Revisiting Our Vision #2

There is a lot to think about when checking the quality and relevance of our school vision statement. Our vision statement was created with input from staff, Board, whānau and students. It belongs to them all. However a school community changes over time and it is really important to check in and question the relevance of the vision for the current community.

We need to critique its effectiveness, asking questions such as:

Is it specific?
Is it magnetic?
Is it aspirational?
Is it relevant?
Is it challenging?
Does it describe what success would look like?

We need to consider what our school would look like in three years time should we achieve our vision?

We need our stakeholders to consider what they think our school would look like in three years time should we achieve our vision.

How will we go about collecting voice on these questions?

Revisiting Our Vision @stfrancischch # 1

      

Our school has now been open for four years and in that four years we have worked towards realising our vision:

Choosing to be an innovative Catholic Learning Community that inspires and empowers learners to succeed.

This vision was created with input from whānau, staff and students in the latter part of 2016 - with final decisions being made at the beginning of 2017.

We are proud of its aspirational view. We spent a lot of time choosing every word from the feedback and aspirations of all our stakeholders.

A lot has changed though as we have moved forward on our journey.

Since this vision was established we have joined the Manaiakalani community which has helped us increase our students and our own Digital Fluency. We have moved forward in our bid to provide collaborative and visible teaching and learning, anytime, anywhere, anyhow. 

We have taken an innovative approach to reporting to parents using Linc-Ed which has now migrated to LINC-ED Hero. Our parents have information at their fingertips regarding their children's current goals in Reading, Writing and Maths. We are soon to add Religious Education to this list as well. 

We deliver the rest of the curriculum through a Project Based Learning Approach. This isn't new - we were doing this from when our school opened however our approach is much more refined. We try to give the students real life problems or issues to work on collaboratively. We share our learning with our community and also the world via student blogs. Through this approach to delivering the curriculum we are able to focus on the 6 C's; Character, Citizenship, Communication, Collaboration, Creativity and Critical Thinking. We use the Linc-Ed tool to report on these areas as well.

Key Areas of Investigation for 2020

The Power of Autonomy

We try to put the learners at the centre of every decision and we ensure that decisions are also based on current research. Our Leadership Team Inquiry in 2019 was based on The Power of Autonomy. We have learned that student autonomy = student voice + student agency + student leadership. We are not there yet but this continues to be a huge focus for us in 2020.

Cultural Responsiveness

This is an area that we are also growing as indicated in our last ERO report. We have plans of increasing whānau engagement with Whānau Hui. All of our staff have attended a workshop at Tuahiwi Marae which has been a great ignition for our work in this area.

Structured Language Approach to Teaching Reading

This year we have introduced this approach to teaching Reading in our Junior School. Maire Bowler (DP) is leading this. A lot of background research and thinking has gone into the decision to change the approach we use and we believe that this will better set up our students for success in the future.

Springboard Trust Strategic Leadership for Principals

This year I am participating in the Springboard Trust Strategic Leadership for Principals 2020 programme. Over the year I am participating in workshops that will lead our Board of Trustees through the process of developing a new Strategic Plan.

One of my tasks  at the moment is to lead the revisiting of the vision to see if it is still relevant for us now, nearly four years after it was created.

This is a great time to be doing this - we can reflect on our our journey over the last four years and throughout our time of Distance Learning:

How relevant was our vision throughout this time?

How relevant is our vision now? 

Does our vision encompass the Manaiaikalani pedagogy that is becoming embedded in our school? 

Is our vision future-fit?

These are just some of the questions our Board and other stakeholders will want to be discussing in this process. 

Blog hop Week 5 - T is for Transformation

Prompt #2
What are you doing differently?
We all do things a little differently. Describe and discuss a practice that you are doing differently at your current school. Share your ideas on why you chose to do it this way and what the results of this have been.

It has been challenging getting this post completed this week - not only fighting to find time but also having to reflect on everything that we do at St Francis to choose what it is that we do differently and thinking about our why.

