Mark:
My name is Mark Harris and I'm the principal of Auburn North Public School. This is my 23rd year at Auburn North. The reason I stay at Auburn North is because I'm surrounded every single day by the most beautiful children, the most supportive and respectful parents and the most dynamic, talented and hardworking staff I've ever seen assembled in any one school.

Hafsa:
We have a very special community at Auburn North. We have people from a variety of cultural background. We have Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Lebanese. You just name it. Auburn North has a very warm and welcoming environment, regardless of a cultural background or religion. Everyone works sincerely with each other and we work together to make our children successful learners.

Shafay:
I think the school is very wonderful because of the wonderful students, the kind, fantastic teachers, our lessons and our extracurricular programs.

Caitlin:

Hadia and I have worked together at Auburn North in Stage Three for three years now.

Hadia:
Leaders and teachers work shoulder to shoulder. Caitlin often comes into our classrooms and gives us feedback on things that we can do better. We often have the privilege of watching Caitlin teach as well. This is a great teaching opportunity for us as well as the students.

Caitlin:
Something else that we believe we do really well is the way in which we meet together as teachers and leaders to analyse class or grade based data which allows us to inform our future intervention for students or differentiation within the classroom.

Mark:
Two years ago, our community followed a collaborative path to develop our new school vision. What this means is that if our students are gonna be successful today, tomorrow and in the future, they need to develop outstanding literacy and numeracy skills, outstanding 21st century skills such as critical thinking and outstanding technology skills.

Hafsa:
I think parental engagement makes all the difference. At Auburn North, it's highly valued. We have morning assemblies where parents are always welcomed by the teachers with smiling faces.

Mark:
Our Harmony House programs have had a profound impact on facilitating parent involvement in our school. It's a program that offers educational programs, wellbeing classes and also recreational classes such as excursions.

Hafsa:
Since I was new to Australia, I just wanted my children to feel comfortable and have a home away from home. And that's what I found at Auburn North.

Shafay:
The learning here has supported me in becoming a confident speaker and better person.

Mark:
Our boys and girls, our staff and our parents all believe our students are capable of achieving anything and everything and moving on to become very successful young adults.

[End of transcript]

Daryl:
Our community, our parents, love the school because of what we do for the kids.

Samir:
Well, they help us learn. Out of 1 to 10, it’s 10,000.

Daryl:
Community are outstanding in terms of the fact that they trust us. And of course, we open up to the community. They’re able to ask the questions they want to know.

Kim:
I see that the teachers recognise the importance of a partnership between both the parents and the students. I love how they use apps where they share what is happening in the class. As parents, it’s really cool to be able to see that and to be able to talk to our children about what they did that day.

Jemma:
We are so collaborative. Everything we do is done together in little professional learning communities whether it’s our grade team, as an exec team, as a committee. It makes you feel confident in that you are implementing best practice and that you are really impacting kids.

Janet:
The whole observation process and the peer observation, the demonstration lessons that happen. There’s always a whole culture of let’s do this together.

Daniela:
Being able to walk into a classroom and have your lesson observed if it’s best practice and showing one another how to help one another. I think that’s a massive strength in our school and that’s why we get the results that we do.

Sharon:
We really created a culture of high trust with our staff but we really made sure that we supported people very well.

Samer:
So I’ve had a student come to me this year. His parents are illiterate in English. In collaboration with everybody, even his school teacher from last year, we were able to form some goals and put in some strategies in place to help him achieve those goals. One piece of work that he’s written, I had laminated it and it’s displayed in the school and he’s so happy and proud of it.

Jemma:
When you see a kid excel and they’re excited about it, that makes you excited and it makes you want to show up every day because you’re actually making a difference.

Kim:
We know that she wants to be a teacher. And for someone to, that’s a huge compliment to this school because obviously Haley here is watching her teachers, seeing it as a cool job and wants to take it on herself.

[End of transcript]

Lachlan:
I've been here at Cabramatta High School for 24 years. It's a great place to teach and for students, it's a great place to learn. For many teachers here, there's a wonderful connection with students. Students want to be able to learn, their families, have high expectations for them here at the school. And the students have high expectations for themselves.

