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A visit as part of the Welsh Delegation to Sydney was a career highlight. The ten-day visit was packed with school visits, introductions to the New South Wales Education System and included meetings with both their State and National Leadership Institutes. On the way, I got to meet brilliant teachers and lovely pupils. As well as headteacher, I attended with colleagues from the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales, as an Associate. 

Our time in Sydney was organised by LEAP (Leading Educators Around the Planet) and  International Links Global based in Cardiff.

The New South Wales (NSW) Education System: The Second Largest in the World

Meeting at the NSW Department of Education

After a jet-lagged welcome dinner we were soon orientated to the NSW system. Its scale became clear: a huge education system of 2,200 principals and schools with 1.2 million learners and some 94,000 teaching staff. A system of huge diversity as well as all too familiar challenges including: post-pandemic pupil attendance, staff recruitment and leadership retention.

The role of DELS (Directors of Educational Leaders) particularly interested me. They act as ex-Principals or currently in post Principals who walk side by side with school leaders. As well as directly managing Principals, they support school improvement and complaints handling. Seeing it in action, I felt it was a valuable way of practically supporting school leadership and research-informed practice.

The state had a clear plan for its schools. One of their targets resonated with me strongly; ‘the need to strengthen trust and respect for the teaching profession and school support staff so that teachers feel valued and supported to perform at their best.’

It is a system with clarity and greater prescription. All schools follow the same School Excellence Cycle and follow the same format for their concise Strategic Improvement Plans. Emphasis has been placed on reducing Principals’ workloads by reporting centrally.

The state funding of private schools is a contentious and divisive issue. It seems huge social inequality exists in the system with 92% of the disadvantaged pupils in public schools and although the system seemed well-funded, Principals now face budget cuts.

School Visits

Metropolitan Mosman High School on the North Shore: Basketball roof and classrooms with Harbour Views

Visiting both urban metropolitan schools and suburban schools in what is described as the ‘Cow Pasture Network’ the differences in school contexts became quickly apparent. The State has a more prescriptive approach to its curriculum with all primary pupils experiencing an Explicit Teaching model. The emphasis in these lessons is on key content being learnt with teacher direction; a stark contrast to Wales’ Foundation learning approaches.

Explicit Teaching Primary Session in the ‘Cow Pasture Network’ of schools with woolly hats in Suburban Sydney.

Older pupils’ school curriculum has placed more emphasis on the job market. Vocational work and career placements have become prevalent. In one secondary school, in addition to their key curriculum, pupils are called upon to carry out building services for the school; in another they are becoming trained baristas with a view to helping them finding employment as they study. The aim is to get pupils practically engaged in relevant career learning.

Listening to the immigration journeys of learners was moving. I reflected on my school and the families who have sought refuge in Wales. Seeing a new build in Sydney’s beautiful North Shores at Mosman High, with its outstanding facilities, gave me ideas for our own new school building in Wales. Schools in Australia provide lots of outdoor sheltered space from the sun; perhaps we should do the same for the rain?!

Acknowledgement

Throughout the visit there was emphasis on Aboriginal culture.  Each of the many meetings I attended started with an acknowledgement of the land. We were reminded it always was and always will be aboriginal land. New South Wales’ reconciliation action plan recognises the importance of acknowledging the past.  A recurring message was that without truthful understanding of history we cannot work together to progress… I loved the celebration of culture in one classroom (pictured below).

Aboriginal culture in a classroom

Leadership: Familiar Challenges…. Alarming Statistics

New South Wales’s report on the challenges with Principal Well-being had echoes with Wales. Their study that revealed:

• 23% of Principals have left their role since 2019
• 90% are experiencing burnout
• 42% have been in the role fewer than five years.

Despite the alarming statistics it is still a role that reports high levels of job satisfaction!

The system wants to address wellbeing, workload, behavioural challenges and offer support. NSW’s Well-being Strategy for the next three years aims to support staff, lead our people and streamline work. It was interesting meeting people at the coal face; hearing the familiar feeling that so much of the day to day challenges are about “dunnies (toilets), drains and difficult people”.

We were walked through their external validation process. Their process is self-evaluative and Principal’s are supported by their DEL through the process. The validation does not have a judgement, rather focusses on questioning and agreement over the school’s self-evaluation against their School Excellence Cycle. It seems less onerous, light on paperwork yet the Principal School Leader (PSL) will question the Principal with rigour.

