Autumn 2005

Leadership

Paint, lights, curtain, curriculum!

A principal with a vision and entrepreneurial skills has driven the development of a curriculum that uses visual and performing arts as a basis for teaching and learning in a government specialist school in Melbourne. MARTIN COMTE and PAM RUSSELL tell the story.

UNDER THE leadership of its principal, Bella Irlicht, Port Phillip Specialist School in Melbourne has recently introduced an innovative and experimental curriculum initiative. For some years, Bella Irlicht has had a vision: to put the visual and performing arts at the centre of the curriculum. And so, approximately two years ago, she set about encouraging the school community to embrace the vision, subsequently gaining support from the broader educational community. It has been a process requiring a degree of stamina, dedication and courage—courage because she was all too aware of the potential pitfalls that lay ahead.

Port Phillip Specialist School caters for children aged 5 to 18 with a wide range of disabilities. Their needs are such that it does not make sense merely to duplicate the curriculum offered in mainstream schools. These children are different. Their needs are different. The school aims to do whatever it can to enable them to have a rich and rewarding life during their school years and beyond.

The experience of teachers at the school over many years has been that arts activities facilitate development and learning in a range of areas. In part, it is the non-verbal nature of the arts. And also because children can express things in music, movement, dance, drama and visual art that they are unable to express in language. (This, of course, is true also for children in regular schools.)

Bella’s belief in the power of the arts convinced her of the need to turn the curriculum upside down and come up with a radical alternative to teaching and learning. The end result has been the design of a curriculum that is sensory in nature—a curriculum in which the arts are explored and used educationally, instrumentally and therapeutically to maximise sensory experience, development and learning across all curriculum areas.

It needs to be stressed that in wishing to put the arts at the centre of the curriculum the aim was not to teach the arts per se and neglect essential areas of learning. On the contrary, the aim was to use the arts as tools to learning across the broad curriculum perspective. It also needs to be noted that in a school of this type, the arts have a role other than their normal educational role—they have a therapeutic role.

For children in this school, arts therapy is extremely important. And so another aim of the project was to strengthen the school’s commitment to the arts as therapy as distinct from an emphasis on arts education. The goals of these two streams—arts education and arts therapy—are not the same. But in addition to these two approaches to the arts, the vision brings in a third stream: the arts as a tool for learning across all curriculum areas. Again, as with therapy, understanding of the arts per se is not the primary goal in this approach. Underpinning all three streams is an emphasis on sensory learning.

Bella’s vision also entailed building an arts complex to assist in effective program delivery. It was here that her entrepreneurial skills came to the fore. She managed to convince private donors and the government of the importance of her vision, and this has resulted in the school community raising $1 million and the government contributing a further $1 million. Her efforts were coordinated through the School Council and the school’s Port Phillip Foundation.

In discussing the design of the curriculum Bella says, ‘You must have the right people with the skills you need to build and develop appropriate structures’. While she worked at the macro level, Bella looked for people who could work at the micro level with specific expertise to achieve her vision. It was at this point that she engaged the services of Pam Russell, who effectively became the project manager.

Pam gathered around her a team of specialists who, between them, represented extensive expertise in the arts and curriculum development. These specialists in turn worked with school-based personnel, including teachers, teacher aides and therapists.

The change process began with an audit of the school’s curriculum. Focus groups with teachers, specialist support personnel, paramedics and the administration were formed. Many teachers were also interviewed individually. Alongside this, the specialist team had access to the printed curriculum. Integral to this process has been a sharing of beliefs and understandings. Staff and the broader community were partners in the process; there was ownership and an absence of fear. Staff members were assured of anonymity with respect to their responses to questioning as a means of getting critical feedback. As a result, even negatives became positives in the reflective process. This took a great deal of trust and courage on the part of Bella. She knowingly brought in a team who, as part of the change process, were going to elicit criticism of present practices. A lot of leaders would find this difficult!

This groundwork for the design of the curriculum took place over the first two terms of 2004. After this the team had the task of coming up with a relevant curriculum model. By early term 3 a draft curriculum model had been developed and a whole-day seminar was held to present it to staff. This provided the opportunity for further feedback and refinement of the model. A 3D model was developed, and it was given to staff to play with. The model places the child at the centre and includes an appropriate administrative structure designed to facilitate its operation.

Once the key stakeholders were happy with the model the task of writing the curriculum began. A major dilemma was how to structure a curriculum for these children. There were no appropriate models of a school with the arts as the basis of learning and teaching.

The resultant curriculum was launched at a celebratory event in December 2004 and was attended by all major stakeholders. It will be implemented from 2005.

Why has the process been so successful? There are many reasons. One has been Bella’s recognition that the success of the vision would require the participation of all members of the broad community. Another reason has been her recognising what she does well and where she, as leader, needs specialist assistance. Bella’s vision and entrepreneurial skills have been vital to the process and she has concentrated on these while enlisting additional support in leading other aspects of the change she envisaged. She recognised, for example, the need to engage a project manager while, at the same time, maintaining for herself a background presence. It is a good example of the different behaviours and practices required at different levels of an organisation. The leadership requirements of Bella were different from those required from Pam; yet each set of skills has been mutually supportive.

The situation in schools today is too complex for one person to lead entirely by herself. This is Bella’s ongoing challenge. She recognises the ongoing need to engage and empower all staff. Equally, she is well aware of the need to monitor the process and respond to perceived needs for change. Put differently, Bella’s challenge will be to enable the new model to work, a process that will require continual evaluation, reflection and adaptation. The process will also involve identifying the indicators of success and how these can be measured.

The processes used by Bella and the team are not exclusive to education. They would be just as powerful in other professional situations, commerce and industry. As Bella says, ‘Leadership is seeing and understanding your community, and knowing what is needed and what strategies to put in place. Leadership is about seeing it and doing it’.

Martin Comte is an education and arts consultant and formerly Dean of the Faculty of Education & Training at RMIT University.

Pam Russell is an education and research consultant with experience in primary, secondary and tertiary settings.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au