Contemporary Teacher Leadership – Project Proposal

Project Team Number – Team 4B: Tuesday (4:30 pm)

Roger Lee - 95444332

Harpreet Kaur Mudhli - 19654401
Armin Kaur Panag - 19729738
Papa Arthur - 18806364
Owen Gates - 18354629

Title:  Developing a Numeracy based Professional Learning Community

The strand: Making a Numerate Community 

Background

Bellfield College is a coeducational, independent Muslim school located in Rossmore, NSW,

catering to almost 800 students from Kindergarten to Year 12. At least 64% of the student
population has a Language Background Other Than English (LBOTE), with many
households speaking Arabic, Dari or Urdu as their primary language over English (ACARA,
2021). In recent years, Numeracy has been identified as a priority area for student
development by the school, with particular focus being afforded to learning in the Early
Years (K to 2) to build foundational skills in line with current research (Bellfield College,
2019). However, whilst early Primary students received greater attention, early Secondary
students have received basic supports: access to online learning tools since 2018; and in Term
1 2021, targeted small group sessions during Mathematics classes (Bellfield College, 2019).
NAPLAN data monitoring the development of students during Stage 4 indicates that whilst
Bellfield’s students are improving in line with peers from similar school contexts (SES,
LBOTE etc) they remain developmentally behind the Australian average with negligible
progress to closing the gap (ACARA, 2021). It should also be noted that although Bellfield
College teaches the NSW Curriculum and provides HSC courses to Stage 6, due to
historically low student and staff numbers HSC courses are taught via Compression - students
take three subjects per year and progress through both Year 11 and 12 content for each
subject in a single year (Bellfield College, 2019). Due to the demands of such a course,
enrollment in Mathematics at Bellfield has excluded students in low ability Year 10 classes to
maintain pacing - requiring students interested in taking Mathematics in their HSC to
progress to a higher ability class to enroll. 
Figure 1. Bellfield College 2017-2019 NAPLAN numeracy scores. Note that whilst Bellfield
has managed to ensure growth matching other students with similar backgrounds, there is still
a significant gap between Bellfield students and the national average.

Scenario

The following program is targeted towards further supporting Numeracy as one of Bellfield
College’s identified priority areas for improvement by utilising a more systemically
integrated model. Stage 4 will be the primary focus group as it acts as the foundational years
for Secondary education and will provide the greatest long-term impact for the investment in
the program.
Over a 3-year period student numeracy skills will be developed and monitored utilising a
cycle of continuous improvement.

Teachers across all Key Learning Areas (KLAs) of the College’s Secondary school will be
connected to develop a Professional Learning Community (PLC) dedicated to implementing
coordinated inclusion of Numeracy as a cross-curriculum priority(Harris & Jones 2019). Staff
will be engaged in targeted professional development on a cyclical basis dependent upon
their own needs through research, collaboration with colleagues (including the STEM
department), and expert training - promoting teacher agency, capacity and confidence in
 including numeracy (Averill & McRae, 2019; Gajda & Cravedi, 2006). Staff development
will follow a cycle of continuous improvement with term by term and yearly reviews as the
program progresses (Harris & Jones 2019). 

Student capacity for numeracy will be developed through use of numeracy inclusions across
KLAs, numeracy skill catalogues for each subject area, implementation of the “Think Aloud”
strategy for mathematics, (Kani & Shahrill, 2015). Improved numeracy capacity will assist
students both in their future education and in long term life outcomes. Lack of numeracy
inhibits learning across KLAs including science, geography, history and music as students are
unable to access and comprehend concepts necessary to success in these disciplines
(Bennison, 2015; Blow et al. 2012; Quinnell et al. 2013). Likewise, higher capacity for
numeracy is predictive of better financial decision making, enabling students greater success
throughout adulthood (Graffeo et al., 2015). Further to this, increased numeracy of students
enables access to Bellfield’s compression Mathematics Advanced course in Stage 6,
promoting greater success in university and adulthood over those who take Mathematics
Standard or no maths (Manny et al., 2019).

Project Plan

(a)   Goal of the action research project to be undertaken outside the faculty.

The aim of this action research project is to develop the Numeracy capacity of the Bellfield
College community by focused development of Stage 4 teachers and students.
The following goals have been defined:

 Improve Stage 4 students’ comprehension of and capacity to solve Numeracy related

problems. 
 Reduce the gap between Bellfield College students and the national Australian
average in the Numeracy section of NAPLAN (Year 7 and Year 9).
 Increase teacher competence and confidence in integrating Numeracy as a cross-
curriculum priority - improving instances of numeracy included across subject areas.
(b)   Type of intervention that you intend to undertake?

The core of the project is developing a PLC dedicated to promoting a numerate College
community. This is a teacher-led project designed to promote teacher leadership, agency and
collaborative development around numeracy (Averill & McRae, 2019). Teacher quality is the
primary factor affecting student achievement that can be altered via intervention (Hattie,
2003). As such, Stage 4 teachers will be engaged in surveys, onboarding sessions and focus
groups to involve them personally within the project from the start to identify individual
professional development needs related to numeracy teaching within their KLAs, maximising
employee engagement and subsequent efficacy of the program (Harris & Jones 2019). Staff
training will be conducted prior to the implementation of the program to enable skill
development and application to developing teaching materials that include numeracy, Think
Alouds and multilingual scaffolding (Gajda & Cravedi, 2006). Throughout the program
further cyclical development will occur in annual and term-by-term increments via self-
directed staff research and further identification of professional learning needs following
program review milestones (Averill & McRae, 2019; Gajda & Cravedi, 2006).

