School Visitor Reflections...

 

On Wednesday 13th August Karen Begg and I visited Tim Lovelock and his senior staff at Myross Bush School. We have come back inspired and invigorated. What we saw was surprising, fascinating and challenging. Tim, Mark and Evelyn shared their schools ‘journey’ over the last five years. They have implemented a variety of new ideas based on their philosophy of SOLO (a thinking based curriculum).

We saw ‘blended learning’ in action. iPads, chromebooks and PCs were all being used within rich teaching. This included specific acts of group teaching and purposeful independent activities without devices. The children worked on individual learning pathways and could easily talk about what they were doing and why.

Interesting observations:

Individual learning pathways.The children were self regulating their learning. They were provided with individual learning pathways via their class blog.These pathways were also visible on display on the walls in the class room. The children had to provide evidence of their learning and were accountable to the teacher.

Team teaching. Two teachers shared one class using two classrooms. One teacher provided specific acts of teaching in workshops to groups on particular topics. The children still read books, handwrite, and complete Maths into a text book. Literacy and numeracy is the focus for the morning programme. Many activities are integrated into the topic inquiry. The other teacher facilitated action stations in another room where the independent, individualised learning was happening.

Blended Learning. The school has a live, changing website that has links to the newsletter, Facebook, Principal and class blogs. The newsletter is shared digitally - no paper copies.

Planning. All planning is on google and is shared. There are no paper plans anywhere.

Daybook: The daybook is on Google Sites with tabs for timetables and other information.

Flexible Timetable. There were very few bells.(Morning tea and lunch I think) The rest of the timetable is flexible allowing for the range of timeframes different activities have and giving children time to complete lessons and activities.

Devices. These are being used as tools. They are provided for the children. They are not $500 pens for publishing. There is a range of iPads, chromebooks, PCs. The children access learning support tools via their blogs (class and individual) using the ‘khan academy’, podcasts, youtube lessons and demonstrations, links to websites, nzmaths sites, google worksheets. Apple TVs are working really successfully in all class rooms.

* BOYD The school allows children to bring their own device at their own risk. They connect them to the internet. This is neither encouraged or discouraged.

** There is no server. The devices connect wirelessly to a large router that can cope with hundreds of devices.

Furniture. The school has create more space in rooms by getting rid of desks and furniture. There are no whiteboards or ‘front’ of the class. Children’s gear is in tote trays. They do not have a desk or a place to sit that is their own. The teacher does not have a teacher desk.


Personal Inspiration
Using my observation from this visit I intend to try some ideas with my own class.

Individual learning pathways - sharing google doc planning with children who self assess and work on next steps. The learning objectives will be in child friendly language.

Use of technology - provide my class with links to support and challenge their learning. A classroom blog including links to internet learning activities.

Display pathways on my walls. Continue to make children accountable for their learning.

Planning. Share a version of child friendly

Furniture. Be more flexible about where the children work eg, floor, desks, tables

Thank you so much Tim, Mark and Evelyn. You were very generous with your time and knowledge. Karen and I have both come back to school feeling so energised and wanting to make a difference.

I have already started trialing SOLO learning pathways and using google so much mere with my children. They are now more skilled in ICT, engaged and taking responsibility for their learning. You have made a difference already!

The children in your school are very fortunate to be experiencing a progressive, forward thinking, genuine environment for learning.

Thank you so much for letting us come and see the fantastic things you and your staff are doing at Myross Bush Primary.  We were blown away by the ownership your students had over their learning and the self management skills they displayed while working towards their learning goals. It was clear to see that the students knew where they were heading with their learning and the steps they needed to take to continue to progress.

It was great to see teams of teachers working together and collaborating to ensure the needs of each child were met.  We were also excited about the innovative ways you were utilising your classroom spaces to cater for personalised learning and targeted group teaching.

After visiting Myross Bush School I was lucky to travel to Auckland to visit schools who are considered to be at the forefront of education. These schools have hundreds of teachers visiting them from around New Zealand each year because of the great things they are doing.  Their philosophies and practises mirrored what we were seeing at your school and it seems to us that you are leading the way with this in the South.

The visit to your school definitely made us reflect on how we can better utilise the teachers in our school and cater to groups of students in our classes.  We are now looking into how we can improve as a school to further develop our students self management skills.

