As Lisa Jane said you know when we were thinking about we're thinking about public education thinking about kind of the future thinking about what our kids need for that future I often kind of think about you know in in 10,15 year’s time if we were to look back on you know the choices that we make today um you know some of the if there's choices that we don't make and people would say "Well why didn't they do something about that?" or the choices that we do make and so we can look back in 10 or 15 year’s time and say "Look what we did look at the choices that we made for our kids and how how well that's turned out for us in South Australia."

Uh but there are but there are choices to be made you know you can just bumble along but that gets you mediocrity and what I want for South Australia what I want for all of our kids isn't that what we want for our kids is that they can go into the world and just be brilliant and I don't mean just after school I mean as 5-year-olds I want our 5-year-olds to be brilliant 5-year-olds and our 9-year olds to squeeze the most out of life you know and our 15-year olds those kind of awkward social animals to you know to to be great 15-year olds like in the world as well as you know making sure that we're building for the future and the great choices uh that they'll that they'll make um so that's why we need a strategy because we got to make some good choices and we got to make some smart choices for our kids um in South Australia

And lots of people will say you know it's funny can you go around the country and people will talk about being data driven and having a data driven education system what are you talking about I’ve got kids in my system what have you got in yours uh I I want our I'm focused on the kids right on making the biggest difference to the kids and and systems should have data of course we do in NAPLAN data and data about kids wellbeing and a whole host of things it's really important because it helps us to know where we are helps us to know how we might get better helps us to understand for you know uh the again the choices that we make but I want to make sure that we're focused on purpose and on what we want in South Australia

Um I don't want us playing somebody else's game I want us playing our game making sure that we're getting for our kids what we want for our kids and there's people around the world Ken Robinson uh sadly no longer with us but a great thinker in education this is one of the ways in which we might think about purpose you know yeah well we want our kids to have knowledge to understand the world around them to develop skills to take their talents um with them into the world but it's got to be more than that that's not enough um and I definitely don't I definitely don't want to be political and don't want to talk about politics but sometimes people will talk about back to basics in education and yeah we've got to get the basics right absolutely but the basics are not enough that's not enough for our kids our kids deserve more than that uh they deserve it but they deserve more than that and so you know as Ken Robinson said here you know how can kids not how can I it not be our job to make sure that they become fulfilled individuals who with who are active and compassionate and you know and what else what else would we want for our kids.

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But when we started on this journey we started with our children so like really purposefully we started with the kids and said what do you want from school um and you know when you get some surface level things you get some deep things you know one of the things that came through really strongly from the kids was can you stop talking so much that you know that was all right so that's interesting uh but you know and as you and as you get in behind that you know what are they saying cause the kids were saying cause we want to solve some of the problems ourselves we don't want you telling us we want to kind of grapple with it a bit we don't want casting a drift so we don't know what we're doing but we do want a bit of um uh of that challenge and to grapple with things.

We want to be engaged we want to have some you know kids didn't use this this language of agency but they wanted to be able to kind of have a bit of have a bit of control feel like that they were in it for themselves they weren't doing it just for school but they were doing it for themselves as well um they talked a bit quite a lot about that that one way or another about this sense of belonging and curiosity and how that was really important to them that sense of being connected to other kids and adults in school so a whole host of things and you know you can see it time and again yeah knowledge yeah skills but also collaboration, life skills, feeling safe and confident, being able to make mistakes, you know, rather than kind of having to always be right being able to make mistakes uh and good mistakes you know productive mistakes that they can learn from and move on from.

And you know what my kids are big kids now but when you're um my kids went through the public education system in South Australia and um what do you want for your kids you want them to be happy right you want to set them up to have a fulfilled happy life and and literacy and numeracy is a is really important and it's a contributor to that right to be able to get a go through the world and be able to do the things that you want to do um uh in order to have this kind of fulfilled happy life.

And what was really interesting was when we talked to parents they said the same stuff they might use different language but they talked about yeah those foundational skills literacy and numeracy, IT skills, but also that we know our kids are going to have to problem solve you know because we want them to be good thinkers but they're going to have problem solve in their learning they're going to have to problem solve in their lives as well um so that's important, parents said the same thing you want to be able to want to make sure it's okay to make mistakes um parents say the same stuff about well-being socialization you know having friends being able to get a job being able to have make sure that doors are open to kids you know as they go through yeah in their lives as children but beyond school as well.

