The Innovative Schools for Impact program, led by Dr Brendon Hyndman, Senior Manager – Research, Innovation and Impact, will introduce an evidence-informed implementation science framework for schools trialing areas aligned to the Education strategy.
The exciting new program will be conducted in partnership with a range of organisations including the University of Queensland, Implement.ED, The Resilience Project, 4C Transform Learning and the Australian Education Research Organisation.
Brendon said it was an exciting opportunity for BCE and schools to learn alongside each other about implementation science and action research approaches to Education. The new approach is intended to support schools to further strengthen the capturing of impacts from trialing new approaches and innovations.
“Schools are continuously striving to do better for students and young people, and in doing so, they try new things or methods, seek to learn from those experiences and work to adopt and embed the practices that work best,” he said.
“Applying an evidence-informed and staged implementation framework is an important aspect of what schools can do to improve, transform, and be more effective.
“Yet implementation is a domain of school practice that is only now starting to receive more focused, holistic attention. Without carefully staged implementation phases to capture impacts, new approaches can potentially fade away as schools grapple with competing priorities.”
This new program will provide support with capturing the impacts of new approaches to ensure more informed decisions can be made on whether an innovation that is initiated should be considered, maintained or adjusted.
Today, the program was officially launched by Deputy Executive Director Durm O’Riordan, alongside 17 schools, who have signed on to be part of the program.
Each school will have a dedicated school-based Impact Lead Educator role or equivalent, to lead and implement strategies, processes and initiatives. This aims to strengthen the capturing of impacts and evidence use, to ultimately improve school and student outcomes.
Support will also be received from an assigned BCEO pilot lead to help guide schools towards the effective implementation for impact throughout the year.
Durm said the program will assist BCE in informing key solutions to emerging problems across all our schools, ‘close the loop’ for capturing the impacts of staff engaging in professional learning and help connect school stakeholders with key sources of information.
“This program comes as a result of our newest function area in Learning Services which will roll out a number of fantastic initiatives this year,” he said.
“This includes a proposed new Research Hub to showcase impact and evidence-informed practices and resources, aligned to our new Education Strategy.
“The function area is setting up new systems and structures to help better capture the research impacts across a range of initiatives, improve how research evidence is used and to support educators to better use that evidence towards their practice.”
Schools participating in 2024:
- Our Lady’s College, Annerley
- McAuley College, Beaudesert
- St Joseph’s Tobruk Memorial School, Beenleigh
- Trinity College, Beenleigh
- Marymount College, Burleigh Waters
- St Thomas’ Catholic Primary School, Camp Hill