And the way the pair bounce off each other and finish each other’s sentences is equal parts amusing and heart-warming.
As winner of the 2024 Global EdTech Award for Independent School’s Best Digital Transformation, and recognised as a Google Reference School, Melbourne’s St Peter’s Sunshine West Primary is blazing an incredible innovation trail for others to follow, and its thanks in no small part to this dynamic leadership duo.
Frazzica and her deputy Ita Begley have managed to transform a previously fragmented school culture and barely-there tech presence into a veritable digital powerhouse, with staff, students, parents all foremost in the planning, building and executing of a ground-breaking blueprint for success.
St Peter’s is a boutique inner city school. With 26 languages and a 76 per cent EAL student cohort, the school community us highly diverse, with a wide range of circumstances, some trauma-enforced backgrounds, and a very low DMI index of 81.
Most of the school’s 180-190 students are from hard-working migrant families.
Getting back on track
Frazzica arrived at the school in 2014 having already enjoyed a successful career as a youth worker.
Working in prisons, she had seen how many often well-educated young men’s lives could be derailed, and so decided she wanted to flip her focus instead to a preventative role in primary schools.
Starting as a student wellbeing leader, she spent time as a classroom teacher, in family/school partnerships, as school chaplain, and as deputy principal, and eventually assumed the role of principal prior to the COVID pandemic.
With Begley arriving in 2013, over the coming years the pair began to see the potential of technology in many facets of the curriculum, but also, importantly given their context, to bridge language barriers and enhance engagement between students and the school, and their families.
In 2018, thanks to a needs-based funding boost, the school began trialling Chromebooks for Years 3-6 students.
“…every parent or carer had to come to an information session, and if they didn’t, they didn’t get the Chromebook,” Frazzica says.
Begley says that’s because the school was intent on upskilling families as well.
As part of the school’s strategic plan, all teaching staff and learning support officers learn about integrating G Suite tools into curriculum, and partner with Google representatives to obtain their Google Certified Educator accreditation.
“Because they (migrant parents) have a low social capital. They come over here, many can’t really understand the language, so when we have these information sessions, we provide translators, we make the knowledge known to them – and that knowledge is power.”
Frazzica says to have the best education, the best health and the best facilities, one needs to be able to know how to access that.
“And when language is a barrier, it’s really hard to be able to access that and to advocate for your child,” she says.
“We want every parent and every carer in our school to be able to advocate for their child.”
Battle-ready for COVID’s many challenges
Soon equipped with Chromebooks for each student, when COVID hit the school’s online infrastructure was already well established and far advanced compared to many other schools.
“…every child took their Chromebook home and we learned the power of making learning visible,” Frazzica says.
“Families could use things like Google Translate to help them understand what their child was doing online.”
But, Begley concedes, it wasn’t until last year that the school set about ‘reinventing the classroom’, so to speak.
In conjunction with digital technology learning consultants at Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), the school established a partnership with HP education ambassador Brett Salakas.
Under his careful guidance, staff have put into motion the 'Reinvent the Classroom' (RTC) framework.
Through innovative programs and partnerships, the school has integrated cutting-edge tools and resources, empowering students to explore, create, and connect in ways never before possible.
Families, students and staff along for the ride
On top of overcoming barriers for families, the school was intent on removing learning hurdles for students. Increasing engagement and attendance were top of the priority list.
“They’re digital babies. They’re living in a world where tech is at their fingertips, so we wanted to harness that as a tool to get them to share their thinking about their learning,” Begley, who’s also curriculum leader, explains.
The leadership team gathered data from students and staff using the RTC Readiness survey and based on the results, developed a list of aims which aligned with their whole school strategic plan, as well as a professional development learning plan.
In order to build teacher capacity and confidence in new and emerging technologies, whole school professional learning times were organised and run by a variety of education technology experts.
Frazzica is keen to emphasise that aside from the digital transformation, critically, she and Begley had begun much-needed work on improving the school's culture well before this point, and as far back as 2013.
Frazzica, above left, and Begley, are a formidable leadership team that has driven the school to integrate cutting-edge tools and resources into its curriculum, empowering students to explore, create, and connect in ways never before possible.
