Principals Australia Institute’s project worked with two activity areas through MATSITI: enhancing school leaders’ capacity to support newly-appointed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers; and building the capacity of future school leaders. Both strands involved practical, highly-interactive approaches across the life of the projects. What became apparent is that with individualised and contextualised professional support to newly-appointed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers and future leaders shared through experienced colleagues (including those who themselves are not Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders), the professional journey is enhanced. Further, when the professional journey is seen as an opportunity to share cultural perspectives, outcomes are even stronger. Peter O’Beirne, Consultant, Principals Australia Institute MATSITI #OurMobTeach conference, 30 September 2015

1. … Engaging Mentors and Enhancing Leadership
 Two components: 2014 and 2015
 Two focuses:
 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers new to teaching …. a
mentoring focus
 Future educational leaders who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islanders… a leadership development focus
# OURMOBTEACHConference , 30 September 2015

2. What the project did…..
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander teachers new to teaching ….
…..a mentoring focus..
 17 in-school pairs of mentees and mentors…..most states;
government and Catholic schools
 Principals/line managers as ‘mentors’ as opposed to ‘supervisors’
 …active support…. jointly identifying support needs…. creating
learning and development opportunities… build mentors’ cultural
intelligence….
 March-October, 2014: face-to-face, online and webinars
 Possibly a ‘first’ of its kind

3. Successes…
 100% strongly agreed or agreed that ‘it was a very helpful/useful partnership’
 100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘felt and equal partner’
 88% of mentors felt that mentees had challenged their (ie the mentor’s) thinking
 100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘recommend the mentee-mentor partnership
to future graduate teachers’;
 43% of mentee respondents strongly agreed that ‘the mentor gave me opportunities
along the way’
 100% strongly agreed or agreed that they ‘felt and equal partner’

4. Challenges...
 Keeping ‘mentor/mentee’ separate from line manager relationships
 Sharing the simplicity of the model!
 Getting it on schools’ and principals’ radars…..
 Such a model doesn’t appear to be in place

5. What the project did…..
Future educational leaders who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders…
….. a leadership development focus …
 23 current and future leaders: 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and
women
 Primary, secondary, K-12; govt./Cath. schools; seven
states/territories
 Leadership development workshop, Part 1 workplace project
workshop, Part 2
 Based on PAI’s L5 Framework
 Leadership learning and cross-cultural learning

6. Successes…
 … The mixture of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and non-indigenous people encouraged
a much deeper and more meaningful discussion …. A great model for inclusive
partnerships in education …
 … not only the networking opportunities but also hearing stories from a cross-section of
people has helped me understand different perspectives about Indigenous education …
 … we’ve been able to share, to bring a lot of expertise together and when we think about
bringing together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, what we’re saying is that if we can
do it , then other people can do it … it will empower other people to take on leadership
roles…..

7. Challenges...
 Sharing the simplicity of the model!
 Encouraging systems and schools to continue such a model.. very low-cost
 Getting it on schools’ and principals’ radars…..
 Separating ‘system’ approaches from broader professional
learning….developing ‘professionals’ as opposed to developing ‘employees’

8. What?
So what?
What next?
#OurMobTeach