Reflections from the Festival of Education

The Festival of Education was held in three locations across New Zealand this week and I had the opportunity to present and attend most of the Auckland event held at the Viaduct Events Centre. Here are some reflections of my experience:

TeachMeetNZ

I had previously been part of the inaugural session of TeachMeetNZ in 2013 and enjoyed this exciting new platform for sharing professional learning, so I jumped at the opportunity of being part of the virtual presentation organised by Sonya van Schijik.  A TeachMeet is a professional learning opportunity where up to 10 presenters join a Google Hangout and share a nano presentation (approximately 3 minutes) of a strategy that is working well in their professional practice.  The Hangout is streamed live via the internet and recorded so that viewers can rewind the learning and unpack the presentations at a time that suits them.

Sonya was coordinating the session in front of a live audience at the Viaduct Events Centre and co-presenting from their homes across New Zealand in the Hangout were: Juliet Revell, Myles Webb, Monika Kern, Diana Wilkes, Emma Alaalatoa-Dale, Manu Faaea-Semeatu and myself.  The Hangout was supported by Kathy Scott as master time-keeper with her rattlesnake (aka jingle bells) and Marnel van der Spuy as chat-wing moderator and tweeter for the event.

Getting organised I joined the Hangout ten minutes prior to "going live" only to find that my computer at home wanted to allow an update for Google voice and video to optimise my Hangout experience, I allowed this and joined the Hangout - only to find I could see my fellow presenters but not hear them.  I was to present third in the line-up for the day, so was anxious as to whether I would miss my cue to start, or whether my presentation would be seen or heard.  My colleagues were great in the chat bar trying to help me out with all sorts of problem solving, and then it happened ... my computer FROZE! I was nervous already about presenting live, and the thought that I could be connected to the Hangout and not hear was already raising the nerve factor and then this! I calmly tried to shut down my computer which then had the whirring cog of death displayed - I had to resort to physically pulling the power plug out of the wall and rebooting the computer.  Now as we all know, clock watching doesn't help in these circumstances, and what seemed forever to boot back up, I finally rejoined the Hangout for TeachMeetNZ with sound and video! Hurrah! I caught my breathe, wiped off my sweaty palms and shared my presentation last.  

So what did I learn in all of this?  I truly believe that this platform for presenting and sharing ideas is valuable because it is recorded permanently and viewers can go back at anytime and rewatch the ideas being presented.  There is a supporting wikispace that clearly profiles each of the TeachMeetNZ sessions and presenters.  Each presenter has a page with links to their presentation and online digital footprint. I also learnt that many of our staff often look to contributors of events like these or facilitators as 'experts' and that things 'don't go wrong technically ever for us' however I think with my technical issues on the day, it shows that you need persistence and tenacity to keep calm and keep on trying with digital technologies.  I also have a closer connection with the presenters (albeit virtually) 
Here's my contribution to our full Google Hangout below:

Here's our Google Hangout Presentation (my segment is at 33.30):

Christian Long 

Christian spoke about the influence of The Third Teacher . In essence in every student’s life there are 3 teachers:

1. The parents/adults/teachers
2. Their peers
3. The environment - everything around us affects us (similar to the Reggio Emilia philosophy that there is an influence in the relationship between community and learning).

Christian works with a group of designers who create learning environments that are seen to have a positive influence on student learning. He has been involved in projects to repurpose old building and land, as well as designing new structures like this one below form the KOC Foundation inTurkey.

Christian spoke of the need to have more creative problem solving in the curriculum in order to equip students for the future and promoted the notion of getting into a "moonshot mindset" and getting students to "prototype" by embracing the now and launching ideas in a prototype style, rather than waiting until you are sure you have completely worked out all the kinks. I loved this video he showed that embraced this thinking - particularly the quote "have the courage to try, that's how great things happen."

