Teach the Teacher is a student-led professional development program for teachers.
See how it works at Mount Waverley Secondary College.

Who’s involved?

THE TEAM
9 student leaders in Year 11, supported by the Leader of Programs and Student Leadership. 

THE STUDENT-TEACHER SESSION
Session 1 had 30 teachers participate; Session 2 had 20 teachers. 

What’s it all about?

The Teach the Teacher team aims to improve student-teacher relationships and enhance teaching and learning outcomes and in doing so, create positive lasting change and truly make a difference by helping students develop and lead conversations with their teachers. By encouraging student voice, students have established a forum for students to express their opinions and truly represent them to make a difference in terms of academic success at the college.

Diagram outlining the timeline for Mt Waverley's Teach the Teacher program

Topic

Improving teaching and learning outcomes 

Goal

Establishing a college-wide feedback pro forma that all teachers can use for any of their classes 

Outcomes

Students have discussed the positive impact that we have had, saying that they “can see a huge improvement in the way teachers teach now”, “it has made everyone realise that it is possible for students to talk to teachers and give them feedback and it doesn’t have to be in a negative light” and “it’s nice for the teacher to hear the good stuff once in a while but constructive criticism is good too”. 

Next Steps

We hope to build on what we have achieved this year, with a new team of Year 11 and 12 students continuing every year into the future as an executive team, working together with all students, not just student leaders, to represent student voice. Advocating for student voice and representation is an incredibly powerful tool that, when combined with collaboration between teachers and students, we can use to achieve previously unimagined progress.   

We envision Teach the Teacher continuing as a forum for engaging the school community and amplifying student voice to improve teaching and learning outcomes.