Portland Secondary
College:
e5 and Visible Learning
framework for Proactive Practice
Introduction and
Context
Community confidence
Portland Secondary College, with
700 students, is the only
government secondary school in
Portland, 350km from Melbourne on
the west coast of Victoria.
It is a mix of modern open-plan
facilities and more traditional
learning spaces, set in an expansive
green space.
These facilities include a modern
multi-purpose sports stadium, a
technology centre, specialist science
and art spaces, a Year 9 'Global
Learning Language Lab' and, the
most recent addition, a state-of-theart hospitality training centre, which
opened in 2013.
Over half the students attending the
school fall into the lowest quartile of
Community Socio-Educational
Advantage with just 4% in the
highest quartile. There are twentyeight students with an indigenous
background and a small number of
students with a language
background other than English.
Toni Burgoyne, the principal, has
been at Portland Secondary College
for 10 years. She sees her team as
being a ‘great mix of people who are
positive and enthusiastic’.
The school’s remoteness from the
city poses certain challenges – for
example accessing professional
development and other learning
opportunities offered in Melbourne –
yet at the same time this separation
has also cultivated a strong sense of
community engagement and
sharing.
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
At Portland SC, effective resourcesharing, development of
relationships beyond the school, and
positive community presence are a
priority. As the principal notes:
Teachers’ kids come to this
school…and that flags a really
important message to the
community, that we are investing
our own children in our own
school, and that helps people’s
sense of community and parents’
confidence.
The wide range of learning
opportunities offered by the school
is designed to cater for the specific
needs of students in this area.
Spaces are dedicated to applied
learning, including VCAL (Victorian
Certificate of Applied Learning),
VETiS (Vocational Educational
Training in Schools) and various
RTO (Registered Training
Organisation) courses.
There is also a dedicated campus
and program for students who are
disengaged with more traditional
learning practices. The college’s
performance in VCE and VCAL is
consistently above state means.
Together these initiatives offer
active and experiential learning
environments, practical curriculum
options and appropriate levels of
support for students with different
needs and interests. There are also
opportunities for community
engagement and hands on work
around the school.
The establishment of Portland’s
Restorative Practices model, which
offered a clear, consistent and
unambiguous process for
responding to and de-escalating
conflict, preceded the introduction of
their instructional model. The
introduction of restorative practices
helped to create a sense of order
and calm, which in turn has created
the conditions needed for
pedagogical change.
As these conditions became
established, students also became
more ready for learning and
teachers could turn their attention to
learning improvement.
Toni outlined the purpose of
developing their ‘hybrid’ instructional
model or the Portland framework,
which was to develop:
… teachers’ language and literacy
around pedagogical practices, and
improve the levels of visible
learning in every classroom.
The aim is to increase consistency
in the way that teachers discuss
and reflect on their professional
practice using agreed forms of
evidence.
Significant emphasis is placed on
student welfare, with appropriate
and ready access to different forms
of support for all students. Taken
together, these needs of students
informed the choice of models that
guide Portland secondary teachers’
practices.
Portland’s e5 and Visible Learning
Framework for Proactive Practice is
an amalgam of the DEECD e5
instructional model and the
pedagogical strategies promoted by
John Hattie as Visible Learning.
There is a strong emphasis on being
explicit about learning intentions and
success criteria with students.
How did teachers
learn about and
engage with the
model?
Multiple strategies to
support change
The Portland Framework is
continuing to evolve and develop as
teachers become more confident in
working with the practices and
pedagogies it promotes.
The school has a two-year focus on
strengthening curriculum and
prioritising professional learning
supported by it’s emerging
evidence-based framework.
The first step was to establish the e5
and Visible Learning framework for
Proactive Practice as a schoolwide
priority for two years and for leaders
to clearly communicate this.
Professional learning is always
maintained as a strong focus in the
school and leaders strategically
design a longer term approach to
school improvement. They made a
conscious decision to:
…bring about change in a slower
and more rigorous, yet fluid way,
where there is recognition of the
time required for long-term,
effective change… to ensure we
are reflecting and growing.
This has seen the college take a
broad, multi-strategy approach to
introducing and supporting the
practices and ways of working
promoted in its framework.
