"By empowering a school community, you build the foundation for positive education outcomes for students."
John Burke
Principal, Belridge Secondary College
As principal of Belridge Secondary College, John’s strategic direction for the school community is deliberately both challenging and realistic to improve student engagement and achievement. His strengths in instructional leadership are driving reform and his focus on student performance data is being used to develop targeted teaching, learning and assessment.
John’s distributed leadership and strategic planning skills were evident as principal of Hedland Senior High School where he developed working partnerships in the school and wider community. Before this, he played a key role in transitioning Kwinana Senior High School to Gilmore College from 2007 to 2010 and led a whole-school approach to improve student attendance and student wellbeing.
In his change project, John studied successful classroom feedback and observation regimes in secondary schools. He examined four case studies of schools that have established effective teacher feedback regimes, including classroom observation and student feedback, with an emphasis on improving teacher efficacy.