Your school is lucky to have such a committed management team and staff who are dedicated to developing important learning values within the students.
 

"Thank you for giving up your time and welcoming us into to your wonderful school to see ‘Learning Pathways’ in action.  There was a positive vibe in every classroom. The children were engaged in their learning and willingly shared their work, articulating their learning. It was evident that the teachers had embraced the ‘Learning Pathways’ philosophy and were acting as facilitators of learning. The access the children have to technologies such as iPads, Apple TV and chromebooks was excellent, and these tools were being used effectively in all classes. We were really impressed to hear about and see the journey your school has been on for the past 5 years. You are providing your students with the skills to be lifelong learners."

Investing in Educational Success - discussion document

(from NZEI union perspective)

Policy Overview

The Prime Minister announced on 23 January 2014 that the Government is investing an extra $359m in the education system to raise student achievement. A Working Group of education sector leaders has given advice on how to progress the Investing in Educational Success initiative. The IES Working Group is made up of sector leaders and has been supported by a Secretariat comprising staff from the New Zealand School Trustees Association (NZSTA), the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA), the New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa (NZEI Te Riu Roa), and the Ministry of Education (the Ministry).

The Working Group confirmed broad support for the IES identified purposes of improving outcomes for all students, encouraging cooperation between schools, creating better teaching and leadership pathways, and supporting teacher-led innovation of new practice.

Communities of Schools would form to encourage collaboration between school governance, leadership and teachers to improve their practice and deliver shared achievement objectives, which they would collectively set. Communities of Schools would self-identify and would largely be geographically defined, including a variety of school types (primary through to secondary). They would be expected, where possible, to reflect the student education journey through schooling. Participation in a Community of Schools is voluntary.

The Ministry would support schools to form Communities of Schools and help them in their operations. Communities of Schools would be expected to respond to the needs of all students, and especially Māori students, Pasifika students, students with special education needs and those from low socio-economic families in their communities. The Government has identified these groups as a priority as it believes they are over represented in New Zealand’s national achievement challenge.

Schools within the Community of Schools would have access to Inquiry Time (as described below) to enable teachers to engage in collaborative work to address their shared achievement objectives.

While participation in a Community of Schools is voluntary, access to the new roles identified below and to Inquiry Time would be contingent on membership of a recognised Community of Schools.

New roles
Four new teaching and leadership roles would be established to support collaboration and effective practice within Communities of Schools and to provide clearer career pathways for teachers and principals. 

• Community of Schools Leadership Role (for Executive Principal)
• Community of Schools Teacher (across community) Role (for Expert Teacher)
• Community of Schools Teacher (within school) Role (for Lead Teacher)
• Principal Recruitment Allowance (for Change Principal Allowance).

Boards of trustees remain the employer in all cases and boards would need support to fulfil their role in IES. Selection to the roles would be subject to meeting agreed professional standards or criteria, which are to be developed by an expert writing group. Application and appointment to these roles and assessment against these professional standards/criteria would include external independent experts.

Release time would be provided to schools for across-community roles to fulfil their functions, and release time for the Community of Schools (within school) Teacher role remains under discussion. All roles would be appraised by their employer. Those with an involvement across the Community of Schools would have input from other schools into their appraisal reflecting this role. These roles are fixed-term positions and if candidates are re-selected to these roles, they would require reassessment as continuing to meet the relevant professional standards.

The within-school role is an ongoing position, subject to regular review against the relevant professional standards.

Following is the sector’s response from the latest NZPF (New Zealand Principals Federation) flyer.

On Tuesday 10 June NZEI and NZPF held a joint Hui at Te Papa in Wellington to discuss the detail contained within the various IES Reports, which were finally published on 3 June.

The 72 delegates who attended included regional association presidents, NZEI Principals’ Council members, NZPF Executive members, and Primary Teachers’ Leadership Team members, and represented a good spread across the country.

The day was independently facilitated by Vivian Maidaborn, and was structured under four key “themes”. These were used to focus the discussion and to direct people to read the detail. Groups were asked to classify their findings into those aspects which can be supported, those which can’t be supported, and those areas where more clarity is needed. That exercise took most of the morning. The day concluded with a request from the floor for a straw poll to be taken, and apart from two votes in support of the policy and two abstentions, the policy was universally rejected.

