Reviews of two schools should be sounding alarm bells for parents and teachers - and be prompting a major rethink of the Education Directorate's overall strategy.
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Kingsford Smith School is a so-called "super school" which was born out of the closure of Holt and Higgins Primary Schools and Ginninderra High School in Belconnen.
The school has been chronically understaffed in recent years which has hampered efforts to get consistency when it comes to teaching and behaviour management processes.
Teachers reported feeling overwhelmed and under-resourced to deal with challenging students.
The students said some of the classes weren't well-planned and engaging.
Meanwhile, Margaret Hendry School only opened its doors five years ago as an "innovative learning environment" with a focus on personalised learning for every child.
The open-plan school is organised into four "learning communities" with mixed ages which operate like separate schools within the school.
While it was no-doubt a well-meaning attempt to create a learning environment to set students up for a future where critical and creative-thinking will be more important than ever, it has not delivered on this promise.
The emphasis on inquiry-based learning has taken priority over the need to give students the skills and knowledge they require to be able to investigate the world around them.
The lack of structure has also left some students lost (some were "absconding" from class) and created opportunity for bullying and occupational violence.
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Education Directorate officials say both schools already had access to resources for evidence-based teaching practices and both schools had positive behaviours for learning programs in place.
The problem in their eyes is the lack of consistency with which these plans were adhered to.
It's true that a nation-wide teacher shortage is impacting most schools.
However, some schools are more impacted by staff shortages than others. This points to deeper cultural issues at some campuses.
The Margaret Hendry staff reported they did not feel confident raising problems with the senior leadership.
Staff at Kingsford Smith had given up on reporting their work health and safety problems in the "Riskman" system.
There is no reason why one ACT public school should be performing better than another. There also shouldn't be any difference between one classroom and the next within a school. Students from any background should be given the chance to thrive.
But the fact is at the moment the quality of a child's education is a lottery.
While it's important for schools to have their own culture and things that make it special, every school should be aiming for consistent behaviour and academic expectations.
This is something that school leaders and teachers can't and shouldn't be expected to do on their own.
It will take strong leadership from the ACT Education Directorate to truly make the public school system equitable.
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