Marsha:
I would describe my approach to teaching as a realisation that I'm still a learner and starting from that point, it reminds me that I'm not always the expert in the room. I'm lucky enough to work within a faculty in a school that has teaching staff with a range of experience. Within that dynamic, I realise that I'm sort of always adapting and needing to be flexible with my lessons, with my planning. And I take that into the classroom with me.

Jessica:
It's been a mix of everything that has allowed me to be successful today. All the teachers are all always very innovative with their learning styles and how they teach us and they change it all the time.

Lachlan:
Data-informed practice is really fundamental to what we do. We take external and internal data and have a look at that. And that really informs our practice, it informs our programs, it informs the evaluation assessment and the where to next.

Marsha:
A huge part of my collaboration is knowing that we do have a lot of data on our students so everything from their NAPLAN and PAT testing and check-in assessments, to the information we get from our primary schools. We have such a great community of schools and they give us a lot of information before they've even started.

Jessica:
I feel like the school community here is very inclusive and very diverse. Everyone feels as if they have a place here, they're very well heard and they can, represent themselves the way they feel most comfortable. 

Marsha:
I feel really lucky to work in such a diverse school. In Cabramatta High School we have over 50 languages spoken by our students. And I knew it was somewhere unique to work, when I spoke to a student who'd started at school and I said, "How long have you been in the country?" And they said, "A couple of hours, Miss. My plane landed this morning."

Lachlan:
So when we engage the parents within the school, we use our Community Liaison Officers. So, I think it benefits the students, in engaging parents as parents have a better understanding of the school, they have a better understanding of supporting their own child and their child's learning. 

Marsha:
I think a big part of what we do is embedding skills of resilience and hard work  and that ethic in our students each day. Whatever they wanna do when they leave this school, we give them the tools and the skills that we can to help them achieve that. 

Jessica:
I think in the future, I'll definitely take all the skills that I've learned, especially during times where I feel like it may be challenging or tough because life changes now outside of high school. So I'll definitely be bringing those with me.

[End of transcript]

Colin:
I think it's everyone's philosophy at Charlestown South that every child matters.  And we also believe very strongly that every child can be a successful learner.  That's that's key for us. Our foundation is relationship. We have an amazing staff at Charlestown South that just works so much as a team. And we're very passionate and have one single vision. And always we run everything through a filter, whenever we do anything here. And that's certainly what difference does it make for our kids.

Louisa:
Teaching for me and how I operate within my classroom at the heart of it is really about the relationships I have with my students. That underpins everything and all of the effectiveness of any teaching instruction within my classroom. I use data to drive and inform my practice. Differentiating the curriculum to meet students at their individual point of need.

Niamh:
The teachers, they really help you flourish when they see that you're particularly skillful in a specific topic. And also with the subjects that you're not as confident with they will help you develop more knowledge in that subject.

Amy:
Well, the school treats every child here as an individual and although they have a collective vision of how they want to build the classroom cultures and transition children throughout the years, every child's learning is individualised. And every child knows that they can go to their teacher to meet their individual needs and ask questions.

Colin:
Yeah, our journey over the last couple of years has been a very interesting one for us. A bit of an adventure in many ways. I suppose it all began back in 2014, was our real change where we figured we need to change what we do. We jumped into the explicit instruction pedagogy and that's what we want for children to be able to pull that information and skill out and transfer it to their everyday life. 

Louisa:
Immediately I think, we saw a huge difference in our student engagement. Students were more eager to engage in all of our classroom learning and that just compounded into student confidence. And then of course we saw it in our student results as well.

Colin:
In terms of professional development, we've developed very much a system at  Charlestown South where, every classroom teacher is in each other's classrooms a lot.  So they're very used to having a number of teachers in the back of their classroom, observing their practice, learning from them, providing feedback. And that all helps I guess, in developing a teacher to be better every year.

Amy:
Well, the community at Charlestown South is a hugely supportive one. And it's the sort of school where you walk through as a parent and teachers who've never had your child in their class, greet you by name. And you know that every teacher knows your child.

Colin:
The wellbeing of kids is paramount for us. If they're happy, content, bound through the gate every day with a smile on their face, want to learn,  then we'll find success. You marry that up with an incredibly passionate staff that work as a team and then put pedagogy that works, really research based pedagogy, match that up with your data. And right there you've got a massive keep for success in student growth.