Leaders were active in guiding and
leading the way as they tackled how
best to introduce pedagogical
change. They began by asking
themselves questions such as:
How do we build people’s
capacity?
How can we give people the
opportunities to improve, rather
than be reactionary?
What are we doing now and how
can we do it better?
Conversations with staff were a
starting place and their contributions
and participation in various
initiatives associated with
developing Portland’s Framework
were welcomed.
Leaders believed that an intense
focus on pedagogical and
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
instructional practices offered the
means to bring about school-wide
improvement.
They were able to align the Visible
Learning element of their framework
with evidence of what students were
saying they wanted, which was that
expectations were made clearer.
Teachers are currently learning
about and engaging with the
Portland Framework in the context
of school-wide literacy improvement.
This means that every teacher in the
school is focusing on their
instructional practice and how they
can better foster students’ literacy
development in their domain.
Leaders also attended to structural
and organisational considerations,
re-organising and clarifying roles,
responsibilities and organisational
duties in order to better support
teachers to learn and work in these
new ways.
leader you also get to know the
kids a lot quicker than you would if
you were just working with your
own class. Achieving greater
success came down to giving
teachers the opportunity to select
who they worked with, developing
consistency and relationships over
longer periods of time and building
on those strengths. The staffing of
those spaces makes a great
difference.
This structural change also made it
easier for peer observation and peer
mentoring to occur.
The Portland Framework has been
positioned as ‘something that will
continue to develop, guide and
inform teaching and learning at the
college’.
…the experience you get from
both teachers, the conversations
you can have. As a year level
To enable this to occur, leaders
created a new role as a dedicated
leading teacher position:
Creating that position has given
Liam time to focus on that and
create those opportunities, and he
sees his time at lunch as working
with the kids because that’s when
the kids are free. Liam manages
his timetable around students,
rather than managing students
around his timetable, so it’s a
reverse in thinking.
New roles such as this one are
designed to support both teachers
and students to better understand
the implications of the Portland
Framework. New roles have been
established over two-year time
frames to allow for continuity and to
‘create the conditions for the next
level of work’. They have a clear
focus and responsibilities.
They created cross-faculty
Professional Learning Teams,
Curriculum Action Teams and
timetabled team teaching in double
classrooms where the walls had
been removed. Removing walls
came about as a result of a process
of reviewing the physical spaces for
teaching and learning, how these
were being used and what impact
such uses had on the students.
This allowed for team teaching and
for spaces to be ‘enlivened and
used more dynamically’, fostering
the kinds of pedagogical practices
promoted in the Portland
Framework, in order to enhance
student learning experiences and
outcomes. A teacher with a
leadership position describes the
benefits of learning this way:
to implement some changes so
they can see that. That’s really
important because we want them
to have ownership, this is their
school, we wouldn’t be here if it
wasn’t for them, they create our
jobs!
Another new role to support learning
and engagement with the
Framework is a leader of ‘curriculum
and professional learning’.
Another school-wide priority was
identified as student voice:
…it’s important for kids to have
ownership not just of their learning
and data, but having a voice about
influencing what happens in the
classroom. You really need
someone to drive it that’s
passionate about that particular
area. We really value what
students want to say and we want
Ben, the teacher leader in this role,
moves around the different faculties
supporting further investigation to
understand the instructional model
and the professional language it
promotes.
He brings,
…everyone together to foster
consistency in practices and
documentation and to capture and
share exemplars… [they] look at
different techniques and figure out
which techniques work in different
situations.
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
The college has also accessed
professional learning on coaching
and mentoring which has further
built staff capacity for peer
observation, peer support and peer
mentoring. These underpin the ways
that teachers learn about and
engage with the Portland
Framework.
Several teachers from the college
were successful in being awarded
Teacher Professional Leave (TPL).
They were guided by the Portland
Framework and a specific focus on
the e5 instructional model to
research how to apply these ideas in
their own classroom practice.
…we’ve had a couple of years of
TPL with teachers working in
teams, opening classroom doors,
sharing ideas and engaging in
professional conversations. This
helped lead the way. A strong
senior school team also looked at
VCAL and other senior school
programs (…) to provide a robust
applied learning program for kids
that’s not reliant on them having to
travel elsewhere.