Things that I do differently now from how I have done things in the past - there are many. When we opened our new school at the beginning of 2016 we (our establishment Board and our senior leadership team) were to determined to make use of this amazing opportunity to rethink school for our community of learners.

"Change is an opportunity to do something amazing". 

                                                                                

This quote, from The Innovators Mindset - a book written by George Couros, has been our mantra. Our community of learners has been encouraged to think differently as we have started to build the culture of our school.

Our Learning community has worked hard to create a vision statement to help us have a platform on which we can base our future decision making. After several bouts of consultation we have come up with an ethos rather than a vision statement. We feel like this statement supports our intent to rethink school and  to deliver the curriculum with an innovative approach.

We are choosing to be an innovative Catholic learning environment that inspires and empowers all learners to succeed.

Curriculum Delivery has been one of our major focus areas - we want to deliver the curriculum in a way that inspires and empowers our learners. We have chosen to use a Project Based Learning approach. 

This is a link to a great article that talks about definitions of what PBL actually is. What the heck is Project Based Learning?

Our teachers work together to craft driving questions that start our students on a learning journey and yes the learning is in the process not just in the product.

"Kids show what they learn as they journey through the unit, interact with its lessons, collaborate with each other, and assess themselves and each other. They don't just take a test or produce a product at the end to show their learning".

So how have we done things differently to get to this point?

- We have encouraged and supported our teachers to take risks and trial new ways of delivering the curriculum.

- We have shared our thinking about PBL with our community.

- We hosted the Movie - Most likely to succeed so that our community was able to see the big picture of PBL

- We have used Twitter to connect with other learning communities that are delivering the curriculum this way.

- We have run a book club (optional) for staff to work through Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning.

- The Senior Leadership team has committed to doing two online courses through PBL Global PBL in order to ensure we have a good knowledge base.

- We have connected with Thom Markham (CEO and Founder of PBL Global) via Twitter. We are excited to welcome him to our school in November this year to work with our staff in moving them forward with their practice of PBL. Thom will also mentor our teams throughout 2018 (this will be via Skype as Thom is based in California).

- Next year we will rethink the delivery of staff PD and all our staff will get the opportunity to complete the two online courses Introduction to PBL and Best Practices; and Build Your PBL Skill Set. This will mean less full staff PD sessions and that all staff are working through the content at their own pace - providing differentiation for our staff as we do for our students.

As I write this I am reflecting on how lucky we have been so far to have a Board that backs us in to be innovative and staff with growth mindsets - they are so willing to try new approaches, reflect, tweak and try again continually. 

It is pretty exciting to see how far we have come - even though we know we have a long way to go. This is a constantly evolving process. 

Looking back...moving forward!

Week 32 - Changes in Practice

More than ever it has become essential for our profession to utilise opportunities for professional development in order to better meet the needs of learners in the 21st century. The Mindlab postgraduate programme has afforded me the opportunity to connect with other like-minded professionals and to collaborate with them investigating and learning how to activate shifts and lead change in practice, integrate technology, enhance digital capability and activate new teaching practices.

Valuing learning is paramount - and in order to demonstrate this we need to make our learning visible. The last paper Applied Practice in Context has required us to complete a number of reflective posts. Blogging has made us make our learning visible. While it can make us feel a little vulnerable at times there has been much value in reflecting on our current thinking in this form. The most valuable part of this reflective practice for me is the talking I do with my colleagues as I am forming my ideas and then the feedback I receive from other course members and other bloggers.

These are the two key changes/next steps in my own research informed practice in relation to the Practising Teacher Criteria (PTC) in e-learning

#1

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.

Guiding Question: How do I/can I use e-learning to support my colleagues to strengthen teaching and learning in my setting?