John Hattie

I missed John Hattie's keynote address, however had the opportunity to join his chatroom session that continued the discussion from the keynote of "High impact, passionate teachers".  Hattie discussed the difference between expert and experienced teachers isn't the from the years of service one might have but of those teachers that work with their students at a deeper level to increase and accelerate student outcomes. The image below I snapped quickly on what expert teachers do:

Michael Fullan

I was lucky enough to attend both the keynote and chatroom session from Michael Fullan.  This felt like a real treat to be in the presence of such a respected educator.  I loved everything that he had to say, and would refer people to his website michaelfullan.ca to find a wealth of shared articles on his work.  I particularly agree with the notion of Principal as lead learner, modelling and participating in the learning and professional development that staff are undertaking. He talked about effective change occurring through the strength and sustainability of a school with the quality of the lateral relationships - "if you want to change the group, use the group to change the group" this can be achieved through leveraging the quality of knowledge and collectivity of ideas. He states that in the unplanned revolution pedagogy is the driver, technology is the accelerator -He looks to Hattie’s work which stated no correlation between technology and student outcomes, however this is possibly because the technology has been acquired without the pedagogy in mind - now there is a flip towards the pedagogy first. He also promoted the use of Hattie's discovery that Teacher as Facilitator (.17) was too passive and Teacher as Activator (.60) was the desired state for working in the deep with students as this wasn't a passive state.

Deep learning (21st Century learning skills) - Of the six characteristics 3-6 have previously been included in 21st Century learning skills however 1-2 have been added in recent times...Character - persistence, resilience etc…, Citizenship is based more on the empathetic side, global thinking.

Fullan also discussed that Principal's do not get trained in developing the group - coaching models are particularly useful to help build the capacity of the organisation. I'd refer you to the book that Fullan has written along with Hargreaves "Professional Capital" which outlines the formula

PC=f(HC, SC, DC). Professional Capital - decisional capital (quality of knowledge for decisions), social (quality of the group and purposeful relationships, collaboration) and human (quality of individual). Social capital needs to be the driver - you can have quality individuals, however if they aren’t in a culture of growth then they will be rejected - collaboration is key - to what extend do you and other teachers work in a coordinated and effective way to improve outcomes for the students. I look forward to investigating more of his work on his site and in his book Stratosphere too.

Other reflections

I loved the showcase of student work using digital technologies from schools in the Manaiakalani Trust. A delightful boy named Robin from Glen Innes School politely came up to me and asked whether I'd like to look at some of his learning on his netbook. He shared with me his learning on his blog (link to come) and we discussed the features of a quality comment which he had been learning about too.

I also got interviewed for a quick segment for the Inspired by You channel. Where I said that when I was at school Mr VK of Manurewa High (now at Botany Secondary) was inspiring because of the relationships he had with his classes to make learning fun and engaging. I thanked Kim Benjamin as a leader who was always so positive in her dialogue with others and then stated the Festival was a great opportunity to showcase the excellence and variety across the sector.

Finally, it was great to make face to face connections with many educators that I am usually online with. The Festival of Education was held over a weekend, therefore it has meant that many of us have not stopped working. The difference I think for those that contributed and attend, is our deep commitment and passion towards our own learning and contributing to the sector for better outcomes for everyone. It was disappointing then not to see it showcased in any national news broadcasts.

Rewindable Learning via TeachMeetNZ

Earlier this year I was fortunate to take part in the very first TeachMeetNZ session. An online event, a meeting of minds for educators to share a nano presentation on something that is topical to the presenter. These sessions in New Zealand are coordinated by Sonya van Schaijik (@vanschaijik) that sprouted from her investigations into the Hyper-connectivity of educators with digital technologies and are part of a wider global movement of connected educators.

The presentations take place live via a Google Hangout and therefore are recorded, so if like me you miss the actual event you can watch the presentations again and again to grasp concepts or follow up on points of interest. Prior to the event Sonya has several practise sessions to make sure you feel comfortable with knowing how to join the hangout, share your screen, turn your camera and microphones on and off - plus she has a template that can be utilised to help frame your presentation. Once you've been a presenter you also get the priviledge of sharing the TeachMeetNZ badge on your blog.

I was keen to participate in the very first TeachMeetNZ because it was a new platform that we were all trying and experimenting with.  Sonya wasn't sure how it would go and I'm so pleased that it has now had it's forth session - with a breakout session being hosted by PE New Zealand teachers too using the TeachMeetNZ online space also.  This proves the power of hyper-connectivity that Sonya planned to achieve.  Personally I was pleased to synthesise my understandings from my 2011 study leave with my thesis research on teaching as inquiry.  It was a great opportunity to put my ideas together concisely in only three minutes to introduce the concept and explain my research findings with my summary diagram.  Further information on the concept of teaching as inquiry can be found on my wikispace (http://digitallearningnz.wikispaces.com/Teaching+as+Inquiry).  Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss my ideas further.

