Message From The Principal, 14 Sep 2018

Research into teaching routinely shows that teacher effectiveness is closely associated to student achievement.

At Island School we know that one of our most important responsibilities is to provide every student with quality teaching. We have numerous initiatives that enact this belief including:

• A comprehensive policy that outlines the standards of practice for teaching
• Processes in place to ensure that these policies are routinely applied in each course and every class
• Planning procedures that ensure that each course is of high quality and assures consistency amongst classes
• Extensive professional development is run and funded by both ESF and our school and we ensure that every teacher is highly qualified to run the courses they teach.
• Every teacher has their own professional development plan that articulates their learning priorities for the year. They then work with a mentor to deliver the plan.
• School leaders, including myself, spend time in classrooms each week to assure the quality of the programmes

Towards the end of last year I initiated a process where experts external to the school came in to audit our current teaching practice. This review led to a number of commendations for excellent practice as well as recommendations for improvement.

These recommendations will be addressed by a committee of teachers over the course of this year and I will keep you informed of progress.

In summary my colleagues and I accept the premise that better teaching leads to better results for students. We welcome opportunities to improve our practice and are looking forward to the continued focus on Teaching Quality.