From School Improvement to High Results

A culture of high expectations and continual improvement underpins the achievements of a K-12 Western Sydney school, writes Dr KATE BERTRAM.

When the Higher School Certificate results were released in December 2019, AISNSW member Al-Faisal College in Auburn had good reason to celebrate the achievements of its Year 12 students. The college’s state ranking had climbed from 179th in 2012 to 23^rd in little under a decade. Its 114 HSC students achieved 212 Band 6 results between them.

In addition to this improvement, the college was ranked first in the state in Mathematics, Extension 1 and Extension 2 and Mathematics Standard 2. Similarly, in the Arabic Continuers course, Al-Faisal College students achieved the top three positions. This was an exciting outcome for a school that has been determined to raise levels of achievement through strategic improvement.

^{Member school Al Faisal College has been determined to raise levels of achievement through strategic improvement.}

Dr Intaj Ali, Director of Education, said the college was committed to using data to identify priority areas for improvement and ensure the formulation of critical targets and goals with specific measures of impact.

“Being a K-12 school, success in the HSC for our 2019 cohort was something the school has been working towards since the students were in their Primary years”, Dr Intaj Ali said. "The achievements gained in the early years laid the foundation for the success we have seen in the HSC." 

"The achievements gained in the early years laid the foundation for the success we have seen in the HSC. "

Mrs Safia Khan Hassanein, Deputy Principal said the outstanding growth in HSC results is the outcome of the college’s long-term commitment to improvement and to understanding the learning needs of all students through rigorous analysis of and response to a range of academic and wellbeing data. It is the embedded culture of improvement and a vision of growth in all students that sustained the journey of Year 12 at Al-Faisal College. 

^{Al Faisal College Deputy Principal Safia Khan Hussanein says rigorous data analysis and a culture of high expectations are keys to school improvement.}

"This has, in turn, led to success not only in the HSC for this cohort but in ensuring our students graduate from Al-Faisal College as confident young men and women prepared for the next stages of their lives,” said Mrs Khan Hassanein.

Culture of high expectations

Last year, Al-Faisal College was featured in a series of AISNSW case studies exploring the school improvement journeys of five NSW independent schools. The school's approach to improvement emphasised the establishment of a rigorous process and a culture that would equip and empower all staff to achieve the target goals. 

Mrs Khan Hassanein said the college’s improvement journey began a decade ago with the creation of a new vision. With the support of the AISNSW School Improvement team, the college developed new processes, programs and targeted professional learning that provided a focus on academic learning, ways for monitoring student progress at all levels, maximisation of learning time, increased staff capacity and a positive school culture.

Over the past 10 years, teaching practices have shifted to a focus on explicit teaching, goal setting, mastery learning and other modes of teaching that provide students with a higher level of tailored guidance within the classroom. Students also received increasing amounts of individualised feedback.

“Staff were empowered to lead improvement from within the classroom using three key areas - analysing student data (both academic and wellbeing), collaboratively building programs that addressed student learning needs and modelling a culture of high expectations and growth,” Mrs Khan Hassanein said.

"We are not afraid of failure and we are not afraid to take risks. As long as the decisions we make are reflecting reliable research and evidence from our data.”

Lasting change in student learning

By 2017, the proportion of Al-Faisal’s Year 3 students in the top two bands for NAPLAN Reading had more than doubled to 75 per cent.

Year 12 retention also increased to 87 per cent in 2018 (from 60 per cent in 2014) while the percentage of students recording an ATAR above 90 rose to 44 per cent in 2018 (from 18 per cent in 2014).

Dr Intaj Ali said when students get ahead, if supported well, they will stay ahead. 

"We are not afraid of failure and we are not afraid to take risks. As long as the decisions we make are reflecting reliable research and evidence from our data.”

Al Faisal College HSC Improvement Trajectory 2012 to 2019