings

Preliminary findings suggest positive effects of certain WP outreach programmes on students’ college readiness. There was a significant difference in college readiness scores when comparing students who had a college student as a mentor and those that did not, even after controlling for students’ mother’s education. Students who reported having a college student as a mentor or having a staff member from their school as a mentor reported having statistically higher scores on all four college readiness measures. Findings showed that students who engaged in three or more Pathways to College activities had significantly higher scores on all measures of college readiness.

Educational importance

These findings give important insights into the roll out of mentoring programmes in schools and which types of mentors can be most impactful for young people from disadvantaged areas. Discussion of the analyses point to the fact that short, day-long events such as college fairs, campus tours, application clinics and college talks can be effective in increasing college readiness if they are embedded into school life.

This paper is relevant to the 3P network conference themes and specifically leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity and social justice. The School of Distinction programme gives a template and structure to school leaders working in disadvantaged areas who want to cultivate college going cultures in their schools with the ultimate aim of increasing college readiness and post-school progression.

The purpose of this paper is to enhance engaged and purposeful dialogue between politicians, practitioners, policymakers and researchers in developing policies for school improvement by providing new insights into the role of politicians as policymakers in the development of large-scale education system reform.

The focus of inquiry is how the Minister for Education in NSW, Australia, developed the Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) reform, the political considerations that arose and how they were addressed, and insights that might be relevant to policy development in other contexts or jurisdictions.

While there is general agreement that politicians are integral to public policy development, very little systematic research exists on the politics of reform. How politicians manage the political context, and their relationships with other education system actors during the policy development process, are “still largely a black box” (Busemeyer & Trampusch, 2011, p.432).

This study builds on the small literature of the politics of education, and the extensive literature on large-scale system reform and public policy development, to explore the role of politicians as policymakers, and how the political context shapes education policy development.

The methodology is a qualitative descriptive case study of the development of LSLD, which had major impacts on the governance, funding and decision-making authority of all 2,200 NSW government schools. It takes an historical narrative approach, drawn from the epistemically-privileged perspectives of insiders to the process: the Minister; his staff; and key stakeholders. Such voices are almost entirely absent in the research. The data is mainly from primary sources, including: public policy documents; private contemporaneous notebooks; the Minister’s (unpublished) memoir notes; and interviews.

Five key cross-cutting themes are identified through Reflexive Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013). They show that policy development depends as much or more on the politics of the reform process as on the technical reform design; demonstrate the importance of the Minister’s leadership in establishing the reform direction and determining the final policy; illuminate the value of his strong, active and respectful relationships and continual formal and informal engagement with a wide range of stakeholders; and reveal the messy, complex, intricate “policy dance” (Bridgman & Davis, 2004) that occurs between the Minister and the public servants. Building on my analysis, and on Ball’s (1993) conceptual lens of policy as both text and discourse, I theorise a new framework which describes each stage and focus of the policy development process.

The research contributes new knowledge to the politics of education and education policy fields on the role of politicians as policymakers and how policy development is shaped by the political context within which it occurs. This may enhance collaboration between politicians, practitioners, policymakers and researchers in improving education systems by giving practical guidance regarding the most effective engagement strategies to use at each stage of the process.

The paper connects to the conference theme regarding the impact of research/policy/practice collaboration for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement; and to the sub-theme of “engaged and purposeful dialogue between politicians, policymakers, academic researchers, educators, and wider school communities”.

Objective and focus of inquiry

Many governments recognize the limitations of centralized policy in motivating school improvement and turn to ‘network governance’ and the establishment of interorganisational networks in education to improve educational outcomes. Relying on such networks has far-reaching consequences for existing accountability structures, most of which were developed to support hierarchical control of individual school quality. This paper presents a systematic literature review which looked at the introduction of new accountability arrangements for networks and whether/how these improve education.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework

The added value of inter-organizational networks in addressing complex issues has been well established in the literature (Ehren & Perryman, 2018), including in education. School-to school networks or other types of local partnerships can enable more localized decision-making to address complex problems that require interactions of multiple actors. Many studies have however also outlined the unintended consequences of such networks (Kenis & Raab, 2020), such as substantial coordination and transaction costs and reputation and legitimacy concerns for the member organizations (Tunisini & Marchiori, 2020). Accountability is expected to incentive and legitimize collaboration and orient members’ contribution to the purpose of the network and address these concerns (Ehren & Perryman, 2018). For the purpose of this paper we take a broad perspective on accountability: “Accountability refers to the diverse relationships between parties involved in, or affected by a program/action, in which each party has an obligation to explain and justify his/her or their conduct, and other parties can pose questions and pass judgement and the party may face consequences” (Tran, 2021, p.10).

Methods and data sources

This paper presents the findings from a systematic literature review of peer reviewed sources -both conceptual and empirical papers- about the accountability of purpose-oriented inter-organizational networks. An initial search of Web of Science and Eric resulted in 5819 sources. A screening of titles and abstracts resulted in a set of 60 papers of which 54 sources were included for full coding.

Findings

The findings of the review first describe the types of accountability described in the studies and the types of networks (according to maturity, size, formal/informal and public nature of the partnership) in which these were introduced. We then explain the types of outcomes indicated by the various types of accountability (e.g. improved collaboration, network-level types of educational outcomes) and the conditions under which these emerge (trust, regulatory frameworks, alignment between levels of evaluation and accountability).

Educational importance

Many governments are moving towards ‘network governance’ to coordinate their education system in an attempt to address the limitations of centralized policy. The change in coordination also implies the need for other types of accountability to ensure networks can meet their joint purpose. This paper offers an overview of literature in this area and whether and how accountability can improve the functioning and outcomes of educational networks.

Connection to the conference theme

The paper provides further insights into a particular aspects of collaboration and partnerships in education systems around the world and how their accountability can enhance school effectiveness and improvement.

This paper presentation addresses the conference theme of ongoing professional learning and growth through focussing on the processes and outcomes to date of a partnership between the Centre for School and System Improvement (CSSI) in the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) and the School Improvement Division of the Northern Territory Department of Education (NTDoE). The CSSI focuses on investigating and supporting system transformation (Sengeh & Winthrop, 2022). The partnership between our organisations spans many decades. However, in 2018, the NTDoE embarked on a deliberate strategy to grow expertise in using ACER’s National School Improvement Tool (NSIT, 2016; now the School Improvement Tool, 2023) to review and analyse school performance for school improvement planning across differentiated improvement journeys. The SIT is a research-based framework which makes explicit good practice in school improvement in nine interrelated domains, each with four performance levels. Schools can use the Tool to pinpoint their current levels of practice in each domain and plan for improvement, based on evidence collected from a range of sources and stakeholders.

School communities in the (Northern Territory) NT have the greatest degree of remoteness and lowest socio-economic levels in Australia (ABS, 2022; Goss & Sonnemann, 2018). They also have the lowest educational outcomes in the country. 0ver 29,000 students are enrolled across 154 government schools in the NT (NT Government, 2022). Fifty per cent of students in NT government schools are Aboriginal. Approximately 71% of these schools are in remote and very remote areas. These circumstances bring unique challenges for school improvement. The Education NT Strategy 2018-22 (NTDoE, 2017), and the subsequent continuation of this agenda in the Education NT strategy 21-25, aimed to accelerate school improvement by ensuring that each school was focused on a “sharp and narrow set of priorities” and that, in turn, the system would provide schools with differentiated support to achieve performance goals and targets (NTDoE, 2019, p. 4) so that the NT would become the most improving education system in Australia. The NTDoE-ACER partnership was to support this overarching goal. Given the contextual complexity and high historical teacher and principal turnover, the partnership focussed building sustainable expertise within the system, contributing to the development of a pipeline of school leaders, and enabling culturally responsive improvement approaches. Strategies focussed on:

• Building a system-wide shared understanding of and practice in improvement

• Ongoing professional learning in school improvement practice using ACER tools across a broad range of stakeholders

• Culturally sustainable practice

• Differentiated support and resources to schools

• Growing a pipeline of leadership from within the system

• Monitoring for impact.

Independent evaluation shows that the impact of this approach has been positive with clear indication of improvement over a relatively short period. Successful outcomes have been observed particularly in growing expertise within the system. This has enhanced leadership and teaching capability, as well as staff attraction and retention rates, which have positively influenced student outcomes.

This contribution focuses on the views of teachers who participated in three professional development courses on school self-evaluation, conducted as part of the ValueE for School (VfS) action research (European Found Project 2014-2020).

We investigated participants' views on the training received and on its impact on the work of school data teams and the evaluation culture of schools, comparing the differences in relation to the sample context variables and the courses characteristics.

The literature highlights some aspects of the self-evaluation process that are decisive for school improvement: a) supporting schools during this process by adopting a decentralised perspective; b) building evaluative capacity in school staff; c) developing an evaluative culture in the places where learning takes place (OECD, 2013; Schildkamp, Poortman, Handelzalts, 2016). Therefore, it is important to adopt training models based on the needs of schools, offering collaborative activities and building shared knowledge within the school community (Brown & Poortman, 2018). Teacher training plays a decisive role, especially if it takes place within communities of practice engaged in a collaborative professional learning (Duncombe & Armour, 2004).

The three VfS courses aimed to strengthening the teachers evaluation capacity of the teachers and offer insights to policy makers on networking, training and support models for school self-evaluation. The project targeted 400 teachers from 42 schools. As part of the evaluation design, 13 online focus group were carried out. A merit sample of 101 teachers participated and debated the strengths and limitations of the training course.

The analysis was set from a phenomenological-interpretative perspective (Merriam, 1998), using a qualitative approach to the content analysis (Mayring, 2014). A computer-aided text coding methodology was developed (Fereday, Muir-Cochrane, 2006), which combines an inductive/bottom-up approach (first-level descriptive codes, emerging from the corpus) with a deductive/top-down one (second-level interpretative categories, grouping codes thematically related). Case distributions in the codes were analysed by means of contingency tables and covariation/correlation indexes with respect to the participants background, with the aim to offer insights into which training features fit to specific targets.

Results show that peer learning supports the evaluative culture of schools (2=2.885, p<0.09) and improves data literacy and collaboration among schools, fostering decentralization of viewpoints.

Training activities have fostered involvement and dialogue within schools. Differentiated results are noted in relation to the roles played by participants in the school, with greater attention by data teams to the methodological aspects of evaluation and by school staffs to school governance (climate, collaboration, organization, participation). Career seniority also appears to be relevant. We observe that teachers with less and more experience are more oriented to an evaluative school culture (2=9,852, p<0,05) than teachers with average experience: this group is more interested to technical and methodological issues (2=6,975, p<0,08).

Promoting teachers’ evaluation capacity building is important to strengthen their understanding of the role of evaluation for improvement and the use that can be made of its results.

It is well known from school development research that school change and organizational learning can be supported by, among other things, stimulating and absorbing innovation from outside (Easley Ii & Tulowitzki, 2016; Fullan, 2016; Pietsch & Tulowitzki, 2017). Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate about how organized transfer and how to achieve sustainability. In our paper, we refer to a large-scale training program for selected students (peers/scouts) in secondary schools, that was designed, introduced and implemented by an external, independent government agency in a German state with the help of external trainers. The aim was to train students as peers to support media literacy and to provide internal services to other students on current challenges of digitalization (cyberbullying, cyber grooming, fraud, privacy, etc.). Our research question was related to the evaluation of the program, touching also on aspects of the program's impact on schools. Our formative and summative evaluation of the program with 183 participating schools (references not disclosed for blind review) found that the program itself, the school-specific implementation, and the roles and responsibilities of the peers had a impact on school development processes. In particular, awareness of the challenges of developing media literacy in schools, the development of a participatory school culture and the use of digital content for teaching have been influenced.

In this paper, we will present the results of the “moulding forces” of external triggers on school development. We build our empirical study on the concept of "absorptive capacity" (Zahra & George, 2002) from organizational research. It describes the ability of organizations (schools) to absorb external impulses and make them usable for internal change processes.

Various survey instruments (quantitative and qualitative) have already been developed, applied, and evaluated for this purpose. Transfer to the school context has occurred in initial studies - primarily in the U.S. (Da’as & Qadach, 2020; Farrell et al., 2019; Lenart-Gansiniec et al., 2022) - and has been applied to quantitative school leadership research in Germany (Pietsch et al., 2022; Röhl et al., 2022). In contrast to the mainly quantitative approaches, we followed a mixed-methods design with surveys of 166 teachers in school who are the responsible coordinators of the program, 42 school leaders as well as 8 interviews with teachers in school.

Our main findings show that the programme has an impact on school development in three directions: a) the student peers and the coordinating teachers provide impulses in terms of content for the design of media education in schools; b) the format of (inter-school) collaboration and peer-to-peer learning serves as an example of good practice in schools and promotes exchange and sustainable networking within schools; c) different learning arrangements (online, face-to-face, hybrid) provide innovative ideas for the development and design of lessons. This is consistent with current research on media literacy (Groeben & Hurrelmann, 2002; Hugger, 2021; Jeong et al., 2012; Ossenschmidt et al., 2015).

School systems internationally are considering curriculum change in response to a fast-changing world, recognising the need to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to address 21 Century global economies and societies (OECD, 2018, 2020, World Economic Forum, 2020, UNESCO 2021). The British School of Brussels is a not-for-profit international school with a strong ethos; its aim is to be a force for good. Internal and external reviews informally and formally identified areas in which we could improve the learning experience for students in line with our Guiding Statements. Undertaking a curriculum review challenged the school to ask: does our current curriculum and our teaching and learning methods enable this to happen?

The paper seeks to provide examples for how the school as a professional learning community has supported the process of the review and faced the challenges of sense making and pace. Based on theoretical insights from Sinnema and Stoll (2020), the OECD (2020) and UNESCO (2015,) amongst other international curriculum thinkers, the author will showcase how enacting a curriculum review in line with quality professional education, can enable enhanced school effectiveness and improvement.

Though a culture of inquiry, exploration, and innovation, whether it be through commissioned projects, autonomous professional learning initiatives, department led goals or school wide priorities, much has been achieved which helped the school community learn from each other, establish commitments and enact school wide change. Through a process of researching, exploring, provoking, modelling, trialling, experimenting, recommending, and encouraging, the community considered the purpose of the curriculum to make recommendations and commit to future developments.

Empirical evidence was gathered from the school community (staff surveys, 1:1 interviews, observations / evidence collected from professional learning days). The author has referenced and aligned their thinking alongside a review of literature that supports the paper objectives.

The paper exemplifies the ICSEI theme of how high-quality teaching and learning can be supported by a professional learning community, collaborative school improvement planning, and evidence informed policy that respects and promotes teacher professionalism.

Curriculum implementation can be a complex process; however, we have seen how stakeholders are the main drivers of curriculum change (OECD, 2021) and collective capacity can be built from effective collaboration. The review enacted a system wide approach to enable teams of teachers across the school to pursue projects and enact change. The direction of travel for BSB was created by staff which has helped to make meaning of the curriculum changes.

The author hopes that by sharing their learning and inviting like-minded colleagues to contribute to discussion, it will enable others in similar situations to take back new knowledge and ideas to implement. In addition, the author hopes that by engaging in critical dialogue, they can continue to develop ways to support the realisation of the curriculum aspirations for them to be sustainable. The author is keen for points raised in the paper to be used as tool to create partnerships targeted at leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably.

This paper proposes a research study that applies the theoretical framework of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to a school project with participants from across the school. While PLCs have been extensively studied within individual schools (Stoll et al., 2006), there is a need to explore their potential application to cross-school projects that involve participants from different grade levels, subject areas, and roles. This study aims to investigate how PLCs can be effectively utilised in such projects to promote collaboration, shared learning, and project success. The British School of Brussels roots its PLC in the overarching concept of ‘One-schoolness’ - an approach to involving all members of the learning community in all school initiatives. The research will examine the key components of PLCs, adapt them to this specific cross-school context, analyse their impact on participant collaboration and project outcomes, and identify the factors influencing their successful implementation. The findings of this research will provide insights for educators and school leaders seeking to leverage PLCs for cross-school collaborative projects, ultimately enhancing project outcomes and fostering a culture of collaborative professional development.