We talked to our teachers what did they say the same stuff so we heard this being echoed we started with the kids and what the kids said to us we heard it being echoed again and again and again uh whoever we talk to um and I'm not going to tell the same story but when we talk with national and international experts you know people have got different views but what we started here was the same sort of things.

Um there was uh uh a few years ago now somebody an international expert so the head of education at the OECD you know big international organization more than 100 countries involved in that and he was talking about thinking about um education when AI exists in the world and and his point to us was if you carry on doing what you're doing we're going to be developing second class robots because the robots will be good at lots of the stuff that we're doing at school so you got to think further into the future and make sure that our kids are going to be first class humans because that's how you get to thrive in an AI world by being a first class human.

So all these things about creativity about resourcefulness about being a lifelong learner those things are contributing to making sure that our young people can be first class humans able to thrive in the world when we talked about our employers our employers are really interesting our employers said uh same thing found these foundational skills, literacy, numeracy, skills, knowledge really important and they said to us but just as just as important is being a good colleague being able to work with other people being able to make good decisions being a good learner not just a knower but being a good learner okay so this kind of balance that we saw universities and others we heard it again and again.

And when we looked at systems around the world and some systems in Australia to be frank when we looked at systems around the world what we found was they weren't getting the balance right so here in South Australia we thought well we can get that balance right we're hearing this message from our kids from our parents and others.

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There are lots of questions around how do you see governing council supporting principals because we know that it's a really important supportive collaborative relationship the can you just talk about how you see that notion of how supporting principals in their role as they're working with the strategy?

Yeah so you know I've said it 50 times so you'll have got the message about the smart choices right so um uh so this isn't a one-size-fits-all because we know that that doesn't work and so there is some things about the smart choices that we make we know that that's complicated um and it's not obvious what to do and so governing councils, principals, you're going to have to make some choices about what you're going to focus on in your school those areas of impact.

I'm asking all principals to be clear about what they are focusing on and that that's what school improvement looks like pick the thing that you want to focus on take responsibility for that let's work on that and that's what's how we'll define school improvement in the way that matters for your school instead of the system telling everyone what school improvement looks like so there are some choices there um about what your learners need what your community needs and not falling into this either or you know it's either wellbeing or it's literacy and numeracy.

No those two things work together literacy and numeracy and being competent at school helps to support well-being and well-being helps to support literacy and numeracy and all the other things that we're learning um it's not either or and we keep getting pushed into these either or these false choices in education so I'm not don't make it an either or you know choose the things that you need knowing that these things work together.

There's a whole thing going on in some systems saying we're a direct instruction system like what sometimes you need direct instruction of course you do you know when you got new language you know no kids reasoning their way to vocabulary you know you need to be told what the word is to be able to you know understand the word and work with it phonics you know you need to kind of work on that and practice it mental arithmetic you need to be told that and then to go and work on it and practice it uh so it's automatic so you don't have to think about it it's really important.

But sometimes it's really important to be able to grapple with a problem and find your way there as well uh to be able to kind of produce a beautiful thing and understand why that thing is beautiful um there's so much in learning that you can't just tell someone so again it's not an either or we need both in our system We need both in our schools and getting that balance right um and making some choices in our school So clearly there's choices to be made at schools and you've got such an important role in supporting your schools to make some choices and sometimes your principal is going to want to set out in a direction and they can't guarantee that it's going to be successful And the only and if you if they could guarantee that they could be successful they should already be doing that that that we should already know that that's how we get to be good.

But how we get to be great is to try new things out and so I'm not talking about just giving anything a go I'm talking about having a conversation so that we have a confidence as a school community that that's worth giving a go and getting behind your principals and supporting your principals with other people because other people are going to say "well why don't you do this instead of that?" because we can't do everything and we have to make some choices.