Identifying faculties that are
particularly successful with students
has also created professional
learning opportunities. The Arts
team was one such team where
strong mentoring and peer
observation practices are in
evidence. Matt, a teaching and
learning coach at the college
reflected:
We still have a few questions, and
that’s why I’m working with that
team. We know that they are open
in their communication, they’re
always together, they make sure
that everything is talked about.
Staff wanted to know, ‘why does the
art department get that sparkle in
the kids?’ so Art teachers are now
pairing with teachers from other
Departments so that they can learn
together and build capacity.
Portland has embraced professional
learning opportunities that focus on
uncovering effective practices and
support risk-taking and
experimentation:
Every staff member, with
increasing regularity, building to
three or four times per term,
undertakes peer observations.
These observations document a
rigorous, evidence-based reflective
process, supporting learning for
both the person observing and the
one being observed.
At present, peer-to-peer
observations are looking for
evidence of literacy development
being scaffolded, restorative
practices in action and how teachers
are responding to and incorporating
e5 and visible learning strategies
into their practice.
Every staff member has a copy of
the ‘red e5 book’, and uses it as a
reference and provocation, along
with John Hattie’s Visible Learning
for Teachers.
Cross faculty professional learning
teams (PLTs) also reference the
Portland Framework as teachers
engage in stimulating discussions
and reflections on practice and
analyse student data together.
Every fortnight, PLTs set tasks and
refer to the e5 book, talk about
what they’re doing as a teacher,
how it fits into the framework, and
how the framework can be used.
Teachers also belong to Curriculum
Action Teams, which attend to:
1. Curriculum & Professional
Learning Leader;
2. Teaching and Learning Coach;
3. Blended Learning Programs
Leader;
4. Re-engagement and Transitions
Programs Leader;
5. Student Voice Initiatives Leader;
6. Whole School Data Improvement
Leader.
The college promotes continual
engagement in action research and
data analysis to determine the
effectiveness of current practices
and to inform new strategies.
Leaders reflected:
The e5 component of the Portland
Framework has helped teachers to
identify what was already present in
their classrooms and what aspects
of practice needed strengthening.
This instructional model has
provided teachers with a common
language to talk about their work
and supports them to consider how
their practice could be extended,
consolidated and made more
consistent.
We’re not just using On Demand
Testing to find out areas that need
attention, we’re also analysing
other data, so we can decide what
our focus will be over the coming
weeks, months and years.
The student welfare team supports
this goal by undertaking rigorous
documentation of student needs and
concerns, with the view to,
‘…feeding that back to teachers.
This helps to expand teachers’
understanding of their students and
develop greater sensitivity …to the
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
challenges in the young people’s
lives’.
Year 12 data is also analysed which
has given the staff a better:
… understanding of where the dips
are, where the achievements are,
these are the areas that need
attention, specific subjects with
Key Learning Aareas – breaking it
down, so that we could focus on
areas that needed attention. We
made the move away from
anecdotal stuff to data, statistics
and analysis. We asked ‘what
skills do we need to provide
through the years, to build
students across all years and
value what students bring with
them from primary school.
How does the model
inform the way
teachers at the
school work?
Informing every
dimension of practice
The Portland Framework informs the
focus of all of the professional
learning opportunities outlined in the
previous section. It has provided a
common professional language that
has strengthened and clarified
curriculum planning, teacher
reflections and collegial discussions.
It also informs in-school reviews of
practice, which are further supported
by agreed forms of evidence.
building, and demonstrates
consistency to students, while
clarifying and deepening teaching
and learning practices.
The Portland Framework has
assisted teachers to design more
engaging units of work, as reflected
in a student’s comment:
…we like it when we have choice,
and when we can show our
personality and effort in our work,
and share it with others. The
teacher also gets to know us
better, and understand us and
what we are interested in.
The Portland Framework has also
prompted teachers to create
opportunities for greater student
input, more dynamic, fair and
engaging methods of assessment,
gathering feedback and propelling a
cycle of participation and learning.
One teacher describes the way the
successful Art Department works in
ways that align with the Framework:
…the ways it’s set up with 5
classrooms in the one area, and
doors always open, means that
students will walk into another
class room to use a piece of
equipment and see the value of
what they’re learning in year 7
through a different perspective.