The proposed paper will review the specific project of the Wild Garden at the British School of Brussels through interviews and reflections with the participants. Project participants are students, teachers, leaders and operational staff from across the school. The data collected will enable a comprehensive exploration of the impact of cross-school PLCs on collaboration and project outcomes and facilitate the identification of meaningful conclusions and recommendations.

This research seeks to fill the gap in the existing literature by examining the application of PLCs to cross-school collaborative projects. The findings will provide insights into adapting and implementing PLCs in the unique context of such projects, enhancing collaboration among participants and improving project outcomes. The study will be of value to educators, school leaders, and policymakers looking to utilise research and data of specific projects for inquiry, insight, innovation and professional learning through a cross-school collaborative professional development approach that creates supportive environments for shared learning and continuous improvement.

The author is an operational staff member of the British School of Brussels and member of the school’s Professional Learning Community. After 20+ years working in education in other-than-teaching roles, the author has returned to university to study in the Master of Education Studies programme at the KULeuven in Leuven, Belgium.

PURPOSE

In the United States increased public and political hostility toward teaching contributed to historically low teacher morale (Merrimack, 2022, 2023). These negative sentiments have caused many teachers to leave the profession, thus hindering efforts to improve schools and sustain change initiatives. We argue that one way to address this issue is by fostering a sense of belonging in teachers. Being in a supportive and nurturing professional community when facing challenges fosters resilience and success (Day & Gu, 2014). Moreover, a sense of belonging could serve to mitigate negative feelings and improve well-being (Allen, 2020, Bjorklund, 2023). This qualitative study adds to the literature on sense of belonging by exploring how teachers experience belonging at their school and what schools can do to foster feelings of belonging.

FRAMEWORK

Sense of Belonging

Feeling a sense of belonging is a fundamental human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Over the past decade, researchers have found that positive relationships and a sense of belonging are important for peoples’ physical and mental well-being (Allen, 2020; Holt-Lundstad et al., 2010). Research exploring the antecedents and outcomes of sense of belonging in K-16 contexts identifies benefits of sense of belonging for students (e.g., Allen et al., 2021; Bjorklund, 2019; Goodenow, 1993; Strayhorn, 2012). However, few have explored educators’ experiences of belonging (e.g., Bjorklund, 2023; Pesonen et al., 2021; Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011, 2019).

DATA & METHODS

This paper examines interviews with 39 elementary school teachers from one school district in the Western United States. All participants were hired by the district in the past five years and ranged in teaching experience from 2 to 20 years. Interviews were conducted from January through May 2023. Questions probed participant experiences of belonging at their school site and how the school helped or hindered their sense of belonging. Using the analytical software, MAXQDA, we engaged in a two-cycle coding process (Miles et al., 2014; Saldaña, 2016) to create and finalize our codes. We then used thematic memos to flesh out our findings.

FINDINGS

Preliminary findings suggest four themes related to how the school organization fostered feelings of belonging: Creating space for socialization between school staff, principal support, creating time for collaboration between colleagues, and showing trust in teachers. Participants all mentioned the importance of school leadership to their sense of belonging at the school.

IMPORTANCE FOR PRACTICE AND THEORY

This work offers implications for school leaders and researchers. School leaders are well-positioned to impact teachers’ sense of belonging and thus should be attentive to signs of belonging or not belonging among teachers. In the paper we identify specific strategies school leaders might consider. Future research might explore critical questions such as: What constellations of belonging networks exist within the school and what opportunities for inclusion or exclusion do they create for new teachers? What are the power dynamics of belonging in schools? How can school leadership help minoritized teachers feel a sense of belonging? Answering such questions may be the key to improving teacher job satisfaction and school change goals.

The authors are members of a team of researchers conducting a national evaluation of the impact of the National Council for Special Education’s (NCSE’s) frontline services in primary post-primary and special schools in Ireland. The general functions of the NCSE include planning and co-ordinating education provision and support services for children with special educational needs; disseminating information on best practice in relation to the education of children with special educational needs and assessing and reviewing the associated resources required including ensuring students’ progress is monitored and viewed. This national evaluation is particularly significant as Ireland in its ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 20 March 2018, places an obligation on state parties to recognise the right of persons with disabilities to education and their inclusion in the general education system. Building teachers’ capacity as educational leaders remains critical in achieving the transformation of the school system required to realise Ireland’s duties and responsibilities in this regard.

Data were collected through document analysis, surveys, interviews with parents-carers, school staff and other professionals. Ten case studies were also conducted in primary, post-primary and special schools involving children and young people, parents-carers, principals, teachers, special needs assistants (SNAs) and other professionals who were supporting children with special educational needs in the case-study schools. Based on the authors’ belief and previous experience that involving teachers as co-researchers in the evaluation of national policy related to education contributes positively to teachers’ educational leadership capacity, six teachers were recruited as co-researchers for the case-study element of the research. Additionally, the research process is greatly enriched by the close-to-practice expertise that teachers bring to the research and evaluation process, which cannot be equalled by a researcher who is more distant from the practice. Crucially, the combination of teachers and researchers working together as co-researchers is a powerful combination that can ultimately effect positive and dynamic practice and policy change.

This paper reports on the innovative methodological design developed by the authors which included an online professional learning programme co-delivered online via Microsoft Teams by the authors; the co-construction of the case-study elements by the authors and the teachers, which included Individual and Focus-Group Interviews; Participatory Encounters with Children and Young People; Document Review and Observation Schedules. The findings of the case-studies suggest that adopting participative approaches to the evaluation of national policies yields findings that are attuned with the acoustic of practice; provides validation for both participants and teachers as co-researchers and challenges the responsivity of existing policy. The potential impact of this methodological approach on educational leadership capacity is interrogated through the lenses of the model for educational leadership proposed by the Centre for School Leadership and the impact on the person of the leader and the practice of the leader considered. Professional Standards; Reflection on Practice; Relevant Experiential Learning; Individual and Collaborative Learning; Cognitive Development and Flexible and Sustainable Professional Learning are identified and interrogated in the context of their inextricable links with teachers’ educational leadership competence.

Distributed leadership (DL) employs a broad perspective of leadership, conceptualising it as a practice that is spread across leaders, followers, and the situation (Spillane et al. 2001). The construct is exceedingly popular and is a prominent discourse in both policy and practice spheres (Harris 2013). DL is endorsed in school policies internationally including Ireland (Barrett and Joyce 2018; Department of Education 2022). Yet little is known about how DL is currently being enacted in Irish post-primary schools as well as the potential impact that it is having on school life. The aim of this doctoral research was hence to explore DL in Irish post-primary schools.

This aim was achieved using a mixed methods research design underpinned by an interpretivist approach. While interpretivism is typically associated with qualitative research, it can also be employed for mixed methods research (McChesney and Aldridge 2019). The study comprised three phases, namely a scoping review of international empirical literature on DL, an online survey with post-primary school personnel working in Ireland (n=363) which was based on an adapted version of the Distributed Leadership Inventory (Hulpia et al. 2009), and semi-structured interviews with post-primary school principals and deputy principals working in Ireland (n=15). Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2008; Braun et al. 2022).

There are several outcomes of this study. A map of recent international empirical research on DL including research trends and implications is outlined. An overview of Irish post-primary school personnel’s interpretations of DL is presented, highlighting differences regarding what is shared, who it is shared with, and how it is shared. The varying degrees and models of DL enactment in this context are presented, noting challenges regarding the culture of leadership in schools, the complexity of relationships among staff, variations in the enactment of teacher leadership, and the threat of ‘tick-the-box’ DL. An overview of the challenges to the sustainability of the role of school leaders is outlined due to administrative overload, policy proliferation, and the complexity of the role, with DL suggested by participants as a tool to aid these challenges.

This research has implications for research, policy, and practice. Areas of future research are identified along with the suggestion to replicate existing research and use new methodologies in new contexts to build on the existing corpus of literature. Tensions between policy and participants’ interpretations and enactment of DL are identified. Theoretical implications include the identified need to further conceptualise the culture required for DL to flourish, the way in which labour is divided, and the use of DL as a sustainable practice. A framework for enacting DL as a teacher empowerment practice is presented and the need to rethink the role of school leaders and create further collaboration between school leaders and policy makers was identified.

This research links to the conference theme as school leadership is integral to effectiveness and improvement in schools. This research is particularly linked to the subtheme of leading improvement collaboratively and sustainable through the shared practice of DL.

Objectives, problem of practice and purpose

In a recent study on novice principals’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic Sahlin et al. (submitted) concluded that the principals’ coping strategies were based on adaptive leadership (Harris, 2021), as a way of handling situations that were rapidly changing and unclear. The uncertainty and stressful situations the principals experienced demanded adaptive leadership strategies and emotional management and leadership, as suggested by Optlaka and Crawford (2021). Adaptive emotional leadership and management are necessary for the principals to maintain resilience in handling stress and be flexible and adaptable in all situations during a low-intensive crisis, where ‘good enough’ is based on and reflects upon professional decisions rather than personal emotions of fear and stress. More research should be focused on conducting a follow-up survey study after two years to the same principals and investigate what they continued to work on, what were their most important lessons and what they changed in their leadership practices based on their experiences of leading during the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore principals’ perceptions of their leadership during the pandemic and how it has changed their leadership practices today.

Perspective(s) or theoretical framework, or context

In this study, adaptive leadership theory (Heifetz et al, 2009; Obolensky, 2014;Yukl & Mashud, 2010) and the concept of leadership as practice (Spillane, Halverson & Diamond, 2004) is used to understand the findings of the study and to analyse the empirical data.

Methods, techniques, modes or approach to inquiry

The study is based on a qualitative research approach using a digital questionnaire which will be sent to all the principals (n = 193) who were studying at the national training program in Sweden during the Covid-19 pandemic and who was a part of the initial study (Sahlin et al., submitted).

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Results, findings, learning

This follow-up study has not yet been completed but is based on a previously completed study on novice principals coping strategies and leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic (Sahlin et.al., submitted).

Educational importance of this research or inquiry for theory, practice, and/or policy

For educational research, this paper contributes valuable knowledge about key factors for principal leadership during a low-intensive crisis in a Nordic context, for both practitioners and policy makers.

Connection to the conference theme

This paper connects to the “Educational Leadership Network” and to crossover sub-theme of the conference: “Ongoing system and school implications arising from the COVID-19 crisis”.

Over the last several decades, the educational systems in Ireland and the United States have undergone significant reforms leading to new forms of educational leadership that take a distributed approach to school improvement. In the context of shifting student demographics, accountability movements, and the recent upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, both formal and informal leaders have been central to addressing the evolving needs of youth (Spillane & Lowenhaupt, 2019; Mehta, 2013; McLeod and Dulsky, 2021). At the same time, systems-level improvement efforts have sought to leverage leadership across roles and levels, relying on these leaders to implement instructional and organizational reform.

We draw on distributed leadership theory as we consider the dynamic ways in which leaders across positions influence school improvement (Spillane et al., 2002, Harris et al., 2022). According to this theory, “leadership practice is constituted in the interaction of leaders and their social and material situations. (Spillane et al., 2001, p. 27). As such, leadership occurs across individuals, interactions and the artifacts that mediate those interactions. This emphasis on leadership as practice that is distributed across relationships has led to research studies, policy initiatives, and changes in the infrastructure of educational leadership (Harris et al., 2022). At the same time, there is much to learn about how to build capacity among leaders to engage in distributed leadership.

Our presentation spans two distinct educational systems with differing approaches to distributed leadership. In Ireland, policymakers have devoted considerable attention to supporting senior school leaders including a particular focus on distributed leadership and a review of formal middle management/leadership roles being undertaken by appointed teachers (Department of Education, 2018, 2022. In the United States, the proliferation of emerging leadership structures such as instructional coaching, leadership teams, and teacher leadership has led to a growing set of possibilities and roles, in many cases without formal infrastructure to support the leadership demands of this work (Woulfin & Rigby, 2017; Lowenhaupt & McNeill, 2018). Taking a comparative approach, we use qualitative case study methods to examine the distributed nature of leadership in these two contexts with a focus on two preparation programs in each site (Yin, 2009). Through document analysis (Bowen, 2009), we will examine how distributed leadership is conceptualized in policy documents and program materials. Drawing on our own experiences with the design and implementation of leadership preparation for middle and non-traditional leaders, we will examine common themes across contexts and surface distinctions with implications for distributed leadership capacity building in the two educational systems.

In our findings, we will examine how these systems have built capacity for distributed leadership. We examine the relative affordances and challenges of explicit infrastructure for distributed leadership in the Irish case as compared to the organic evolution of informal leadership opportunities in the US case. We explore how this difference has shaped educators’ positions and dispositions for taking on leadership roles. We end with implications for policy and practice given the ongoing reliance on distributed leadership for school improvement in an increasingly complex education landscape.

In the context of growing interest in improvement research in education and continuous improvement, one core problem to address is how to bridge gaps in improvement knowledge and expertise. A second problem to address is the tension between traditional accountability metrics-driven improvement systems and more progressive performance-based and continuous improvement systems. As New York state policymakers seek to use improvement research in their accountability system redesign and spread continuous improvement expertise among practicing professionals, backbone organizations that function as diverse stakeholder boundary-spanners, improvement knowledge generators, and improvement capacity builders, are, arguably, necessary. The purpose of this paper is to describe the New York context and raise questions about two main challenges framed as research questions.

Research Questions:

What are the optimal strategies for communicating and disseminating equity-oriented research findings and recommendations to diverse stakeholders? What structures and strategies can policymakers, local school system leaders, and improvement researchers employ to facilitate improvement research and continuous improvement utilization?

Perspectives:

As a number of scholars have highlighted (e.g. Haverly et al., 2022), leading instructional improvement is an endeavor fraught with challenges and considerations that influence what is prioritized in the day-to-day functioning of a school. While pragmatic considerations may be high on the list of drivers for behavior, moral considerations are as well. Such moral considerations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and in light of social justice imperatives especially among youth of color and those most vulnerable or marginalized, can drive an equity-focused improvement shift.

Such a shift relies upon innovative research methodologies and frameworks (Ishimaru, 2022; Eddy-Spicer et al., 2022).

Approach to Inquiry:

In this chapter I used autoethnographic methods to chronicle and surface my experiences leading a backbone organization situated in a higher education institution and funded by the state of New York to “inform, inspire, and improve” in the P-12 education space. I did this work reflexively and using an ecological lens (Adams, et al., 2017; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006).

Findings:

I have discovered the following present as high leverage activities: 1) direct engagement with stakeholder groups representing large numbers of members through presentation and publications in member communications; 2) direct engagement with state education department agents in the role of “thought partner” as well as co-designer of continuous improvement professional development opportunities. In relation to question two I have discovered the importance of 1) surfacing a theory of improvement through dialogue with multiple policy agents to encourage sense-making and build coherence across entities and organizations with regard to improvement initiatives, 2) thoughtful integration of practice-oriented expertise with improvement research knowledge and improvement expertise in the development and delivery of continuous improvement-focused professional development, and 3) building improvement infrastructure from an equity-center.

Importance

This presentation provides one example of the developmental journey of a backbone organization in the New York state context and with discussion of current and “on the horizon” opportunities and barriers to building sustainable research-informed improvement infrastructures.

Connection to Theme:

This presentation focuses on a backbone organization promoting equity-oriented and improvement-research informed professional education opportunities.

Three professional practice standards are Ministerial Orders in Alberta, Canada—Superintendent Leadership Quality Standard, Leadership Quality Standard, and Teaching Quality Standard. The three standards are interrelated, interconnected, and interdependent among the nested levels. Complexity theorists argue that nested systems exhibit emergent properties. The interactions, relationships, and feedback loops between the nested levels give rise to the system's overall behaviour. Changes or disruptions at one level can propagate and impact other levels, creating a complex web of dependencies and influences. The theoretical framework for the design and analysis of this study was informed by complexity theory. The conceptual framework, which is consistent with complex organizations, was adapted using implementation science detailing three implementation drivers (competency, organizational, leadership) that supported implementation of the three standards (Fixsen et al., 2019; Sims & Melcher, 2017).