TeachMeetNZ has now had it's fourth event and all events can be viewed at www.teachmeetnz.wikispaces.com - Each presenter has a page with links to their nano presentations (9 slides @ 15 seconds/slide for a total of 3 minutes). I enjoy being able to watch the presentations when I'm available (timing wise for example today's event was mid afternoon and I was out with my family). So what better way to spend a Saturday night now that it's very late with the family all tucked in their bed but to continue to learn! There are currently 20 interesting presentations on this site, so go on... discover the learning possibilities of a TeachMeet by either watching an event or volunteering for a future event!

 My TeachMeetNZ page and presentation:

Teaching as Inquiry: TeachMeetNZ from Justine Driver

Team Collaboration for Teaching as Inquiry

I often get asked what does "teaching as inquiry" actually look like since this was the focus of my thesis work in 2011. While at my school we have adopted a teaching as inquiry approach since the launch of the revised NZC my current work has lead our staff to review the way that we work together in order to really focus on teacher practices that will have a positive impact to raise student outcomes. This year we changed the way that individual teachers evaluated their termly reading, writing and mathematics. I had a concern that teachers found the evaluation process a waste of time when I would hear comments like "no one reads them" so why do we do them? Some teachers did them for the sake of doing them but not viewed the process as one to reflect and transform their practice. I called a meeting of the team leaders and facilitated a conversation about what they thought of our evaluations, what they liked about them (or not) and if they were effective in actually having an impact on teacher practice to reflect on their actions that would change the way they viewed their professional activity. After the team leaders all had a turn sharing their ideas I could summarise that the system wasn't working and proposed a new way of working. Together we decided that a team approach would be the best option and came up with a possible template together that was agreed upon. 

We decided to use a Google Doc that staff members could collaborate on and analyse together as a team. After the first round of evaluations at the end of term 1, early in term 2 the team leaders reviewed the new system. All team leaders agreed that there were merits, better ownership of the team data and targets, putting the % of students to reach the target into actual numbers to get students "across the line" to meet the target was real, and that teachers didn't feel that they were alone in their endeavours to raise outcomes, the collegial approach seemed to be working Team leaders discussed that rather than doing evaluations at the end of terms they would do them as assessments were done and being updated (in reality it still ends up being at the end of a term). At the beginning of term 3 we reviewed the template again based on the ERO report on Accelerating the Progress of Priority Learners in School's report was published. As a team we identified that the evaluations in the current form were effective and to make the practice highly effective we would add in the changes since the last round of evaluations. We identified that staff were easily able to identify the gaps that students had, but weren't adding the specific strategies that they would try to see if it had an impact of student outcomes, what were the teachers going to try that was different? Here is a current example (with the names modified to reduce identification)

   

 In section A teachers choose a colour and record the students names and add the totals at the bottom of each well below, below, at and above section for their class. Students on the special needs register and receiving support are also identified by highlighting or * so that at a glance the curriculum leaders, team leaders and SENCO can see if support is required (if none already allocated). As a team they then add the totals and write a statement of how many students are achieving in relation to the National Standard targets and the shifts that need to occur. In section B (added after the ERO reading at the beginning of term 3) staff now have to describe the progress that has been made since the last round of evaluations and try to pinpoint what deliberate acts have caused this shift - what did they do differently. There is still a little bit of work across most teams to complete this new section, however we have made a great start. In section C the team work together to identify gaps in student knowledge and the strategies that staff will employ to accelerate progress - not just for the well below and below students but for the at and above students also. 

The team leaders ensure that the evaluations are completed before the school holidays so that the curriculum leaders for reading, writing and mathematics can review the data and see what professional learning they can provide for the team or individual teachers to improve outcomes. As DP for curriculum and assessment I then work with aggregating the shifts over each point the data has been collected and tally the information (example) I give print out a copy of all the evaluations for the curriculum leaders and also display the information in our staff professional learning room. The intention with the printed out tables being in a public space is so that staff may browse the data of other year levels to check how students that they have previous had, have progressed over time. If a teacher has identified a child they have had previously they might share some insights with the current teacher of strategies that they found had worked for the particular child. In this way the data and progress of all students is monitored and staff work collegially to take ownership of improving outcomes for all students.

Next steps: moving forward in 2014 we are going to continue this practice, however we are deciding on how this will look for us with the implementation of anniversary reporting.  At present we report in year group cohorts, so the move to After 1/2 &3 year at school anniversaries is leading us to think creatively how this might look next year.

