Kate Harris
Welcome to the EAL/D conversations podcast. My name is Kate Harris and I'm the EAL/D Education Advisor for K to 6 with the NSW Department of Education. Today I'm joined by Kerrie Quee and Mary Kallas. Kerrie and Mary are both EAL/D Education Leaders. Kerrie works in Regional South and Mary works in Metropolitan South and West, and both Kerrie and Mary are accredited at highly accomplished levels. So welcome, Mary and Kerrie, and thank you for joining me.

Mary Kallas
Thank you, Kate. Lovely to be here.

Kerrie Quee
Thanks Kate.

Kate Harris
Today, we're going to be talking about higher levels of accreditation and particularly focusing in on EAL/D specialist teachers and how they can go about obtaining their higher levels of accreditation. And as I just mentioned, both Mary and Kerrie are accredited at highly accomplished, and they were both in EAL/D roles when they completed their accreditation. In the previous episode, we spoke to Dr Kathy Rushton about the EAL/D elaborations for the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. So I'm really interested in how the elaborations can be used by EAL/D specialists who are considering or applying for higher levels of accreditation.

Kerrie Quee
This is something that I'm really passionate about getting or gaining HALT accreditation within the EAL/D role. So I'm really pleased that we can be talking about this, and just also be linking the elaborations as a support tool as well for when you're developing your um evidence sets. And So what I found was that there were quite a few of the elaborations, the EAL/D elaborations that I could use within my evidence sets just to support the standard. So of course we have to use the Australian professional standard at highly completed or lead level you you must be addressing that, but it was very helpful for me to actually add it in to just deepen the knowledge of the assessor in my role in EAL/D. So a good example that lent itself to this was 1.2.3 for me, being highly accomplished - expand understanding of how students learn using research and workplace knowledge. Now that's very broad and obviously depending on the field that you're in is to as to you know, what research and workplace knowledge that brings. And so I looked at the elaboration then, and I'll just read that out. It says apply and articulate to colleagues a deep understanding of EAL/D learning progressions in particular and of course also of current research into how learners concurrently learn EAL/D (so learn English as an additional language), learn subject area content through language learning and also learning about the language. And so when I related this in in my evidence set, it became obvious that a lot of the research that I had been looking at was around EAL/D students and this kind of, I think for the assessor would have explained, and because, you know, they're not always in your particular role, so it could have been a highly accomplished or lead classroom teacher that was looking at at my evidence sets.
And so what I wanted to do was be evaluate my own practice against the elaborations, help the assessor understand where I was coming from, from my practice as an EAL/D specialist, and also then of course bring that back to the original Australian professional standard for one 1.2.3.
So you can see that you know, number one, you have to start with the Australian standard. Then, as you develop your evidence set and bring in your specialisation, if there is one, it's good to then read the elaboration and to embed that into your evidence set. And so that's what I did.

Kate Harris
Thanks Kerrie so it sounds like the elaborations give you almost like an overlay to provide a bit more specialist knowledge or some specialist ideas within your role to make it easier to unpack the Australian Professional Standards for teachers.
Would that be right?

Kerrie Quee
Yes, that is a perfect summary. Pretty much of what I've I've just said and I like that idea of an overlay and it's a really good support and um solid foundation to be able to bring that in as well.

Kate Harris
Perfect. So the Australian professional standards often uses the phrases, ‘supports all students’ and ‘across the full range of abilities’, and I think sometimes EAL/D specialist teachers will look at these and think, hmm, how can I show that my work actually does this? So, how could an EAL/D specialist show that their work does cater for the needs of all students?

Mary Kallas
We need to highlight the key words and phrases especially the verbs in the Australian Professional Standards for teachers and these are really important to unpack in an evidence set and across your submission, if you're going for highly accomplished or lead. We have to show how we support across the full range of abilities, so we need to be mindful that we also need to support our colleagues in order to do that. And it could be through coteaching, team teaching, facilitating professional learning for colleagues, for new scheme teachers, for prac students for executive staff, umm mentoring, working collaboratively with planning and programming, creating open ended activities that are inclusive of all students. And how do we do this as EAL/D ah specialist? It's obviously through high challenge and high support activities for all levels of ability and for example, if we're doing a writing task, you might be showing through your learning intentions success criteria how to write in paragraphs. Um and for your extension students they might be writing a more extended piece and they could be writing say from the point of view of a character. And for students with lower ability, just using the cut-up sentences and creating a sentence based on the same activity that the rest of the students in the class are doing. So they're not excluded from the task to do something else, but all students of all abilities to be included. And also remembering that, you know, the EAL/D terminology it can be mentioned, and like Kerrie said before, using the EAL/D elaborations and how to embed the EAL/D terminology and how to support students across all ability levels.

