NTLC - Pivot Stories 

Download Case Study Here 

This case study will give you a snapshot of the powerful collaborations playing out each and every day in the Territory. Where students have a genuine impact on the ‘core business’ of their school, the impact can be felt much further than the school gates. Building voice and agency into learning and providing for full participation in your school community enables better, stronger connections with community.

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What is this story telling me? 

This Northern Territory Learning Commission school has long had a keen interest in student voice as an instrument of sustained learning growth and student engagement and wellbeing. They previously had been running a student voice survey of their own, generated by Google Forms. Formalising the process of gathering student feedback data was a big step for this school. Although this meant moving away from a familiar approach, there were significant benefits to be gained in reducing administrative load and providing aggregated reports quickly and easily.

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When Pivot was first introduced, teachers were able to choose which classes they surveyed - a fine example of teacher voice and agency. The principal and leadership team also surveyed their classes to model feedback “from the top”. Teachers worked in subject teams to discuss how they would introduce the survey to their students, and together they formulated approaches to feed a selection of the Pivot survey results back to their students. During the entire process, the Principal’s “open door policy” was in place for anyone to pop in at any time with any questions or concerns.

This school experienced two significant shifts in their year of Pivot: the increase in teacher uptake and classes surveyed, and the total number of students responses received. The key drivers for this increase were replicated in other schools in the NTLC network, illustrated by the feedback received from teachers and principals when describing why Pivot was valuable to them:

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• 67 per cent of respondents said one of the most valuable outcomes of doing the survey was that it allowed students to ‘have a say’ on their learning environment.

• 100 per cent of respondents reported they intended to discuss their teacher survey results with their students.

• 78 per cent of respondents said they had or would discuss their results with their school leaders.

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Critically, teachers worked as partners with their colleagues and their students to reflect on and respond to the data in cross-faculty teams. They work on developing a shared language with their students about the change they want to co-design and co-create together in their classrooms. The mantra for this school is about recognising the story behind the data, because each student (and teacher, and principal) will

bring a unique interpretation and a richness to this story.

“Pivot is clear evidence of how you teach. It’s a story. Feedback from students is important because

they are the main benefactors of your teaching”. Teacher

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