Here are some of the concerns that informed that decision:

Collaboration
• Trust – this takes time to develop and there is huge mistrust of government’s true agenda
• Cross sector involvement adds complexity
• Too much managerialism and bureaucracy
• Fullan says “he does not know whether this will work”
• Top-down collaboration won’t work - Fullan

Flexibility
• Inequity for those who don’t opt in
• Rejection of a policy that is one size fits all
• We need to be able to access the money to best support the cluster, and that may not require an executive principal
• Funding one person to get others to collaborate?
• Impact on children when lead and expert teachers are in and out of class
• Impact on a school when principals are away for average of two days a week

Student Success Criteria
• Criteria need to be individualised
• Nervousness over the control of the basket of indicators that make up the success criteria

Capacity and Professional Learning Development Requirements
• Insufficient inquiry time (which is already happening) to ensure success
• Not nimble enough to respond to multiple contexts
• Principals not interested in taking up executive principal positions while simultaneously running own schools and not motivated by the additional money
• Boards’ capacity to accommodate governance requirements of expanded role of principal if they are also an executive principal of a cluster of schools
• There is no detail on PLD support

What was telling was the lack of support for the bulk of the money to be directed to salaries. People felt that if collaborative practice is to be enhanced, the process is the critical bit, and targeting the bulk of the money to these roles will not encourage good process. There were also concerns about the dovetailing of the roles into existing career paths and senior roles, with the potential for undermining.

The policy development process was also criticised. The secrecy surrounding the process has engendered further mistrust, and now that the policy has landed it is critical that it is debated and understood. There was also a strong voice concerned about other priorities. Is this the best use of $360m for Education at present? Despite the risk of this money passing the primary sector by, people were more focused on getting priorities correct.

This is potentially a watershed moment for NZ Education, and we must act wisely and be as well informed as possible.

Challenging the perception of what school looks like and what learning is in 2014

There's some old sayings that talk about beauty being only skin deep and that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover when we meet or interact with new people throughout our lives. Well, the same applies to making assumptions about institutions or industry's that have been around for a long time. Primary School is one of these. It gets easy to presume that because most school pretty much look like they did when we went there what happens inside school will be the same. However, inside 'the cover' of each schools buildings different schools either reinforce this perception, or in our case, turn it upside down.


Modern-learning-practice from EDtalks on Vimeo.

This framework of collaboration across our school has 're-poured' our foundation from which our teaching team is further enabling the learning capabilities of all our learners. We want every child to be an active learner, to take responsibility appropriate to their age and stage in the learning process for developing their thinking and problem solving abilities. It's about trying to get that mix of surface and deep learning about right. So what does this look like?


Developing-active-learners from EDtalks on Vimeo.

All this may seem like quite a shift in how we as a primary school are approaching learning and some of the methods that we are pursuing in our classroom structure and programmes might look very different to how we as parents have historically seen learning. Some of those traditional elements that we remember from our own school days may have looked organised and busy but actually didn't do much to deepen our thinking. What do you remember your primary school day being like? I remember thinking how good you were at maths was about how many pages of exercises you could do in a day!

Do any of the following points make sense - not just for school but actually for learning in life (and work) as an adult?

- The more structured we make the environment, the more structure the learner needs.

- The more we decide for learners, the more they expect us to decide.

- The more motivation we provide, the less they find within themselves.

- The more responsibility for learning we try to assume, the less they accept on their own.

- The more control we exert, the more restive their response 

Learners feel engagement with purpose when they feel they have made a choice. It is important to note that this is not proposing, or saying, that the classroom has suddenly become all 'free choice'. Indeed, children themselves do not seek this. Children can gain value from what adults choose as important. So even when a child's choice is extended, it will be alongside another important aspect of learning - how they get themselves to do things they have not chosen.

Plenty of research demonstrates that when learners drive the learning it leads to:

- greater engagement and intrinsic motivation 

- students setting higher challenges 

- students evaluating their work 

- better problem-solving

So our school is about planning for what learners do rather than for what teachers do or what our perspective makes us think what learning looks like. This is a challenge for all of us and there may be some 'ah, buts' which may need to be addressed - such as:

-"They haven't got the skills." Rather than talk about our learners in terms of deficits, can we think about their experiences to date and whether we have helped them master it yet?