One of the next steps for us is to determine a vision for our school that the whole school community will buy into and support. In order for us to provide the e-learning direction for our school we need it to be part of the vision. Our Senior leadership is charged with ensuring that e-learning is integrated across the school at all levels and that it reflects our school communities needs. We need to get this right - we need to bring our community with us, we need to ensure that the right personnel are in place to drive this are forward in our school. Through participation in the Mindlab course we have been given the chance to reflect on leading change - how we go about successfully leading change in this area and we have reflected on what needs to be in place to be effective. It's time to put this all in practice.

#2

Criteria 12: Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice.

Guiding question

How do I use e-learning to advance the learning of my ākonga/learners through critical inquiry with my professional learning?

"Teacher inquiry is an evidence-based process that allows teachers to trial new pedagogies and tools in relation to the needs of their class. It can be a powerful tool for implementing e-learning in the classroom". (TKI, Enabling e-learning)

Reflecting on the project plan we were required to put together for one on the other papers was a lightbulb moment for me as it really clarified for me that Project Based Learning, implemented well, was one way of ensuring that students would be working on authentic projects and tasks that would cause them to be involved in deeper learning and therefore hopefully more engaged in their learning. I am keen to move forward with this project and actually implement the plan. We need to be prepared to trial new pedagogies and tools and then reflect on the results to see if we are making a difference to student outcomes. We need to be inquiring into our practice and making evidence based decisions.

What's next?
I was going to label this post "The Last Post" and find an image of a bugel. This picture came to mind because it the last post in a series of assignments for the Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Practice: Digital and Collaborative Practice. However this is not my last post, far from it I think - I was blogging before the course and I will continue to blog. The blogging process helps me clarify my thinking and as stated earlier the feedback from colleagues really helps clarify next steps.

My next steps in professional learning are still not clear for me. I have really enjoyed the Mindlab course and even though there have been many times I have been time poor and therefore a little stressed - working collaboratively with my colleagues has been invaluable. I want to concentrate on moving forward with building a vision for our school - making our school the school of choice for Catholic students in the Mairehau Parish and while I am doing that I will ponder on my next steps for learning.

References:

TKI: enabling elearning site

Contemporary issues or trends in New Zealand or internationally

Week 27 Activity 3

The NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in schools.

THe NMC Horizon report 2015 K-12 was steered by four main questions:

What is on the five-year horizon for K-12 schools worldwide?

Which trends and technologies will drive educational change?

What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome?

How can we strategize effective solutions?

The emerging trends that are discussed in the report are divided into those with short, medium and long term impact. All of the these trends resonate with me when I consider what is happening at our school. However two in particular stand out for me as we begin to move towards establishing our vision.

Long term Impact - Rethinking How Schools Work
Rethinking how school works is one of the long term impact trends that is outlined in the Horizon report. What does it mean to rethink how school works?

Johnson, Adams Becker, Estrada, & Freeman (2015) state that this trend is driven by the influence of innovative learning approaches. Schools need to change the traditional approach to learning to meet the needs of the students they are catering for and to create opportunities for deeper learning. In schools that are based on this traditional approach students are more consumers of technology not creators. Changing this needs to involve increasing student voice or student agency. Asking the students what, where, and how they would like to learn and responding to these answers may mean that the school day needs to be restructured and that teachers may need to approach the delivery of the curriculum with a different mindset.


2. Mid term Impact - Shift from Students as Consumers to Creators
As more and more teachers come on board in regard to trialling innovative approaches to teaching and learning the traditional approaches will be challenged. This has to happen for our students to be able to become creators of content rather than consumers of technology. In New Zealand at present in many teachers, while welcoming of technology, use it as a substitute for paper and pen rather than allowing students to become creators of content. Allowing our students to be more creative, to learn to code, to show their mastery of a topic in some creative way rather than a test or work sample is really important.