A four-year, longitudinal, convergent mixed-methods study was conducted using three methods to gather data: surveys, case studies, and document review of school authority and provincial documents. Surveys were gathered from teachers (n = 5536), school and system leaders (n = 1832), and superintendent leaders (n = 108) in 35 school districts. Case studies (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) were carried out in up to 10 school districts each year. Superintendents, system leaders, principals, assistant/vice principals, and teachers (cumulative n = 536) participated yearly in either focus groups or interviews from the participating school districts. The data were gathered concurrently and analyzed separately (Bazeley, 2018; Creswell & Plano-Clark, 2018; Onwuegbuzie & Teddlie, 2003). Complementary analysis was used for integrating the data in response to the following three research questions: How well and in what ways are the professional practice standards being implemented? What barriers and supports do teachers, principals, and system leaders identify in the implementation process? What impacts are evident from the implementation of the professional practice standards?

One of the key merged findings was that participating teachers and leaders became more proficient with collecting and applying numerous sources of evidence to inform, improve, and strengthen their daily practice. In school districts where educators focused on sources of multiple sources of evidence that provided outcome data, as well as fidelity data, participants used their daily practice as the site of their continuous professional learning and development (Brown et al., 2021; Timperley, 2015). Results indicate that cultivating a culture of daily evidence-informed practice was crucial not only for successful implementation of professional practice standards towards optimal teaching and learning, but also enabled educators to predict student achievement more accurately.

Objective/Focus: The ETBI’s program is designed to refine and extend the instructional practices and classroom management practices of secondary teachers in Ireland by having a team of teachers and principal attend 12 days of training over a two-year period. That training being guided by the research on educational and systemic change.

Questions:

1. Has attending to change wisdom been successful in guiding the program initiation,

implementation and shift to continuation/sustainability?

2. What blocks and supports educators within a system working to enact and sustain change

wisdom focused on extending/refining teachers’ instructional repertoire?

3. Has the ‘program’ been able create the internal capacity to sustain change?

4. What must change to facilitate the program extending beyond seventeen years?

Paper Structure: Three components: (1) the objective, purpose and research guiding the design and implementation of the program; (2) the rubrics designed from change research to guide and facilitate the discussion of the results; and (3) the identification of what is, and what is not working juxtaposed with five other systemic change projects in two other countries.

Methods: This qualitative research process is motivated by Ellis’ (2001) work in this text, Research on Educational Innovations. He describes three levels of change. The ETBI’s focus is on Level 3 which focuses on researching the impact of innovations on a system. Elmore argued that Level 3 research is rare, and when attempted, usually fails.

We also design and analyze our efforts using change rubrics constructed from change research, e.g., Levels of Use innovation from Hall and Hord’s Concerns Based Adoption Model; the factors from Fullan’s work on the initiation, implementation, and sustaining change and the peer coaching process from the work of Showers and Joyce. In another paper, we discuss the research on teacher and principal Stages of Concern from the work of Hord and Hall (201 ).

Data Source/Results Findings, Learning: Data from our efforts is analyzed applying rubrics constructed from change research from the Concerns Based Adoption Model. The rubrics have three levels: (1) Mechanical Use, (2) Routine Use, and (3) Refined more Integrative Use. From that we can ascertain what is working and where we are falling short. A discussion occurs after each of the rubric.

Perspective/Problem of Practice: The findings presented in Cuban & Usdan’s (2003) text, Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots, confirms Ellis’ findings. Cuban and Usdan also reported on the rarity of sustained systemic efforts…they found that when the grants disappear, the effort disappears.

Importance of Study: We are working to act on the extensive research related to educational change to extend the thinking and action related to longer-term, systemic-level change with a focus on improving the life chances and learning chances of students. In parallel, the research also identifies extending/refining all teachers instructional practices within a system as a key focus for the content of systemic change (Fullan, 2011; Leithwood et al., 2009).

This paper asks: how can school leaders facilitate school environments that help school populations to respond ethically to shared challenges?

The purpose of this paper is to explore how leaders can enact their agency to create school environments which are emotionally supportive, ethically aware and relationship focused, in ways that enable both staff and young people to lead and participate.

Learning to live together well is a present-day ethical imperative, in the global context of growing inequalities, the climate crisis and increasing polarisation of political beliefs (Booth, 2018; Samanani, 2022a; UNEP, 2021; World Health Organisation, 2021; IEA, 2022). School environments can function as important learning spaces, within which this imperative can be addressed. They can also function as invaluable sources of emotional support and relationship growth, for both staff and students. However, reports of discontent, alienation and disconnect in English state secondary schools bely the limited realisation of these functions at present, and indicate the need for an ethical recalibration.

Dewey theorises a vision for school environments as ‘miniature communities’: spaces of joint activity and shared learning, that are co-constructed and continually renegotiated (1941). This paper draws upon my first year of doctoral study, in which I critiqued and combined agency, care and community, to introduce an agential ethic of care as a promising ethical bedrock for participatory school environments. In addition to adult-led caring services, this research considered how, or why, we might encourage all members of the school population to act in care. Moreover, by exploring the relationship between care and agency, this research also problematised the material conditions of caring, paternalistic caring practices and ethical orientations within the English education system at present.

This paper will then draw upon initial findings from the first term of a participatory action research project in a school in England. This project has been designed to create a participatory opportunity to learn from lived experiences of care, agency and community within schools. By re-framing caring as a collaborative, non-hierarchical, agential practice, this project has been designed to make a unique contribution to urgent discussions of how we can learn to live together well – while making a substantial contribution to education and care theory.

The initial findings will help school leaders to understand barriers to and opportunities for co-creating community within their schools. Significantly, they will offer bottom-up rather than top-down lessons for leadership: learning from the practices, perceptions and experiences of care and agency amongst staff and students within their schools. This research responds to calls for an urgent transformation of our education system, in light of global challenges (Higham, 2021; Tannock, 2021; UNESCO, 2021; Bajaj, 2018; Jerome and Starkey, 2022). The discussions generated by this paper will help researchers, leaders and policymakers to imagine school environments that enable and empower school populations to live, care, and act together.

Schools with better leadership practices achieve better results. Yet, limited evidence exists on how to improve these practices, especially in low- and middle-income countries (Global School Leaders, 2020; Leithwood et al., 2008). To address this gap, and fitting with the ICSEI network on “Methods of Researching Educational Effectiveness and Improvement (MoREI)”, we carried out a study on a large-scale school leadership programme for head teachers in public schools in Rwanda using a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) and a Differences-in-Difference (DiD) design.

The school leadership programme aims to enhance the leadership skills and practices of school leaders, with the goal of improving the teaching environment and ultimately boosting student abilities and test scores. In this study, we analyse the programme’s impact on student test scores of primary school leavers, as well as identify which school characteristics have a greater influence on the effectiveness of the programme. Through our study, we aim to provide evidence on how school leadership professional development can positively affect student and community education outcomes.

Low and middle-income countries face challenges in terms of school leadership quality and student learning outcomes (Bloom et al., 2015; Lemos et al., 2021). To address this issue, school leadership programmes have gained attention in recent years, with a growing body of literature examining their impact on student scores. These programs aim to increase knowledge and skills of school leaders, in particular in areas such as leadership, management and communication. A recent systematic review by Anand et al. (2023) analyses 14 studies on school leadership and management programmes from emerging countries. Whilst the average effect is positive, the majority of individual studies had statistically insignificant effects, highlighting the importance of large sample sizes to be able to measure small but still economically meaningful effect sizes. Further, just three studies were conducted in a low-income country, highlighting the value of new evidence from such low resource contexts.

Our study contributes to this literature by providing evidence on a large-scale school leadership programme. The programme targeted over 2,000 headteachers and deputy headteachers, aiming at improving student outcomes in Rwanda. We compare test scores of students across 350 schools, where school leaders from about 175 were randomly assigned to receive training. We make use of three years of national test scores, including a total of 90 000 students. Our paper will also be the first to look at the impact of the school leadership programme after the COVID-19 pandemic. Did trained school leaders successfully respond to the challenges of COVID?

With the unique character of Hong Kong in a postcolonial context, where eastern philosophies and approaches meet those of the west, it could be presumed that it is an ideal system for generating innovative ideas and practices (Lu & Campbell 2021; Bautista et al. 2022). However, understanding the role, influence, and impact of teacher education as a career-long pursuit in Hong Kong remains both contested and under theorised (Bautista et al. 2022). While Hong Kong enjoys a complex and sophisticated teacher education infrastructure which includes a range of opportunities and legislated time to dedicate to the varied forms of teacher education throughout a teachers’ career, such opportunities are frequently reported on as a being too demanding, rigid, or unrelated to practice (Lu & Campbell 2021; Pang et al. 2016). Drawing upon critical policy analysis and key informant interviews, the questions driving this study are:

• How are the forms and purposes of teacher education in Hong Kong understood in the domains of research, policy and practice?

• What is the role of the historical and contemporary socio-political context in understanding the effectiveness and future possibilities of teacher education in Hong Kong?

Drawing upon postcolonialism as an interdisciplinary political, theoretical and historical academic toolkit, this paper argues that colonial rule, and the aftermath of it, paved the way for international influence in education in Hong Kong, with significant implications for how the purposes and underpinning values of education are understood, and how this is reflected in teacher education. With this arises tensions in the extent to which this does, could, and should reflect the complex and unique character of Hong Kong (Lu & Campbell 2021; Bautista et al. 2022).

This paper illuminates the complex and wide-ranging expertise that teachers develop and draw upon in and through their practice, and how new forms of teacher education in a complex socio-political context might support this. Through the development of more varied forms of teacher education in Hong Kong, focused on making sense of the complex influences and drivers of the varied forms teacher learning and education can take, more relevant forms of teacher education may be able to emerge and be sustained through formal and informal means (Ho & Lu 2019). In the policy context, further critical analysis of how teachers are positioned in the system, how this relates to the forms and purposes of teacher education, and whether or not this relates to shifting demands placed upon teachers and schools, is needed (Lu & Campbell 2021). Consideration is also needed of the means through which various groups with a stake in teacher education in Hong Kong are able to come together in order to build a more sophisticated understanding of the varied and emerging professional learning needs of teachers, and how this can and should influence the development of teacher education in the SAR.

School leadership is a largely unknown or poorly understood among French principals and policy-makers (Normand, 2021a, b). The aim of this action research was to transfer the main findings of the international research on school leadership to practitioners by involving them in a 3-year Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme. (Huber, 2009; Moos & oth., 2011) The research was inspired by systematic reviews of the research literature showing the conditions for effective CPD (Cordingley, 2006, 2008, Timperley, 2008, 2011). Practitioners were expected to reflect collectively and change their representations and practices in their daily work in secondary schools.

Workshops were used to develop peer learning and mentoring activities (Hall, 2008). The CPD programme focused on the iterative, reflective and projective dimension of professional knowledge hybridised with scientific knowledge. The production of shared professional knowledge was fostered by exchanges and interactions between peers, while principals were expected to move away from their bureaucratic stance and culture and to expore margins of autonomy away from top-down prescriptions and rules from the Ministry of Education and State local authorities (Normand, 2021c).

At the end of the Continuous Professional Development programme on school leadership, interviews were conducted with participants. The aim was to gather their accounts of training sessions, as well as their experiences in changing their outlook and practices as principals, by testing their ability to develop (or to reflect on) leadership in their schools. 20 interviews were conducted over a period of 12 months.

Principals were then invited to share their experiences by writing a 30-page paper on French-style leadership. This action research is important in the French context because it is the first time that practitioners had access to international research on school leadership. It also led to the organisation of the first European symposium on school leadership, organised by the Advanced Institute for Education and Training (French MoE), which is responsible for all initial and in-service training for principals in France. The trained practitioners were also involved in the organisation of parallel workshops within this European conference.

The research findings show the importance of informal leadership practices of French principals, even if those are not recognised and visible by their hierarchy and State local authorities. It is proved how specific features in the French culture, the bureaucratic environment, and lack of training prevent them from appropriating and using some disseminated concepts such as instructional and transformational leadership and their related research findings.

Objectives

The purpose of this study is to improve understanding about school leaders’ capacity to directly influence student outcomes. To achieve this purpose, the study focused on assistant principals (APs) and students at risk of dropping out of school (SARDOs). Specifically, the study exploited the random assignment of SARDOs to a mentoring intervention conducted by APs to study the effect of leaders to prevent dropping out.

Background and Framework

Several areas of research informed the framework for the development, implementation, and study of this intervention. Overall, the intervention relied on the framework of high reliability organizations (Orton & Weick, 1990), with a focus on school implementation (Stringfield et al., 2008 & 2012). The development of the intervention relied on evidence from the dropout literature to accurately and reliably identify SARDOs (Bowers et al., 2013; Dynarski et al., 2008). Expanding on evidence about the influence of school leaders (Silva et al., 2011) and mentoring (McDaniel & Yarbrough, 2016; Robertson, 2016), the intervention used APs to mentor SARDOs.

Research Questions

The study included two research questions:

1. Do differences in academic outcomes, as measured by grade point average (GPA) and on-track status, exist between SARDOs who experienced the mentoring intervention and those in the control condition?

2. Do differences in non-academic outcomes, as measured by attendance and office discipline referrals (ODRs) exist between SARDOs who experienced the mentoring intervention and those in the control condition?

Methods and Data Sources

The study examined the effectiveness of a year-long mentoring intervention in a suburban secondary school. The research design exploited the random assignment of 75 SARDOs to one of three AP mentors. Given the random assignment, we used analysis of variance to examine differences in two academic and two non-academic measures between the intervention and control groups. Academic factors included the students’ GPA and course completion. Non-academic factors included students’ attendance and ODRs.

Results

Analyses indicated that the entire sample exhibited improvement in GPA and ODRs, but also poorer rates of attendance. However, the analyses did not reveal statistically significant differences in the overall sample between SARDOs in the intervention and control groups. Further subgroup analysis did reveal positive effects of the intervention for historically marginalized students, including students identifying as economically disadvantaged and from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Educational Importance

This research contributes important findings to discussions of theory, practice, and policy. First, the study provides insights about how school leaders can help ensure students graduate from secondary school. Second, the implementation in a suburban school context expands the current research, which examined mostly urban contexts.

Conference Theme Connection

This research presentation connects to the conference theme in multiple ways. First, the work included school leaders attempting to learn how to lead a more effective school by developing and evaluating a pilot intervention. Second, the school leaders involved with the intervention leveraged existing research evidence and local data to develop, implement, and evaluate the innovation. Finally, the efforts to assist SARDOs demonstrated the school leaders’ and authors’ commitment to promoting equitable and just schools.

The area of trauma-informed positive education (TIPE) is a recently emerging field in educational studies, though there is a paucity of literature that considers the convergence of TIPE and professional learning, especially in different global contexts. Schools serving communities contending with educational inequity have many students identified as trauma-affected with significant unmet learning and social emotional needs. However, as research continues to track students made more vulnerable due to COVID-19 health concerns, and other COVID-related associated family instability and violence, inadequate education provision of online and distance learning, and lack of access to technology, there is now even greater priority placed on the development and practice application of trauma-informed education for all students (Berger & Reupert, 2020).

This paper will focus on how two schools (a secondary school in Australia and a primary school in the Republic of Ireland) have led professional learning in TIPE and its whole school implementation. The two schools are at different stages of the TIPE journey with one having first implemented TIPE in 2019 while the other is still undertaking the initial TIPE professional learning and starting to implement practices in the classroom, providing an interesting cross-contextual insight.

Teachers often interpret resistant student behaviour as a ‘choice’ the student is making to assert themselves in the classroom. However, trauma-informed perspectives prompt teachers to reflect on the impacts of trauma on learning and the underlying causes of student behaviour. TIPE helps to guide school practice so that leaders and teachers understand the impacts of adverse childhood experiences. This then enables leaders and teachers to proactively work towards effective interventions (in learning, behaviour and socially) in the classroom and across the school to embed whole-school strategies to support the learning and growth of their students.

