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Dr Tania Leach

Dr Tania Leach
Name Tania Leach
Position Senior Lecturer (Curriculum and Pedagogy)
Section School of Education
Office T419
Location Toowoomba Campus
Phone +61 7 4631 1481
Extension 1481
Email
Qualifications BEd USQ , MEd USQ , PhD USQ

Biography

Dr Tania Leach is a senior lecturer in the School of Education at UniSQ, serving as Associate Head: Professional Engagement. Tania has 16 years of leadership experience across the schooling and university sector, including USQ Associate Dean - LTSS, Director of Professional Experience, Education Queensland State STEM Champion, Principal Education Advisor, Head of Middle School and Head of Department. Tania’s passion to maximise student learning through the building of system and school leadership has seen her support university and education system improvement strategies to contextualise and translate system policy into practice. While Tania’s role has a strong focus on educational research, her ability to co-lead and co-teach has evidenced positive impacts on teacher quality and subsequent student achievement. In 2017, Tania was the recipient of The Excellence in Leadership Award ACEL (Queensland), acknowledging the impact of her leadership while working across various regional and state curriculum roles in the QLD Department of Education and subsequently acknowledged for her leadership at UniSQ during COVID in 2020. Tania’s focus on educational leadership extended into her doctoral research, completed with the University of Southern Queensland in 2021. This research explored how system leaders implemented policy and the impact this had on achieving system wide improvements in student outcomes. The findings outlined the relationship between system leader’s role enactment and their impact on the alignment of policy messaging, as policy was implemented and crafted into contextualised policy responses within regions and schools. The study’s findings informed the development of a Framework for Achieving System Policy Coherence and recommendations for implementation. Today, Tania continues to explore the impact of system leadership in supporting school improvement efforts. In particular, her work focuses on the connection between education policy, role clarity and role impact, when collectively working towards system reforms. This has included a focus on middle system leaders support of principals’ work explored in collaborative research conducted in the QLD Department of Education and Canada and consultancy work with schools. Tania research has been presented at both domestic and international conferences, including the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) and Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA). She has published journal articles and book chapters and is currently documenting how the findings of her research are used to inform the day-to-day practice of system leaders, leading to improved learning outcomes for students.

Research Career


  • Education Systems ( 390300 )
  • Work Integrated Learning (incl. Internships) ( 390115 )
  • Other Education ( 399900 )
  • Educational Administration ( 390403 )
  • Other Education not elsewhere classified ( 399999 )
  • Education Policy ( 390201 )
  • Education Policy ( 390200 )
  • Curriculum And Pedagogy ( 390100 )
  • Specialist Studies In Education ( 390400 )
  • Education Systems not elsewhere classified ( 390399 )

Educational Leadership, System Reform, School Improvement


Australian Council of Educational Leaders (ACEL)

Teaching


EDU4100
EDU8100
EDC4000
EDU8400


6 Years


22 Years


Associate Head: Professional Engagement, School of Education