Principals as Literacy Leaders with Indigenous Communities

Project Description

PALLIC builds on the success of Principals as Literacy Leaders (PALL) which commenced in 2009 as part of the Commonwealth’s Literacy and Numeracy Pilots in Low SES School Communities. Both are initiatives of and managed by the Australian Primary Principals’ Association (APPA).

Click here to download the complete project description document - the text below is an extract.

PALL was a joint venture with three universities; Australian Catholic University, Edith Cowan University and Griffith University. Each of the universities contributed to the development of five modules as part of a professional development program for principals. 60 principals participated in the program from three states (South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland) and one territory (Northern Territory) with 15 principals involved from all sectors in each of these states and territory. All were in low SES schools. In between the training activity, principals were supported by Literacy Achievement Advisors who were highly experienced, retired principals.

PALLIC is running from July 2011 to December 2012 under the direction of Griffith University in Queensland, the Northern Territory and South Australia across 46 nominated school sites with medium to high Indigenous student enrolments. The schools’ 46 Principals and their Indigenous Leadership Partners (ILPs) (and then in the latter stages others from the school community called ‘Learning Catalysts’), will work with 6 Literacy Leadership Mentors (LLMs), who are mid-career practising principals on secondment from their respective jurisdictions. The allocation of LLMs is: 1 in NT, 2 in S.A and 2.4 in QLD who have been allocated caseloads from 3 schools up to 13 schools each.

While the learning framework, training modules and level and type of support are modelled around PAL, the significant differences with PALLIC are that it concentrates on three major reform areas:

• • Evidence based teaching of reading for Indigenous students
  • School leadership which builds on home-school-community partnerships for children learning to read
  • The use of data to plan and implement intensive action plans for reading improvement.

Griffith University will also undertake research that gathers evidence to understand the factors that contribute to improved Standard Australian English (SAE) literacy in different Indigenous community environments, including parent partnerships, in order to use the findings to inform future project up scaling in comparable school communities.

The PALLIC project objective is to develop the literacy and leadership capabilities of school and community leadership teams and thereby improve SAE literacy outcomes for Indigenous students in partnership with their families.  In a nut shell, PALLIC is about Principals and their Indigenous Leadership Partners coupled with their school’s Learning Catalysts working together with support from Literacy Leadership Mentors to make a difference to the teaching of reading in their schools.

PALLIC funding is managed by APPA and the project’s direction by a Management Committee made up of representatives from APPA, State and Territory Education and Griffith University. Also proposed, is a smaller National Steering Committee made up from some of the above representatives. As well, each state will have their own small management group. The PALLIC facilitators are from Griffith University: Professor Neil Dempster, Professor Greer Johnson, Dr Amanda Webster and Adjunct Professor Jan Robertson.