Cultivating a Positive and Professional Staff Culture

Written by Maree Comerford, Program Leader Staff Development, St Joseph's College Toowoomba

The challenges facing the teacher workforce are intensifying, with factors such as workload, recognition, and classroom conditions impacting teacher wellbeing and, consequently, retention within the profession. To address these issues, St Joseph’s College Toowoomba has implemented strategic Staff Development and Engagement Plans over the past two years.

Our plans are developed through a consultative community approach and focus on our staff’s professional wellbeing, guided by our three pillars: “You Belong Here, You Are Valued Here, You Can Succeed Here.” To address our pillars, these annual plans are driven by our College’s innovative visions and include elements such as providing time, support and autonomy for Professional Learning Teams, offering programs to meet teachers’ career development, and de-implementation strategies to manage teacher workload.

With the ever-changing and unpredictable nature of our world and our students’ experiences, the importance of meeting the professional needs and development of teachers is as important as ever. Committed and dedicated teachers seek research-based, current strategies to assist their students learning. Providing time and support for this desired development is important at St Joseph’s College and as such is a vital element of our Staff Development and Engagement plans. Four years ago, the College Leadership team made the strategic decision to create time within the timetable for all teaching staff to work and learn together every Wednesday afternoon for an hour. This time is highly valued and strictly reserved for our teachers professional learning and development. Across the year, teachers work in Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) of 6 – 10 teachers. With the College’s support and provided structures, teams use our impact cycle model to learn and grow within an identified focus area. In recent years, teachers have actively engaged with the College Annual Action Plan to generate relevant topics for our PLTs to explore. This engagement has allowed us as a community to balance the needs of the collective, the College strategic directions, with the autonomous desires of our professionals.

An annual highlight at the College, and in our wider community, is the sharing of growth experienced from engaging in our PLTs. The event provides an opportunity for learning and professional growth for all as each teacher presents their work and learning from their impact cycle. Our showcase also allows us to address a further element of our Staff Development and Engagement plan, “recognition and appreciation of contributions to the team”. Every teacher is seen, heard and recognized at this event. Their contributions are appreciated by the entire teaching community and the shared practice amplifies the development of the whole St Joseph’s teaching team. The College extends this element of the plan to many other aspects of College life, knowing the impact and importance of teacher contributions and acknowledging them in appropriate and relevant ways.

Within any school context the experience levels of teachers vary from beginning teachers to those who have dedicated their careers to the profession. St Joseph’s College acknowledges these variations and through the Staff Development and Engagement plans aims to meet each teacher “where they are at” in their career and support their professional growth desires. We provide an extensive range of opportunities addressing growth from early career guidance and mentoring through to middle and aspirant leadership development.

As we address these stages in our plans, we also acknowledge the scope and duration of a teacher’s career development stage. For example, our commitment to those teachers beginning their career is not restricted to just the first year of teaching or assisting graduate teachers to gain full registration. We must recognise the learning journey and development as a teacher is far more complex. We are intentional in offering a structured and community supported approach to Pre-Service Teachers. Our St Joseph’s College teachers are identified and trained in-house as coaches to support university students. Furthermore, we have created the Pathway2Teach Program which provides ready to graduate university students the opportunity to join our Professional Learning community one day a week across ten weeks to deepen their understanding of the teaching profession beyond what their studies and placement experience could offer. Finally, when a graduate teacher is employed at the College, they join our Early Career Teacher Community of Practice which meets weekly to share their collective journeys, raise questions, discuss challenges, and celebrate successes in a psychologically safe environment. The Community of Practice now includes teachers in their third and fourth years who requested to remain in the program as the relationships formed and assistance provided continues to support their growth in the profession.

Finally, with a further element of our plans being to “Continually improve ways of working to streamline workflow productivity and mitigate stressors”, we can ensure a focus on assisting teachers with the demands of the profession. Evidence of this commitment is through the successful implementation of the College Electronic Communication Protocols in mid-2023. This College wide agreement toward communication processes in regard to our identified workday, pre-dated any corporate or governmental directives which speaks to the foresight and innovation our Staff Development and Engagement plans allow us. We continue our commitment to de-implementation strategies as we are currently exploring practices for efficient and effective Live Feedback to our community. With our Staff Development and Engagement plans guiding us, we are ensuring that the providing of Live Feedback on student performance does not increase teacher workload or demand, rather it aims to mitigate the stressors of reporting while providing valuable information to all stakeholders in our community.

The use of our Staff Development and Engagement plans have helped St Joseph’s College establish a supportive environment and culture that promotes professional growth and job satisfaction. Evidence of our positive culture includes high teacher retention rates and a strong teacher attraction position. The creation of this rewarding professional culture and the implementation of our Staff Development and Engagement Plans have been a journey of learning for our leadership team and the College. Our presentation at the National Education Summit in Brisbane aims to share our Development and Engagement Plans, our learnings, and our experiences with overcoming challenges to assist other schools in proactively addressing the issues facing the profession and supporting teacher wellbeing.

Maree is presenting in the Wellbeing for Future Focused Schools Conference Brisbane on 31 July - 1 August 2025 at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre