Long time between drinks...

My last post was near the end of May - nearly five months ago! Well time to break the habit that broke the initial habit! Over the last five months it's not like I've had nothing to reflect on - at the end of Term 2 we completed our mid year student report through our Assembly student management system.

The team at Assembly did a great job of replicating the visual look of our report while giving us a streamlined online input system that allowed our teachers to concentrate on our students progress and achievement making process and not have the worry about formatting word tables and spacing! We were also concentrating on utitlising the space we have around the school to best meet the teaching and learning needs of our students. This gave us the opportunity to move our office area to a more central part of our school and the 'old' office space, back storerooms and the Principals office (it was too big anyway) made space for some badly needed teaching space. It was great to move things around for the core purpose of school - that is giving the best possible space and learning resource to our students and their teachers! It was slightly ironic that at the time the government was talking about raising the student teacher ratio we were doing everything we could to lower it! Maybe they heard what we were doing (along with what the rest of the country was saying) and they did a complete u-turn on that one! I have also recently had the chance to attend the Principals Conference in Melbourne and, just this week, the ulearn teaching conference in Auckland along with our whole staff. Watch this space for a few more reflections as the term starts - along with an ERO review!

New Staffing Levels will impact Student Achievement

The rhetoric that quality is better than quantity, like any political sound bite, makes sense when first heard - but only when taken out of context of the full picture. We are a school that has a passionate, committed staff of quality teachers. They collaborate together to ensure that we leave no stone unturned in making our children’s learning journeys as successful as possible. Part of making sure that happens means that class size does matter. Already from the new Ministry formula that they will apply for allocating school staffing next year our school could lose at least .3 of a full time teacher out of an allocation of approximately 9.63. To put that figure in context, that is what helps funds our specialist learning support in 2012 every morning for reading and maths. Our Minister of Education keeps saying - its schools that decide about class sizes, however, you can only cut up a pie into so many pieces depending on the size of the pie you’ve been given! Next years pie is determined from figures taken by the Ministry at 1 March and 1 July of the current year. If we lose the staffing that funds our student support then our choices are either bigger classes, no student support, try to fund it from within the actual operating grant (which takes away from other curriculum support) or fundraise for it (that is ask parents for more!) Is this giving our children the best chance of progressing in their learning - no matter what their achievement level? What do you think? Below is a brilliant sketch from "Saturday Night Armistice" uploaded in June 2010 - which gives a satirical look at, what has now, become very topical for the New Zealand situation.

A Celebration and a Concern

Tonight our schools amazing new entrant teachers and I hosted our new entrant family night. I wished I had snapped a photo - we had around 40 new and existing parents/couples turn up to hear a bit about our school, their child's transition into school and how we cater for each child's uniqueness once they are there. I started the night (once we had got everyone a seat!) with what turned into a very passionate (I thought) introduction about our amazing school and the environment we work hard to provide to each and every child. I talked about team work, I talked about collaboration, I talked about staff supporting each other, I talked about our school working together like a village raising a child, I talked about all our teachers working to meet the learning needs of every child - no matter what their age - at what ever level they are working at.
We then showcased the teaching and learning environment of our school with our video clip (compiled by Mark) for one of our parent workshops in Term 1. It introduced some of the ideas behind our teaching and learning philosophy- from classroom setup to programme delivery to learning tools used.

A question and answer session then followed with the opportunity for anything 'on top' to come out and be discussed around the environment that Jan, Amy and our school will provide for our children. Parents then had the opportunity to visit the two rooms with the teacher concerned and see some examples of work and the environment provided. Awesome - the night had a real positive feel to it.
Then... I couldn't help but reflect on the announcement made today by our Minister of Education about the new staffing levels and the beginning of the introduction of performance based pay - both which seem to work against everything we are trying to do and what I talked about. Who adds the value - is it the amazing new entrant teachers who ignites the learning spark inside our kids in that precious first year of school? Or, is it the next teacher who builds on that wonderful foundation - or the next teacher who strengthens it and broadly enriches it across the curriculum - who adds the most value? Which individual gets the reward?
But the positive vibe of the evening reminded me again of the importance of a strong and connected community between home and school. A community that stands together to support and resource the collaborative environment that makes such an effective teaching team for our children. Now, more than ever, we must walk together to encourage and support our children, so they get the richest learning opportunities possible. For indeed - when the village works together, anything is possible!

Tomorrow today...

 In the last week the 10 schools in our ICT cluster had the opportunity of hosting Stuart Hale. Over the two days Stuart shared his thinking on where mobile technology is heading, how it is impacting on education and why we can't afford to sit still. Our cluster lead teacher support person, Mark Herring, did an outstanding job of collating his major points from the different sessions.