They’re able to link it to what the
more senior classes are doing.
They’ll see that there’s always
more than one way to do
something, and appreciate the
ongoing commitment and
participation. And a year 12 might
walk into a year 7 class and share
their experience of when they
learnt about the particular process
or idea, building their
understanding of their own
learning. This also enriches the
conversations between team
members.
Current leading teachers are now
setting the preconditions for the next
level of work to be achieved over the
next two years. They envisage that
within a year, all staff will be
involved in peer to peer observation
four times per term, the focus of
which will increasingly be on what
the children are saying, doing and
asking.
Evaluating and analysing the needs
of students is now at the core of
teacher decision-making. Once clear
about this, the Portland Framework
and associated professional learning
opportunities provide teachers with
design and reflection prompts to
work out how best to proceed in
their teaching approaches.
Having a common professional
language has enabled the staff to
consider:
…the what and why, what it
means, what are our priorities and
so on. It creates greater
ownership, understanding, team
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
What has been the
impact of engaging
with the model?
Impact on Leaders
Leaders have been guided to be
more strategic as the Portland
Framework provides a reference
point for setting school-wide
priorities for improvement.
Areas of greatest need and greatest
benefit are now identified, and
professional learning is more
coherently aligned with school
goals, the priority focus areas and
the curriculum.
Leaders have a different lens to
notice and analyse what is occurring
in classrooms when they visit, and
are better able to prompt
professional conversations with
teacher leaders and teachers.
They expect teachers to clearly
define what they are going to teach
and how this aligns with the school
improvement plan. They have
resourced support to enable this in
many different ways, including
through the creation of new teacher
leader roles.
Impact on Students
Teachers give their opinion
rather than only facts, and ask
questions, ask for what you think
the solution is and why, and give
you strategies to help you work it
out, to find the answer for
yourself.
Students also confirm that teachers
are better at helping them to
understand each topic as they
describe it more explicitly.
Students were also clear about what
makes ‘a great teacher’. At Portland
SC, this is when learning is
meaningful and purposeful.
When the learning is more handson we remember things more
easily, we have a strong work
ethic, and experience different
things. If we learn in different ways
we get to understand more and
experience more real-life
situations, and think about how
other people live.
This theme was picked up and
elaborated by another student who
said that,
…a good teacher makes the
learning practical, hands-on,
relevant and interesting, and gives
us many different ways to learn
and different strategies for problem
solving and learning, using our
time effectively.
Leaders have noticed that students
have more opportunities for handson work and are more likely now to
be working in smaller groups.
Portland students have, ‘more
choice and voice’ and when leaders
visit classrooms they are more likely
to see different students working on
different texts, after negotiating what
text they will study.
Students report noticing significant
differences in content, depth of
investigations and their teachers’
practices and pedagogy.
Students were able to name the
qualities and character of learning
that worked for them. They were
also able to describe practices that
were effective for them, which
illustrate how the Portland
Framework has been translated into
everyday practice. Such practices
were
…involving! Teachers are
respectful and make learning
challenging but fun, and always
include everyone. They create
opportunities for us to experiment
with new ideas, work in groups
and learn in different ways.
We like it if the work is hard, but
not so hard that we can’t do it, and
when we can work in groups and
get to know others.
The students at Portland SC were
both articulate and reflective about
learning and being a learner – they
expressed firm views on what kind
of learning they prefer and what they
appreciate in terms of curriculum,
pedagogy and interpersonal
relationships with teachers.
Impact on Teachers
Portland’s e5 and Visible Learning
Framework for Proactive Practice
was also identified as one of the
inter-connected factors that had
supported them to make changes in
their practice.
The Framework can be seen in
evidence in new team-teaching
arrangements. These have led to:
enabling greater input from
students; accessing a wider range of
expertise within the school; more
focussed and differentiated learning
opportunities; deeper, exploratory
conversations between teachers
and students; more rigorous
learning conversations between
students; and many more
opportunities for teachers to observe
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
the use of different strategies in
each other’s practice.
One of the teachers believes team
teaching has significantly developed
since its initial introduction.