- "They're not mature enough yet!" So will we stand by and wait? Or will we offer the experiences that help them mature? 

- "It's unrealistic to give kids absolute freedom!" That seems like an extreme suggestion - is there anything between the extremes?

- "They just need to be told what to do!" So what shall we do with the finding that learners who plan and reflect the most get up to 30% better scores in public examination tasks?

What we are pursuing is not radical, its not a new fangled way of handling classrooms. As a reflection from nearly 400 years ago by Jan Amos Comenius (1632), The Great Didactic says:

"Let the beginning and the end of our didactics be: seek and find the methods where the teacher teaches less but they who sit in the desks learn more. Let schools have less rush, less antipathy and less vain effort, but more well-being, convenience and permanent gain."

References

'Learners in the driving seat' Chris Watkins, Institute of Education, University of London; www.teachingtimes.com Vol 1.2 p28-31

All of us learning...

Every day we ask your child to engage in their learning. Learning is not a passive endeavor and is not sustainable unless the learner takes some responsibility in the process. Learning involves being 'in the pit' - being challenged and developing an awareness of what you know, what you need to know next and then taking some ownership (in partnership with the teacher) in working out how you do that. No matter what the age it's never to early to begin to develop your learner agency. Our staff also example this in the way we approach what we do. Last week I talked about our teaching staff sharing our story with two other schools. This is done to share our experiences, be challenged on our developments and to develop professional links and support outside the silo of Myross Bush. 

Last Saturday three of our staff members also spent time sharing the story of how our Maths Curriculum works at some different levels in our school. Amy and Mel, from our New Entrant area, and Mark, from the senior end of the school, did a presentation at the recent Maths Symposium that was held at James Hargest Junior Campus for teachers from around Southland. The considerable time and effort spent by them putting these presentations together example the enthusiasm and passion we have in our school. We want the best for all our children, we are always reflecting, sharing and challenging eachother what we are doing and we enjoy sharing that passion with others. 

Sharing our Learning

Our School Story

Yesterday our staff team hosted staff from two other school that we have collaborated with over the last year (St Theresa's and Otatara). We shared the different parts of what we are doing here with our teaching and learning programmes. A big overarching theme that is consistent through all our initiatives is the development of what we call 'student agency'. In a nutshell this is about providing our learners the opportunity to act and have more input into the decisions that surround their learning. At MBS we are very passionate to see every learner grow in both their awareness of, and also their ability to have this 'agency'. We see this as our main role as educators and, as a I commented at assembly last week, we appreciate your support in this. It means that sometimes you will hear your child say "I don't know how to do that". At that point we need you to encourage them to work out the solution to their problem. It might be for them to approach their teacher or for them to try a different approach. What's important is that they are learning to problem solve their problems within the framework that their programme puts in place. There is a 'plus one' for any situation, meaning wherever you are, whatever you know means there's a next step that's either visible or discoverable!

To read...

Pedagogy and 'old school' design working together

Any school that is serious about providing a modern learning environment for their children, whether they are getting a new build or not, is looking at their teaching pedagogy (the method and practice of teaching and learning) and therefore its learning programme structure and how it connects with the physical space you have.
 
Pedagogy and design working together creates the environment of a 'third' teacher. While a new school gets a design built for this century that encourages this philosophy we have approached it from the inside out! By developing the purpose behind what we do and how we do it we have challenged our thinking around what our learning spaces were set up to do. The elements of the room layout, the type of furniture you have and the connection between the learning spaces are all pieces of the puzzle and impact directly on your teaching philosophy (and vice versa!) Whether you have a new school that challenges the status quo straight off or a 1950-1970's design that demands a bit more radical thinking you can still make it happen! Myross Bush School designed our teaching pedagogy to bring our design into the 21st century. Our school still looks the same from the outside but things have radically changed on the inside and its our challenge this year to help all our learning community understand a bit more about just how much school has changed since they were there.

Below are some answers that parents are asking about this teaching and learning shift.  

 

Why teach in teams?

Our staff are passionate about developing learning pathways that are personal and individualised for every child. This means that we strive to have every student learning the right thing, at the right time, in the right way. Team Teaching allows us to enhance these deliberate acts of teaching through a combination of ‘Workshops’ and ‘Action Stations’ by having two teachers giving the students focussed teacher attention during these times.