• For the discussion shared at the morning principal and lead teacher sessions click here

• For some key links and resources from the 'everyone' afternoon session click here 

• For some reflection from the Board of Trustees and Principals evening session click here

For me, couple of key points stood out from an overall school perspective:

1. 'Wireless connectivity' - we need to ensure that the infrastructure behind whatever mobile devices is robust and able to handle multiple connections without any drop in performance. The government has poured a huge amount of money into improving schools data network and into providing internet fibre connection 'to the gate'.  We are doing that support a disservice if we don't ensure that our bit - the wireless network that supports these devices - is of the same 21st century quality.  
2. 'Cognitive blisters' - Learning new concepts can sometimes be hard or quite frustrating, like with learning to play a guitar. This can quickly put you of as the gain doesn't always seem to be worth the pain! Like the guitar metaphor, the initial learning phase has a lot to do with getting blisters on your fingers until they toughen up. The point was made that mobile technology can help students overcome those 'cognitive blisters' and find success where before they only experienced failure and disappointment. 

As I unpack more of the learning from the two days by myself and with staff I am sure that further reflection will emerge which I will try to add on to this post.  What thoughts and reflections do you have on this exponential journey of discovery that mobile devices is bringing to our world?

Finland's Formula for School Success - how do we measure up?

 
Point 1: Early intervention
My response: This is something every good school does from day one. We do.  

Point 2: Schools are assigned a 'special education teacher' who helps identify and supports 'at risk' students.  
My response: Every school in New Zealand has some choice with their allocated staffing to try and balance classroom teaching needs and providing specific student support teachers but this is usually only 'affordable' on a part time basis. Depending on your decile rating a New Zealand school may have more or less 'discretionary' staffing to play with? Reading Recovery specialist teachers, Maths intervention? The government would argue that every school has enough staffing to do whatever it wants - the Principal just needs to increase class sizes to free up some staffing as class numbers don't matter - it's the quality of the teacher. I believe this needs a balance of numbers, a great teacher and adequate staffing for specific support - no matter what the decile!  

Point 3: "Every school in Finland has a student welfare team comprised of the principal, the special education teacher, the school nurse and psychologist, and the classroom teachers. The teams meet twice monthly to discuss the progress of students who are receiving extra help."  
My response: Our schools do not have a specialist team, outside the staff team itself. It is only accessible on an individual case-by-case situation. If an individual has been identified as needing further specialist intervention and support then the school is able to provide from within their own budget and staffing (which is linked to decile rankings - the higher the decile the lower the funding and staffing per child) then the student in question can be referred to the Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) team. They then decide if the level of need is appropriate for extra support or, if a case is deemed 'extreme enough', refer the individual to Group Special Education (GSE).

While the Finnish example is from a different cultural perspective than our New Zealand one you would hope that our policy developers / politicians are taking note of one of the best performing education systems in the OECD. Hopefully they are taking note of not just the American and the British systems, who do not enjoy the same level of achievements that we do! But, is it politically more attractive? Whatever they decide and whatever happens around funding and staffing levels I can still work on providing the environment where our teachers are able to have time to plan collaboratively, are supported with strategic and planned professional development and who know that their individual effort and passion all contribute to our wider staff and school culture that gives each and every one of our children the chance to enjoy personalised and customised opportunities to succeed. And that, is the main thing!

raison d'etat

A slightly left field example of how diverse a classroom is - how our programmes need to be diverse and personalised - not standardised, cause every child gets the call at some point...

Every child has their own story...

In this section of the 'Blue Man Group - CNN's the Next list' youtube clip Sir Ken Robinson comments again that the way to improve education as a system is not to standardise it but to personalise and customise it, because in the end every child has their own story!

I see my challenge as a school leader as providing the environment where our staff team have the skills and desire to 'personalise' and 'customise' our local school curriculum with the enriching contexts that the wider curriculum provides and not just let the focus be dominated by the concepts of reading, writing and maths! What do you think? Will the pressure on our public system become to great and will we end up opening our own 'Blue School'?

The top of the T gives way to....?!?

In our current climate, I have whimsically found a parallel with our recent change to the give way rule - where the top of the T now gives way - to someone?!?  How so? Well, we seem to be at a point in time with our public education system where suddenly performance pay, academic achievement results and what value is added to an individual student are being touted as the key drivers for change to a system that for too long has allowed mediocrity to survive and the failure of too many of our 'clients'.  We fly politicians to the states, where privatisation is championed, and employ English administrators (Secretary of Education and of the Treasury), who help espouse the sorting of 'the wheat from the chaff'!  Is our highly successful education system, which ranks in the top 10 of the OECD, about to have its give way rule changed?  Are we, as Scott McLeod ('Dangerously Irrelevant') says of America, seeing "...societal and political trust in schools and educators... on the decline. Educators face increasingly stringent demands to standardize what used to be a profession and to try and make error-proof what is by definition an enterprise fraught with uncertainty."