Inspiring future leaders: a reflection on NAPP

Last year I was part of the National Aspiring Principals' Programme or NAPP.  This programme is for senior leaders who aspire to become principals in the near future. 

The focus of the NAPP is on developing adaptive, culturally responsive, digitally literate leaders through inquiry learning, and building their understanding of the research base around leadership. The delivery of the programme ranges from a variety of face to face small group work where akonga (learners) share their developing leadership inquiry over the year, a regional day, a national hui and  four online modules focus on school operating systems in the New Zealand context and show how to link those systems effectively to student achievement.  Using a mix of shared online interaction and individualised self-managed learning, the modules explore: school contexts, resourcing, personnel and employment, and strategies and planning.  I found the delivery of the programme to be very useful and complimented my daily work as a deputy principal.  I particularly enjoyed the face to face time in our smaller professional learning groups where each akonga shared their leadership inquiry and how this progressed over the year.  The opportunity to connect with akonga at the regional and national days meant that you could put a face to the online connections that you made through the Virtual Learning Network (VLN) and meet many inspiring facilitators.

This year I was priviledged to be asked to represent the 2012 akonga and return to address the 2013 NAPPsters at the National Hui, held in Auckland. I was asked to present a five minute talk to the close to 200 participants with a critical reflection on my experiences.  Leading with moral purpose and reflecting on ones practice is at the forefront of any leader if there is to be personal and organisational growth.  I discussed how being involved with NAPP led me to be more culturally responsive as a leader and reignite the need to be a digital resident and connected leader.

I was also asked to present two smaller round table events on my passion for implementing Teaching as Inquiry as a model of self and school improvement when staff view inquiry as a professional way of being.  Both these sessions were well attended and the link to this work can be found on my wikispace.

A Punch of Professional Development

Personalising professional learning to a whole staff is always tricky as 'one size never fits all' yet over the last year I've participated in several forms of professional learning that has catered to a wide group (all at once!). This has taken the form of "smackdowns" and unconference-style learning experiences. Smackdowns are small punches of information where tips, trick, ideas and wonderings are shared. In many cases a Google Presentation is set up and people are invited to create a slide prior to the event, when the event occurs participants must be prepared to get up in front of the audience and share their slide/knowledge. We have used the concept of a smackdown to continue weekly professional learning for our school wide blogging strategy. Each Monday at our morning briefing staff are encouraged to share 2-3 ideas about what they have found out about blogging. This way the learning is coming from the 'just in time' needs of the staff and staff see others taking a lead. The person with the designation of eLeader doesn't always have to be the source of new inspiration, staff can go to others who have shared or tried ideas. Using a smackdown has been a successful option for us - here is our weekly smackdown of growing ideas around blogging: An unconference format has also proven to be effective. This year I have attended the Emerging Leaders unconference called Ignition in the April school holidays, and at the beginning of this term Educamp Auckland using this format too. Usually when you attend a conference you are aware of who is presenting and what workshops are on offer for you to attend, with an unconference attendees turn up to the event and "post-up" workshops they are prepared to share. This way attendees create the professional learning that is to happen based on the needs, wants and ideas of the group of attendees that are in the room. It sources the collective knowledge and wisdom of the many to tailor learning. Lastly, I have found a hybrid approach to the smackdown/unconference and termed the phrase "sparkshop". I recently had the opportunity to organise a professional learning afternoon for our local eLearning network where we had 120 attendees. We started the session with a smackdown and then broke into sparkshops - 20 minutes of inspiration to spark ideas in attendees to go and try in their classrooms before the end of the term. Unlike an unconference where we would have been unsure who would be prepared to share, we approached 8 keen eLearners across the 15 network schools to present. These attendees made their contribution slide to a Google Presentation and then link their sparkshop so that everyone can view the presentations - attendees got to attend 2 sparkshops in our afternoon session. Here is our eLearning network sparkshop presentation: Finally, it's no point attending professional learning without a bias for action. Attendees were asked to fill in a pledge postcard and to record one thing that they will try between attending the eLearning network professional learning smackdown and sparkshops before the end of the term. These were collected and then school leaders will give back out in a few weeks time to see whether attendees have followed through on their pledge. Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini - success is not the work of one, but the work of many.

Ignition... restarting the journey

Three, two, one...blast off...

After four years of disconnection with the blogosphere I'm taking a bias for action and restarting my blogging journey.  At the end of June I took part in an Edu-Ignite presentation as part of the Emerging Leaders Aotearoa Ignite evening at Hobsonville Point School.  The following presentation outlines my journey with the concept of being connected, disconnected and reconnected as an educator, and the purpose for me in reconnecting with blogging is to share my leadership adventures. 