We will draw on interviews and existing school data (student wellbeing and staff surveys) from 2019-2023 for the Australian school and 2021-2023 for the Irish school. We will present insights as to how leaders actively supporting professional learning in TIPE have brought about significant changes to the learning and social environments of the schools. We draw heavily on interviews with the school leaders to fully understand and make sense of their role in this process of research-informed leadership of school change.

While both schools have had similar initial professional learning in TIPE, there have been differences in continued professional learning and TIPE’s implementation in the classroom and school. We will discuss the impact of setting up TIPE teams to collaboratively lead its implementation, the development on whole school non-punitive responses for behaviour management, the development of a TIPE instructional model to guide teachers in their pedagogical practice, and considerations of quality professional learning, including ongoing professional learning and coaching. The approach we describe has led to students reporting increases in connectedness, inclusion and student voice and agency while both teachers and students report increases in effective teaching time and an orderly classroom environment. Based on these observations, we reflect on policy, practice and research implications for TIPE and quality professional education.

This paper explores the strategies employed by German-speaking cantons in Switzerland to redesign their school system in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. CRPD Article 24 requires signatory states to ensure “an inclusive education system at all levels.” However, Switzerland ratified a slightly different wording in 2014, replacing “inclusive” with “integrative.” This means that children with disabilities in Swiss schools are granted equal access to high-quality and free education in the primary and secondary schools in their community – but not necessarily in the same classrooms.

The research presented aims to identify similarities and differences in the cantonal approaches to the integration of children with ‘special educational needs’ in regular schools and to assess how inclusive these approaches are. This analysis forms part of a larger mixed-methods study on the development and management of integrative schools in Switzerland. It consists of a document analysis examining official programmes, conceptual frameworks, and websites published by the 20 German-speaking cantons that outline their implementation of ‘integrative support’ and ‘integrated special education’. Statements of purpose and reasons given in support of their approach were analysed based on the four understandings of inclusion put forth by Piezunka et al. (2017), and objectives were captured using the Index for Inclusion (Booth & Ainscow, 2002). Measures were recorded inductively, and their (planned) implementation was coded as inclusive or segregated, consistent with the terminology laid out by the UN (CRPD General comment No. 4, 2016).

The analysis reveals that compliance with the law and enhanced academic performance are the most frequent reasons given in support of educating children with ‘special educational needs’ in regular schools. Only a small minority of cantons prioritise social participation over academic performance. Objectives focus heavily on cooperation, coordination, and individualised teaching, while broader, less academically focused approaches to inclusivity, such as tackling all forms of discrimination, stigmatisation, and bullying, receive little to no attention. The results show great variety among the 20 cantons, with some striving to provide not just integrated support within the school but inclusive, needs-based support in the classroom. However, all cantons still maintain at least some measures of temporary segregation and thus fall short of providing a fully inclusive classroom setting that is equally accessible to all.

The findings can inform the political debate surrounding special education and highlight areas in which the professional education of teachers, head teachers, and school administrators can be adapted to promote not only integration but also diversity, belonging, and inclusion. The study sheds light on the manifold approaches to integrated education in Switzerland and identifies cantons whose strategy reaches beyond the legally required minimum. If successful, they might serve as models to help Switzerland fulfil its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and ensure that all children have an equal opportunity to learn alongside their peers, be part of their local community, and grow up to fully participate in society.

Objectives Of The Session

- Discuss what we might affirm and refine about our current practices related to gathering and responding to student voice.

- Examine potentially impactful practices for increasing student agency in creating more equitable, inclusive, and supportive classrooms, schools and systems.

- Share practical and powerful approaches for elevating student generated data as a central element of our school and system improvement planning.

Educational importance for Theory, Policy, Research, and/or Practice

The demands on teachers, principals, and senior administrators to engage with data are significant and are often seen as unwelcome accountability measures causing resistance or mere compliance. However, by redefining data as guidance, we can adopt a powerful approach that encourages every member to actively seek, gather, and comprehend data, empowering them to feel confident and competent in critically analyzing their own practices. In these efforts, engaging with student-generated guidance and feedback is key.

As schools and educational systems face increased expectations to use data as part of intentional improvement planning, student voice data is often sought but practices to thoughtfully gather, analyze, interpret and respond to the data collected remain limited in scope and impact.

Research has pointed to approaches that connect student voice with curriculum development, agency, and student leadership (Biddulph, 2011; Quinn & Owen, 2016), and focus on student voice participation and the knowledge they carry as researchers at schools and broader communities (Bahou, 2011). The general agreement in the literature is that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling and should have the right to shape their education actively (Cook-Sather, 2006). However, many questions are yet to be answered about their level of involvement, authenticity, the extent of co-creation of data gathering and analysis methodologies, and which student voices are being listened to. Engaging genuine student voice is work that centers students to identify, analyze, and inform action about issues in their schools and learning that are considered relevant to students (Cook-Sather, 2020). It is crucial to deepen the examination of the spectrum of practices that involve student voices and their role in school and educational system change.

Format and approach

In this interactive session, participants will engage with the critical inquiry question: How might we meaningfully centre student experience and effectively use their guidance for our planning? They will examine a powerful approach to engaging students in providing feedback and guidance to inform school and system improvement and consider connections to their own contexts.

Connection to the conference theme

We connect to the conference theme: “Leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice, global citizenship and/ or environmental sustainability”. Data can act as both a window, providing insight into the lives of students and their school experiences, and as mirror, helping us to see ourselves and the impact of our practices more clearly through students’ eyes. Meaningful efforts to promote more equitable and inclusive environments will require us to find ways to investigate both the window and the mirror provided by student voices.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTC Scotland) is the teaching profession’s independent registration and regulation body in Scotland. GTC Scotland works to maintain and enhance trust in teaching, through teaching standards and registering and regulating the teaching profession. The Standard for Provisional Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021), the Standard for Full Registration (GTC Scotland, 2021) and the Code of Professionalism and Conduct (COPAC) (GTC Scotland, 2012), together, provide the framework for teacher professionalism. Becoming a teacher, including mandatory teacher education is underpinned by this framework.

This paper highlights work undertaken with the teaching profession to prepare for policy review, highlighting strengths of the approach alongside the need to divert initial plans in light of feedback about current implementation. Consideration is given to the tensions between individual policy content and policy use as well as relationships with existing policy with regard to professional ethics.

A refreshed suite of Professional Standards for teachers in Scotland was published in 2021.The current version of COPAC has been in place since 2012. Its revision in 2012 was not a detailed review and it did not significantly amend what had been in place before. Along with the work to refresh professional standards for teachers, a revised professional code was subject to public consultation in late 2019. The outcome of this was that further review should be considered.

The 2012 version of COPAC, with much of it seen as exemplary at the time, received international recognition(1). However, GTC Scotland believed that revision should be considered to ensure that the messages and the tone articulated well with the refreshed 2021professional standards.

A new two-year strategy was devised. A systems approach was adopted in recognition of the complexity involved in any meaningful consideration of a contemporary professional code. During the first year all teachers and college lecturers were offered the opportunity to engage with professional learning opportunities and discussion sessions. In the second year, all would be included in the wide consultation on the first draft of any revised/new policy produced. Notably, time and space were to be devoted to collaborative learning before attempting to revise or replace the existing COPAC.

However, the data gathered showed that there was no consensus about the need and scale of required change. This led to a decision to retain COPAC in its current form, republished in a modern digital format reflecting up to date terminology. At the same time, planned year two work was refocused to allow education about and engagement with COPAC through GTC Scotland’s Education and Standards work. This work to support the embedding of COPAC and its effective use, aims to support the creation of conditions that will benefit future exploration of a more significant revision to COPAC alongside greater consideration of how it works along with the professional standards to define what it means to become, be and grow as a teacher in Scotland.

(1) Recognition from both Committee on Standards in Public Life (2013) and Council of Europe (2016) ETINED Council of Europe Platform on Ethics

Currently, within the education system in Wales, professional learning and system leadership remain at the epicentre of contemporary education policy. This paper builds on an initial, conceptual paper, presented at ICSEI 2020, to outline the inception, development and implementation of the National MA Education (Wales) that has been co-constructed and co-delivered by seven Welsh Universities working in partnership. The main intention of the paper is to outline the way in which the National MA Education (Wales) is internationally ground-breaking in design and delivery through offering accredited professional learning at scale. The National MA Wales is a new system-wide, post-graduate qualification that is intellectually rigorous but also close to practice with the core intention of building professional capacity and capital throughout the system. The paper will highlight how the National MA Education (Wales) is of international importance in its design, delivery, and impact. The paper will highlight how the National MA Education (Wales) has positively redefined and reshaped the accredited professional learning offer in Wales. The implications for research, practice and policy will be considered along with a commentary and analysis of professional learning at scale.

This paper explores a phenomenon we have traced in our research with educational professionals involved in inquiry in professional learning networks. Described as 'catalytic affiliation' we identified features of network and leader practices that enabled an acceleration of commitment to inquiry-based professional learning and a growth in network participation. We see this work as primarily relational - as Daly and Stoll (2017) have argued, relational links through which change moves are understudied and require a deeper exploration of the quality of networked, relational ties.

This paper is based on a multi year study of the connections amongst educators involved in the Canadian based Networks of Inquiry and Indigenous Education. (https://noiie.ca/ ) This voluntary professional inquiry network has been functioning since 1999 and now includes schools in several international jurisdictions. The main goals of NOIIE are linked closely to the conference themes of equity, inclusion, diversity, social justice and sustainability. Because many of the 60 BC based network leaders are graduates of the Transformative Educational Leadership Program at UBC https://telp.educ.ubc.ca/, NOIIE also serves a function in sustained leadership development and capacity building.

We believe that catalytic affiliation is a conceptual idea that can unpack the complexity of relational ties that thrive in inquiry networks such as NOIIE. It also can help us explore how social practices such as kindredness, authenticity, relational agency and reciprocal aligned beliefs work in tandem to deepen and accelerate systemwide innovation.

Our investigation illuminates how catalytic affiliation is more than a practice of individual leaders but is a characteristic of networked learning spaces deeply anchored in shared repertoires of learning, action and commitment - attracting and broadening professional engagement. Catalytic affiliation is operationalized through enabling structures, symbols, social and cultural tools and practices that curate connections. It is a function of right relations, creating shared relational spaces through which to collaboratively and inclusively build common horizons of purpose. These ideas are developed more fulsomely in the paper that follows.

This paper aims to gain insights into the development of collaboration in school environments and asks which types of collaboration, collaborating stakeholders and effects of collaboration can be identified. From an organisational-psychological perspective collaboration is defined as “…goals or tasks to be achieved together. It is intentional, communicative, and requires trust. It presupposes a certain autonomy and is committed to the norm of reciprocity" (Spieß, 2004, p. 199). The greater independence of schools and shared goals of school development intensifies relationships not only outside, but also within the institution. It is essential for stakeholders to develop and improve collaboration to ensure sustainable school development. Management, as well as the teaching staff and the students, represent the school and thus help to strengthen the school's prestige, competitiveness and learning outcome. Promoting collaboration among the staff and the students is crucial. Previous research has shown that collaboration in schools enhances school development and learning outcomes (Huber, 2012).

While multiple studies already exist, this paper offers an in-depth qualitative approach through a large-scale longitudinal study at schools in challenging circumstances. Due to their location and the composition of their student body, these schools are exposed to difficult conditions and are particularly challenged. In example, schools in challenging circumstances have a high percentage of students from non-privileged family situations (measured in terms of the educational and financial circumstances of the parents). These poorer socio-economic circumstances are often associated with special compensatory services provided by the school to cope with low graduation rates, poorer learning outcomes and dysfunctional characteristics (Holtappels et al., 2017).

Central research questions:

1. What types of collaboration can be identified throughout the environment of schools in challenging circumstances and which stakeholders are involved?

2. How does collaboration develop between stakeholders inside the school and out-of-school contexts?

3. What effects are achieved through identified forms of collaboration?

Methodology and Method

The qualitative longitudinal study examines the development of collaboration in the context of school environments in Germany (75 Schools). A biannual collection of semi-structured interviews with principals, teachers, pedagogical staff, parents and students addresses the above-mentioned research questions through the analysis of individual cases and cross-case comparison. The schools were chosen based on their status as schools in challenging circumstances. Over a multiple-year period (since 2016) a total amount of 659 interviews have been collected. Currently, the presented research project is at an early stage of qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiger 2019). Therefore, this paper focuses on three “most diverse” cases/schools (approx. 45 interviews) which have been chosen based on the results of a quantitative co-study with the same timeframe and cohort groups.

Conclusion

Due to the early stage of the project, first, a theoretical framework will be presented that links cooperation with possible effects and school development. Second, the collaboration stakeholders in the context of school environments will be outlined. In addition, collaborators outside of the school environment will be investigated. Third, a first typification of different forms of collaboration in school environments between stakeholders will be reconstructed and discussed.

Objectives

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) are emerging globally to address the disconnect between research and practice in education. RPPs “connect diverse forms of expertise and shift power relations in the research endeavor to ensure that all partners have a say” (Farrell et al., 2021, p. iv). Since RPPs aim to flatten hierarchies between researchers and practitioners, we examine discourse patterns for evidence. By conducting an international cross-cultural comparison of RPP meetings in the US and Switzerland, we ask: What do discourse patterns in RPPs reveal about issues of power between researchers and practitioners? What differences are observed in RPPs across contexts? How do meeting artifacts shape power and discourse features?

Framework

We use a practice theoretical approach where “bundles of practices and arrangements are the central unit of conceptuality and analysis of social life and social phenomena” (Schatzki, 2019, p. 27). Discourse is one observational category of practice (Reckwitz, 2016) which can illuminate power dynamics within a context. Ultimately, power and status differences influence all types of collaborations (Yamashiro et al., 2022; Eshchar-Netz et al., 2022). Research has documented power asymmetries between researchers and practitioners in RPPs (Klein, 2023; Vetter et al., 2022). Examining discourse within RPPs can illuminate how communication is distributed and roles are negotiated (Farrell et al., 2023). Artifacts used in RPPs, such as shared documents, can be explored as boundary objects that redistribute power and raise productive tensions in discourse (Tabak, 2022; Wegemer & Renick, 2021).

Methods

Sixteen Meetings from US and Swiss RPPs were videotaped and coded using MAXQDA software. Each RPP involved researchers and school practitioners, a focus on improving instruction, and participant involvement in defining the work. We analyzed discourse in RPP meetings coding whether it was generative, non-generative, or structuring (e.g., opening a meeting) (Lefstein et al., 2020). We also coded data to determine who has a voice and who contributes generative dialogue, considering relational power and identity. While there are different ways to operationalize power differences, we focus on the share and type of discourse of groups of participants.

Results

Meetings in both RPPs were rich in generative utterances (47.4% in US RPP; 44.6% in Swiss RPP) in which participants engaged in collaborative problem solving. Despite efforts to give more voice to practitioners, researchers spoke 60% of the time in the US case and 78% in the Swiss case, reflecting their proportion in the group. While researchers spoke more in meetings, practitioners were responsible for their representative share or more of the generative discourse (58% of generative utterances in US RPP; 24% in Swiss RPP). RPP agreements also defined meeting situations and the use of artifacts (e.g,, Google docs) engaged more practitioner voice, but did not necessarily shift power. The positional authority and identity of participants also influenced power dynamics, beyond researcher-practitioner distinctions.

ICSEI Connection

This paper is relevant to the ICSEI theme of “quality professional development” as RPPs are intended to promote capacity building. The call for proposals also notes the influence of partnerships globally (e.g., RPPs).

Purpose: To explore gaps regarding principals' experiences of developing their identities, capacities, and sense of agency while leading diverse schools through transformation and inquire into why principals’ voices have been underrepresented in education leadership discourse (Bryman, 2004; Crow, Day & Moller, 2017; Hallinger, 2014, 2018; Quaglia, 2016).