Kerrie Quee
And I'll I'll just jump in there and um let's just have a look at a quick elaboration.
In that case, 2.1.3 and 4that says ‘support colleagues using current and comprehensive knowledge’ or for lead ‘lead initiatives within the school to evaluate and improve knowledge’ and then of course in that supporting colleagues.
So if you were to to read that and then think, okay, in my EAL/D position, what am I doing to support colleagues using current and comprehensive knowledge or what initiatives am I leading? It's good then to go back to the elaborations and actually read through the two columns there that give you lots of ideas as to how you are doing that to support colleagues. And one classic example of a lead initiative would be Leading EAL/D Education and so if you are doing that within your school, you'd be looking at the elaborations just to see how that all fits in. Ah but then again, you know, of course then you have to go back to the original Australian professional standard, but there is so much support there, when you're reading on the elaborations as to how to formulate your words in the evidence set, what kind of language to use - you're still supporting your colleagues and you're using current and comprehensive, you know, knowledge however you what the elaborations are doing are helping you with the language to use within your evidence set.

Kate Harris
I think that'll be really helpful. And Mary, I liked how you talked about high challenge, high support and the different ways that you differentiate for students and support students using that kind of model. And I think that particularly will support teachers at thinking about how can we support the full range of abilities and support all students. And I know we often say what's good for EAL/D is good for all because there's a lot of explicit teaching in there as well.
And Kerrie, you mentioned too about the Leading EAL/D Education course and I think that has a lot of opportunities to work collaboratively with teachers to build projects within schools that improve practice. So some really great ideas there.
So the process for obtaining higher levels of accreditation is quite involved. So how do you feel EAL/D specialists would benefit from completing their higher levels of accreditation?

Mary Kallas
Well, the very first thing is, it's affirmation of our expertise in EAL/D education. And when I, I was the first EAL/D teacher to be accredited at highly accomplished or lead, I think Kerrie was second. We yeah, we were doing it together at the same time and we weren't sure if what we were doing was right. We now know that yes, it was. As I was going through my submission when I was putting it together there were lots of highs and lows and I thought to myself, um I don't know if what I'm doing is right and I don't know if the reader will understand all this EAL/D terminology. And do you know what? They do. And as long as you link it back to the standard descriptors from the Australian Professional Standards for teachers, they do understand. And what comes through as well is as EAL/D teachers we are passionate. We we know that what we're doing is for our students and to improve student learning outcomes. So, we benefit in many ways it affirms our expertise, it affirms our specialisation in EAL/D education. We take pride in what we do in knowing our students and knowing our content of EAL/D and taking pride in how we teach it as well. I kept thinking that they're not, they might not agree the reader might not agree with what I'm writing…
you know our, our pedagogy and you know what I've learnt that it is it is the best pedagogy. Because what works for EAL/D students works for all. So, it has affirmed that for me. It endorses our quality teaching practices. What we do is quality. It's it builds teacher capacity as well as improving students learning. It also gives us choices. If you can play accreditation at the higher levels, it gives you a choice and to either stay in the classroom to improve student learning outcomes and working with colleagues, or it gives you the choice of seeking career progression and promotion.
It's your choice, and there's nothing wrong with either. I love being in the classroom.
I love teaching. I love how it's rewarding for students and for me as well. And if you want the choice of seeking further progression in your career, you've got that choice.
So by all means, highly recommend it.
Kerrie what do you think?

Kerrie Quee
Yes, Mary, you've just, you've articulated that so well and I, I remember us travelling the road together and it was a long, hard journey because back in the day there wasn't that much support, whereas now there is a lot more support and many, many more mentors that can that I would encourage you to look out for and, you know, seek, seek the mentor to help you through the process. I found it and I've always said that I found it the best professional development in my whole career. I think looking over the 37 standard descriptors and looking at my own work against those standard descriptors in my specialisation was just so rewarding. You know, across professional knowledge, professional practice, professional engagement. It's not one or the other, it's, it's all of them and it's a really deep look into I, you know, had to really deeply look into my practice. There were areas where I needed to develop it. It took some time because you know, when I did a self-assessment I saw that there were a couple of areas that I really needed to build experience in and you know, build pedagogical knowledge. But that happened over that time, and as I was developing my submission, you know, my personal teaching development, just grew exponentially as well. And look the other reason why I particularly chose highly accomplished was because I too, like Mary said, just really enjoy the classroom and I never saw myself in my whole career as being, you know, AP DP principal and going down that that line of leadership. And I was an am a leader, you know, in EAL/D. However, I preferred to see myself more of more of as a mentor, leader and so highly the highly accomplished accreditation really fitted in nicely with that because of the descriptors talking about supporting colleagues ah that really resonated with me more than initiating, you know, doing the big school wide initiatives and things. So that's why I chose highly accomplished. I really I knew I could maintain that and I knew that I could, you know, meet the standards in working with colleagues, because that's really where my heart was and being in the classroom. And so people come with a lot of different reasons why they would do accreditation and you know, Mary and I have just sort of mentioned a few, but really it is just so rewarding and the opportunities are so great once you do it.

