Building a Culture of Research and Professional Growth within Trinity Grammar School

Semester 1 events hosted by The Hurlstone Centre

In Term 1, The Hurlstone Centre hosted the School’s inaugural ResearchMeet, a twilight event that featured six Trinity staff research projects. Each presenter gave a 7 minute presentation, with a few minutes for questions. The audience included teachers from across our campuses.

Presenters:

Melinda Bargwanna – Cultivating Connections: Junior School boys co-creating green spaces of wellbeing (Recipient of the 2025 IBSC Action Research Award)

David Chilton –Teaching History in the Information Age: A Delphi Study (current PhD candidate at Macquarie University)

Nadene O’Neill – Sharing Story: A Relational Pedagogy (Recipient of the 2025 Teachers’ Guild of NSW Research Award, IBSC Action Research Program Graduate 2024)

Andrew Miles – Boosting Motivation and Engagement through Feedback and Goal Setting (Trinity Teachers as Researchers Action Research PLT project, 2025)

Leah Arthur – Using mentoring to increase students’ servant leadership competencies (IBSC Action Research Program Graduate 2024)

Ethan Truong – School Choice and Achievement: How methodology shapes what we can (and can’t) claim (MEd UNSW Capstone Research Project)

 

Following the success of our Term 1 event, we will hold another ResearchMeet in Term 4 2026.

Our Term 2 events focused on Women Educating in Boys’ Schools, a program that commenced in 2025. At the beginning of the Term, a panel discussion over breakfast considered the theme of Supporting Success for Women Educators in Boys’ Schools.

Panellists:

Geneva Clayton, Head of the Preparatory School

Belinda Reid, Head of Human Resources

Ed Habkouk, Head of Faculty – Mathematics

Carrie Wang, Assistant Head of Faculty – Mathematics (Acting)

Shelley Richards, Kindergarten to Year 2 Stage Leader, Junior School

Neil Van Heerden, Residential Operations Coordinator at the Field Studies Centre

 

Following the panel discussion, colleagues were invited to breakfast discussion circles held at each of our campuses, with guided conversation about the video, ‘Boys and Men as Allies in Achieving Gender Equality’, from the European Institute for Gender Equality’s 2024 Forum.

Also in Term 2, The Hurlstone Centre collaborated with the Careers and Student Pathways team at Trinity to host a research-informed community breakfast for senior students, parents and staff, Human Capability in an AI World. Our guest speaker was Professor Karen Whelan from the University of Technology Sydney.

 

Informing School decision-making with research

In Semester 1, as Trinity considered its position in relation to delaying smartphones for primary and lower secondary students, our Head of Research and Professional Growth Dr Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn joined the School’s working group led by Deputy Headmaster -Summer Hill, Bradley Barr. She put together a research team comprising Matt Charles (Junior School), Andrew Miles (Preparatory School) and Claudia Tessadri (Middle School Housemaster), who co-designed two surveys, one for students and the other for parents, to gain insight into students’ smartphone ownership and use, and to gauge community support for a smartphone delay. Kimberley’s contribution to this working group also included conducting a literature review about the impact of smartphone ownership and use on students’ learning and wellbeing, to inform the School’s position.

Aligned with the smartphone delay initiative was the introduction of a Social and Emotional Learning unit for Stage 3 students at our two primary schools, based on Jonathan Haidt’s graphic novel, The Amazing Generation. Led by Matt Charles at the Junior School and Andrew Miles at the Preparatory School, the students were surveyed before and after engaging in the unit, with data gathered to evaluate the impact of the lessons and to inform refinement of the unit for future delivery.

 

Research-focused Professional Learning Teams

While each of our PLTs across our campuses draws on research and engages teachers with relevant research, some of our PLTs are intentionally focused on developing teachers’ capacity to conduct research or take a deeper dive into research and consider its application in their practice. For example, our Teachers as Researchers PLT supports secondary teachers to design and engage in action research projects in their own teaching contexts.

A new PLT that has been introduced this year has an in-depth focus on research commissioned by the International Boys’ Schools Coalition and conducted by Professor Andrew Martin from the University of New South Wales. The PLT members have read and discussed the Final Research Report, The role of educators in supporting boys’ academic and social-emotional wellbeing: Identifying successful practice in daily interactions, classroom instruction and co-curricular leadership. They then engaged with the associated Strategy Resource to incorporate and evaluate a strategy in their own practice, either in the classroom or in their co-curricular context. A highlight of this PLT’s time together has been the opportunity to engage in conversation about the research with Professor Martin, one of The Hurlstone Centre’s External Advisory Group members, who visited one of the PLT’s meetings.