Perspective: Canada’s K-12 education landscape is liquifying (ATA & CAP, 2014; C21 Canada, 2012; Dugan & Humbles, 2018; Hannon & Peterson, 2021; Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009; Kaser & Halbert, 2008, 2009; OECD, 2018; Pollock, Wang, & Hauseman, 2014; Safir & Dugan, 2021). Navigating “permanent white waters” (Vaill, 1996) requires professional development. Principals need strong identities, capacities, and agency to create collaborative, equitable learning cultures for diverse learners (Safir, 2017; Stoll, 2009; Timperley, 2011) while navigating uncharted waters, work intensification, and unprecedented critical events (Pollock, Wang, & Hauseman, 2014; Safir & Dugan, 2021). However, across BC’s diverse districts, it is unknown how principals develop the means to influence change in their schools (Leithwood, Handford & Airini, 2018) nor how current discourses are influencing them (Karp, 2013) as they are “negotiating who they are for others as well as for themselves” (Moller, 2012, p. 456). The social construction/deconstruction of their identities is understudied (Karp, 2013; Karp & Helgo, 2009).

Ponderings: What are the experiences of British Columbia’s principals leading K-12 school transformation? How are BC Principals developing their sense of identity, capacity, and agency? How do research methods mute or amplify principal voice?

Processes: Research about principals often involves “looking at” their actions, not “listening to” their diverse stories (Bryman, 2004; Crow, Day, & Moller, 2017; Hallinger, 2014). Diversity in voices may present counter-narratives to popular or political discourse (ATA, 2017; Sugrue, 2009). Using metaphorically framed, social constructivist/critical narrative inquiry (Clandinin, 2007, 2013), in-depth, semi-structured interviews (Anderson & Kirkpatrick, 2015; Beuthin, 2014), and discourse analysis, this study amplifies diverse voices. Transcripts were analyzed through a narrative analysis (Riessman, 1994), discourse analysis (Gee, 2001, 2011; Rogers, 2011), and poetic analysis and poetic representation (Faulkner, 2007, 2017, 2019; Hopper & Sanford, 2008; Lemon, 2020; McKenna-Buchanan, 2017; Richardson, 2012; Ward, 2011). Ten participants shared stories (1) of being a principal/vice principal during the pandemic; (2) of leading change from a self-selected significant time in their career; and (3) of how they started as principals. They shared a metaphor that they felt described their experience of leading transformation. They reflected on those stories to describe how they developed their professional identities, capacities, and sense of agency during these events. Verbatim excerpts were written in a poetic representation as “stories from the river”.

Potentialities. Principals are diverse yet key points of leverage for ensuring successful, equitable education systems (Wahlstrom et al., 2010); they’re “at the centre of a rapidly changing society and the impact it is having on its children” (ATA & CAP, 2014, p. 1). Deep changes are impacting on their (re)figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998). With rising principal attrition and burnout (Wang, 2022), these gaps in understanding could put principals and the education transformation movement at risk.

For three decades, policymakers, scholars, and educators have been attracted to the benefits of the learning organisation concept and its potential for school improvement and supporting school leadership functions (Senge et al., 2012; Stoll & Kools 2017).

The concept has been explored to varying degrees in several countries to date, with Wales (UK) highly prominent. Unlike Wales, it appears Ireland has not applied the School as Learning Organisation (SLO) concept to support education policy reform, at least not explicitly. However, there is frequent reference to learning organisations in the recent Irish school self-evaluation policy “Looking at our School 2022”.

This paper focuses on problematising the concept of SLOs informed by the literature and policy documentation available. This will serve to explore the research and evidence base for leadership education and capacity building as it relates to the SLO. Data from a pilot study is used to further explore the SLO concept. There appears to be a gap in knowledge regarding the usefulness and application of the SLO concept. The study will aim to address this gap, particularly as it relates to teacher leadership and school improvement.

This paper will focus on how applicable and useful the SLO concept is in school effectiveness by addressing the following research question:

Is the School as a Learning Organisation (SLO) concept relevant for school improvement and school leadership?

This paper is based on a review and scoping of existing literature in the field which informs a preliminary pilot study for a larger research project. The extent to which the characteristics of SLO exist – particularly in relation to school leadership and school improvement – may be considered as unexplored to date. A review of the literature and policy documentation will further define the SLO concept and highlight its usefulness as a function of school improvement, particularly as this relates to the role of school leadership.

The paper is framed by a pragmatic approach that utilises the Kools et al. (2020) SLO survey instrument and will focus on two jurisdictions in the primary school context (Wales and Ireland). Data sources include relevant literature and empirical data from the pilot study. Adopting a mixed methods approach the pilot uses three instruments, a quantitative survey, followed by qualitative focus groups and semi-structured interviews.

Findings from the pilot may support the SLO model’s potential application in the Irish education context, and offer learnings based on its implementation (to date) in Wales. Interpretations of the possibilities and permutations of SLOs to support school improvement in national education systems may offer useful insights for international and national policy makers, researchers and educators.

The research is significant given the heightened attention to the application of the SLO concept within a number of jurisdictions globally, including the emergent aspirations within an Irish context. This research may offer new insights and interpretations regarding SLO potential for supporting Ireland’s recent primary curriculum reform (Government of Ireland, 2023). This in turn has implications for school effectiveness and improvement and may inform educational policy and practice globally.

Purpose

Leaders of primary and secondary schools across the globe are responding to increased expectations for continuous improvement and evidence-informed policy and practice to ensure instructional effectiveness and learning (Schildkamp et al., 2013). An essential component of instructional leadership involves using various forms of data associated with student learning to guide internal policies, school cultures, and capacity building. Principals’ data use practice largely involves supporting teachers’ data use by establishing norms, expectations and clear vision for use in instructional decisions. Principals also support teacher growth and capacity by providing time, tools, professional development and modeling effective routines and strategies (Drake, 2022). Grigsby and Vesey (2011) found that less than 30% of school leader preparation programs, however, focused on data use and the preparation of leaders to make data-informed decisions, or evidenced-based policy or practice broadly (Brown & Greany, 2018). Research on preservice leader preparation remains limited (Dexter et al., 2022). We examined preservice leader preparation programs in one US state to understand how data use is addressed in leader preparation.

Methods & Data Sources

We used qualitative methods to explore how 20 pre-service leader programs provided by 16 colleges or universities in Virginia focused on data use. The study involved two phases. The first was a review of published course descriptions for each program (N = 163). This phase included an in-depth review of 23 syllabi from six universities. Next, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with seven program coordinators to understand how the field experience course prepared preservice leaders to use data. Data were analyzed using deductive coding and narrative analytic approaches.

Findings

Preservice leaders are receiving little preparation in data-informed decision making. Stand-alone courses on data use and decision-making were rare. We found that two of the 20 programs had courses focusing on data use and data-informed decision making. Approximately, 8% of course descriptions referenced data use and data-informed decision making. Of these, 38% focused on school improvement, 31% on generally approaches to data-informed decisions across different leader domains, and 23% related data use to curriculum, instruction and student learning. Several programs offered related courses including research design, assessment, program evaluation and statistics content that could support school leaders’ data use – these accounted for 5% of all courses. Interviews with program coordinators revealed the importance and heavy reliance on the field-based internship experience to support preservice leaders' development in data use skills and practice. Yet, these experiences were highly variable and dependent on placement school needs, indicating that not all preservice leaders had similar opportunities to develop data-informed decision making skills.

Significance & Connection to ICSEI 2024

The study findings demonstrate that gaps in school leader preparation to engage data-based continuous and school improvement efforts persist. Our findings coupled with other research literature demonstrate the need to further examine field-based experiences of pre-service school leaders. This study closely aligns ICSEI 2024’s focus on school improvement by investigating gaps in school leader preparation to effectively lead data use.

Principals face increasing expectations for enhancing student outcomes, heightened community needs, and implementation of a range of policy reforms. Further, there is a growing disquiet with current practices demanding a rethink of the narrative of leading schools. One principal professional organisation, the Queensland Association of State School Principals (QASSP) in Australia recently commissioned an exploration of a new narrative for leading primary (P-6/Elementary) schools into the future (Turner, 2021). A jointly developed project with members of the Leadership Research International (LRI) team at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), designed a three-phase study using a sequential mixed method approach (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2018). The research questions for this study were: What is the contribution of primary education to the future economic and social performance? and What is the contribution of school leadership to the achievement of quality primary school student outcomes, academic and social?

Phase one in response to the first research question comprised an extensive literature review of national and international literature about primary school leadership (Bauman et al., 2022), the outcome of which developed a framework of 12 hypothesised capabilities and their associated indicators. Phase Two focused on the second research question and involved a survey of measures to empirically test the 12 factors (capabilities) and indicators of the hypothesised framework. Participants were principals of public and independent primary schools in the State of Queensland. Principal axis factoring was used to initially identify a model which was subsequently subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and resulted in a refinement of the School Community-Oriented Leadership Framework with eight capabilities: Agility, Relational Collaboration, Advocacy, Visionary Commitment, Creative Innovation, Life-long Learning, Critical Decisiveness, and Courageous Communication. Each capability required more focused definition to reflect the expertise principals need for their complex work roles. Phase Three comprises two steps: a) an invitational workshop of leaders from the field; and b) purposive sampling of principals for individual interviews.

The focus of this paper is evidence derived from the first step of Phase three. This commenced with initial data collected from a workshop that invited principals and other school leaders to reflect on their individual experiences in relation to the eight capabilities. Small group discussions also provided evidence of implications for this framework in practice. This step was extended with an invitation for data to be collected from other contexts/countries and this paper presents findings from two countries - Australia and Canada. It is anticipated that these findings will strengthen the purpose and conduct of the individual interviews which form the basis of the second step of Phase Three. It is proposed that the interviews will result in case studies to discern the applicability of the School Community-Oriented Leadership Framework as a new narrative for primary school leaders. Ultimately, the purpose of this research partnership is that the findings will provide a capabilities framework for primary school principals that could assist system policy and leadership development designers with a point of reference for ongoing dialogue on leadership effectiveness for now and into the future.

The main objective of this research was to explore teacher perspectives of the role of creativity in education, with specific focus on how it is defined, understood and employed across the Irish education system. The focus of this paper is to identify the challenges and opportunities for nurturing creativity as school leaders, while also examining whether creativity contributes positively to school effectiveness and improvement. Creativity plays an increasingly important role in our economic, personal and civic lives (Robinson, 2016). Innovation is integral to how we live our lives while creativity contributes positively to our wellbeing and to the good-functioning of democratic societies (Likar et al, 2015). While creativity creates novel approaches and ideas, critical thinking evaluates and judges statements, ideas and theories (Vincent-Lancrin, 2019). Increasing focus on creativity and critical thinking in our broader societies has resulted in the emergence of educational policies (see OECD, 2019, 2023) and measures (such as PISA 2022 Creative Thinking assessment) to increase awareness and enhance its implementation across education systems internationally.

This study adopted an in-depth qualitative methodology drawing on semi-structured interviews to explore the role of creativity in education. A total of 11 teachers (9 female/2 male) working across the education system (primary/post-primary schools) participated in the research and thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes and topics emergent from the data. Sources this paper include previous research, policy documents and analysis of the CreatEd study dataset.

Findings from this study identify the critical role school leadership plays in facilitating, supporting and nurturing creativity across our education systems. Trust, agency and empowerment are critical to leading creativity in educational practices and pedagogies. Confident and secure leadership was identified as playing an integral role in nurturing the optimal conditions where creativity could flourish and thrive. However, there was a tension between pushing boundaries and “not going too wild”. The absence of guidelines on creative practices and approaches in schools resulted in a fear of getting it wrong, which was especially pertinent when “keeping the inspector happy”. School culture was especially important whereby comfort and safety was identified as especially important to creating dynamic spaces promoting collaboration and contributing to more creative learning environments.

Findings from the CreatEd study identify key themes of particular educational importance for theory (the importance of broadening our definitions and understanding of creativity in education), for practice (creating safe spaces where creative practices and pedagogies can be nurtured and supported) and for policy (to support teacher and school leader agency in promoting creativity in schools).

This paper posits whether creativity for school effectiveness and improvement proffers transformative possibilities not only in enhancing pupil/student learning, but for our wider societies. Quality professional education for leaders and teachers emerged as a key theme from the CreatEd study, with specific implications for policy and practice to support teacher and school leader development.

Background

This study focuses on school leaders’ pedagogical leadership while initiating and conducting local school improvement using action research. The study has been conducted within a one-year advanced continuing education course at Karlstad University during 2021 - 2022. The course was directed towards school leaders within Swedish municipal adult education, MAE, requested from the Swedish National Agency for Education. The reason for this request is that since 2010, a Swedish Educational Act is regulating that all education should be based on scientific foundation and proven experience (SFS 2010:800, chapter 1 §5). This requires accessible research on school improvement and more focus on school leaders as pedagogical leaders. There is however no coherent definition of school leaders’ pedagogical leadership (Grice, Forssten Seiser & Wilkinson, 2023) and no research on Swedish MAE from a school improvement perspective (Fejes & Loeb Henningsson, 2021).

The course was developed to meet these challenges. The entire course was set up as an action research project and aimed to collectively, as well as individually, develop MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership while initiating local school improvement, based on local challenges, by using action research. In the end of the course, the school leaders wrote individual popular science articles about their local action research processes and reflected on their pedagogical leading practice’ influence on other practices and how altered pedagogical leading practice may enable local school improvement processes.

Aim, theoretical framework, and research questions

The aim of the study is to describe the MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership along their local action research processes to improve their schools through the lens of theory of practice architecture. The research questions are: How did the MAE school leaders’ pedagogical leadership evolve in their action research processes on their local school? What aspects of their pedagogical leadership enabled and constrained their action research processes?

Method

Qualitative data consist of eight school leaders’ individual written reports. Data were coded into sayings, doings and relatings in accordance with the theory of practice architecture (Kemmis, Wilkinson, Edward-Groves, Hardy and Grootenboer, 2014). Analysis focused on the interrelatedness between arrangements related to sayings, doing and relatings, in which practice architecture and its enabling as well as constraining traits emerged.

Preliminary findings

Findings reveal a practice architecture in which enabling and constraining traits lie in the school leaders’ view on themselves as pedagogical leaders, how they relate to the legal act to lead education based on scientific foundation and proven experience and, how they understand action research as an approach to school improvement. More precisely, relating pedagogical leadership equivalent to instructional leadership constrain the action research processes and school improvement. Contrasting, relating pedagogical leadership as setting the arrangements for professions to be co-owner of the action research process enables school improvement. Results are discussed in relation to Kemmis’ (2023) idea of the mosaic of leadership.

Findings will be used for improvement of future advanced continuing education courses for school leaders’ professional learning.

In Switzerland the formal role of school leadership was in most regions only introduced about 30 years ago (Hangartner & Svaton, 2013), changing traditional roles and responsibilities in the organization and development of schools. Today, in German-speaking Switzerland, school leadership and management responsibilities can be described as a (somewhat) shared mandate and thus the subject of negotiation between school board, school leaders and teachers. Findings on the nature, perception and extent of this shared responsibility in practice are limited, despite international empirical findings suggesting that the distribution of school leadership and participation of different stakeholders in decision-making processes are relevant for school organization and school development (Ärlestig et al., 2016; Capaul, 2021).

This study aims to investigate the leadership-related collaboration between school leaders, school board members and teachers in a school in German-speaking Switzerland with the following research questions guiding the research:

1. How are responsibilities/competencies between school board, leaders and teachers officially regulated?

2. How is the assumption of responsibilities and competencies shaped in practice?

3. How do actors perceive the distribution of responsibility, competencies and roles?

Collaborative practices and perceptions are being investigated using a distributed leadership perspective (Diamond & Spillane, 2016), understanding leadership as interaction between individuals, their mutual influence and the situation.

Data is collected using a multi-method approach, so as to ascertain insights into the “official” distribution of tasks and responsibilities based on legal regulations and school-specific policies, as well as to provide insights into lived experiences and stakeholders' perspectives. The following sources were used:

1. Official documents on the distribution of responsibilities and accountability. Cantonal legal texts serve as a basis, supplemented with location-specific elaborations and regulations.

2. Data from approximately 15 interviews with school leaders, board members and teachers on perceptions of leadership practices, decision-making processes and responsibilities.

