(Peter Kent Deputy Principal – Richardson Primary School)

About the School

Richardson Primary School is an ACT government primary school located in the Tuggeranong region on the southern fringe of Canberra, Australia. It has an enrolment of 220 students of which around 30 have identified special needs. The school is designated as disadvantaged and it draws its population from a socio-economically depressed area.

The Reason for IWBs

Within the context of the ACT, Richardson Primary School traditionally draws students who have poor literacy and numeracy skills when first enrolling in school. Due to this fact Richardson Primary has an ongoing focus on the teaching of literacy and numeracy. Richardson Primary School has also had a long-term commitment to enriching the learning environment of the school through the use of information and communication technology. The introduction of IWBs resulted from the combination of these two priorities, which is the ongoing desire to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes for students within an environment that is enriched through the immersion of information and communication technologies.

Strategies and Action

The school formed a professional learning community to develop a broad set of teaching strategies that used interactive whiteboards to enhance the teaching of literacy and numeracy. The professional learning community used the school’s pre-existing literacy and numeracy programs as the starting point and through a process of continual discussion and reflection evolved a new pedagogy (e-Teaching) for the teaching of literacy and numeracy using IWBs as a tool.

Brief Outcomes

The introduction of IWBs resulted in significant enhancements to the literacy and numeracy outcomes, particularly the kindergarten cohort and a significant improvement in the engagement of students evidenced by a dramatic reduction in student absences. A new pedagogy, ‘e-teaching’ to integrate ICTs into classroom practice was also created.

Where to from here?

The professional learning community formed as part of the initiative has continued its work of developing new pedagogy to enhance student-learning outcomes across a broader range of the curriculum. Work is being undertaken to form partnerships with other schools to enrich and widen the professional learning community