Innovative approaches to learning are being trialled in many schools. Getting students to work more collaboratively finding answers to driving questions about authentic problems ensures that students become more engaged in their learning

Because we have been investigating Project Based Learning (PBL) for our Mindlab assignments I have become very interested in this approach in particular. At first I was unable to determine the difference between Genius Hour, Passion Projects, 20% Time and PBL. I struggled with the question of how we would “cover” the curriculum when students were always able to follow their passions but the more I delved in the more hooked I have become. PBL gives the opportunity for teachers and students to set driving questions within a single curriculum area or an integrated approach - it is essentially a framework for deeper learning to occur, a framework where we can encourage students to become creators rather than consumers.

At St Francis of Assisi Catholic School (opened Feb 2016) we have been given a fantastic opportunity to rethink how school can work. We want to reimagine the traditional approach to school and provide what is needed for the 21st Century learner - we want our learners to be banging down the walls to come into our place of learning and we want our community to be assured that these students are being prepared for the world they will be working in.

I am keen to trial moving to a PBL approach in all curriculum areas. I don’t have a clear picture of what this could look like yet - that’s a little uncomfortable for me at the moment - but actually I am becoming more comfortable feeling like this.

Week 26 - Activity 2 - My Professional Community

Week 26 St Francis of Assisi School Community of Practice
-Applied Practice in Context Post #2

In order to discuss the values and and principles that underpin my practice within this community I feel the need to describe the context a little more fully in this post.

Stoll (2000) states that a school’s culture is shaped by its history, context and the people in it and that a school's age can impact cultural change.

I am the principal of a new school that opened its doors to students on 4 February 2016 - this year! At the time of writing this we have been open for fifteen weeks. Our school opened after the closure of two schools - St Paul's, Dallington and Our Lady of Fatima, Mairehau.

Our school is new, however it is also a merger of two school communities who both bring with them history of their own contexts. We have staff from both schools, staff from other schools and a contingent of beginning teachers , we have large groups of students from both schools and a few new students as well and we also have two parent communities. These will all have their own impact on cultural change as we move forward together.

What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? 
Building relationships, continuous improvement, mutual respect and collaboration are the principles that underpin my practice. As a senior leadership team (SLT) we want to create a culture where all teaching professionals feel supported to take risks and where everyone is focused on shared goals and where everyone takes responsibility for the success of all.

In her Ted Talk Teachers Create what they Experience Katie Martin (2016) talks about the things that leaders need to do to create a shift towards a culture of innovation and for the community to be able to understand what the desired teaching and learning looks like. The building of a shared vision is paramount, teachers need to opportunity to learn and the opportunity to take risks and to be able to perceive learning as a process not an event, teachers also need have opportunity for coaching and rich feedback from their peers, and lastly the chance to work collaboratively with their peers. 

How are we as an SLT contributing to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?

- we model collaboration by working together in a shared space on shared projects
- we release teaching teams for collaborative discussions in contact time
- we work hard to show staff they are supported and and that their efforts are valued
- we provide regular professional development opportunities and we are working on delivering PD in different ways
- we are organising visits to other schools so that teachers can see collaboration working in other contexts

Essentially we are trying to provide as much support as we can when we can.

What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?

One of the issues in our community of practice is that of building a shared vision that everyone owns and buys into. We are just in a phase of moving from having an establishment Board to electing our first Board of Trustees and this will be one of the first and most important projects they will have to be a part of once they have been voted in. 
We need to canvas all stakeholders and find out what it is they want for our students. We need to use many different techniques to ensure we offer many different ways of people engaging in this process. e.g.

- run a What if exercise with all stakeholders.
- Survey the stakeholders
- Blog and use Padlet for an interactive response
- World Cafe 
- Focus Groups

The SLT will need to work with the Board and the staff to produce an action plan so that we end up with a vision that serves our whole school community. I am looking forward to having a shared vision that all stakeholders feel they have had a part in creating and that they share a collective responsibility in striving to achieve it.

References
Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from 
http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Martin, K. (2016). Teachers Create What They Experience [Video] TEDxElCajonSalon
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcDpDPwRxvU&sns=tw