[End of transcript]

Kathleen:
I'm Kathleen Seto. I'm the principal of Fairvale High. I've been here 15 years now. I love the school. It's multicultural, comprehensive, co-educational, and truly reflects society.

Imeelya:
The really cool thing about this school that makes it different from all the other ones is the amount of different cultures we have here, and the different amount of people. Everybody has their own little thing. And so that's what makes it really special, 'cause there's different qualities in every single person. Each person excels in something different, and it really makes you see the world as a bigger picture.

Kathleen:
The way that we've been able to achieve really good quality learning outcomes is the relationship that our teachers have with the students. We try and focus on our values of FAIR, which is Focused, Aspiring, Inclusive, Respectful, and we try and form really good relationships between teachers and students and be very inclusive in all that we do.

Lauren:
To engage students in my classes, the first thing I would look at is building a rapport with those students, getting to know those students and their interests. And then that helps in designing the lessons that we give for those students.

Kareem:
What I enjoy most about my lessons is that the teachers engage with students, and they relate topics and ideas to real life situations.

Kathleen:
Our students need a lot of help with their literacy and their numeracy. For a number of years, we've had really explicit teaching, which have been research-informed, and we've been able to get really good results.

Lauren:
One of the great joys of working at our school, is working with our refugee students who are learning English as an additional language or dialect. They first come to our school with very little English, and it's great to celebrate their graduating at the end, writing essays, completing their HSC exams.

Kathleen:
There are a couple of factors that make the school unique. Number one is the stability of our leadership. The fact that we have a very comprehensive, professional learning program. We have a head teacher mentor where we look after our early career teachers.

Krystal:
They go over what's working in the classroom, what isn't working in the classroom, different ways of delivering similar content depending on the ability of students.

Imeelya:
Well, it's not really about what's inside the classroom, it's about who is inside it. It is the students and the teachers, and the amount of support they give you to excel in the areas you love and the areas you really wanna be in. It makes you enjoy education, and it makes you see education as something that is not just boring that you have to do.

Kathleen:
My vision for the future would be to keep on bringin' in early career teachers, and building up their expertise, also to have a really good rapport with the community, good relationships with students so they can be very successful, and one day they may want to come back at Fairvale and teach in public education.

[End of transcript]

Peta:
I'm Peta Harris. I'm the principal at Huntingdon Public School. We're a small rural school. We're nestled in bushland. So I guess that probably sets the scene for what our community is. I feel like we're a very caring culture. We've worked really hard to build very strong relationships with our parents, with our students, with our teachers.

Alyson:
Describing the culture of the school, I would say as far as students go, is engaged, inclusive. I feel like from kindergarten to year six, they don't really mind who they're playing with, who they're learning with. They just include each other.

Layla:
Some big schools, there would be people you don't know. But here, we all know each other and play with each other. We're like one big family.

Mon:
I think because Huntingdon School's such a small school, teachers can get more involved with one-on-one learning in the classrooms, and I think they really value the students.

Layla:
What I like about my teachers is that they help us when we need it. And when we make a mistake, they help us solve them. And they really care about us.

Alyson:
I set students up for success every day through routine and structure. They know what's going on in the classroom. We have a visual timetable so they can check in with that. We have morning meetings, so they know what's going on in the day. We have independent learning going on plus learning in small groups.

Peta:
My teachers are passionate. They're highly skilled. They're self-reflective. They have very high expectations of their students. They're very determined to know every single student and their needs. If you walk into our classrooms, you will see students doing different activities. It's not one-size-fits-all. So our big philosophy for teaching and learning is to tailor it to every single student's need. And it changes based on what they show us they're doing today as to what we will teach them tomorrow.

Mon:
I think it's really important that we be involved in the students' learning and be present here. And I think Huntingdon do an amazing job at keeping us in the loop of everything that's going on. I love our morning chats, and just checking in, and seeing where the kids are at, and what they're learning, and what they're doing for the day.

Alyson:
We always tell our parents that knowledge is power. So tell us whatever you need to so that we can help your kids learn and be part of our school. So it's a very unique place.

Layla:
So we not crowded and there's lots of bush and stuff, and we have some chickens, gardens, and we go like potatoes, beans, and we have some bees.