Students will be coached through modelling, direct instruction and student-centred activities
in the “Think Aloud” strategy for problem solving to develop thinking, comprehension and
subsequent numeracy skills. Think Alouds emphasise verbalisation of cognition, improving
student capacity to articulate and analyse their own and others thinking as well as transfer this
comprehension to written answers (Fisher et al. 2011; Kani & Shahrill, 2015; Yusuf et al.
2018; Bernadowski, 2016). Teacher demonstration normalises use of Think Alouds whilst
also exposing students to the numeracy problem solving strategies of others which they may
adopt themselves (Bernadowski, 2016). This is especially effective in peer-teaching scenarios
where students rapidly share their thinking and understanding to generate a collective
problem-solving capacity as a class (Kani & Shahrill, 2015). This is particularly
advantageous for the highly social classroom dynamic found within the College’s student
population (Yusuf et al. 2018).

In order to foster accessible metacognition and self-monitoring of student development, Stage

4 students will be provided with numeracy skill catalogues for each KLA to keep in their
books (Bernadowski, 2016). These catalogues will allow students to identify what numeracy
skills they currently have, will learn in the next term and eventually what skills they have
learnt in the preceding teaching period (Bernadowski, 2016; Ghanizadeh, 2017). End of term
 testing will provide students and teachers clear indicators of student capacity and growth
throughout the program. This will allow for greater student agency and metacognition as they
consistently track their development based upon numeracy skill milestones in each subject
area, enhancing engagement and success of the program (Ghanizadeh, 2017; Holton &
Clarke, 2006; Taub et al., 2020).

Multilingual scaffolding supports will be implemented to assist the large proportion of the
school population identified as LBOTE using designed and interactional scaffolding,
providing a spectrum of scaffolding based on student comprehension (Bakker et al., 2015;
Smit, 2013) . Posters in classrooms will provide explanations of KLA specific numeracy in
both English and Arabic to assist student comprehension, whilst tasks and diagrams which
require interpretation by students will be designed with Arabic and English, English-only and
no-text to support students according to their current ability - e.g. use of textual explanations
to support comprehension of graphs or diagrams (Bakker et al., 2015; Smit, 2013). 

(c)   How do you intend to measure improvement? Measure outcomes.

The project will utilise a mixed-methods approach to evaluating the efficacy of the project in
achieving its goals. As the project aims to evaluate both student and teacher development,
dual design research will be utilised (Gravemeijer & Eerde 2009).
Student comprehension of and capacity to solve Numeracy related problems will be assessed
through annual NAPLAN data (analysed through Scout), in-school assessments and term-by-
term testing of numeracy skills (Gaciu, 2020). Numeracy skill catalogues provide evidence of
progressive development of students across the program, whilst NAPLAN and in-school
assessment data provides statistics to compare students pre and post program implementation
(Jackson, 2020). Progression towards national average in NAPLAN numeracy testing will be
analysed using a t-test comparing actual student scores vs. predicted scores to determine
statistical significance (Jackson, 2020). Teacher competency and confidence in providing
numeracy inclusions across KLAs will be measured via pre and post project surveys as well
as yearly focus groups to evaluate progressive development.
Overall efficacy will be evaluated based upon the capacity of the program to achieve
progressive growth towards goals, not purely based on outright achievement of goals -
reflecting growth mindset practices.
(d)   Outline the timeline for the project? 

 Pre-project teacher surveys will gather data on teacher confidence and competence
implementing numeracy in the classroom. 
 Staff onboarding will introduce Stage 4 staff to the project and subsequent focus
groups will enable teacher voice and ownership of the project by identifying current
teacher capabilities and areas for development. Training materials will be developed
as a result to be delivered to staff alongside training by external providers.
 Staff training will be delivered late 2021, with time allotted for development and
integration of cross-curriculum numeracy materials into teaching programs for the
following year prior to commencement of the project.
 The three-year teaching and testing period will begin with initial student diagnostics
to provide data to staff and allow students to catalogue their own numeracy capacities
in each KLA and track their learning.
 At the end of every term, student numeracy development will be assessed via short
formal tests to update student numeracy skill catalogues and evaluate efficacy of
numeracy inclusions, Think Aloud and multilingual scaffolding across KLAs 
 Annual project evaluations and reviews occur with all staff to further engage in a
cycle of continuous improvement. Impact of project interventions will be assessed to
dictate further targeted research and staff development to be utilised in the following
year.
 Project will conclude with post-project teacher surveys to gather final data regarding
development of teacher competence/confidence and staff will be debriefed 
(e)   How does this lead to a cycle of continuous improvement?

By instigating a PLC focused on the common goal of improving Stage 4 students’ numeracy
within this program a cycle of continuous improvement develops (Hargreaves & Fullan,
2012;Harris & Jones 2019). The pre-implementation phase consists of the onboarding of staff
with the teacher-led vision of the program, identifying areas for targeted improvement in
collaboration with teachers and actively engaging staff in self-determined professional
learning mirrors the Plan-Do-Evaluate-Act model for continuous improvement (Tichnor-
Wagner et al., 2017). Further to this, throughout the project are predetermined checkpoints
annually and by term enabling teachers to assess the efficacy of their individual and
collective pedagogy using clear quantitative data to identify and address further areas for
development (Harris & Jones, 2019; Hattie, 2003). The collaborative nature of a teacher-led
 program within a PLC ensures optimal staff engagement coupled with long-term, cyclical
professional development. The PLC developed through this program will enable
collaboration across KLAs and form a basis for future programs to improve the school
community and solidify staff relations.

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