So make some smart choices Support your principals to make some smart choices then support them in your community to run that choice through and when it doesn't work hopefully it does work hopefully it's brilliant but when it doesn't work get behind them again with your community to say "no it was worth trying It was worth trying for our kids and we'll try something else now" or when they change their mind which is brilliant when they change their mind get behind them on that as well because you'll have had a conversation about why you changed your mind give them a space to change their minds because often principals will not change their minds because the they're worried that their school community will see that as a weakness I see it as a massive strength uh get behind them um with that support your leaders to make brave and insightful decisions support your schools to learn support your community to make some smart choices for your kids.

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And so we said you know we're not going to be data driven in that kind of that way we're going to use data it's really important but we're going to be purpose driven and we have a statement but it boils down to this what we want is for our kids to be able to thrive and prosper as 5-year olds as 9-year olds as 15-year olds as people young people going out into the world and we want them to be able to learn and achieve they got to be able to learn and achieve I’m not interested in training kids to pass our tests I want kids to be able to pass our tests right but um but because that's a demonstration of their learning.

Because I know I've seen it when I've worked in I worked in a number of universities around the world when I've worked in universities what I see is kids who go to university who are good achievers and they are terrible learners and their life is hell the the pressure the stress we are not setting those kids up for success uh I've got one of mine is at university now one of mine are uh doing his apprenticeship and it's the same in the apprenticeship as well you know the he's thriving because he's a learner and because you know he's picking things up and he's responding to what's being offered to him and he's getting new opportunities because he can do that uh not because he's a knower.

And so if that's what we're going for that's our purpose every decision we make should be reflected in that purpose that's what we're going for and if if the decision we've got a decision we can turn left or we can turn right um we're taking the turning that makes sure that uh we're contributing to our kids thriving and prospering, learning and achieving, I’m not backing off the academic achievement I’m not backing off the literacy and numeracy but it's not enough it's not sufficient got to have both of these things.

And so then you know so as a system what we talk about is we can we can do anything we want we're the government we can change the law if we want um so we can do anything but we can't do everything so we have to make some choices and when you make some choices there are some things you choose not to do and when you and when there's some things you choose not to do people can say well why aren't you doing that because we made a choice we're trying to make good choices for our education system so that we're making smart choices for our system, for our schools, for our governing councils to work within so that they can make smart choices about our kids and their learning.

And so we said well so we're going to focus on four things that really make a difference and I'll just briefly talk about them talk about equity and excellence as one notion connected together that equity is excellence that making sure that all our kids um are striving for excellence that's important to us and that might be excellent in different ways because I want you know so I want do I want high ATARs yeah I want high ATARs for our high performing kids and that's what they're going for we should be we should aim for that but I want my I want my kids with autism to be brilliant people with autism you know and some of sometimes that is going to be about high academic performance and sometimes it's going to be about making sure that they're developing some of those social skills and some resilience along the way as well so that that and that's excellence too and that's a great job done for that for those kids.

So this equity thinking about how what excellence means in different ways holding on to the traditional way absolutely but making sure that we've got some different ways of being excellent is really important too us part of that is well-being we know how important a sense of belonging is for kids to if they're going to be excellent if they're going to come to school and it's going to be a positive experience for them and it doesn't feel like something done to them but done something for them and with them um and that for them and with them means that they got to have some agency in this thing and that's a bit about their having their voice heard you know just like we try to do in this strategy starting off by listening to the kids their voice heard and smart decisions being able to made to be made sometimes by kids but by the teachers by the school principal by the governing council because we've listened to kids and because they you know they've had some choice.

I some of your schools will be involved I run uh I do a CE’s uh student forum and we've got four more than 4,000 kids in that forum um online forum at the moment all across the state and we've been working on um on student agency and what the what the students have done is they've produced a pack of resources for principles on how to do student agency and it's been brilliant right because the insights that the kids bring are really are really powerful you know really helpful for the adults our kids learn from us but there's quite a lot that we can learn from our kids as well and so just listening to the kids and making sure that they can make good judgments in their lives because again I want my 5-year olds my 9-year olds my 15 year olds to be able to make good choices about their own lives and not get pushed around by social media and the world and the messages that they get.

