Leading Literacy: Professional Learning

Educational value

• This is a valuable resource for education systems and principals' professional associations seeking to deepen school leaders' understanding. It explores how students acquire the skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening; the characteristics of best-practice literacy teaching and learning; how to lead effective school-based professional learning; how assessment informs literacy pedagogy and learning; and the role school leaders play in building teacher capacity to implement the whole-school literacy plan. The Leading Literacy: Professional Learning course was founded on research identifying the crucial role of school leadership in all these aspects.
• The resource is particularly valuable for the five professional practices described in the Australian Professional Standard for Principals: Leading teaching and learning; Developing self and others; and Leading improvement, innovation and change. The course achieved substantial improvement in these professional practices by combining face-to-face, digital and collaborative learning. There were eight workshops, pre-reading, an online discussion forum facilitated by three literacy experts, and five peer learning group meetings as well as a specific research project.

Year level

F; 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10

Topics Educational research Teaching methods Language proficiency Learning strategies School leaders Teacher professional learning