“It wasn’t a very united kind of culture,” she says.
“So we, the leadership team, spent a very long time strategically building up what’s now a beautiful staff culture, and so our MACS data for the last eight years is in the 90 to 100 per cent (range) of being a positive culture [according to] students, families and staff.
“This meant we could say ‘the culture is strong, so now we can implement these changes’. You can’t implement changes if you don’t have the school culture in place.”
Embracing AI and all of its advantages
Along with the proposed banning of social media for under 16s, the most talked about tech issue in schools this year has been AI and how to safely and ethically harness its many uses.
There’s a great deal of apprehension in the sector, misinformation and legitimate concerns, however St Peter’s has confidently been integrating the technology to its advantage.
“We’re teaching our children to be critical thinkers, to think strategically about what they’re asking AI to do, because the better that they use AI, the better the [outcome] they’re going to get,” Frazzica says.
Begley says because the school’s approach is that AI does not replace human intelligence and that there’s always a human required to drive it, there is no need for fear within the school community.
Recently, a favourite application is the illustrating of student-written books online.
“The children have written their stories and their hard copy in their books, and when they’re publishing, they can create their images using AI digital tools,” she says.
“…our teachers are creating songs using an AI app, and then they look at those in their literature lessons.
“So we’re showing students that literature can be anything - a piece of poetry can be a song. We’re providing them with rich experiences.”
AI is also proving hugely beneficial in terms of communicating with families.
“We’ve used an app called Fliki AI, which has helped us to translate any of the notes that were going out to our families,” Begley says.
“We use the AI in Canva to translate our documents as well, so that’s another thing that really helps...”
Frazzica claims a big positive is the pride the second generation children have begun to display in their cultural background and language.
With 86 per cent of its student population learning English as an additional language (EAL), St Peter’s saw the potential of technology to bridge language barriers and enhance engagement both with students and their families.
“…our families have said to us, ‘our children are now feeling more comfortable speaking in our language back to us or wanting to know more about how to say a particular thing. We’re now knowing what actually is happening in the classroom, we can actually ask questions'.
"They’re able to talk about that learning with their child.”
For staff as well, the school’s leadership team have attempted to lighten workloads via AI, Begley reports.
“Using AI, we can create videos that respond to a particular need in a lesson. We can create those resources in a matter of minutes and not the hours that were previously required,” she explains.
Frazzica concurs.
“If you’re doing an inquiry unit and you’re wanting to do a tuning in with the students about, let’s say, sound, for example.
“You tell the AI, ‘create me a Powerpoint around sound with images that are age-appropriate for Year 1s and 2s’. And you have it in five minutes, it’s done,” she says.
“With AI, we’re able to provide more visuals for those children who through the NCCD are determined to require Personal Learning Plans, who need more that walk-through, explicit instruction around information.”
And, Begley chimes in, teachers are able to record their voice on an animation that the students can then go back to at any time during the lesson, or even at home to share with their families.
Setting them up to follow their dreams
Having been invited to present on their success at ACU’s School Innovation Showcase this month, the pair have also presented at EduTECH.
Begley says the attention and accolades from winning global recognition are satisfying.
“I think it’s affirming,” she says.
“…we know we’re doing well, but it’s also nice to be recognised for the work that you’re doing, especially for our students.
“It’s giving our students a sense of recognition to know that, they can do whatever they want, they can reach for the stars and we’re showing them that that’s what they can do.”
The most important thing, Frazzica says, is that by the time students leave “what we call the ‘St Peter’s family’”, she and her hard-working team want students to continue thriving well beyond the school gates.
“And if we can give them all the resources, and we’ve built up their capital and their family’s capital in how to access those resources, so their child has that opportunity to succeed, then we’re happy with that,” she says.
For now, the school will continue to nurture strong school community bonds, build teacher capacity in using new and emerging technologies and integrate more apps into curriculum as tools for increasing engagement.
“…we really want to enter our students next year into a lot more coding and STEM, STEM-made [challenges],” Begley says, smiling.
“So that’s our next step, our next adventure.”
