Good Practice 19

The Grange P-12 College is located in Wyndham City, Victoria’s fastest growing local government area. More than half of its 1,963 students are from language backgrounds other than English, and approximately half of its Prep cohort are EAL students. The school was concerned that its curriculum was not meeting students’ learning needs as effectively as possible, so it decided that stronger teacher engagement was necessary.

As part of its involvement in the 2017 Refugee Education Support Program (RESP) the school developed a brief digital questionnaire asking primary and secondary teachers to self-rate their confidence and skills when it came to working with students of refugee backgrounds.

The questionnaire allowed teachers the opportunity to reflect on their practice and to identify how they felt about it. The outcome was that when professional learning was made available to teachers, they already had a strong sense of what they needed from it, and how it could improve their teaching and enhance their wellbeing.

Teachers engaged strongly with the professional learning opportunities, and a primary school leading teacher took the learning to wider settings, opening up conversations with other staff about students’ curriculum needs. Another local primary school saw the benefit of the teacher survey and implemented it as a way of engaging its teachers on how their practice supports students.