Mon:
I love that we're a small community, but they have the biggest heart and it's just welcoming. And I love being involved here and I love the unique things that they get to do here.

Peta:
So our big vision is to continue on this journey and not rest on our laurels. I think sometimes, you think we've made it, we're there, but I don't think we'll ever be there. I think we can always be better today than what we were yesterday, and that's a big motto we actually share with our students, and it's a motto that we stick by as teachers and support staff in our school.

[End of transcript]

Luke:
Macarthur Girls has just under 1100 students. We are really proud of the fact that we have 94% of our students from language backgrounds other than English, and our students and their families speak over 50 languages. And we are very proud of the diversity and what that richness brings to school. And also, it's impact on student learning.

Melissa:
The most rewarding thing about being a teacher at Macarthur Girls High School is the learning that takes place. I feel like the diversity of our school means that we are constantly being challenged by our students, learning new things about them, and in turn challenging them. So I feel like it's created a dynamic sort of ethos, a dynamic culture of innovation and learning, and which I think is something that's quite special to our school.

Siri:
I think the thing about our lessons that keeps me interested is how knowledgeable the teachers are. They're always giving us new information, new facts that we've never known before, and it's like so interesting. And the fact that they know so much is kind of encouragement for us to learn more as well. And they're always taking into mind how we want to learn or how we need to learn.

Melissa:
So I really believe in knowing my students and how they learn, and facilitating their learning and their skill development. I feel that if they like learning, they're interested in learning, they are going to achieve more to their potential.

Luke:
We use a whole range of data, internal, external, and our knowledge of the students to make sure that when we are designing teaching and learning activities for them, that we can then modify, differentiate, so that we are meeting the individual needs of students across the full range of abilities, and also from different backgrounds and different experiences too.

Melissa:
In terms of our school's diversity, it's not just the student body, which is quite multicultural, it is also the diversity within our teaching staff. There's a lot of team teaching that goes on in our school, a lot of collaboration. And this has seen teachers who've been teaching for a number of years, working with early career teachers, and they themselves are also learning.

Luke:
The staff here are very, very good in terms of a commitment to their ongoing professional development. And one thing that's in place to support that is really effective professional learning that targets the areas where teachers need to improve, but also embeds the needs of their students.

Siri:
In the future, I'm not entirely sure exactly what I'd like to do as career, but it's really reassuring knowing that I've been equipped with all the skills that I need to do whatever I need to do.

[End of transcript]

Janice:
Mathoura is a small country town surrounded by the largest red gum forest in the world. The town Mathoura has around 700 people. So we're a small community. Our school plays a vital role within Mathoura. We're surrounded by farming families. We have a very strong connection with our parents, our families, as well as the community. So we're like the centre of our community.

Chelsea:
Living rural means that everyone knows everyone. Your principal is your neighbour. Your teachers live just down the road. They know if you need extra support, they know if there's something happening, exciting in the community, and the community gets together and helps.

Elka:
My name is Elka Pearl, and... I'm in Year 1 in Mathoura public school. I like this school because whenever you need something, they're there for you. And they're really nice. Ms. Park, especially, is really nice 'cause she helps me whenever I need help with my homework.

Janice:
Our approach to teaching and learning is using data to inform our teaching practice. We do a lot of explicit teaching. We have many small groups in each of the classrooms.

Rachael:
I would describe my approach to teaching as inclusive. I think that my role is to guide my students to be independent, critical thinkers who are lifelong learners, and I help them develop those skills by giving them differentiated learning and targeted learning goals. I think that it's really important to teach across the curriculum. And I believe that by integrating the key learning areas into a unit of inquiry you can allow deep learning to occur.

Janice:
Our students are provided with many extracurricular activities. They're given many educational experiences. Everything we do is in the interest of a child and we try to provide them with as many experiences as we possibly can.

Chelsea:
The school offers support to everyone. There are kids that might need that extra support throughout class. And I find that they set up learning specifically to each and every student. No one's left behind. No one's without. It's wonderful.