So we said to our schools this is what improvement looks like these are the choices that we're making as a system and these things are actually all connected together you can't separate them but we know that for some schools some parts of this are going to be more important than other parts so we want schools to make smart choices about where they're going to focus right now and in a couple of years where you want might want going to might focus is might be somewhere else I went to a school Andamooka and right up near Roxby Downs tiny little school and the principal said "We're really good at wellbeing we've been working on it for ages and we're really good at it and I thought he was gonna say "So we're gonna carry on doing that." And he didn't he said "We're good at that so next thing we're going to do student agency because we want our kids to have more you know more of a role in their learning." That's brilliant that's where they're focusing because they've really worked on well-being already and they're focusing on something else that's a smart choice by that school.

And I want and within this we talk about being kind of tight and flexible this is what we're going for a system but what about your school where's the focus that you want for your school what's the smart choice within this for your school for your kids for your community do you want all of it yeah we want all of it but you can't do everything but you can do anything within this this is these are the choices we've made as a system so there's some smart choices to be made in the school and so we've identified the sorts of within the strategy we've identified the sorts of we call them the levers the things that we've got that we can really change or bring to bear um in our schools to make the biggest difference for our kids what are those things effective teaching of course it is the best the number one the experience of the child in the classroom uh because of the excellent teaching that we've got going on in public education.

Um what that means what excellent teaching what effective teaching might mean is going to be um on the whole the same everywhere but again in different context with different kids you know a teacher is great in one context in one community might not be fantastic in another community and vice versa um so making sure we got the right teachers the right people in the right place doing the right thing making sure our leaders are empowered to make good choices and that they're doing so partnering with families and communities because when we're schools are resilient schools make the biggest difference when they're connected to communities schools don't make the biggest difference because I send a thing out to say everybody should do this and we should all do it the same way that is not how you get brilliant how you get brilliant how you get the how you become the best at just getting better and continuing to improve is by making smart choices for your site and the systems here to try and set a direction yeah but within that direction make sure that leaders are connecting with you connecting with kids connecting with teachers to make those smart choices.

And of course you know as I've talked quite a lot about engaging with children and young people we know is a really important factor we've also got the supports that we can put in place as a system listening to schools listening to governing councils about what kind of support you need to make the biggest difference to that you can to your kid your kids um making sure that when we think about that we're thinking about improvement and I've talked about improvement and responsibility and I've not talked about accountability and that's really important to me because should we be accountable yes we should because we're spending public money right every dollar that we spend should make a difference we should be putting that where it makes the biggest difference um so we should be accountable but I want us to start with responsibility when we make choices in the school when we make our smart choices and say this is what we're going for this is what we're going to focus on in this school that's when people take responsibility for that people take it on and say I'm going to be responsible for that and that again that's when we get the biggest difference not because people are accountable not because people are compliant but because people are making good choices.

And of course as part of that making sure that our resources our investment is going in the right place you know we've not got infinite amount of money of course we haven't um but we have got resources we are we've got a lot of money in public education and I want to make sure that people feel like they're part of a system that is supporting them and then um the last part you can put all these places things in place we got this purpose we got these areas of impact this is what we're going for these are the choices that we've made for now um and I think these will take us through for quite a long time we've got these we know we've got all these things that we can change we can bring to bear to make this difference in order to achieve this purpose and then these guiding principles are really trying to say and this is what we should be able to expect of each other so that so if I just very quickly just mention them we're saying that we we have collective responsibility in a system like public education the worst thing is when schools start competing against each other I don't want schools competing against each other I want schools collaborating we've had some great examples of schools kind of lending a teacher who's got a specific expertise because a teacher's left from that school lending that teacher to that school in order to support that those students there to be successful.

Uh we we should be feel like we're in this together in public education we're part of a system we should draw on the system and make the most of it we often systems get experts from outside to come and tell teachers how to teach and what to do actually we've got a massive amount of expertise in public education and we should share it around we should tell our teachers influencing other teachers it's actually one of the great ways in which we'll improve I want us to be a learning system I want teachers and principals I want governing councils to feel like you can give something a go you know we talk about productive failures there's kind of two kinds of failures right there's stuff-ups where things are just wrong we don't want those uh but there are productive failures where it was worth trying and you'll learn something from that uh that things are you know even though the thing might not have worked it's helped us to see that oh it's not quite that something else some schools have set off in the direction of learner agency and then changed their minds and gone oh hang on no that's not right because there's some parts of being an effective learner that we need to get in place first before we can really get going on this learner agency when I love it when schools change their minds.

