What are Cluster Educators?

I have the very nice title of "Innovations and Excellence Educator". I have spoken at a number of conferences over the last two years particularly in the areas of Middle Years, and Differentiating Curriculum. Interestingly most of the attendees have been from the Independent system and have never heard of a "Cluster Educator". I effectively work for five schools to encourage and assist teachers to reflect on their teaching practices in order to provide innovative and engaging lessons. Even staff in my own schools have been known to comment that they don't know where I am or exactly what I do all the time. A friend suggested that I keep a Blog so that I can inform people of what I am doing, and share some of the great stuff happening in state education, and i thought it was a great idea. Particularly as the focus for my Cluster is to build and maintain a learning community through consistent and effective delivery of a Thinking Curriculum and the use of ICT.

A bit of background ......

The Victorian State government introduced the Innovations & Excellence initiative in 2003. It was phased in over three years and funding was supplied to groups of schools who joined together in "Clusters". By 2005 all Victorian schools were a part of a cluster, there are 247 in total. An Educator was appointed for each Cluster, usually someone who was removed from the classroom and given the full time role of developing educational programs that would improve student learning. Initially the project was aimed at the Middle Years, however, the importance of leading change in teaching practice and improving student engagement and student outcomes has resulted in its extension from P - 12.

The Initiative was to go over three years, so Phase 1 Clusters were effectively complete in 2006. They were extended for twelve months. At the end of 2006, the government announced the project would run for a further twelve months, with funding provided to meet Educator wages only. The project was extended to include P -12 with a preferred concentration on the areas of maths and science. So I have my job until the end of this year and then ?????????????

At Templestowe we refer to ourselves as the MYTIE Cluster ( Middle Years Templestowe Innovations and Excellence). My schools include Templestowe College,
Templestowe Valley Primary School, Templestowe Heights Primary School, Manningham Park Primary School and Bulleen Heights Special School. I work with a number of teams, from Management (which is a Principal or Assistant Principal from each school), a curriculum team, and then professional Learning teams within and across the schools. I run Professional Learning sessions, team-teach, faciliate joint projects, supply resources and ideas, encourage inter-school visits and do what I can to help teachers keep up to date. This year I will also be heavily involved in the administration of the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT) across the cluster as well. I am very excited about that, but more about PoLT in another post.

So I hope you will join me occastionally and that you may find a few interesting things may be of use to you as well.