Conference Agenda

We propose a Roundtable Session for the ICSEI 2024 Network of Professional Learning Network,, focusing on the theme of leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, and diversity. Our session will revolve around the topic of "Growing Community" and will center on an inquiry project that seeks to address two fundamental questions:

1. Can every parent identify two educators who are listening with curiosity and empathy and truly believe in their children?

2. What are we learning, and why is it important for fostering equity, inclusion, belonging, and diversity?

As a diverse group of educators with varied areas of interest and responsibility, ranging from early years to inclusive supports, as both school based and district leaders, we recognized the interconnectedness of our work. We realized the exponential growth and potential impact that could arise from our catalytic affiliation.

Our collective scan allowed us to reflect on the environment before COVID and the subsequent impacts on family engagement. It became apparent that there is a prevailing sense of lingering anxiety and distress from COVID and high levels of compassion fatigue among school staff, who have been constantly pivoting to meet students' needs. Overwhelm and a misalignment between families and schools has hindered the establishment of trusting relationships and our efforts to support learners.

By intentionally growing community networks and affiliations through collaborative inquiry, we are addressing these challenges and creating school environments where families feel a deep sense of belonging, trust, and connection. By inviting everyone to the table and elevating the voices of families, stakeholder groups and rightsholders, our inquiry is enhancing equity, inclusion, belonging, and diversity within our schools and community.

During our session, we will share how the PATH process, (PATH is an acronym for Planning for Alternative Tomorrow’s with Hope), allowed us to develop a vision and framework for actionable steps toward our goal. We will share the key insights of our inquiry and explore some of the barriers and misalignments that we are striving to overcome as we continue our journey. Over the coming months, we will create a toolkit which will assist schools with examining their values and beliefs, and guide them toward actionable steps that will rebuild relationship and connection with their broader community. Our Toolkits will be reflective of the stories we gather, the strengths of our school communities, and the changes we want to see as we move forward. Healing our community requires adaptive expertise, and we are mindful of the importance of proceeding both mindfully and collaboratively.

By maintaining a focus on what is both possible and positive, our continued inquiry will enable us to build on our strengths, and grow the community we want to become.

An abundance of international research literature informs that peer-coaching in education has the power to foster the creation of professional learning communities which support contextualised professional learning, cultivate shared learning environments and develop a purposeful sense of interconnectedness which nourishes human connection and teacher development. Underpinned by these overarching principles, an innovative pilot project introducing teacher-to-teacher coaching to Irish primary and post-primary schools, with ongoing action research, will illuminate a culturally responsive and readily transferable model for teacher peer coaching with the real potential to be scaled up systemwide. The essential aim of the project is to investigate the implications of implementing peer coaching as a tool to encourage, support, and sustain deep collaboration and connectedness among teachers in the Irish education system. This will be achieved through training teachers in the fundamentals of peer-coaching enabling them to actively practise skilled collaborative coaching with colleagues; creating an interconnected culture where teachers observe each other’s teaching practice; teaching and supporting teachers to conduct pre and post professional conversations on the learning processes observed during their lessons; support teachers to formally reflect on their experiences and learning from the overall collaborative coaching process. Commencing in early spring 2022 using a qualitative research design, this project will utilise a series of surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews with the participants from the pilot schools along with a number of focus groups at pertinent points during the project. The intention is to gather data at multiple stages over a proposed 18 month period subsequent to the introduction of a peer-coaching pilot scheme in each participating school. The findings of this research project are anticipated to support the development of coaching cultures throughout Irish primary and post-primary schools through the emergence of a bespoke coaching model: Collegial Partnership Coaching (CPC). The potential transferability of the model to other school contexts will be continuously informed by the ongoing pilot programme and associated active research. Recent research highlights a lingering, historical reticence imbued within teachers’ dispositions towards meaningful collaborative endeavours. This study is intended to expose the full potential of peer-coaching in education to act as a vehicle for sustainable individual and organisational improvement. This can be realised through extensive on-site Professional Learning in Irish schools involving the reconstruction of learning and teaching in classrooms; the personal and professional growth of educators; and ultimately, the sustainable improvement of student learning outcomes. This project and its associated research astutely aligns with the ICSEI 2024 conference theme. The aim of this research is to create an innovative format for world-class education provision for educators in Ireland and beyond. Like everything we do in education, it is firmly rooted in the desire for enhanced school effectiveness and improvement. The long-term vision for CPC is the positioning of peer-coaching as an active vehicle for change to help re-imagine professional learning in every school in the country.

Keywords: Peer coaching; collaboration; coaching culture; learning and teaching; partnership coaching model.

LGBTQ+ children and families are integral parts of classrooms around the globe. However, little is known about whether and how they are included or supported in curriculum, policies, and pedagogy - especially in early childhood settings. In 2023, over 700 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the United States, and 64 of the 193 countries in the United Nations still criminalize “same-sex acts.” In these divisive times, teachers and administrators worldwide are grappling with how to support LGBTQ+ youth and families in schools. By conducting a systematic literature review spanning the globe, this paper asks: How - and to what end - are LGBTQ+ children and their families included and supported in early childhood education settings?

Queer theory offers educators a lens “through which educators can transform their praxis” (Meyer) and allows us to interrogate cisheterosexism in schools. Trans epistemology, from which we (trans people) come to know ourselves and transform narratives (Nicolazzo), offers a tool for critical analysis of pedagogical practices. Ecological systems theory can be used to examine LGBTQ+ inclusion in the micro/meso/exo/macro/chronosystem (Bronfenbrenner).

I conducted a systematic literature review, an “explicit and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating and synthesizing the existing body of completed and recorded work” (Fink) with “clarity, validity and auditability” (Booth, Papaioannou & Sutton, 2012). I developed a rigorous search strategy, set inclusion/exclusion criteria, and searched education and social science databases. All results (1687) were imported to Covidence for title and abstract screening, full text review, and extraction.

The literature review is intended to be complete by fall quarter and serve as the basis for my dissertation proposal. I have synthesized several themes, including: a lack of teacher preparation programs that educate on LGBTQ+ identities/issues; the lack of LGBTQ+ inclusion stemming from teacher ignorance, parent/community pressures, and local policies; and the major vehicles of inclusion for LGBTQ+ children and families being diverse literature/curriculum, increased teacher training, and codifying protective laws. Each relates to the congress theme recognizing the “complementarity and synergy between initial teacher education and continuing professional development for teachers and school leaders'' and touches on curriculum, professional development/training, and policy.

The impacts of a supportive and affirming school environment cannot be understated. Less than half of LGBTQ+ youth identify school as a safe place and 45% considered attempting suicide in the past year (Trevor Project). Teachers spend upward of 40hrs/week with students and can have an enormous impact on their development and feelings of support. This literature review offers insight into shifting both practice and policy to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ youth and families.

This paper is relevant to the ICSEI theme of “leading schools and education systems that promote equity, inclusion, belonging, diversity, social justice…” as LGBTQ+ children and families are often absent from teacher preparation programs and erased from professional development, especially in early childhood. The call for proposals notes the importance of international perspectives, and the literature review touches on inclusion policies and practices from the United States, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and other countries.