Since 2021, Teach Well has partnered with WA’s Midwest Region as part of their Targeted Teaching strategy to improve student academic outcomes. The Midwest education region has 46 public schools, serving over 7,700 students. With some of the state’s most disadvantaged children and around 30% Indigenous students, the region had historically seen stagnated student results. Through the Targeted Teaching strategy, enabled through a relentless focus on high-impact instruction using Teach Well’s Masterclass Series and the Instructional Lead Fellowship, schools have achieved outstanding year-on-year growth in student results. The Teach Well experience has been highly effective in uniting networks of schools across the Midwest by providing a common language for high-impact instruction. School leaders across the region have worked to build educators’ skills to drive sustainable change at all levels in the Midwest through a focus on:
- Consistency Across Schools: In line with the Department of Education’s Quality Teaching Strategy, Teach Well has been instrumental in helping the region develop a shared pedagogy of quality teaching across Midwest schools. By applying the findings of key research and translating these into classroom practice, schools across the Midwest now have a common understanding, enabling teachers to share experiences, strategies, and resources.
- Evidence-Informed Practice: Teach Well’s commitment to evidence-informed practice resonates with the Midwest schools’ aim to raise instructional standards and accelerate learning for all students by bringing educators together to focus on high-impact teaching strategies.
- Collaborative Professional Development: Schools collaborate in training their staff in a cost-effective way. Together, the Midwest has created a thriving regional community where teachers and leaders are driving student improvement through an investment in providing nationally-recognised support for their educators.
- Shared Accountability and Targets: Midwest schools have been able to unite under a Regional Strategy where schools set improvement goals in their own school business plans, with clear comparable outcomes to reach the region’s goals overall. This shared accountability promotes collective problem-solving, where schools work together to refine their approaches and set further targets for success at a classroom, school, and regional level.
- Increased Peer Support and Mentorship: Teachers across the region share resources and observe each other’s classrooms.
Alumni of Teach Well’s programs often attend refresher workshops with their teams to deepen their knowledge. This empowers them to lead more work back at school. This kind of peer support helps to reinforce best practices across schools. A focus on supporting coaches through professional learning and mentoring has enabled schools to develop strong coaching conversations. The results of this partnership are inspiring. The Midwest schools have shown strong improvement from 2021 to 2024, with 89% of all NAPLAN areas now within expected performance, or well above expected performance (Figure 1).
There were also significant increases in the average performance across all learning areas across Years 3, 5 and 9 (Figures 2-4). The secondary and district high schools are also achieving impressive growth for their students, with the key NAPLAN areas of numeracy, reading and writing all more than half a standard deviation above expected by the time their students reach Year 9. This marks a trend of continued improvement, with the Region going from strength to strength and an excellent foundation to continue to build upon in 2025.
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Oakwood Primary School is a government school located one hour south of Perth. With an ICSEA value of 1005, the school serves over 900 students. As part of its school improvement journey, the school committed to the Masterclass Series in 2022 to upskill its teachers in high-impact instruction. Since then, 29 staff have participated in the Masterclass Series. In 2021, at the start of Oakwood’s improvement journey, for Years 3 and 5, the percentage of NAPLAN areas within expected performance was 60%, with 40% of areas well below expected performance. In 2024, 100% of NAPLAN areas are now within or well above expected performance. Oakwood’s target of being at or exceeding the performance of ‘Like Schools’ (i.e. with students from similar backgrounds based on parental occupation and education) was resoundingly achieved in 2024. Students significantly outperformed their peers from Like Schools in the key areas of Reading, Writing, and Numeracy across both Years 3 and 5 (Figures 1-3), bucking the trend of stagnating performance in peer schools.
Five years ago, the Director of Catholic Education for the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, Ross Fox, decided to retrain his teaching workforce of 1500 staff in the Science of Learning. This educational reform emphasised the importance of all teachers being able to confidently deliver evidence-based high-impact teaching practices, with a shared focus on how students learn and understand new ideas. As part of the Catalyst project, Teach Well’s flagship Masterclass Series has been delivered under the name High Impact Teaching Practices (HITP) in Action – Secondary & Central Series.