When you change your mind you know it's not just change your mind for the sake of it but when you change your mind because you've got evidence for something and you've gone "No that wasn't a smart decision this is a smarter decision” you change your mind I think that's brilliant right uh because because it's telling you that people have really thought about this thing and haven't just carried on doing a thing for the sake of it they've really thought about it everything we do has to have impact I’m not interested in doing stuff for the sake of it I’m not interested in spending time money resources and kind of going through the motions of something um I want everything to have impact a thing that comes across my desk quite often is something a program that we've run as a department and then we'll get to the end and they'll say "Teachers now feel more confident teaching this thing or doing this thing." Fine but that's not enough what I want to know is is it making a difference to the kids because if it's not making a difference to the kids we're not doing it anymore we're going to stop doing that thing if it's not making a difference to the kids.

I've already talked about this notion of tight and flexible as a system of course we got to hold together and there's some things that we you know really need to hold tightly to but there are things that we can be flexible on to make sure that schools can make smart choices and all of that means that we've got to take a stance where we trust our principles we trust our teachers we trust our governing councils yeah it's public money that we're spending we need to be accountable we need to verify that but I want us to start with the position where we trust people why because we're all in it for the same reason because we're all in it for this right to make sure that our kids can thrive and prosper can learn and achieve and we have to start with the notion that we can trust each other um or else we'll just screw things down so tightly that we won't actually get anything done.

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Look I think there's you know there's a few things that I just wanted to uh to perhaps pull out um you know and trying to kind of bring this alive you know when we talk about curiosity what's really been really interesting recently is you know um there's a big this this these tests that 15 year olds do all around the world not every student does it it's kind of a sample in in all different countries and um it's called the PISA test.

And one of the things that they test is maths and the and uh we just got some results international results and you can see how South Australians did and you can see how Australians did but what's interesting is you can see the results and how we're doing but what you can also see in these tests is um the surveys that kids do and you can see the sorts of things that make the biggest difference you know sorts of experiences that kids have and the sorts of things that make the biggest difference to their maths performance.

And having a good teacher is it, of course it is right makes a big difference, but one of the things that makes an even bigger difference than the support that the teacher gives to the child is the curiosity of that kid and it's funny because in the Australian curriculum doesn't mention curiosity, it doesn't say it's teacher's job to develop curiosity in kids and yet what the what we heard from employers from parents from kids was want to be curious want to develop curious people.

And now what we see from these PISA results is that curiosity actually helps kids in things like their maths performance and that kind of sounds like a no-brainer when you say it out loud like of course it does but it's not in the Australian curriculum it's not in systems around Australia but we're saying in South Australia we're putting that back in because we know how important it is for kids to learn for kids to be excellent but also to make sure that kids can go into their lives as really effective learners.

Talked about the sense of belonging won't talk about that anymore but even things like self-regulation you know there's a couple of things that go on with self-regulation of course you know that you know often kids neuro with neurodiverse kids feel a sense of um sometimes get that kind of dysregulated you know things not just can't hold on to things and of course we want to be able to support them and develop their ability to do that.

That's not what this is talking about this is just helping kids to stop and think to not be pushed around by their emotions to not be pushed around by um you know messages that they're getting on social media and some of those things um what we know is that those things when you develop that as a child and it doesn't matter when you develop it when you're young when you're a teenager if you develop that as a child it improves your education outcomes improves your health outcomes.

Makes you much more less likely to uh to be addicted to drugs makes you much less likely to commit crimes makes you much um much more likely to find yourself in a higher paid job all of these things that make such a massive difference to kids and again was that in the curriculum it's in the early years it's really strong in the early years but when we get to school because we're so focused on knowledge and skills associated with subjects we don't focus on this we've got to focus on this all the evidence is telling us about how important this is.

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But one of the questions there was quite a lot of was how will you know that this has been successful so three or four years from now what are the measures of success or the indicators of growth that you're looking for?

Great so um this a great question right so what does success look like so you know so just think about it if we just step back outside of the system and go okay so what does success look like how would you know if you've been successful you'd know you've been successful because kids want to go to school because they feel like it's part of it so you'd see it in attendance.