This team approach also gives us the opportunity to grasp the power of teacher collaboration, student to teacher feedback and also formative assessment methods; all highly ranked teaching approaches highlighted in John Hattie’s Research into effective teaching and learning strategies. (Visible Learning, 2009)

How does Team Teaching Work?

Team Teaching at MBS involves 2 teachers working together with 2 ‘homeroom’ classes. They are directly responsible for the pastoral needs of their homeclass and are the first ‘port of call’ for parents and students. During the day, however, both teachers are involved in running workshops and action stations for both classes.

A typical learning hour would involve one teacher teaching a focussed workshop with 8-15 students in one learning space, while the other teacher facilitates the rest of the students during the independent / co-operative learning time. Both students and teachers have reflected (and the research conducted in other schools has reinforced this) that team teaching has given them more focussed learning time and an overall increase in student / teacher time.

Could my child’s learning get lost in such large numbers?

We work very hard to ensure that our learners do not ‘get lost’ at MBS. Everything we do, from goal setting, to grouping students according to learning needs and the individual tracking systems we use, is done to guide and direct the next learning step at the right time.

We have found that the benefits of teaching in teams are 3 fold: 

The teacher in the action station rooms are able to fully focus on the learners working on independent and cooperative learning experiences.

The teacher in the workshops are able to fully focus on the learners and the learning that is happening in front of them.

The students are always supervised and able to have a teacher’s full attention in a way not available with a one teacher system.

How do you keep track of where they are if they move around the school so much?

All of our teaching teams work with 2 or more learning spaces next door to each other and the students and teachers move between the rooms regularly as the day plays out.

We have also developed some accountability systems for students of all ages and abilities. Every class, from the New Entrants to our year 6s, use a ‘Learner License System’, for example. This is a rights/responsibilities system that guides each learner to develop their next step as a learner through developing 4 key learning strategies (such as ‘Staying on Task and Focussed’). They are also allowed certain rights that come with each level that matches their progress as a learner. This develops high levels of independence and gives every student the support they need to succeed. 

We believe in giving each learner the right level of support they need, when they need it and in the way that they need it. Team Teaching gives us the time to be able to be able to do this effectively.

VideoNot.es - another brilliant Google App!

Found a great link from my twitter network about the new VideoNot.es. This app adds a folder to your google drive and lets you take notes while you watch the video of interest. Your notes are timestamped to the specific period of the video that you are watching. This lets you click on a specific part of your note to jump back to that specific part of the video. You can also add/edit at the same time and share your video and notes with anyone you like - just like all your other google docs etc!

Go to your drive, click on 'Connect more apps'

type in 'videonot.es' in the search bar and click 'connect'

Go back to your Google Drive - click 'create' and VideoNotes is now one of your options

Paste in the video url you want to watch, give the file a new name and start watching and taking notes. Hit share to invite others to collaborate!

2014 - a year on...

This is the first for 2014 and I will definitely be making a more concerted effort to post some reflections a little more frequently than once a year!

When I look back at some of the pieces of the puzzle that we wanted to see come together for our schools teaching and learning programme is it satisfying to say that all the facets I identified in my last post are all in play today.

Some big steps were taken in 2013 in what I'd call a journey of our 'desire line'. Instead of following the set path made by others we have forged our own direct route and in doing so made our our decisions our own. This is important for any school and some decisions and timelines will always be different depending on a schools context - where they are, where they want to be and how they think they might get there - which is important for all school communities.


Fibre connection & Ruckus Wireless - thanks to Focus Technology Group we were able to get our rural fibre connection, along with our Ruckus wireless infrastructure up and going within a managed solution!


Ultranet - Became the new home on the web for our parent connection. Inside the school we began this journey across the senior school classes (Y3 - 6) and it really came together when we took the step of classes closely collaborating in their teaching and learning programmes. Ultranet then helped provide the connection across the two classes of the shared learning programme. It meant that students could upload media, work on their set tasks and collaborate no matter what learning space they were in or what teacher they were with. As this shared philosophy grew across the school its also starting to develop across our junior school. 

Google Apps - It began with moving our school domain under the Google App umbrella for our school google site (our whole school framework), shared google docs (basically everything we do) and gmail (completely browser based) and then it morphed into a natural extension for our senior students learning. Shared google docs can be embedded straight into the ultranet page for collaborative student work. Something that an Ultranet page is not great for.


