We created 500 Schools to address a clear and urgent problem: Australian student outcomes have been declining, with the greatest impact felt in low socio-economic communities where support is needed most. Too often, a child’s postcode still determines their educational future.
At the same time, the evidence is clear. Research from the Science of Learning, Science of Reading, and neuroscience points to a more explicit, knowledge-rich and carefully scaffolded approach to teaching. But for most school leaders, translating this evidence into consistent classroom practice—without significant support—is simply too complex and labour intensive given the already busy and demanding work of running a school.
We saw an opportunity to bridge this gap. We asked three critical questions: (1) What must teachers do differently to improve learning outcomes? (2) What must leaders do to sustain that change across a whole school? And, (3) What must systems do to enable and scale it?
500 Schools was built as the answer—providing the integrated support schools, leaders, and systems need to realign with evidence and deliver lasting improvement. Our ambition is to change the life trajectory of 200,000 students in 50 communities across Australia.
500 Schools is a three-year, whole-system transformation model that works simultaneously at the classroom, school, and system level. It integrates two proven approaches—EDvance (leadership and organisational health) and Classroom Mastery (evidence-based classroom practice)—into a single, coherent implementation model.
Schools participate as part of a cohort, creating both momentum and shared accountability. Leaders engage in an intensive development journey, including 16 days of masterclasses and ongoing mentoring. Teachers are supported through professional learning, classroom demonstrations and coaching, ensuring that evidence-informed practice is not just learned, but consistently applied.
The model is highly practical and implementation-focused. Expert coaches work directly in classrooms alongside teachers, modelling techniques, observing practice, and providing feedback. Schools are equipped with tools, templates, and structured routines that make change achievable and sustainable, rather than aspirational.
Each cohort is supported by a dedicated manager who maintains close relationships with schools, tracking progress, reinforcing accountability, and ensuring fidelity of implementation. At the same time, we partner deeply with state education systems, sharing our model and learning so they can strengthen their own school improvement infrastructure and scale impact beyond participating schools.
500 Schools leverages relationships established from working with more 370 Australian schools over 14 years, through the EDvance and Classroom Mastery programs.
We are now expanding our reach by striking long term partnerships with individual Australian state governments and working collaboratively with them to recruit cohorts of 10-20 low-socioeconomic schools to participate in our integrated three-year program.
Our goal is to work with 50 communities across Australia to lift the educational standards in schools, benefiting over 200,000 individual students.
The premise of 500 Schools is to bring together two proven school improvement innovations - EDvance and Classroom Mastery - to create a new integrated program that results in far greater impact than either program by themselves.
We have also added the learning partnership dimension with the state governments so that we can spread the innovation more broadly to schools outside the program and amplify the impact.
If you are a school principal of a low socioeconomic Australian public school looking to implement an evidence-based, school improvement program you should contact us at 500 Schools.
We are currently working with New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia to recruit schools for our 2027 cohort.