Modelling is key – not necessarily
explicit modelling, but people
having conversations, ‘so and so is
trying this’ … peer to peer
observations have refined the
process to make it more explicit as
to what we’re looking at, and this is
giving us evidence of what works.
environments. Walls also hold
evidence of student learning and
presence and offer a means of
celebrating their progress.
Leaders are beginning to see
improvements in the data literacy of
teachers as a result of the structured
capturing, sharing, analysis and
reflection. There is now a much
better understanding of the need to
use multiple forms of data as well as
teacher judgements.
The Visible Learning strategies of
making learning intentions and
success criteria clear, together with
developing understanding of the
teaching capabilities defined in the
e5 model, have better scaffolded
planning and reflective practices.
Toni, the principal, confirmed this
shift, saying, ‘We now always aim to
be proactive rather than waiting for
problems to arise.’
This has filtered through into cultural
practices at many levels & changed
the nature of talk in the school. Now
leaders are more likely to see:
…enabling comments in
assessment, report writing,
conversations with students and
parents, peer-to-peer observations
and so on - focus on the positives
is playing a significant role in the
change of school culture.
Teachers use wall spaces in more
engaging ways and attend to
creating more positive learning
Dispositions to learn
Leaders at Portland SC have played
a crucial role in: identifying direction
and purpose; creating a climate for
change; investing energy, effort and
time; building and developing a
team; and, ensuring their own
involvement in ongoing professional
learning.
The purpose and value of an
instructional model lies in the extent
to which it is enacted to support
teachers and leaders to address
identified areas of focus. The model
provides the how, student learning
needs determines what learning
focus is a priority.
The way teachers talk about their
work is also more positive:
Now we focus on the positives,
what’s interesting. (We ask), ‘Can
you tell me more about that?’
Rather than focus on ‘oh that didn’t
work… we make it empowering,
we make it forward moving.
What might other
schools learn from
the Portland
Secondary College
experience?
The focus on student voice has led
to significant pedagogical shifts.
Teachers are far more conscious of
making learning relevant to ‘real-life’
and support opportunities for
broader community participation.
They have developed more respect
for students’ experiences,
knowledge, interests and concerns,
which are now considered critical
elements.
Teachers reflected that they see
themselves becoming more positive:
… building kids’ capacity, sense
of responsibility and reciprocity.
There’s a co-responsibility of
feedback loops, deepening our
understanding (of students) and
we are now in a good place.
Simply identifying and adopting an
instructional model is not enough.
Leaders need to strategically design
for change, including attending to
new structural and organisational
elements that need to be put in
place to enable teachers to learn
effectively:
‘A model by itself is not
enough, it needs to be backed
up by evidence, the
development of exemplars,
reflective practices and peerto peer observation and
feedback.’
To use these structures well, a
diversity of professional learning
opportunities need to be available.
These need to align with the
readiness, motivation and
developmental stages of teacher
learning and practice needs.
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Leaders also need to have a
realistic time frame in mind as
teachers learn about, understand
and begin applying what they have
learned.
Teacher attitude, openness and
enthusiasm are an important
element of the Portland story. They
are questioning, open to new ideas,
curious about each other’s practice
and willing to collaborate with one
another. They are forward and
futures focused, striving to better
themselves and their own practice.
Reflections and constantly striving to
improve were just as important for
leaders as they were for teachers
and students at Portland.
Toni, the principal reflected:
There are always areas for
improvement, and if you think
you’re there, you’re probably not
reflecting enough on what comes
next.
Toni also suggested a need to
recognise and celebrate progress,
…we always celebrate success
and we share with the community,
and focus on these successes. We
organise articles in the local paper
and offer a positive presence and
profile in the local community.
of professionals who best help them
learn as being:
…sensitive, happy, caring and
enthusiastic. They smile and are
dedicated to the students. They
are respectful and fair, and build a
good relationship with us. They
listen, encourage us and focus on
everyone, not just a few – they’re
inclusive. They are organised and
responsive, and it’s good if they
have background experience in
the subject they are teaching us.
This helps us understand things
more, see how it relates to reallife.
Students at Portland SC offer
direction to both leaders and
teachers, articulating clearly the type
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Department of Education and Early Childhood Development