Solo Taxonomy - The SOLO framework as introduced to us from the work of Pam Hook became a natural progression of our thinking curriculum framework. We wanted to use our enriching curriculum to develop our student's thinking, and not make it all just about knowledge. We wanted to show our students and parents that being smart isn't about luck - it's about how hard you try and that no matter where your thinking is at there is a next step for you to take it further. This philosophy has underpinned our inquiry programme and we continue to resource teacher time in their teams to embed this practice together. 

We've also used it to underpin our development of each student's learning management. Our licence levels example how independent a student can be with their learning and is applied across our school. Each stage is aligned with the SOLO steps so it's a consistent framework for our students to work with.

Pam Hook is also coming to our school in early February for a whole day with our staff to challenge us on where we are and help us set the course for our next steps in this exciting curriculum development.


iPad mini's - with our thinking curriculum developing nicely, the fibre connected, wireless up and running and learning platforms put in place we needed the actual tools to connect it all together. For 2013 that saw the leasing of 80 iPad mini's across the school. We wanted to show how these tools were used in our learning programme and felt that if this was seen as authentic then, over time, the growth of personal ownership would grow naturally. This has been the case. 

Looking forward this choice of leased tool by school will became more of a combination of iPad mini's and Chromebooks as each is better at different tasks.

2013 - a new year with new opportunities...

A new year with new opportunities to continue to build the potential of what our programmes offer our students. Here are some things on the way that we are phasing into the operation of our school and classroom during this year:

 

Fibre connection which will open up increased capability for connected learning...

 

Upgraded wireless system to handle the fibre connection...

 

Online structured environment in which our students will be able to innovate and showcase their work in a managed way... checked out the beginning of this via the senior teams classroom blog pages linked off our website...

 

An increased number of iPad mini's provided by the school so we can give every student an equal opportunity to access and utilise our online learning resources...

 

SOLO Taxonomy (structure of observed learning outcomes) provides a simple, reliable and robust model for three levels of understanding – surface deep and conceptual (Biggs and Collis 1982). So simple yet so effective in scaffolding students thinking...

uLearn reflection...

Notes, thoughts, ideas...words like what, how and why - were all bouncing around in my head from ulearn12 while preparing for an ERO (Education Review Office) visit in the first week of November which, now that we're through that, I thought that it was time to share some key points which I hope will provoke your own thinking... 

Jason Ohler

• What can we do differently at school for our students? Kids should have 1 life - not 2 - they shouldn't go home to learn!  
• A concern is just a negatively stated goal. 
• Whatever you do - go tell your story!

 I loved the thinking of flipping the 'concern into a goal!'

  Pam Hook - Solo Taxonomy

• To learn something, you have to disrupt something you know
• 3 levels of understanding  
• surface - knowing heaps of stuff 
• deep - relating ideas 
• conceptual - extending ideas

“Learning to learn” requires the learner to think about the strengths and weaknesses of their own thinking when they are learning and to make thoughtful decisions on what to do next. We are excited about this simple, yet powerful model of learning and the possibilities it has of further enriching our learning pathways!

 

 Glenn Capelli

• in a spint paced world we need to sit & notice - 'scratch' time - where do you go scratching??
• best place to go 'scratching' is with each other
• Discipline is about disrupting the disruption so that learning can continue (Michael Grinder)
• "A tiger is a student who will stretch you and have you to think and teach in different ways."

Funnily enough this idea of 'scratch time' was something I had just been reading. We all get so busy in our work that it is sometimes hard to find the time to go deep with your thinking about something. The time and space for reflection is precious!

 

Mike Scaddan - Brain Stems

• Know what you do well!
• What is your role if you want today to be a successful learning experience?
• Passive?
• Active?

• Your footprints in the sand show not only where you have been but also where you are heading to.
• How good are you at seeing your potential?? At seeing your students potential??
• 2-3 people in your life who speak the 'positives' to you - who have you got in your personal life / professional life??
• Many of these thoughts are non conscious. However, because of the negative to positive ratio, they can have significant effect on our conscious beliefs and performance.
• Ongoing failure or successes and repeated practice creates 'permanent' performance and attitudinal beliefs. These beliefs become us.

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?