The Implementation Gap
The Education Equity Alliance does not believe that we have a 'knowledge gap' when it comes to the policies and practices required to achieve educational equity.
Rather we have an 'implementation gap' - a critical and significant gap between what we know 'works' and what is occuring within classrooms, especially the classrooms serving significant number of priority cohort students.
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Critical to the Alliance's theory of change, is empowering students and teachers to be partners in the effort required to address this gap.
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Over the course of 2023, the Alliance worked with over 300 students and teachers. They shared considerable insights into this gap and what is required to address it. In November 2023, we worked with a panel of priority cohort students and their teachers to synthesise this input and to utilise system-thinking tools to develop recommendations of a path forward.
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These findings and recommendations are summarised below and detailed in a paper that can be accessed here.
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A critical leverage point for change:
Improving implementation of evidence-based wellbeing policies and practices.
While students and teachers identified a range of barriers to education equity, the barrier most consistently shared with the Alliance was that there are significant challenges to the wellbeing, inclusion and engagement of priority cohort students.
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And when we worked with them to identify solutions, they consistently identified best-practice, evidence-based student wellbeing policies and practices. For instance, school-wide positive behaviour supports and multi-tiered systems of support.
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Ultimately, it was clear across these contributions that:
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Priority cohort students are not experiencing these practices - and their benefits - consistently.
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While many teachers are going to significant efforts to implement these practices, there are considerable systemic challenges to their implementation, especially settings supporting significant numbers of priority cohort students.
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To improve equity for priority cohort students, we must understand and address these challenges to implementation.
Four key systemic challenges to the implementation of evidence-based wellbeing policy & practice
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The Panel identified four critical and systemic challenges to the implementation of wellbeing strategies and supports. Critically, it noted that these challenges can increase significantly in settings with a greater proportion of students from priority cohorts.
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1. Time and Resources
'The math is off. There is not enough time in the day for all that is expected of teaching & learning and student wellbeing'.
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2. Conflicting expectations about behaviour
'Setting clear behaviour expectations is much more challenging and complex than what is understood'.
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3. Stress
'Calm and regulated students require calm and regulated teachers'.
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4. The complex nature of critical mindsets
'The key mindsets underpinning the strategies, like being student-centred, are just assumed, without providing staff training to learn this skill'.
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What now?
Working across the layers of the system to address the implementation gap
In 2024, the Education Equity Alliance will be working with a range of education stakeholders to dig deeper into the implementation gap for evidence-based wellbeing policy and practice for priority cohort students.
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Equity Stakeholder Community of Practice
The Alliance has convened a group of key education equity stakeholders to establish a community of practice. The Alliance will support these stakeholders to:
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Share practice focused on implementation of wellbeing policy and practice.
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Engage the students, teachers and families these organisations support to understand the challenges to implementation and to co-design solutions.
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Establish a collective action plan.
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School Improvement for Education Equity Program
The Alliance will work with individual schools to empower a group of their priority cohort students and their teachers to be partners in school improvement to improve education equity.
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More information on this program can be found here.
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If you would like to be involved in either of these initiatives, or receive further information, please contact us at hello@equityalliance.com.au.