Teach Well’s 5-year partnership with Catalyst gains national attention
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.
The professional learning course, anchored to Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction has been delivered to over 500 teachers and leaders across 4 years, reaching more than 10,000 students. There has also been a significant investment in school leadership, with the Instructional Lead Fellowship delivered under the HITP in Action Lead Group Series banner, to support more than 100 school leaders to scale and embed high-impact teaching practices across 13 core schools. The Catalyst project has certainly paid off, with an independent review that uses NAPLAN data finding that the quantity of students performing below expected standards in reading dramatically reduced between 2019 and 2022, from 42 percent to only 4 percent. The partnership will continue to grow in 2025 with a new Curriculum Development Project.
In 2024, ACARA highlighted 20 ACT schools it believes are performing above expectations. Thirteen of those are Catholic schools, a result the Archdiocese’s Director of Catholic Education said showed “great progress”. The Catalyst secondary schools also lead the way with two of the 5 ACT Catholic schools receiving special mentions from ACARA as achieving well above expected performance – St Mary Mackillop College and St Clare’s College.
Click on the button below to view and download Teach Well’s full 2024 Impact Report.