3. Shadowing-type observational data from day-to-day school activities of school leaders and teachers.

Initial findings suggest that while the legal framework in the Canton of Argovia implies a distribution of responsibilities in school leadership, with school principals being entrusted with operational leadership, the school board assuming strategic leadership and teachers being encouraged to engage in school development tasks and take on responsibilities at the whole-school level, this is partially perceived only as orientation or guidance. In practice, legal frameworks are executed differently, even among leaders at the same school. The legally anchored distribution of strategic and operative leadership between the school board, school leaders and teachers varies and may be impacted by degrees of trust amongst the various actors.

International findings highlight the importance of studying school leadership in practice, to «enhance the current evidential base», contribute to the «future development of distributed leadership» (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 141) and gain a better understanding of how current and future qualification and professional development measures can be adapted and improved to strengthen school leaders and teachers in assuming and distributing leadership. The findings of this contribution can serve to inform international research on leadership practices and professional development measures for teachers and school leaders.

Focus of Inquiry: This paper explores how collaborative engagement with youth as co-researchers in a longitudinal research study of youth STEM trajectories provides unique opportunities to center youth voices, knowledge, and perspectives and to cultivate a sense of belonging for youth in supportive learning environments. Co-researchers are researchers from populations of the research itself, including: youth, teachers, and school leaders. Drawing on seven years of collaboration with six youth co-researchers at various stages of college and graduate school, we highlight the key features of youth participation, how youth participation shaped the design, implementation, and dissemination of the research, and in what ways this collaboration supported a sense of belonging between youth and adults over time. This paper responds to the ICSEI sub-theme “policy and practice learning to support teacher and school leader development,” by shedding light on features of the collaborative co-research process that may inform educators seeking to build partnerships with youth and cultivate a sense of belonging for youth in learning spaces that may have traditionally excluded their perspectives.

Theoretical/ Conceptual Perspectives: We draw on the core concepts of a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991) framework, including practices, mentoring relationships, identity and sense of belonging (Good et al., 2012) to design our collaborative co-research process and understand how and in what ways youth feel acceptance and membership in our research community of practice. We also draw on key features of youth participatory action research (Caraballo, Lozenski, Lyiscott & Morell, 2017) to center youth voices and perspectives and position young people as collaborators bringing critical expertise and intimate knowledge about their own lives.

Data & Method: Data are drawn from a case study of a seven-year education research fellowship that prepared six youth who are study participants in Staying in Science to expand their STEM research experiences into an education research context. We draw on multiple sources of data, including interview transcripts, recordings, written reflections of our collaborative process, and historical documentation of the ways youth participated in the design of surveys and interview protocols and co-conducting interviews with study participants. Using this data, we identify the key features of our co-research process that support youths’ sense of belonging both to the study and to the process of research.

Findings

Analysis revealed a set of strategies and practices educators utilized that contributed to and/or hindered youth being key collaborators on a longitudinal study exploring their and their peer’s STEM trajectories. For example, we found that adult researchers authentically addressed power in adult-youth co-researcher relationships by actively inviting input, communicating when input was not incorporated, and clearly articulating adult and youth roles.

Educational Importance for Practice and Theory

This project shares findings about the practices, routines, and structures that adults and youth have enacted that have been critical to a productive collaborative co-research process. We focus on sharing strategies that teachers, school, and college educators can implement in their educational settings to support the process of centering youth voices and perspectives and promote inclusion and belonging in education.

Literacy is tied to productivity, employment, and earnings potential, but performance on reading assessments has been stagnant or declining for years within the US (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012, 2022). Despite multiple decades of attention (“Editorial: Overcoming Racial Injustice,” 2020), historically underrepresented student groups’ outcomes are especially poor.

Researchers have identified teaching practices that consistently support student growth in reading comprehension (Graham et al., 2018; Graham & Hebert, 2011). Among them, a strong factor is the use of student-centered practices (Davis, 2010), including those that leverage writing instruction, such as pair/trio sharing where students can try out ideas in a “low risk” setting (Matsumura et al., 2022). However, these student-centered routines are not commonly found in reading instruction, raising the question of why implementation at scale is not occurring for proven practices.

Networked improvement communities (NICs) have become a popular approach to addressing major problems of practice in education (Bryk et al., 2011, 2013; Russell et al., 2017). NICs combine the organizational routines and analytic lenses of improvement science with the collective knowledge and coordinated effort of networks, offering a potentially powerful method for managing complex problems. Although improvement science has been well-researched in other industries (Ogrinc et al., 2012; Rother, 2009) and networks have been explored for educational improvement (Muijs, 2010), more studies are required to test the use of NICs, specifically. This need for research on the effectiveness of NICs is particularly critical for NICs focused on instruction inside the classroom, where there is significant complexity in all elements needed to productively shape student learning. Recent work suggests NICs can improve classroom instruction, but has not focused on explicit analysis of the relationship between implementation and student outcomes.

In this study, we examine two years (2021-22, 2022-23) of student outcome and teacher implementation data in a large NIC. Depth of implementation was assessed using teacher self-reported implementation of six core teaching practices and student outcomes were measured using NWEA’s MAP Reading assessment. This NIC focused teachers on a set of six student-centered routines to understand their impact on student reading outcomes. The network led professional development sessions and held network-wide convenings, fulfilling an essential NIC function by creating inter-organizational spaces for productive collaboration (Russell et al., 2017). Teachers were introduced to these instructional practices and learned how to embed them in their classrooms during professional development sessions. In network convenings, network members came together to align on group norms and share their successes.

The findings show that the benefit of having a high-implementing teacher was only slightly less in magnitude than a typical four months of learning at the national scale. Results also showed consistent benefits across both study years for student groups with power. Benefits for underpowered student groups (students with special needs and Black students) were positive but noisy. This study has implications for practitioners as they decide how to implement high-quality professional education to support interventions, as well as for researchers’ theory-building about the impact of using a NIC-based implementation approach.

Introduction

As the world emerges from the pandemic, the negative impacts on student learning and education structures are evident. Educators and researchers face the challenges resulting from the disruption to learning. As students resume in-person schooling, a key emerging challenge is their adjustment to being back in classrooms (Rapanta et al., 2021). These challenges encompass the socio-emotional state of students, including difficulties in sitting for extended periods and engaging meaningfully with their peers. Believing that peer interaction and collaborative classroom learning are crucial for student growth (Laal & Ghodsi, 2012; Wood and O'Malley, 1996, Vygotsky, 1987) our paper asks: How do teachers understand the change in student social behaviors in classrooms since their return to in-person schooling?

Context

This study involved five teachers from schools in India's capital, Delhi. Delhi had one of the worst impacts of Covid-19. Some estimate that approximately 4 million people lost their lives between April 2020 and January 2022. Therefore it is no surprise that schools in India were restricted to online classes for most of the past three years.

Methods and Analysis

In this qualitative study, we interviewed five school teachers from three private schools. These schools experienced significant closures during the pandemic, including one school being the epicenter of COVID-19 cases among Delhi schools in 2021. The forty-five-minute interviews aimed to capture teachers' classroom experiences in the past six months. Recorded interviews were transcribed for analysis. We utilized the constant comparative method (Glasser, 1965) to identify overarching themes of teacher perceptions about student behavior.

Findings

Analysis revealed four prominent themes. Firstly, teachers noticed a rise in "shy" students, resulting in quieter classrooms and reduced student enthusiasm. Secondly, students exhibited decreased teamwork skills, displaying impatience and reluctance to compromise. Interestingly, a third theme emerged, indicating that online pandemic-formed groups led to exclusive cliques within classrooms. Finally and most concerningly, all teachers in the study talked about how they were especially worried about the students who had been isolated even before the pandemic. Coming back to classrooms after spending more than a year in a home environment has been especially difficult for students who, pre-pandemic, also felt isolated by their peers and regressed in their social growth over the past two years.

Implications:

Most people expected the pandemic's long-term effects to dissipate upon returning to normal. However, this study highlights a new normal with fresh challenges for teachers and students. Based on our findings, we make the claim that there needs to be support for all returning students that goes beyond helping them “cover-up” academic content and explicitly centers students’ socio-emotional growth. Furthermore, administrators must assist teachers in working with students who are especially struggling with reintegration into in-person classes.

Importance and Connection to ICSEI theme:

This study is connected to the themes of the need for continued professional development (CPD) and the subtheme of the ongoing system and school implications arising from the COVID-19 crisis. This reserach speaks to the teacher's perception of the long-lasting social impact of school closures and online school.

Beliefs about gender norms can result in disproportional exclusionary discipline when educators over-policing students whose behavior deviates from teachers’ gender expectations. Using the inclusivity professional development framework, we outline core elements of effective professional development theorized to influence school disciplinary rates. Despite several case studies suggesting IPD may be an important component in developing supportive educator-allies for LGBTQ+ youth (Greytak et al., 2013; Mangin, 2019; Payne & Smith, 2011), few quantitative studies have connected IPD with improvements in disciplinary outcomes.

Purpose

This study examines a large, U.S. school district’s implementation of an IPD program in elementary schools. The program trains educators in preventing bias-based bullying, learning about LGBTQ+ identities, and creating welcoming classrooms for all families. Our cross-sectional study addresses two main research goals: First, we investigate differences between which schools in the volunteered for the IPD program by evaluating school demographics and other characteristics each year (2018-2019). Second, we examine whether participation in the IPD program contributed to disciplinary outcomes.

Methods

School data comes from two sources: 1) the administrative and discipline data for 33 elementary schools, and 2) district training records. Using demographic data from the School Report Card, we examine the balance of school demographics between IPD and Non-IPD schools using t-tests. Next, we examine IPD's contribution to school disciplinary outcomes using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multivariate regression analysis controlling for race, SES, and special education enrollment.

Results

IPD schools enroll fewer low-SES students (t(33) = 3.348, p = 0.002), and marginally less special education students (t(33) = 2.013, p = 0.053). Non-IPD schools have less white students (t(33) = -2.208, p = 0.035), more Black/African American students (t(33) = 3.336, p = 0.002), and more students with two or more races (t(33) = 3.464, p = 0.002) than IPD schools.

OLS Multivariate Regression Analysis

When controlling for school demographics, IPD schools have lower suspension (β = -1.592, p = 0.032), assault (β = -1.098, p = 0.049), and endangering behavior rates (β = -0.284, p = 0.027) than Non-IPD schools. There are no significant differences in other school violations (β=-0.157, p = 0.209) and weapon-related incidents (β = -0.045, p = 0.191) between IPD and Non-IPD schools. Overall, our results suggest the IPD program contributes to lower behavioral performance of students even after controlling for school demographics.

Discussion

Effective instruction of K12 students requires pedagogical expertise and appropriate understanding about how students’ identities and social statuses influence their school experiences (Gay, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1999; Shulman, 1987). The IPD curriculum aims to enhance educators’ understanding of how and why school structures should change to reach

For over two decades, Chilean policymakers have used extrinsic incentives as the main lever to regulate teacher work. Despite the mixed effects of these kind of policies for improving teacher performance and qualifications (OECD, 2013), in 2016 Chilean authorities put in place the Teacher Professional Development System (TPDS), which is a schema for promoting teachers on a career ladder. TPDS is a high-stake extrinsic incentives system to hold teachers accountable for their individual performance. The implicit theory of action drawn from this policy design stipulates that the power of summative evaluation, performance scores, and awarding (or denying) the promotion (monetary salary increase) on the career ladder based on performance scores would motivate teachers to improve their professional qualifications. For these kind of policies, it is expected that teachers make a connection between extrinsic incentives and their intrinsic motivation for the quality of their work (Podgursky & Springer, 2007). In this context, we ask: To what extend extrinsic incentives from TPDS connects with teachers’ intrinsic drive for improving the quality of their work; if so, under what circumstances extrinsic incentives connect with intrinsic incentives?

Theoretically, this study drew on the literature of work motivation. We study the connection between extrinsic incentives and intrinsic motivation using the model developed by Harackiewicz & Sansone (2000). They conceptualize a connection between extrinsic incentives and intrinsic motives based on the perception of competence. We also theorized that this connection can be reinforced at the school level through a professional technical culture and leadership practices that support teacher learning (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001; Tschannen-Moran, 2009).

The research design consists of an in-depth multiple case study (Yin, 2009) of three publicly funded schools from Santiago, Chile. Within each school we interviewed six teachers and two administrators, having a total sample of 24 educators.

Following Harackiewicz & Sansone (2000)s’ model, we found that there is widespread fear, anxiety, and concern about the evaluation process that teachers must go through under the TPDS. Although money is welcome, it does not seem to motivate teachers to improve their craft. When it comes to improve their teaching, more altruistic motives seem to be a stronger driver. Regarding the connection between TPDS-like incentives and the intrinsic desire to improve, we identify two groups of teachers: i) The ones who do not recognize any connection between the evaluation process and improving their craft ii) and the others who, despite the evaluative threat, face the evaluation process in a less dramatic way. For the former, the evaluation does not cue competence, for the latter the evaluation standards are seen as valid, which cues competence as a result. Organizational characteristics such as a pedagogical leadership and extra support for teachers who are going through the evaluation process seem to facilitate the connection between extrinsic incentives and intrinsic desires to improve. In line with the ICSEI 2024 conference theme of quality professional education for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement, understanding how and under what conditions incentives-based policies can motive teachers to improve their craft is paramount.

Teacher professionalism attracts a great deal of interest these days from both scholars and policymakers worldwide due to the significant role played by teachers in improving the education system and enhancing student achievement (Fullan, 2016; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012; Oon Seng, 2015; Schleicher, 2011; Smylie, Bay, & Tonzer, 1999). With the global movement toward UN Sustainable Development Goals, countries need to ensure the quality of their education systems, and this involves updating the content and undergoing education reforms. Governments, accordingly, are raising teacher professionalism and teacher quality to the top of their agendas to accomplish this goal. Now, more than ever, teacher quality cannot be neglected, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated very clearly that nothing can replace teachers. In the past two decades, Kuwait has made significant investments in reforming its education system in order to develop human capital and decrease reliance on hydrocarbon revenues; however, the reform agenda has neglected teacher policies and professionalism. A look at the reform agenda illustrates that no reform policies were launched concerning teacher professionalism, and this is assumed to have had a significant negative impact on teacher practices. This ongoing study aims to examine the current state of teacher professionalism in Kuwait in light of leading practices, so as to provide recommendations to policymakers for developing and enhancing teacher professionalism in Kuwait. As Hargreaves (2000) argues, policymakers need more studies to realise the importance of professional learning for teachers and to understand its ongoing process. In this research, an in-depth analysis of policy documents and literature was conducted, using the qualitative comparative approach, to evaluate teacher professionalism in Kuwait. Furthermore, this study compared and analysed teacher professionalism in Singapore and Finland to extract valuable insights that could be used to enhance teacher professionalism in Kuwait. It is worth noting that policy learning is a frequent practice in comparative research (Harris & Jones, 2018; Steiner-Khamsi, 2012). The initial findings of this research reveal the low level of teacher professionalism in Kuwait, as well as the lack of a comprehensive system overseeing teacher training. Here, we argue that achieving the goals for education is impossible without acknowledging the significance of teacher training and development and comprehending the process involved. This research contributes to the teacher professionalism literature, as it focuses on an under-researched case that had not been studied well in the literature previously. Moreover, this research attempts to provide a framework for teacher professionalism in Kuwait, based on lessons learned from leading countries in this field. Finally, the research provides policy and practice learning to support teacher and school leader development, because policymakers, politicians, and practitioners need to work together to ensure that teachers maintain a high level of professionality and are capable of achieving the desired educational outcomes.

Internationally, teacher shortage appears to be a major societal problem, including Sweden (Boström et al., 2022; See & Gorard, 2020). According to the United Nations (UNESCO, 2016), the world needs at least 69 million new teachers to reach the education goals of Agenda 2030. In Europe, there is a shortage of teachers in basically all countries (Federičová's, 2020; The European Commission, 2020; OECD, 2020). In Sweden, the Swedish Na-tional Agency for Education [Skolverket] (2019; 2020) and Statistics Swe-den (2017a, b) have alerted to the problem. Various actors (media, politi-cians, opinion leaders and trade unions) have in Sweden expressed their definite and different views on the matter (Kungliga Ingenjörsvetenskap-sakademin,2020). The voices of researchers, teachers and principals are though to a large extent absent (Boström, 2023). At the same time, all stakeholders agree on both the existence of teacher shortage and the im-portance of educated teachers in schools for creating the best possible con-ditions for students to learn.