Rachael:
I set my students up for success by providing them with a safe and structured learning environment. I make sure that students understand what's expected of them at all times. In everyday learning, that looks like setting up clear learning intentions and success criteria and providing students with effective feedback based around their individual learning goals. In assessment tasks, that looks like providing them with a rubric that I've created based on the syllabus outcomes, as well as the progressions to make sure that students know exactly how to succeed in that assessment task.

Janice:
Our vision for the future is to continue to excel in all different areas. To excel in teaching, providing that quality teaching for our students. For our students to be happy, and for our students to become their best version of themselves.

[End of transcript]

Penny:
I started at Millthorpe as a prac student in 2002. My relationship with Millthorpe has been as a teacher and Assistant Principal and now the pre school.

Parent:
Penny's a wonderful principal. She's just the most loving and warm and approachable person. The kids just absolutely love her.

Student:
It's just got a lovely community It's just got a lovely community feel and all the teachers just are so good and their ways of learning are just so different.

Penny:
We have a really strong strategy around literacy and numeracy, and that's then enveloped within a well being strategy. With teachers having the greatest impact obviously on learning outcomes, we have made a decision to invest in our teachers professional knowledge and learning.

Tom:
I have 29 different students with 29 different ability levels. You've got to tailor fit each of your lessons to each of them to try and get the best out of them.

Penny:
The teachers are constantly improving their practice. Each year they improve so the students can improve and the school can improve.

Tom:
The teacher will know their students best and they will be working day to day to try and get the best out of their children. But Penny and the exec would be looking over the data that's coming through and kind of analysing it to see if there's any students that are at need, that maybe we might not have identified and possibly looking into different programs that we could offer to support those children.

Student:
I feel that my writings improved a lot. Mr Mason, he explained everything so well and he made all these new ways to write and I've never forgotten them. They understand if you're having trouble and they like, say, stuff like it's not all about the grades, it's about trying.

Penny:
They other kids that are the first to hug you and say thank you.

You know there are the children who I don't know, will always have a pretty special place in your heart and we we always say that they're are Millthorpe kids.

They're really focused on the individual relationship with each student and helping them learn at their best in the way that is best for them.

That individual sort of attention to the kids learning needs has been evident across across the board with my kids.

School success is based on context and it's based on the students that sit in front of you and the community that envelopes you. And it's having the ability to meet the needs of your students, your community and the staff that can really make the school hum. As we like to say here, we like to make our good kids great.

[End of transcript]

Kate:
I'm Kate Ford, I have been the principal of Winmalee Public School since 2018, and I absolutely love where I work. Everyone is so accepting. Everyone knows that we're all here together and that we're a team and that the community really trust us.

Belinda:
We're a really close community here in Winmalee. It's really important for everybody to come close as a community. We really care about what happens in our school.

Morgan:
My teachers support me very well in many ways. When something's very hard that I can't do, they give me lots of support and encouragement, which I really like.

Nathan:
The most rewarding thing about being a teacher at Winmalee Public School is the fact that I can be a really positive influence. I'm able to impart my passion towards not only their academics but also their social and emotional development. I set my students up for success by using a lot of data-driven practice and also collaboration throughout the Stage One team. We're able to look at data to then project where our students should go and then help them get there as well.

Kate:
I would describe the teachers as a really close-knit, supportive staff that really are collaborative in nature. And we really work together for the benefit of our students. We use really strong evidence-based practices to then implement different ways and approaches of how to engage our students.

Nathan:
My approach to teaching is very evidence based. It's also very problem based. So instead of going "Here's a concept that we're going to explore today," I'm gonna go, "Here's the answer, I want you to tell me everything you know about it." So it's very student driven in the sense that they get to guide their own learning process.

Belinda:
Parental engagement is really, really important here at Winmalee. The teachers allow us to communicate in different ways. We can either volunteer at the school or we can use the different socials.

Kate:
Our school vision is really about collaboration and that involves bringing the families in so that they have a clear understanding of the school's intent. The students have a clear understanding of the school's intent about their education, and the staff have a clear knowledge about where we want to be.

Morgan:
Well, what I want to be when I grow up I want to study aeronautical engineering because science is really cool and I like science.

Kate:
We're all here for a common goal and that is for student success. It's that strong sense of a family And I think that is really unique for Winmalee Public School, and it allows us to really support each other and know our context so well.

[End of transcript]