You'd see it in you know in some of our communities and across South Australia we get kids who leave school in year 9 but we never see them again in year 10 um once you get to year 10 once it gets to year 11 they do tend to stick a lot a bit more to year 12 but we do see kids dropping out of our system and we lose them that retention I want to make sure if we've really got this kind of notion of equity and everybody being having a way of being successful we'd expect to see as a system we'd expect to see that.

Um and so these are traditional measure would you expect to see an increase in NAPLAN results of course you would you'd expect that you all of these things have been chosen because they all connect together so yeah I'm not backing away from things like NAPLAN results those are part of how we would see success but that's standing back and um and seeing the system from outside and what the system uh what the system looks like.

And there's a whole you know I could talk about a whole heap of measures you know uh SACE results yep we'll be looking at those A to E grades that students get at school yep I'd be looking for those you know but they're all the traditional things because we would expect that these things would contribute to those traditional measures that any system would have of themselves.

Um we'd also you know so we've got measures we do a survey of students right across South Australia that look at things like wellbeing and these measures of well-being and so we've got indicators of well-being and we'd expect to see the wellbeing of our kids improve um learner agency is a really tricky one to measure and so we're still grappling with that and I'll come back to that in a sec.

We we'll put some measures in place in the hands of teachers I’m not interested in put doing a standardised test for you know curiosity we're not we're not doing that right we're not doing an exam on curiosity uh but there are ways of getting some evidence about the curiosity of kids um not to roll it up as a system and go 20% increase in curiosity over here it's not so much that as being able to share with parents.

You know so um about so you know some indication around students curiosity and creativity their ability to stop and think um and of course there's a whole bunch of um so those things wellbeing, learner agency and being an effective learner uh those things are largely about the students and so we'll have measured those of those and you'll be able to see kind of where your kids are and how they've developed and how over schooling over the year and from one year to the next those things have improved.

Um the equity and excellence of course we've got things like NAPLAN results and some things there but those there's no dotted line around that one because those are less about the kids they're a bit more about the system you know so we need to think about inclusion you know for our kids with disability uh you know for different kids in the system, public education is really diverse and that is an enormous strength an enormous strength as long as we're inclusive right as long as we feel like we're in this together and we're serving all of our kids.

Um and so making sure that we've got that inclusion and we talk here about breaking the link between background and excellence so really making sure that you know whatever the life experiences of our kids are that we're really supporting them to be um excellent so we've got traditional system measures we know that those if we if this is working we know that those should improve but we've also got some indicators kind of at a child level and a student level um that you'll be able to talk about.

Um you know so NAPLAN for example is an indicator of literacy and numeracy it's not the definition of literacy and numeracy you know the example I often give is you know the look in a kid's eye doesn't matter if you're 7 or 17 years old the look in their eye when you ask them "How much milk do you think there is in the world?" And they go you know you can see right so some kids kind of fold and go "I don't know I don't know."

Some kids go "Oh I don't know uh oh hang on we're just talking about cow's milk we talk we talk about all mammals what about What about almond milk we talk about that." And you see what they're doing they're constructing the problem in the head that you know I've asked the question but they're going oh what's he actually asking and the that's a really important part of numeracy it's not in the NAPLAN test because you can't because you can't really do it in a written test but it's important part of numeracy.

So NAPLAN is gives us some indication of literacy and numeracy but it's not the definition of the thing I want to be able to put that in your hands for your child for your school I want to be able to put that in your hands but I also want to be able to put in your hands some evidence of these other things as well.

You know the thing that will make the biggest difference is the reputation of your kids and what I mean by that is like I got this job not because I did a test but because of my reputation because of what I did in the past and so people thought that I would be able to do this job and it's the same for our kids and what sometimes when you focus too much on some narrow things you know we talk to principals who'll say you know so primary principles who said we did this great thing and our literacy and numeracy results went up.

And then when we talked to the high school they said you know your kids knowledge is really good but they're not very good at collaborating and they're not very good at problem solving they're not very good at you know working with others to solve a problem and they're not um oh what else did she say uh oh they're not very good at grappling with a problem you know if somebody's not taught them how to do it they don't know how to find their own way to do it she was crushed you know because she said she thought she did a great job and she had done a great job it was just kind of incomplete and now they're working on that and that's okay.

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