Our Approach: A Focus on Sustainable Educational Change

Our Approach: Empowerment

The power of our whole school approach lies in using reliable instruments to gather rich data for evidence-based decision-making, alongside research-informed school improvement processes tailored to consider the improvement journey of individual schools. Together, our instruments and processes generate sustainable change at the level of culture to help students, teachers and leaders reach their potential.

Importantly, improvement efforts supported through our work with schools and systems are not fragmented or “add-ons” to the core work. Instead, our tools and processes become integral to the work and life of schools and education systems, ensuring efforts at the teacher and organisational levels are coherent, interrelated and sustainable over time.

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Empowerment Approach

Building Capacity

In all our work and research at NSI, we use an empowerment (rather than dependency) model. Our approach helps build capacity and structures to ensure schools can continue implementing the learning and interventions. Our empowerment approach promotes data literacy, reflective practices, and the effective use of perception feedback for school improvement. Our efforts to build capacity equip staff to take ownership of improvement efforts and contribute to transforming schools into learning organisations.

Our implementation process ensures systems and schools learn in action, requiring less time commitment in an already time-poor environment and building leadership expertise in planning and decision-making.

Working with Leaders

NSI works with principals and school leaders to examine and improve aspects of the school-wide climate and to track changes over time. Our process invites principals to engage in reflective practice using student, staff and parents/caregivers’ feedback. If requested, we support principals in developing an inquiry team within their school. They work collaboratively with the principal to engage with the data and plan, lead and evaluate improvement efforts.

Working With Teachers

NSI provides teachers with an empowering process in which they drive their professional learning while giving a voice to students. Our process invites teachers to engage in reflective practice using collaborative inquiry. This process provides opportunities to meet, plan, observe, share and support each other as they improve the learning environment in their classrooms.