This term as part of our E-Learning professional development for staff I am expecting that each teacher at our school will write a blog post celebrating the learning in their room for the week, so I will have the same expectation for myself in this space.  I've given the blog a facelift from its previous look (below) and hope to build a positive digital footprint of leadership case studies that may engage others reading this.  So, the journey begins....(again)....

Our School's Journey for Implementing the NZC

In 2010 all New Zealand schools are to required to implement the revised New Zealand Curriculum (NZC). I believe my school is well on its way in the implementation process. As a leadership team we have only been working together since July 2008 and I believe that we are working well together to implement changes with the staff.

In 2008, after the arrival of a new Principal (Mr Vaughan van Rensburg) who has a passion for ICT and the inquiry process we reviewed the use of the inquiry process at our school. Since 2003/4 an inquiry model has been used, however we observed that the inquiry process knowledge amongst staff members was a bit stale, inquiry units seems to roll over more than one term (10weeks), there was not a lot of authentic sharing of the process/knowledge and findings to come out of inquiry and there was not a lot of student lead inquiry. The Principal ran several staff meetings to re-address what the inquiry process is and how it can look at several stages in the inquiry. Teachers were then given a new template for planning inquiry (which didn't overload teachers with integrating cross-curricular objectives) the focus was on the inquiry process and skills to access and acquire knowledge. This year the inquiry process is being used in terms 2 and 3 for the first 7 weeks only, followed by a 3 week intensive "hands-on" science unit. by limiting the time the inquiry unit is done, we are requiring teachers to really focus and teach the skills that are needed, with the intention that all students will be able to present their findings/knowledge in the 7th week. We intend to trial a rubric of skills in the areas of questioning, collecting information, processing and communication, so that students can see where they are at on a continuum and where they need to go next with their learning of inquiry skills.

In term 1, 2009 we had a teacher only day combined with 6 other local schools. This day was facilitated by Hooked on Thinking consultants Pam Hook and Julie Mills. The focus for this day was a broad understanding of the NZC, the principles and the importance of developing a local curriculum, specific to the needs of learners in your community. This planted new ideas for many staff that linked nicely into the work that we were to implement at school.

At the beginning of term 2, 2009 we surveyed our learning community on their priorities for learning and their current understandings of life at our school. The parents and caregivers of our students were asked about the things they liked and for suggestions on how things could be improved. We were really pleased with the 40% response rate of feedback of our surveys and the overwhelming positivity towards the changes the new leadership team has implemented and for the current direction of the school. These findings have been collated and will be shared with our community in the next few weeks.

Our second teacher only day was held on 29 May. To make this day a success, we began at our staff meeting on 26 May some preliminary work to get teachers into the mindset. First we discussed the exciting opportunity available to us in developing a local curriculum with the flexibility that the NZC allows. That we needed to be open-minded and really think about what was important to us, and our learners. We shared several videos about 21 Century Learners/learning and Pedagogy and sourced these onto a wiki so that teachers could then view them again and to view the ones we didn't show. Staff at our school have not had any professional development in recent years in ICT pedagogy and this was a first preview for many about the seemless integration of using technology as a tool, and not as an extra to the curriculum. It is the curriculum that drives the use of ICTs; they are a tool for learning not an isolated skill. Staff were asked then to think about our students as the future adults and what they may need to be successful in the future? Staff were asked to think what they would need in their MIND (attitudes/dispositions), in their TOOLBOX (skills), and in their BRAIN (knowledge). Staff were only able to make 5 statements in each category, I then took these away to prepare them as WORDLES for our work on the teacher only day. After this exercise we discussed how several schools have created a visual metaphor for what a learner looks like, how these schools used these symbols and that we were interested in working towards creating a visual symbol on the Friday teacher only day. We looked at Selwyn Ridge School's "Kid on the Ridge", Coley Street's "Coley Kid Heart Model", Te Akau Ki Papamoa's "Seven Waves", Cockle Bay's "4C's." For home learning teachers had to think of a new visionary slogan for our school. Currently it is "enjoyment through achievement", which staff do not like and it is not used in any way (except for on letterhead)... we want to have a statement that is living and breathing; not just on paper.

