Faculty

What is our purpose?

Everyone included, everyone challenged, everyone successful

Our Mission and our curriculum commit us to developing Independent Learners. If we believe that students must be personally invested in their own learning, then the same is true for teachers. As a school, we aim to foster a culture of substantial conversation and professional growth centred on excellence in teaching and student learning.

What guides the framework?

The model is based around a set of standards and indicators that we developed through bringing together various pieces of work: our teacher profile, our definitions of learning and our learning principles. External standards were also used as a reference point.

The framework is also guided by the beliefs that:

• Continuous improvement and professional growth occurs when professionals inform and refine their practice based on ongoing, systematic, collaborative analysis of evidence of growth in student learning.
• Continuous improvement and professional growth is an obligation for every ISB employee. As self-directed learners, we need to seek feedback from a range of sources, reflect on that feedback, and modify our practice accordingly.
• Professional growth occurs when colleagues share evidence of student learning and practices which impact learning, systematically analyse that evidence and problem-solve to improve the learning of every student in the school.

The framework has been developed by our team based on current research.

How do we achieve this?

1. By providing a set of standards that are mapped out on a continuum from which teachers identify areas they wish to grow in, and select areas for professional inquiry.
2. By developing a professional growth record that provides evidence of their growth towards these standards and tracks their learning through the inquiry.
3. By ensuring mechanisms for feedback that help teachers understand the impact of their work, through feedback from students, colleagues and administrators.

Below is a summary of how these three elements work in practice.

Teachers plan professional inquiries based on reflection upon standards and a continuum.

The ISB Teaching Standards

1. Designs and delivers relevant student-centred instruction and assessment based on ISB’s Learning Definitions.

2. Creates a student centred classroom based on ISB’s Learning Principles.

3. Purposefully reflects and acts upon pertinent learning evidence (data) and model this for others.

4. Empowers him-herself and others to collaborate around improving student learning.

Teachers build a professional growth record supported by various sources of evidence

Required elements:

Evidence to support the standards of the teacher continuum

Summary of observational feedback

Evidence to demonstrate growth and to support professional inquiries

A summary and analysis of student learning data and evidence of how this is being used to guide planning and teaching

A summary of developmentally appropriate student feedback collected by the teacher and evidence of how this is being used to guide planning and teaching

Optional elements:

Peer collaborations/conversation

Coaching Cycles

Mentoring

More information

Teachers collaborate, dialogue, and reflect along one of three feedback pathways.

Teachers in their first year at ISB will engage with the Induction Pathway, providing them with additional PD opportunities to assist them in understanding aspects of the framework, specific to teaching and learning at ISB.

In subsequent years, teachers will work through cycles within the Partnership Pathway, with each cycle taking anywhere up to two years to complete. These cycles of reflection will focus on growth against the teaching continuum and the professional inquiries teachers has undertaken. During these cycles, faculty will share their professional growth record including the required elements and work with an Administrator from the LLT to update their teaching continuum document.

In cases where significant concern is identified, a teacher will work through the Intervention Pathway as guided by an administrator from the LLT.

More information