Curriculum Reform

New South Wales reform began in 2018 with a desire to increase teaching time, focus on real world application, and teach both academic and social skills. They had staggered the approach to reform with subjects changing in different years. Interestingly, NSW looked at the end goal of pupils first, reforming the qualifications prior to the rest of the curriculum. It was fascinating to listen to a Primary Principal whose approach was to look at the end goal of High School when approaching her school’s curriculum content.

Takeaways and thoughts:

• Does a more centralised system offer greater opportunity and equity for professional learning?
• Would a DEL-like system, with experienced Principals, walking side by side with the Headteacher offer Headteachers in Wales more support and guidance. Would this type of middle tier better support Headteacher recruitment, retention and consistency than Wales’ current structure?
• Can Estyn further develop their approaches to learn from Australia’s External Validation Process that seems to have been embraced by their Principals?
• Curriculum Reform. Is more guidance and prescription required in Wales? Is there logic in starting curriculum reform by looking at qualifications first?
• Can organisation such as the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales take on more work around Professional Learning to support Leadership at all levels?

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Inclusion – The Swedish Perspective

Introduction

I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit Sweden in May 2023 as part of an International Links Global, Erasmus funded project. The purpose of the visit was to explore how the Swedish education system approaches inclusion and works to meet pupil needs holistically, in essence, Inclusion – The Swedish Perspective.

During the visit, we had the opportunity to visit several schools, meet with staff and engage in reflective practice activities, exploring key messages and things we could take away and use back within our own settings.

Logistics

The visit took place over the course of a week with us travelling from Stansted Airport to Gothenburg in Sweden. We had a very early start to make our way from North Wales to Stansted and I was accompanied on the visit by one of our Inclusion Managers and several colleagues from South Wales.

Upon arriving in Gothenburg, we travelled by coach to Lidkoping which is a beautiful municipality with picturesque views and a beautiful environment in Southern Sweden. We stayed in a central hotel for the duration of our visit, with the majority of our visits being within walking distance.

Throughout the visit we had the benefit of two guides who were experts in facilitating international visits and in helping practitioners to pull out key and emerging themes from such visits. They facilitated our movement between schools and created opportunities for group activities and reflection.

School Visits

We had the opportunity to visit four schools and take part in an outdoor learning and Forest School session. Amongst these visits were a variety of types of schools which included a Swedish Free School and Municipality Controlled Schools. Whilst undertaking school visits, we split into groups and had the chance to meet staff and pupils, discuss their experiences, how they approach inclusion including what works and the challenges which exist.

Emerging Themes

Following each school visit, we came together as a group and considered emerging themes. These themes were then the focus of our subsequent visits, allowing us to explore key concepts and approaches in a little more detail and to consider how we can use what we had learnt to take back and use in our own schools.

Inclusion – The Swedish Perspective

From the visit, there were many positive and reassuring take aways. It was reassuring to hear that colleagues in Sweden experience similar challenges in relation to inclusion as we do back at home. Seeing how colleagues approach Forest School, educating the ‘whole child’ and adapting their curriculum to meet individual needs amongst others were just some of the positives I have taken back to school and implemented.

Networking

Having the opportunity to professionally network with colleagues from Wales and Sweden was a highlight of the visit. It gave the opportunity for professional dialogue between colleagues to think about key learning and approaches which could be taken away and used in our own schools.  We have maintained contact with several of those who attended the visit which helps us all to engage more widely than in our own local cluster of schools.

Leadership Lessons

There are a variety of lessons and take aways from the visit, as a school leader, understanding the similarity in the challenges we face was key. How those in the education sector in Sweden approach the challenges, the support around schools and in turn impact of this support is different to how we operate in Wales. Consideration of the wider support model that schools in Sweden access was a key leadership lesson, and creating in turn, the time and space to consider how to work differently, and in essence, to do less, but to do less better.

Conclusion

As a passionate geographer, I have always been keen to develop and foster international links between schools. The opportunity to visit Sweden and to experience the Swedish education system was an excellent one and one I was very privileged to be a part of. The experience of seeing how inclusion is promoted and the culture developed in Swedish schools was very informative and I took back many practical things which we have since implemented in our school.  I look forward to exploring further opportunities for international collaboration in the future.

Richard Hatwood, Headteacher
All Saints’ Church in Wales Primary School, Gresford