Our interest is to delineate the specific aspects of the teacher shortage's concerning causes and possible solutions according to professional groups in the field, i.e., that have concrete experience of teacher shortage and its consequences. The research questions for this study are:

• According to seven different professional groups, what are the causes and solutions of teacher shortage?

• Are there differences and similarities between the various professional groups regarding causes and solutions? If so, in what respects?

Theoretical framework for the study is ”wicked problem” (Rittel & Web-ber, 1973). It refers to complex, open-ended, and ambiguous problems that are difficult to define, have no definitive solution, and are interconnected with other problems and societal issues. Wicked problems are characterized by their complex nature, the presence of multiple stakeholders with con-flicting interests, and the lack of clear problem boundaries. The wicked problem theory emphasizes that traditional approaches to problem-solving are often insufficient for addressing complex problems. Instead, it encour-ages a more holistic and collaborative approach, involving various stake-holders, disciplines, and perspectives.

The study is based on a web survey, answered by 605 informants, consist-ing of 40 items about causes and possible solutions based on previous re-search and dialogue meetings with regional and national policy actors. The selection of participants included both academic and practical professions as well as a representation of teacher students. Data are analyzed by de-scriptive and inferential statistics. The results are reported with descriptive statistics and significance testing. Descriptive statistics presents an overall picture of the various items at a group level. Mann–Whitney U- test inves-tigates the distinctions between professional categories.

Preliminary results indicated that items were differently relevant for differ-ent professional groups. Three professional groups diverged largely from other groups, namely health staff, uneducated teachers, and teacher train-ers. The results confirm the importance of seeing the problem as “wicked” and therefore engaging diverse stakeholders in the problem-solving process to foster collective intelligence and shared responsibility. The connection to the conferences is evident, i.e., the role and impact of educated teachers in the context of school effectiveness and improvement.

This qualitative study contributes to systematic knowledge about online education in public upper secondary schools. By conducting a thematic analysis of eight interviews with online teachers in a large region in Norway, the study aims to explore how these teachers experience teaching and learning online in their curriculum-based subjects. In the absence of Norwegian research, the study draws on international studies of online teaching in schools and theories of digital agency to provide a knowledge base for understanding the teachers' teaching context, as well as their pedagogical and technological choices and actions.

Four themes that emerged from the analysis are summarized and discussed in a model for digital maturity in online teaching and learning. The main findings of the study indicate that acquiring professional digital competence in school and education is a good, but not sufficient, starting point for teaching in an online school. The online teachers demonstrated individual professional digital agency, which manifested in the development of new teaching designs, increased utilization of digital tools, independent student work, and oral interaction. These changes contributed to strengthening student engagement and self-directed learning within the framework of each individual subject.

The teachers also exhibited collective transformative agency through collaboration in the development of the online school. Experience sharing and problem-solving during joint gatherings contributed to an enhanced common understanding of online teaching and assessment. The online school represented a digital transformation, wherein the teachers' participation resulted in changes in how the online school organized and structured its subject offerings for all students at school owner and school leadership levels.

Objectives

Research has also shown that principal resilience is crucial not only for dealing with professional challenges and uncertainties but also for enhancing desirable individual and organizational well-being and performance (Glazzard & Stones, 2021; Wells & Klocko, 2018). The current study aims at investigating the relationships between principal resilience, psychological contract with their school and work-family conflict.

Research questions

1) What are the relationships from between principal resilience, psychological contract and work-family conflict.

Theoretical Framework

The 8-item psychological contract survey developed by Liu et al. (2008) measures the mutual expectation or agreement between individuals and organizations on mutual responsibility obligations. It reflects that school principals try to keep a balance between contribution and income with schools. The 5-item work-family conflict survey was developed by Netemeyer et al. (1996). The survey examined work influence on family life. A 6-point Likert agreement scale was adopted ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. Previous research identified that human resilience may positively predict to psychological contract (Hind et al., 1996; Mccoy & Elwood, 2009) and negatively connect with the work-family conflict (Billing et al., 2021).

Methods

This paper involves a sample of 698 principals working in schools from Hong Kong and Mainland China. Among these participants, 375 (53.7%) were male and 323 (46.3%) females with an average age of 44 years and 7 years of working experience. More than half (66.3%, n = 334) of these principals had less than ten years of working experience, 27.4% (n = 138) had ten to twenty years, and 6.3% (n = 32) had more than twenty years. The majority of them (66.9%, n = 467) held a bachelor degree, 32.1% (n = 224) of them held a junior college degree or below, and 1% (n = 7) held a master degree and above. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. A multi-criteria approach for acceptable model fit was adopted (Marsh, Hau, & Wen 2004). All analyses were carried out in Mplus 8.

Results

All dimensions from principal resilience are positively related to the psychological contract scale (r ranged from .46 to .88) and negatively related to the work-family conflict scale (r ranged from -.78 to -.31). The SEM model showed that the dimensions of the PRI positively predicted the psychological contract construct and negatively predicted the work-family conflict construct.

Implications

This project is critical and timely particularly during the post-pandemic period in that the ways for enhancing the outcomes of school principals via the lens of resilience will be reinforced to help them cope with the everyday challenges and adversities that principals encounter.

Connection to the conference theme

This project fits well with the conference theme of ‘Leading improvement collaboratively and sustainably’ via the means of principal resilience.

Objectives. This paper shares insights from a cross-sector partnership to support youth well-being in Chelsea, MA, where institutional and community leaders formed a Children’s Cabinet in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our objective in this paper is to explore the barriers and contributors to collaboration in crisis, exploring how cross-sector partnership at the systems level works through a close analysis of qualitative interviews with Cabinet members. Specifically, we ask, “How do distinct and blended institutional logics inform engagement in a cross-sector collaboration to support youth well-being and school improvement?”

Cross Sector-collaboration. A growing body of literature about educational reform has focused on how cross-sector, community partnerships support strategic responses to challenges and coordinate networks of social services (Miller et al., 2017). These initiatives have emerged as a way to bring together systems that influence youth outcomes within particular neighborhoods with a focus on aligning the multiple services youth access (Boyer et al, 2020; Impellizeri and Lee, 2021; Sharkey & Faber, 2014).

Institutional Logics. Institutional logics describe the ways in which discrete institutional orders create a system of motive, reason and justification for decisions, priorities and beliefs of an individual or group, together forming a logic of working (Friedland & Alford, 1991). While often discussed in singularity, logics can also co-exist and even compete (Reay & Hinings, 2009). More collaborative forms of institutional logic development also exist as key stakeholders of a problem establish and share common norms, culture and goals that lead to initiatives that change an existing logic or lead to blended logics (Currie & Spyridonidis, 2016).

Study Context. The city of Chelsea is a primarily Latinx community (67%), with the vast majority of youth speaking a language other than English at home (88%). A tight knit, vibrant community, Chelsea has long relied on its institutions, social service agencies and community-based organizations. Hard hit by the pandemic, school district leaders established a Children’s Cabinet in 2021 composed of administrators, social service and health agencies, city government, and non-profit organizations.

Methods. We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with cabinet members in April and May of 2021. Each interview lasted approximately 40-60 minutes and was conducted over Zoom. Drawing on our theoretical frameworks, our iterative, open-coding process was conducted by two independent researchers who identified salient themes across interview transcripts and arbitrated any disagreements (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Findings & Conclusions. Our findings show how leaders across sectors voiced shared logics, blended logics across institutions, and conflicting logics hindering collaboration. First, a dominant and shared ethic of care was named as central to building cross-sector collaboration in the aftermath of the pandemic. Second, individual leaders presented their rationale for collaboration via blended logics that were not necessarily aligned with dominant logics within their respective institutions. Third, despite these overlapping logics, individual roles shaped leaders’ sense of possibility such that they felt constrained to engage in collaboration beyond their established responsibilities. Through our study, we show how collaborations with school, government and community can elevate local leadership and solutions to crisis.

Objectives

Principal well-being worldwide is under increasing threat due to the challenging and complex nature of their work and growing demands. This paper aimed at developing and validating a multidimensional Principal Well-being Inventory (PWI), and examining the state and consequences (work engagement; intention to leave) of principal well-being.

Research questions

1) What are the elements of the PWI?

2) What is the situation of principal well-being

3) How does principal well-being connect to work engagement and intention to leave?

Theoretical Framework

Recently, The World Health Organization (WHO) (2014) defined well-being as a state of being in which every person sees their potential, can handle everyday life stresses, work productively and fruitfully, and positively contribute to their local community. The OECD (2020) subsequently utilized the multidimensional well-being framework for mass testing students and teachers, but not school principals. The multiple-dimension well-being concept is adopted in this project to design the Principal Well-being Inventory (Pollock & Wang, 2020; Wells & Klocko, 2018).

Scholars have focused on identifying influential organisational and individual drivers of principal well-being, mainly using quantitative methods (Aravena & González, 2021; Beausaert et al., 2021; Collie et al., 2020). Much of their work has examined work-related drivers. For example, in a longitudinal study involving 2,084 Australian and 829 Irish principals, Beausaert et al. (2021) found a that social capital had a significant impact on principal well-being. Moreover, the consequences of principal well-being have also attracted research attention, although not a great deal. Limited evidence shows that more investigations of principal well-being have focused on the relevance of principals as individuals (Beausaert et al., 2021)

Methods

This paper involves four independent samples of principals working in schools from Hong Kong and Mainland China. The research design consisted of four phases with four sequential empirical studies. Phase 1 was to establish the content validity (literature review and Study 1); Phase 2 was to test the construct validity (Study 2 and Study 3); Phase 3 was to build the criterion validity (re-use the data from Study 3), and Phase 4 was to test the cross validity of the PWI (Study 4).

Results

A 24-item PWI was created via a theoretical-empirical approach of test construction covering physical, cognitive, emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual well-being. The principals in this project generally reported a higher level of their occupational well-being except for physical well-being. This project released that principal well-being significantly predicted work engagement and intention to leave via eight regression paths. Particularly, physical, emotional, psychological, cognitive well-being significantly affect work engagement. Emotional, social and spiritual well-being significantly impact intention to leave.

Implications

This theoretically and empirically validated inventory serves as a robust tool for comprehensively understanding principal well-being and a fuller exploration of their well-being literacy, drivers and outcomes.

Connection to the conference theme

This project fits well with the conference theme of ‘Exploring the evolving research and evidence base for leadership education and capacity building’. Particularly, this project will contribute to the well-being capacity building.

Problem of practice, connection to conference theme, and research questions

Many schools reacted to the COVID-19 crises by creating structures to strengthen student-teacher relationships in efforts to provide students with targeted support. Having recognized the positive impact of these structures on students, schools are now struggling to concretize them as infrastructural. We address this problem through a two-phased study in partnership with a group of New York City educators, examining educator-made “micro-innovations”. Micro-innovations are adaptations and inventions new to the contexts in which they are developed (Author, 2021; Rogers, 2003). Our research questions ask:

What micro-innovations have educators developed to strengthen student-teacher relationships during the COVID-19 crisis?

How are they sustaining those micro-innovations now?

What challenges and problems have they had to address along the way?

In phase one of this project, we identified and described educator-made micro-innovations. Now, in phase two, we focus on how schools are working to sustain those innovations, and the challenges they have encountered in doing so.

Perspectives

We root our inquiry in research showing that the conventional “grammar of schooling” both creates and constrains the development of new educational practices (Tyack & Cuban, 1995; Cohen & Mehta, 2017). The grammar of schooling describes institutional forces that reinforce conventional school practices. The affordances of conventional practices – or, the constraints that shape behavior with particular objects in particular contexts (Gibson, 1977) – help explain why schools change slowly and incrementally. However, we argue that, when sustained, educator-made micro-innovations can contribute to broader and long lasting educational transformation (Author, 2021).

Approach to inquiry & data sources

We interviewed 20 educators and coaches from schools taking part in a “Continuous Improvement” Network (a pseudonym). This network aims to increase the numbers of Black and Latinx students who graduate high school, and recognizes student-teacher relationships as critical to reaching that goal. We asked participants to describe their schools’ structures that support student-teacher relationships, how these structures transformed through the COVID-19 crisis, and the challenges they face and strategies they are developing toward making these structures sustainable.

Learnings

We found that educators’ efforts to sustain one micro-innovation often created a series of new problems. For example, some educators created structures for one-to-one check-ins during remote instruction. However, in order for that structure to be effective in person, educators had to engage in collaborative improvement planning, which led to challenges with scheduling, professional development, and progress monitoring. Though each challenge seemed to stall progress, each had to be addressed in order to sustain the structure and deepen its impact. Ultimately, schools’ engagement in a continuous improvement process to identify and solve a specific problem turned into a continuous problem-finding process.

Educational importance of research for practice

In order to make systemic change that reflects structures supporting student-teacher relationships, schools must recognize that continuous improvement is not linear, nor guaranteed. In understanding continuous improvement as a continuous problem, schools and educators can develop the priorities and make changes that foster real infrastructural improvements.

Research has clearly indicated the importance of functional reading skills as a tool for personal, social and economic development and empowerment (Nelis et al. 2021). However, although Ireland ranked second in relation to overall mean reading achievement in Progress In International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2021 (Mullis et al., 2023; Delaney, et al., 2023), a considerable difference in literacy achievement continues to exist between children in disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged schools, particularly in relation to reading development (Nelis & Gilleece, 2023; McNamara et al. 2021; Karakolidis et al. 2021; Kavanagh et al., 2017). This is despite a sustained policy focus in recent decades on initiatives designed to narrow the gap, such as the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy (Department of Education [DE] 2011), and the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Strategy (DE 2005; DE 2017).

This poster presents the key concepts, methods, findings and conclusions in relation to a research study which explores literacy practices in urban socio-economically disadvantaged schools situated in Ireland. The aim of this research is to investigate what existing literature in this area indicates concerning the adaptations that can be made to the literacy practices utilised in mainstream urban DEIS primary schools in Ireland for reading instruction, to more effectively support the reading development of students experiencing socio-economic disadvantage. The poster first asserts and contextualises the problem and purpose statement of the research. Relevant policy documents and research illustrating the current reading achievement gap between DEIS schools and non-DEIS schools are drawn upon, to give readers an insight into the current context in Ireland in which this research has been conducted.

A brief overview of the research methods is then outlined to capture the research design, and methods of data collection and analysis which were used within this study. This research consisted of a qualitative desk-based thematic analysis, which utilised secondary data sets that were identified within an in-depth literature review of the research topic. This is followed by a findings and discussion section which details four key themes which emerged within the findings of this study: (i) teacher autonomy in the implementation of reading instruction, (ii) configuration of a Balanced Literacy Framework, (iii) whole school approach to literacy education, and (iv) literacy as a socio-cultural practice. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the significance of the research for professional learning networks such as DEIS primary schools. This discussion recognises the challenges which exist in relation to reading instruction in mainstream urban DEIS primary schools; and highlights the policy and curricular context in which adaptations to school literacy practices must be made.

One important finding in a study investigating how the ongoing digitalization of schools affects teaching and learning in public schools in Malmö, Sweden, is that teachers see many opportunities to use digital tools and resources to create inclusive environments that are more accessible to their students (Ideland et al, 2023b). On the other hand, the study also illuminates large differences between schools in terms of organization, school culture, teaching and development processes related to digital tools and resources. Teachers often state that they want to learn how to use and teach with digital tools together with their colleagues and in connection to their own subjects and teaching practices (Ideland et al, 2023a). Although this view is in line with research on learning in practices (Kemmis et al, 2013) this is not how all schools organize professional learning. Researchers have pointed out that teacher groups working with professional learning and development often need support from external experts (e.g. Timperley, 2011) and can benefit from networking and learning together with other schools and teacher groups interested in the same questions and issues (Brown & Poortman, 2018). Furthermore, it is important to involve teachers to bring about a clinical practice-based research (Bulterman-Bos,m 2008) that can contribute to new teaching methods and ways to meet students as well as new knowledge of e.g. teaching and different student groups (McKenney & Reeves, 2014).