 

One of Scott's latest posts was entitled 'Making room for innovation' and is centred around one of his favorite books on leadership The Future of Management by Gary Hamel. Reading through his post has inspired me to order a little light reading, which hopefully will arrive during the term break, but if not I see a few late nights with the bedside light on! The essential premise of the book (and I quote Scott McLeod here) "...is that current management models, which are centered on control and efficiency, are extremely ill-suited for an era in which adaptability and creativity drive organizational success. This has major ramifications for how we think about leading schools and preparing school administrators, of course." 

I look forward to reflecting on this book and how it answers some of the key challenges that relate to the importance of my leadership position in our school to answer questions such as: How do I keep developing the right climate where innovation becomes a natural part of everyone's job and to keep a highly engaging work environment that inspires everyone to give the very best of themselves?  This at a time when the top of T is certainly not giving way to me!

Warwick B. Elley: Education system's weak spot

 

If you haven't read the article by Warwick B. Elley (emeritus professor of education, University of Canterbury and recently served as evaluation consultant for the World Bank) which is online in the nzherald then click on his photo to have a read.  He summarises the recent OECD Report which evaluated our education system as he believes that it deserves more public discussion than it has so far received.  He outlines that despite our international high standing and our system being commended, like Finland (who is the OECD's star performer despite what Gerry Brownlee says) have so far kept compulsory assessments and league tables out of the primary classroom.  He then summarises the OECD's report of its 5 major criticisms of where the current trend of national standards is taking us and then outlines a Plan B.  And I quote:

"Make National Standards optional, trust schools to use their own less-damaging approaches to showing progress, re-direct funds to other targeted initiatives, and attack the poverty-related problems that create those barriers to learning. "

Targeted spending of tax payers dollars sounds pretty sensible to me - what do you think?

Hekia Parata speaks at the opening of Learning@School 2012

While I did not attend the Learning@School Conference this year in Hamilton I was interested to see that our new Education Minister - Hekia Parata - was one of the opening speakers.  Thanks to CORE I watched the video of her speech (see this link).

Her speech was centered around the following four points (a) placing the learner at the centre of all we do, (b) a commitment to quality teaching, (c) raising student achievement, and (d) enabling all of this to happen through the use of ICT.

I was impressed with how she spoke - no notes, no lectern and certainly with passion.  It was obvious that she has done a lot of reading for her new 'portfolio' and its seems that she is already more enthusiastic about working with the sector than was apparent last year.  What she wants is certainly aspirational and what every school wants for its students.  Just how we go about it and what policy is put in place, or pushed further, will be interesting.  Watch this space...

The dawn of new opportunities...

2012 - another school year begins with a real buzz around our place of learning as we set out together with our children on making the most of every opportunity that is presented to us and by us.  We have some exciting initiatives planned for this year and I hope to reflect regularly on those as the year progresses! 

Already, one of the ways we have kicked off the year was through the traditional 'Meet the teacher evening'.  I began the evening with a quick 5 - 10 minute welcome to our school families, reflecting with them on the importance of the relationship that we have together and that this 'triangle' of parent, child, teacher is essential for every child to be able to realise the full potential of their gifts and talents, and, to get the most from every opportunity they are presented with. 

I thanked them for the wonderful support and encouragement they do give to their children and acknowledged that it was with this enthusiastic support, in partnership with a passionate and dedicated teaching team, that we were able to achieve excellent progress and achievement for our students. 

I asked them to reflect during the sharing time they were going to have with their child's teacher on the differences in classroom routine, and of the teaching and learning practice from when they were at school.  I wanted them to note that while we do still talk about reading, writing and maths other words like 'inquiry', 'e-learning', 'student workshops' and the personalising of learning programmes were not just words but authentic examples of a distinct shift in how 'school' now happens! 

I stopped there - as one person yawned and someone else whispered to their neighbour (with the expression telling me that I'd said enough) but it's hard to do that when you are on a roll and genuinely passionate about what you're talking about!  But - I had to remind myself - just as a little bit often produces real results in most things, the same goes for getting the message across.  As our school vision statement echos - from the strong foundation (that our school and community provide to each and every student) we are all able to grow and stand tall together!