Appendices
A. The Continua of Practice for School Improvement
The Continua of Practice for School (the Continua) is designed to assist principals and teachers to identify areas of practice that require attention in order to deliver improved student outcomes.
The Continua assists principals and teachers to:
- use evidence and observations to self-assess their current practice
- locate their performance on an improvement-focused continuum
- understand what improved practice looks like
- develop a shared language for describing educational practice
- engage in conversations about improving professional practice.
Each continuum describes a range of practices across four proficiency levels (Emerging, Evolving, Embedding, Excelling).
Relationship of the Continua of Practice to the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes (FISO) Improvement Model
Identifying current levels of proficiency and identifying the practices and behaviours of the next level, allows schools to strategically plan for improving student outcomes. Being able to see progress along a continuum also helps to support change in teaching practice by articulating both the subtle and more significant differences required to achieve genuine change.
The FISO Improvement Model provides a common language for school improvement across the Victorian government school system. It is structured around four statewide priorities that are proven to have a strong bearing on the effectiveness of a school. The model then goes on to describe sixteen domains.
The Continua of Practice is integral to school self-evaluation at both the six-month and twelve-month stages when monitoring the Annual Implementation Plan (AIP). Then, through a deeper dive, the Continua are vital to the pre-review self-evaluation, the quadrennial school review and the identification and selection of initiatives that align with the goals, targets and key improvement strategies (KIS) for the next School Strategic Plan.
There are areas of overlap between the FISO dimensions and the evidence base behind them – this is common to the nature of school improvement, and this overlap is also apparent in the Continua. Schools can engage intensively with the Continua relevant to their particular area/s of focus for each year. They can also use the other Continua to understand their practices more broadly, track status and progress, and avoid a decline in performance across the set of dimensions that schools consider when planning and monitoring improvement.
B. School performance data
School leaders can access information on their school’s performance from 2 sources:
These websites are a central access point for school data and are available to the principal class and authorised regional and central staff only.
The School Performance Reports contains reports that will be used during the pre-review self-evaluation, and must be provided to the School Review Panel as part of the validation of the school’s pre-review self-evaluation (PRSE). The reports required are:
- Parent opinion survey report
- Student attitudes to school survey (AtoSS) report
- Panorama supplementary school level report
- The School Performance report – from 2017 onwards.
The School Information contains data sets on information provided in the reports above. It also includes additional information that can also be referred to when developing the school’s PRSE. These include:
- the school's enrolment and projection figures
- the school summary report and school profile
- Student Family Occupation (SFO)
- Victorian Curriculum F–10
- Attendance, school staff survey results and other data sets.
More information
Reviewed 20 February 2023