The aim of this roundtable discussion is to highlight and discuss interesting aspects, constraints, and possibilities in a professional learning network (PLN, Brown & Poortman, 2018) that is started up during the fall of 2023. Through this PLN special needs teachers and lead teachers from five schools in Malmö collaborate and are supported by each other as well as by central ICT-developers and researchers from the local school administration. The special needs teachers and lead teachers organize and lead professional learning communities (PLC, Brown, 2017) at their schools, focusing on the use of digital tools and resources to create inclusive and accessible learning environments, in collaboration with the central ICT-developers. The researchers organize and lead meetings and discussions in the PLN together with the central ICT-developers. They are also responsible for bringing in relevant literature and research methods to anchor the learning and development processes in relevant research and make the PLN contribute not only to new methods for teaching but also to new knowledge about teaching, learning and ways to create inclusive learning environments. This knowledge should be of interest for both professionals in schools and researchers. Questions to discuss at the table might be:

- How do the organizations of schools and support from the local school administration facilitate, hinder or shape PLN:s?

- What forms of collaborations and research methods facilitate or hinder learning and progress in PLN:s?

- How do relations between participants with different roles shape PLN:s?

- How can this kind of PLN contribute to research?

Objectives

The Wāhkōhtowin teacher education model was created to decolonize teacher education in Saskatchewan, Canada, utilizing a Nēhiyawak (Cree) worldview. It was informed by Indigenous Elders and responds to Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015). Teacher candidates, university and school partners work together to decolonize their thinking, teaching practice and relationships in order to (a) foster student learning; (b) develop Nēhiyaw teacher identity, and; (c) understand colonial truths for reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. This presentation reports on a research study examining the extent to which the model is achieving these objectives.

Perspective

The TRC (2015) admonished Canada’s education system as being designed to “kill the Indian in the child,” in order to assimilate Indigenous peoples into society (TRC, 2015). Although significant changes have been made, scholars continue to critique teacher preparation programs as privileging whiteness and reifying colonial assumptions that perpetuate inequitable experiences for Indigenous peoples (Cottrell & Orlowski, 2014; Pratt & Danyluk, 2017; Wallin & Peden, 2014). To offset this critique, the Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of Saskatchewan worked with partners to conceptualize a model from a worldview supported by Nēhiyaw māmitonēyicikan, or Cree thought and philosophy. The Wāhōhtowin model was developed through oral teachings provided by First Nations Elders. Cultural traditions such as mentoring and relationships with Elders are integral (Restoule, Gruner, & Metatawabin, 2013), and are governed by Nēhiyaw Law (Innes, 2013). Partners work together in a spirit of love, respect and humility for teacher candidates and students. The foundational constructs of the model include relationality, ceremony, language, and child-centredness, and is designed to help Indigenous teacher candidates feel comfortable in the school setting (tipéyimisowin), support them in cultural learning and identity (kīwēwin), and foster their pedagogical growth as teachers (mamáwi kiskinomāsowin).

Methodology and Methods

Our research employs a qualitative mixed methods approach (Merriam, 2009) of interpretive description informed by Indigenous perspectives (Kovach, 2009). We frame the research as “practice research” (Goldkuhl, 2011) and hold to a spirit of research as ceremony (Wilson, 2008). Research activities include: observations of meetings, professional development opportunities, cultural events and lessons; feedback surveys; sharing circles/interviews, and; analysis of student and employment data. We hold an annual research gathering where participants share learning related to ceremony, language, culture, and teaching identity and development. The culminating research project is a digital storywork documentary (Archibald, 2009).

Results

Selected lessons focus on:

• Privileging field experiences key to an Indigenous epistemology;

• Responsivity to changing needs and perspectives across systems;

• Diverse personal experiences and comfort with Indigeneity;

• Language, cultural, land-based and Elder engagement;

• Anti-racist education

• Indigenous placements in religious-based schools.

Significance

The findings have the potential to: mitigate intergenerational effects of colonial policies; (b) increase educational and employment outcomes; (c) provide direction for successful partnerships, and (d) offer strategies for decolonizing teacher education.

Theme

The presentation focuses on partnerships invested in the provision of quality education conceptualized through an Indigenous worldview. Its intention is to decolonize teacher preparation to improve teacher development and student educational outcomes.

Increased emphasis on the use of research in the educational sector has challenged researchers, teacher educators and other actors to clarify how research can support professional development. This article draws attention to epistemic interrelationships between research-based and experience-based knowledge in the educational sector. These interrelationships are visible through tensions between the expectations of knowledge development and school development. The ability to combine different knowledge forms and knowledge relationships in both academia and the field of practice is central. Fekjær et al. (2022) have emphasised the need to specify these knowledge forms further. This research aims to highlight this gap from the perspective of a local authority related to education, such as national departments, counties and municipalities, focusing on decision-making through processes of assessments based on broad knowledge bases. To make knowledge-based decisions, these professions require experience from the field combined with knowledge extracted from research. In addition to these two, experience from these professions is the advantage of knowing the "tools of the trade" as a researcher, which recognises both processes and outputs of research as important. The research questions we pursue are: Which educational practices do local educational authorities move between? Which forms of knowledge are mobilised in various educational practices, and which epistemic relationships are relevant to support knowledge development?

This article examines conceptual descriptions of local authorities' various practices through a duoethnographic methodology, allowing two researchers to collaborate to provide a common understanding (Norris & Sawyer, 2012). The analytical perspectives that will shed light on these practices are epistemic relationships and boundary work in various contexts between schools and academia where local authorities work to support knowledge development. With these analytical perspectives, we seek to increase the understanding of how research and research competence may be relevant to support knowledge development in the contexts of local authorities.

The project looks at the use of Literature in the Second Language and at the ways this element can help students to improve their writing skills. The use of literature can contribute effectively to the developing of students’ writing skills, fostering not only their language abilities but also their knowledge of the culture they are learning (Paran and Robinson, 2016). However, literature is not regularly included in second language instruction, leading to a disconnect between the study of language and that of literary texts.

By intending learning as a social process, I will look at how the use of literature in a collaborative learning context can foster students’ writing skills. To do that, I will adapt the workshop structure developed by Lucy Calkins (1994) for American middle school to the KS3 British curriculum adopted by my school.

Calkins’ model draws on collaborative learning and on the use of mentor texts as a model for students and on the use of workshop model during English lessons. The project will also lead to the redesigning of the KS3 curriculum, integrating in a more purposeful way the study of language and literature.

The purpose of this session is to explore an approach that will support schools to measure progress and improvement through a collaboratively designed measurement tool being trialled in Aotearoa | New Zealand. The approach holds importance for educational practice in that school leaders collaboratively set a balanced scorecard for measuring, monitoring and supporting strategic decision making.

Aotearoa | New Zealand’s schools are self-managing, self-governing entities. For a small nation, we have struggled with the measurement of progress and improvement in schooling. This has become both divisive and politicised with frequent concerns arising regarding comparison and ranking of schools.

During 2021 and 2022 Springboard Trust embarked on a new way of thinking and exploring this measurement challenge, trialling and adapting a tool from the business sector which enabled school principals to develop their own balanced scorecard for their school. In this pilot programme, school leaders took the balanced scorecard concept to develop measures for their school’s progress across four perspectives. The principals learnt alongside other principals, supported by volunteer subject matter experts, as they developed this key communication tool.

Through collaboration with their school stakeholders, Boards of Trustees, parents, teachers and students, school principals determined four clear, measurable objectives that were aligned with the school’s vision.

The subject matter experts, volunteers from the business sector, scaffolded the school leaders to gain clarity in this process, to de-jargonise their language and to determine clear lead and lag measures. As a result, educational practices of school leaders were enhanced through this sharing of knowledge.

The piloting of the programme occurred through four iterations over the two years resulting in an online delivery format that is currently utilised, and still improvement focussed. Some 50 schools have completed the process.

Participants in this session will view summary slides outlining both the Balanced Scorecard for Schools Aotearoa and the development of leadership learning practices. As well, a range of short video clips will be shared where principals/school leaders:

• Present their dashboard on a page at the conclusion of the programme.

• Share insights regarding their leadership learning and the development and early utilisation for their school.

Participants will have the opportunity to practice using the tool with a context they are familiar with

Conversation will be enabled through the presentation, followed by an interactive Q&A session.

Connection to the conference theme: Enhancing educational practices of school leaders – knowledge mobilisation through collaborative school improvement practices.

Purpose and Educational Importance

The purpose of this innovate proposal is to use research evidence about school leaders and school operations to consider how to improve school leader preparation. Specifically, the session will consider how increased instruction about management skills and effective practices could enhance school leader training and development.

An extensive amount of research has identified the importance of school leaders to school effectiveness and improvement. For instance, Grissom et al. (2021) concluded that principals were the most important school-based factor contributing to educational outcomes. From their meta-analysis, Liebowitz and Porter (2019) found principal behavior influenced several student and teacher outcomes. Similarly, a substantial amount of research has identified policies and practices that contribute to effective and improving schools. Studies such as Stockard et al. (2018) and Stringfield et al. (2008) provide evidence about specific initiatives that support effective or improving schools. In addition, works such as Reynolds et al. (2014) and Bryk et al. (2009) have provided more general guidelines for operating effective or improving schools.

Despite knowledge about the importance of school leaders and effective schools operations, the formal preparation of school leaders has not reliably produced graduates with the capacity to lead effective and improving schools (Grissom et al., 2019). In addition, observations of and reports from practicing school leaders have indicated that they spend more time in managerial activities than instructional ones (Hochbein et al., 2021). While many school leaders feel like managerial responsibilities detract from the effectiveness of their instructional leadership (Wang, 2022), evidence indicates a positive association between school leader time dedicated to managerial tasks schools and educational outcomes (Horng et al., 2010, May et al, 2013).

Approach to the Session

These disconnects between the importance of school leaders, knowledge about effective schools, and school leader time use calls for reconsideration of how to reliably train effective school leaders. To ultimately create a focused discussion on ways to meaningfully improve the preparation of school leaders, the first portion of the session will ask attendees to consider a series of questions about school leadership and school operations, such as:

1. What activities would you expect to see from an instructional leader?

2. What could a school leader have done to improve your school experiences?

3. How would you define a noninstructional activity for a school leader?

The attendees will formulate their answers and then publicly share some responses. I intend these questions to create cognitive dissonance in the attendees and help focus attention on the disconnect between school leader activities and management of school practices. From these responses and discussions of evidence, I will lead a discussion considering the need to better incorporate management training into school leader preparation and development.

Conference Theme Connection

This innovate proposal directly connects to the conference theme of “Quality Professional Education for Enhanced School Effectiveness and Improvement”. The presentation will use attendees’ experiences and existing evidence about school leader and school effectiveness to consider how improved managerial training could enhance the education and professional development of school leaders.

Higher education (HE) in the Republic of Ireland experiences ongoing challenges in achieving wider participation by some groups as outlined in the desired intentions of national policy (HEA, 2015; Fleming, Loxley and Finnegan, 2017; Colum and Brennan 2022). This is mostly palpable within initial teacher education (ITE) where there is a lack of representation from diverse backgrounds or in the preservice teachers’ personal educational experience (Keane and Heinz, 2016) and further consolidated by data reporting that a mere 0.1% of the student body comprises Traveller young people accessing HE (HEA, 2015). Essentially, students from the Traveller community are almost non-existent in ITE programmes. In order to address the disparity, the Higher Education Authority (HEA) called on HE institutes to develop initiatives to identify and support students from pockets of society typically underrepresented in ITE. It was within this context that the TOBAR programme (phase one 2018 – 2021) in Marino Institute of Education was conceptualised and in 2021 expanded to partner with Trinity College Dublin (phase two 2021 – 2024).

The poster will address the following key concepts:

1. What is TOBAR? An overview of this access initiative in MIE/TCD.

2. Supports offered by the TOBAR programme: identification of specific supports offered to TOBAR students.

3. Challenges for students from the Traveller community to and through ITE programmes: the ongoing and persistent challenges for students.

4. Success stories: A showcase of four students from TOBAR, now newly qualified teachers, from the Traveller community.

5. Next steps: future directions for the TOBAR project and for TOBAR graduates.

Methods

The poster highlights Irish Travellers’ journeys to and through the TOBAR and ITE programmes via a narrative approach from a sample of four TOBAR students. It will highlight research on the engagement of TOBAR students in ITE (namely Colum and Collins, 2021; Colum and Brennan, 2022; Uí Choistealbha and Colum, 2022; Burns, Colum and O’Neill, 2023). Much of the literature exposes both the supports and the continuous specific barriers that Irish Travellers face to and through their higher education (HE) journey.

Findings and conclusions

Findings comprise:

(1) The importance of programmes like TOBAR : having a dedicated programme for ethnic minority groups are crucial in order to identify bespoke, individual supports.

(2) The value of the relational space: the importance of having caring, trusting relationships with students and families.

(3) Challenges to and through ITE programmes: experiences of TOBAR students to and through HE.

(4) Post TOBAR journeys: retention in the school system as NQTS and the new challenges that follow our students.

Conclusions:

(1) Entrench dialogue on HE and ITE at the upper end of primary and early post primary years. Have partnerships with schools to encourage students from the Traveller community to access third level education.

(2) Draw on the expertise of families, bring them in as experts, discuss aspects of culture and how we can support students.

(3) Work with Traveller advocacy groups to provide information and direct support students.

(4) Have substantial bursaries in place to ease the financial difficulty.

(5) Have academic supports in place from primary school up to third level.

Purpose: Research shows that parents engage girls more frequently in spatial tasks than boys (Thomson et al., 2018), and that children’s math identities are formed as early as the K-4 years (Dou et al., 2019). Early math skills have also been found to impact later career development (Pritulsky et al., 2020). Few studies have examined how sociolinguistic factors relate to children’s gendered socialization. Understanding how home language practices align with classroom practices could provide opportunities for educators and parents to co-create enriching activities that enhance children’s math achievement (York & Loeb, 2018). This study examines: 1) parental perceptions of play, 2) child gender mediation of parental language during a puzzle play task, and 3) parent/child task engagement for boys and girls.

Methods:

This study draws from home visits conducted the summer before kindergarten in a larger research practice partnership (Wishard Guerra et al., 2020). Parents were asked to play with their child (n (girls) = 8, n (boys) = 12) using three sets of toys. Data includes play interactions in a tangram puzzle task. Children’s quality of involvement was analyzed using a Play Experience Scale (The Lego Foundation, 2019). Child language outcomes were measured with the WJ-ECAD (Schrank & Wendling, 2018). Parents’ verbal input (frequency of conversations and total words spoken) was measured using The CLAN (Computerized Language ANalysis) program (MacWhinney, 2000). Parent interviews examine patterns of parental learning perceptions.

Results:

Parents spoke more frequently (t(28) = 2.45, p = .02) and used more words (t(28) = 2.22, p = .04) with their daughters compared to their sons during the spatial task. Similar patterns were found within Hispanic and Spanish bilingual families. Preliminary results from the puzzle task indicated that girls were more actively engaged in the task, (t(18) = 2.27, p = .04). Girls had higher expressive language scores (t(33) = 2.0, p = .05). Future analyses will include parent interview data on beliefs about learning through play and gendered language differences.

Educational Importance

Our study suggests that girls’ levels of expressive language are related to their task engagement. Also, boys were not as engaged in the spatial task, nor were their parents interacting verbally with them as frequently as girls. Educators can use these findings to develop spatial awareness tasks in the classroom that address low task engagement, as well as at-home parental involvement for boys. The sociolinguistic data can inform teachers why this may be the case and how they can support parents in enhancing their engagement with all children. Future research can also juxtapose these results with math achievement scores to identify a relationship among them.

Connection to the Conference Theme

Our findings align with the conference theme by urging educators to account for gendered differences in math performance. Teachers’ professional development must address how at-home sociolinguistic practices relate to math performance. The insights gathered from the parent interviews can provide important feedback for teachers as they develop their mathematical pedagogy. It is imperative for teachers and parents to leverage data like ours as they support children’s math growth.