On the teacher only day teachers were seated in small groups (4-5)that included teachers from each team (junior Y1/2, middle Y3/4, senior Y5/6) and other non-class based staff members. The first activity was for each group to share and decide upon a vision slogan that they liked, then looking at their slogan unpack what it meant by looking at the the Vision Statement of the NZC (pg 8) for students to be confident, connected, actively involved, life-long learners. Each group produced a statement for the 4 aspects of the NZC vision that were personalised for our PHS Learners. These will be reviewed at a later date, and a vision statement will be made in consultation with our Board of Trustees, and our parents too will have the opportunity to contribute ideas.

The second activity was to look closely at the Rototuna Learner model. We watched their video about their teaching and learning philosophy and looked closely at how they used their learner model in the action. As a staff we discussed what we liked about the model. In particular we liked:

1. Philosophy of Formative Practice
2. Consistent Language used across the school
3. Simple graphic model based on a child
4. A model that has 6 dispositions, some models we looked at had more/less. They chose 6 relevant dispositions that were consistently used across the school.
5. Students, teachers, parents knew what each disposition looked and sounded like. Obviously there must be some kind of rubric to identify what each looks like at each year level/development stage.

We then broke for a delicious morning tea (always important when you are doing a lot of hard thinking!). After morning tea we looked at the WORDLES produced from our Heart, Toolbox, Brain activity at the staff meeting from earlier in the week. As small groups we looked at the trends of each WORDLE and what was the key attributes, skills and knowledge that was common amongst the ideas of teachers at our school. We then looked at one portion of our parent survey, what the parents/caregivers viewed as priorities in the curriculum. From here each small team had to come up with some dispositions that they though were important for a PHS Learner. As a leadership team we did not say how many, we were open to the ideas that came from each team. Each team then displayed their dispositions and we collectively discussed and debated what we liked. We ended up with 6 dispositions that were consensus amongst the staff: Communicator, Thinker, Investigator, Self-manager, Challenge-taker and Team player. It was great to see that everyone got to have a voice and be included (even teachers that are usually quiet contributed).

After lunch in our small groups we each had to work on a visual metaphor representation for the PHS Learner. This had to be based upon the 6 dispositions that we had all agreed on, and based around a vision slogan that as a group we liked the most. Each group got to share the symbols they used for each disposition and their visual metaphor. It was surprising how many teams had similar ideas. We then voted and came to consensus about what we liked for our visual metaphor. It was agreed that there was going to be a mountain (our school has "Heights" in the name so this was appropriate) and a child with a backpack of some kind with the dispositions on the child. One group had flags that had each disposition on it. We quickly realised that this would be great to use in the classroom also with the children. As a group we voted and came to consensus on the symbols to be used: Cellphone for communicator, magnifying glass for investigator, light bulb for thinker, back-pack for self-manager, a jig-saw puzzle piece for challenge-taker and hands united for team-player. We already have a strong values programme at school that is firmly embedded and reflected in the wonderful behaviour of our students (this would come into self-manager disposition) however, in the metaphor will be depicted as a heart on the student. We also discussed that we didn't want the child to be in school uniform, as we want them to be a learner in all contexts at school and beyond. (I hope to include some images of the day, and our preliminary drawings when I get back to school after the weekend here to share - so what this space!).

We asked the teachers to then complete a personal PMI of the day to give the leadership team feedback on how they liked the day and their feelings towards creating a shared vision and direction for learning at PHS. The teachers also voted on a new vision slogan for the school. Our new vision slogan will be: "Reaching for new heights together".

After this we had 45mins to start to plan and prepare for our community curriculum evening that will take place on 17 May. On this night we will share with the community our new vision slogan and work we have done towards creating a PHS Learner. We will seek feedback and trial our learner model over the next two terms ready for full implementation in 2010.

I will post a future blog about how we did our community consultation/curriculum evening.

At the end of this Teacher Only Day and reading the positive feedback from staff I can truly say that we have created a shared vision and model of a learner for our community. We had true collaboration and consensus. We had teachers speak up and not be afraid to share their ideas. We had teachers comment how their ideas were challenged and they learned new ideas from these challenges. We had true ownership!

Our next steps will be to unpack each of our learner dispositions and work out a shared vocabulary of what these dispositions look, and sound like. How these dispositions include the key competencies and further develop our interim curriculum delivery plan. Not forgetting to employ a graphic artist to draw up our vision and symbols (lucky we have a parent who is likely to do this for us!), however Vaughan has put a first draft together that currently looks like this.