Kate Harris
I'm hearing from both of you just how rewarding it can be to complete those higher levels of accreditation. And Kerrie, you mentioned how it really made you reflect on your practice and think deeply about what you were doing and even some of the areas that you needed to work on and strengthen. And Mary, you mentioned about how it really affirmed what you were doing. And so I think those two things kind of go hand in hand, being able to reflect on your practice, put it forward and then have that affirmation is really quite beneficial as well.
So thinking about advice now, what advice would you give and EAL/D specialist teacher who's looking at completing higher levels of accreditation?

Mary Kallas
I think the very first thing like Kerrie mentioned just before have a mentor, have a buddy, um someone who has been through the process. And because my biggest question was is what I'm doing right? And Kerrie and I, at the time we had no one to ask. There was no one. It was very, very lonely. So number 1 have a mentor. And when you do start the journey, it's also very difficult to know how to start. A mentor can help you with that. I always suggest to start off with your strengths and, umm, look at and the evidence sets first. So the very first evidence set that you put together is always the hardest, so start off with your strengths. With me, it was programming especially in English, and so um writing programs units was my strength and working with colleagues. Ah so that was where I started and I also looked at the evidence guides, and unpack the words that key words which are the verbs in the standard descriptors and the evidence guide will help you do that, and they also give examples of what kind of evidence you can use. But they are just guides because when I first picked it up, there's nothing about a EAL/D in there.
That's where the EAL/D elaborations can come in useful where there will be examples in there for you to use and you can use your own examples as well. When you do unpack the standard descriptors, look at the verbs for either highly accomplished or lead. So you unpack by reflecting and explain the words, the keywords, in the standard descriptors, especially the verbs and link these with your own teaching practice and then show the impact on teachers capacity and most importantly student learning. So the verbs like, if you see, evaluate, there'll be a verb at the start of each standard descriptor. Evaluate, implement, take a leadership role, and the key words, as well as including ICT, are in some of the standard descriptors you have to explain how you include ICT. How do you take on a leadership role? How do you implement? How do you evaluate? And your evidence sets till a story. So for example, if you're writing a program with colleagues because at highly accomplished and with lead, you have to show how you are collaborative. Highly accomplished, you are working with, you can work with at least one other colleague if you are in a small school. If you're working at lead, that's how you support colleagues across the school and also in other schools as well, like in networks, for example. Um so if you're putting together an evidence set, you can tell the story by showing meeting minutes,
program extract and the programs have to be your work, not a unit that you find online. So each evidence and document needs to be authentic. Ah then you can have maybe a lesson that you have created and it can be on the board. It can be.Oor it can be something that you have created online, and if you're showing PowerPoint slides, be selective. You don't show all like 20-30 odd slides. Be selective. How are you meeting that standard descriptor? So for evidence you can provide professional learning to colleagues. Again, be selective of the PowerPoint slides. Exit slip feedback from colleagues, survey data and above all, the impact on students learning so student work samples are really effective pieces of evidence.
Can I also mention that there's a misconception from a lot of people that you need to be an executive like you need to be at least a head teacher or an assistant principal to do highly accomplished and lead. And that's completely false.
Completely false. So anyone anyone is open uh, yes, there are many head teachers and assistant principals or DPs that can go for highly accomplished or lead, but you know, you don't need to be an executive teacher to do it.

Kerrie Quee
Mary, that's a great overview and I just, I did wanna add a couple of other things.
You've you've talked a lot about putting your submissions together, which is fantastic, and what people need to do first is consider putting this into their PDP as a goal. So you you need to make it your goal. You know in there and have it have a discussion with your executive or principal, or whoever it is you talk to so that they know that you're intending to go on this journey. So put it in your PDP. Speak to your principal. They need to know that you're wanting to do this and the, you know, it's great to know that they're going to support you in the process. And also that you need to go into NESA and download all the information. Have a read of the HALT policy and there's also a lot of guiding documents that NESA has. AITSL has a great website with information, and there's a New South Wales HALT Association now, which also is great to link in with. And then you'll also find on social media some really good advice just given by other HALTs and that's also where you can find your mentor. Often you can say what state you're in.
So that's really all I need to add to Mary's.

Kate Harris
It's great to hear that there's so much support out there for any teacher who's looking at completing their higher levels of accreditation, and some of those tips and advice that you provided around, not just the process, but also you know what they need to be thinking about and looking for I think will be really beneficial for our teachers.
So I just wanted to say a big thank you to both of you for joining me today.

Mary Kallas
Thank you, Kate. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Kerrie Quee
Thanks, Kate. Happy to talk about HALT anytime.

Kate Harris
And we're very lucky to have the first and second person to complete their highly accomplished in EALD specialist positions. So well done to both of you on that as well. So thank you for joining us today to discuss high levels of accreditation.
And thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the EAL/D Conversations podcast.