Helping schools turn evidence into action, action into student impact, and impact into lasting change.
Trusted by schools across Australia
- Big Rivers Region NT
- Top End Region NT
- DoE WA Centre for Excellence
- MACS
- Carey Baptist Grammar
- Mentone Girls Grammar
- Hastings PS, Vic
- Jabiru Area School, NT
- St Thomas, Sydney
- Lockridge PS, WA
- Crib Pt, Vic
- St Luke’s Catholic School, WA
- Wallaroo PS, Vic
- Mercy College, WA
- Tyabb Railway PS, Vic
- Western Port SC, Vic
- St Mary’s Anglican School, WA
- Bullsbrook SC, WA
- Woodroffe PS, NT
- Nakara PS, NT
- Mundaring Christian College, WA
- Warriapendi PS, WA
- Eastbourne PS, Vic
- Perth Hills Network
- Glen Forrest PS, WA
- Humpty Doo PS, NT
The realities of school improvement
School improvement is complex. Knowing what to prioritise shouldn’t be.
Leading literacy improvement doesn’t happen in isolation from everything else involved in running a school. You’re balancing competing priorities, staffing challenges, curriculum demands and the relentless day-to-day responsibilities of school leadership.
Knowing what effective literacy instruction looks like is one thing. Knowing how to lead, implement and sustain it across a whole school is another.
And you shouldn’t have to figure all of this out alone.
This is for you if
On paper, it looks like it should be working.
So why isn’t it?
You’ve invested in structured literacy, professional learning and improving classroom instruction. Your teachers are working hard. Yet the student data isn’t shifting as much as expected.
You may still have significant numbers of students below benchmark, growing intervention lists or ad hoc teaching practices between classrooms.
But what’s actually getting in the way of improvement?
Is it what we’re teaching?
How consistently it’s being taught?
Whether teachers have the knowledge, confidence and support they need?
Or something else we haven’t yet identified?
Before deciding what to change, we need to understand why the current approach isn’t delivering the results expected. That’s where effective school improvement begins.
A different way forward
The right priorities.
High-quality instruction.
Measurable impact.
At Literacy Impact™, we work alongside school leaders to identify the underlying issues limiting student progress and establish clear, measurable goals for improving reading and writing outcomes.
Our goal is to help schools achieve measurable improvements in student outcomes and build the internal capability to sustain those improvements from one year to the next.
Evidence of impact
When the right conditions are in place, student outcomes can improve significantly.
We work with schools to establish clear baselines, agree measurable improvement goals and use student data to monitor what is working and what needs adjusting.
67% → 5%
Prep students in the highest reading risk category.
Crib Point Primary School, VIC
50% → 80%
Year 4 oral reading accuracy, in four months.
Aldercourt Primary School, VIC
50% → 1.4%
Year 7 students at significant risk in oral reading accuracy, in five months.
Monterey Secondary College, VIC
71% → 27%
Pre-Primary students needing intensive support, in one school year.
Darlington Primary School, WA
Our approach
Schoolwide improvement needs more than a good literacy program.
Effective school improvement requires clarity about what needs to change, the capability to implement it, consistency across classrooms and the systems needed to sustain progress.
Our approach brings together two complementary frameworks:
What needs to be in place?
The Architectural Framework for School Excellence™
Our Architectural Framework identifies the essential conditions, components, systems and structures required for sustained school excellence. It brings together moral purpose and measurable goals, the preconditions for improvement, agreed understandings of how students learn, what students learn and how we teach, assess and respond to their needs. A strong leadership spine connects the work, with equity underpinning decisions.
How do we put improvement into practice?
The Implementation Pathway™
Knowing what needs to improve is not sufficient. Our Implementation Pathway guides schools through identifying the issue, auditing current practice, diagnosing the underlying causes, planning, implementing, codifying and sustaining improvement. We work in manageable cycles of implementation, review and adjustment, aligned with your school’s priorities, leadership capacity and available time.
The Architectural Framework defines what needs to be in place. The Implementation Pathway provides the process for building it. Together, they support clarity, capability, consistency and continuity.
Clarity
Know exactly where impact is leaking and what to do first.
Capability
Every teacher equipped with the knowledge and routines that lift learning.
Consistency
Low-variance teaching in every classroom, with systems for diverse learning needs.
Continuity
The work keeps going when people change.
Ways to work with us
Different starting points. The right support for your school.
Every school has different priorities, challenges and levels of implementation capacity.
At Literacy Impact™, we offer three ways to support schools, depending on where you are now and what you want to achieve. You don’t need to know which option is right before getting in touch.
1
Leading Literacy Impact™ Online Modules
Build the knowledge and skills to lead effective literacy improvement. Self-paced professional learning for school leaders and teams seeking to strengthen their understanding of literacy instruction, school improvement and implementation.
Best suited to schools that have the capacity to lead the work and prefer to learn independently, online and at their own pace. Our most cost-effective option.
2
Literacy Impact™ Audit and Strategy Consultation
Identify the underlying issues and establish where to focus first. We work with your leadership team to review your context, student data, instructional practices and improvement priorities, then agree measurable goals and recommended next steps.
Best suited to schools seeking an external perspective, a clear diagnosis and practical direction in one day.
3
Building Literacy Excellence™
A one-year partnership to implement and sustain schoolwide literacy improvement. We combine leadership development, professional learning, weekly strategic support, implementation planning, coaching, feedback and cycles of review to embed consistent, high-quality practice.
Best suited to schools seeking an ongoing partner, with regular check-ins and accountability that works on your terms.
Not sure where your school should begin? Book a 15-minute Literacy Clarity Call to discuss your current situation, your goals for the next 12 months and recommended next steps.
Meet Julie Scali
Meet your school improvement partner who has led this work from inside schools.
I help school leaders find what’s holding students back, strengthen teaching in every classroom, build the conditions for sustained change and lift reading and writing results schoolwide.
National literacy improvement specialist, author and former school leader, with 27 years’ experience across Australia and the UK.
Why Literacy Impact™ exists
Literacy is more than an academic conversation. It is about changing the trajectory of children’s lives.
Literacy is fundamental to academic achievement, wellbeing, belonging, equity and future opportunities.
Across Australia, schools are working hard to improve literacy outcomes. Yet too many students continue to move through school without the literacy skills they need.
At Literacy Impact™, our work is grounded in the belief that every student deserves access to high-quality teaching and learning, every day and from one year to the next.
1 in 3
Australian students are not reading proficiently.
Grattan Institute, 2024
17 of 19
international studies found a significant link between literacy and mental health.
Hunn, Teague & Fisher, 2023
15%
of Year 9 students achieve the maximum score for text structure in writing.
AERO, 2022
How to start
Let’s work out the right next steps for your school.
You don’t need to have all the answers before getting in touch. Our initial conversation helps us understand your current situation, what you want to achieve and the support that may be most appropriate.
1
Book a Literacy Clarity Call
A 15-minute conversation about where your school is now, the concerns you are facing and what you want to achieve over the next 12 months.
2
Identify recommended next steps
We discuss your goals, context and capacity, and whether targeted professional learning, an Audit and Strategy Consultation or a longer-term partnership may be most appropriate.
3
Agree on a way forward
This may involve accessing online learning, arranging an Audit and Strategy Consultation or booking a more detailed strategy conversation about Building Literacy Excellence™.
Next step
Let’s talk about your school.
Let’s talk about where your school or system is now, what you want to achieve over the next 12 months, and the recommended next steps to help you get there.