Testimonials

Tim addressed our whole staff at the start of term 2, with a clear and compelling case for the 'Classroom Vibe'. O'Leary has an easy and engaging manner and worked hard to interact with his online audience. His excellent use of data to frame thinking about building teacher credibility and teacher clarity has sparked robust professional conversations. The staff at The Hamilton and Alexandra College are looking forward to leaning into this work, as we set goals to improve our teaching practice and include student feedback as part of the process. I would highly recommend O'Leary's book 'Classroom Vibe" and working with Tim as a critical friend.

Susan, Bradbeer, Deputy Principal, The Hamilton and Alexandra College (May 2022)

Tim O'Leary has had an association with Wesley College for over twenty years. More recently during the last 10 years I can attest to Tim's passion for student learning, and his knowledge, skills, and abilities in empowering and coaching colleagues to incorporate evidence led conversations into their practice. Tim's drive, professionalism, positivity, knowledge, and excellent communication skills allows him to build trust, leadership, and data literacy capabilities for many. More recently I have had the privilege to work with Tim on the development of student achievement data dashboard with a company called EdPotential. Tim's approach to the development was highly collaborative, designs drafted and iterated alongside colleagues and feedback. Tim's ability to always have an eye on the vision and inspire and bring others with him is extraordinary. Tim's depth of knowledge in areas such as mathematics, data science, evaluative techniques, education, the digital world, and leadership makes him a valued addition to any educational context but also any organization with a commitment to continuous improvement.

Anne-Louise Szudja, Head of Assessment & Reporting, Wesley College (April 2022)

Tim is an experienced leadership coach in education and pedagogy. He is extremely knowledgeable on a wide range of areas, like the use of data for better student outcomes, leadership strategies, educational research and instructional leadership in general. His advice is grounded in evidence and research. It’s always a pleasure talking to Tim, I invariably come away with different insights and new ideas to consider.

Ilja VanWeringh, Head of Teaching & Learning, Wesley College (September 2021)

I employed Tim as a senior leader at St John’s College in 2018. Whilst the school structure and size did not allow for it Tim worked effectively as my Deputy Principal – Teaching and Learning. From the commencement of Tim’s time with the College I was highly impressed with his work ethic and capacity to draw upon a variety of available research and evidence to drive an agenda that helped move the College forward. A key element of Tim’s role was implementing the foundations for a developmental approach to teaching and learning across all year levels from Foundation to Year 12. In seeking to achieve this I was impressed with how Tim not only looked to research in terms of the theory but was also forward thinking in terms of how to use this opportunity to build both individual and collective teacher efficacy through an approach to professional development that was centered on enhancing teacher and both mid-level leader agency and autonomy.

Lance Ryan, Past Principal St John's’ College Preston (August 2020)

Tim is refreshing to work with. He has the ability to adapt to different contexts and ask thoughtful questions that more often lead to deeper understanding and rich conversation. Tim is personable and cares greatly about improving educational outcomes for all through respectful conversation and practical actions. His experience in a range of schools means that he is able to draw on a range of ways of doing and thinking. His voice is a value add at the table.

Head of School, Wesley College, Melbourne (August 2020)

Tim has been a wonderful support to Marcellin in assisting us in developing a strategy around the use of data. What we valued from our first encounter was the listening and searching by Tim and the way he immersed himself into our culture to get a true understanding of who we are. This assisted greatly in him working with us and providing a tailored plan that represented us and our needs.

 Tim coached our senior and middle leaders to help them unpack the data so they could then work with their teams to identify areas of strength and opportunities for growth. He also created a tool for our pastoral teachers to use with students at the start of the year. This tool presented individual student results in an accessible way. Pastoral teachers then discussed these results with students and students set goals in their Personal Learning Plan based on these results.

 Tim also worked with the College and InformEd to assist with the research and planning of our literacy policy and implementation strategy.  He assisted with the design of a survey for middle leaders and analysed PAT-R data to assemble important baseline data that informed the implementation strategy.

 Tim, through his range of experiences, has an exceptional understanding of curriculum, student learning and data and what teachers need so that they can best support individual student to growth. He has been instrumental in the conversations around the use of data with his voice represented through our current practices.

Nicholas Maloney, Deputy Principal, Marcellin College (August 2020)

Dr. Tim O’Leary came to our school on January 28 and presented, to all teaching staff from ELC to Year 12, on the topic “From Insight to Impact: Improving Student Learning with Data”

In this presentation, Tim made the point that many schools are data rich but meaning poor. He exhorted us, as leaders of learning within our classrooms and influencers of learning within our collegial teams, to think carefully about the questions that we wish to answer in our data mining. And to make those questions directly, and purposefully, related to student learning.

What do we notice about our students’ learning? How can we collect better data about this? How then do we grow our students’ learning simultaneously as we grow our own understanding about our contributions to this learning growth through our behaviours when interacting with students, the language we employ and instructional planning?

Tim made the point, with great humour and humility, that we, as humans, can sometimes get in the way of our own learning. There are a number of cognitive biases, such as the Dunning-Kruger effect, that can contribute to us getting ‘stuck’ and the data we collect about our teaching impact can help us work through the barriers created by such biases.

Carefully mined data can lead us to truth. But not as a ‘gotcha’ for teachers. Teachers need to drive this exploration themselves and use the results as a way of improving learning. That is the goal.

Tim’s presentation was thought-provoking, engaging and evidence-informed. As a trained teacher himself, with years of experience in the classroom, he knows teachers and he knows how to talk with teachers.

Tim is very willing to work with schools to provide a customized presentation.

Highly recommended.

Linda Shardlow, Director of Staff Learning & Research, St Margaret’s and Berwick Grammar School (August 2020)