Enlightening and Inspiring - Di and Mel visit some incredible Christchurch Schools

Wow!

After the amazing learning and connecting and ideating we did in Sydney during the SingulairtyU Conference, Mel and I wasted no time and promptly returned to Auckland for one night (me to attend my friends final concert as The D4 and Mel to migrate her pooch Guchi to new doggysitters) and then we were off to Christchurch early Friday morning to visit schools.

We met at the airport, with Mel's Board Chair, Karen Gibson and trustee, Lionel Mickell in tow.  I rented us a car and we drove straight to Waimari School to meet with Mike Anderson, Principal (and for an observation of a prospective TUONT DP!).

We were blown away with the candor, honesty and sheer brilliance that were bombarded with at Waimari and that continued as we visited Rolleston, Haeata, Ao Tawhiti Discovery, Haeata Campus and Waitakiri Schools.  I used the Supporting Future Oriented Learning & Teaching article  that the NZCER Published in 2012 to frame my noticings and takeaways from these, and other, school visits during term 1.

Thank you so much to the leaders in these schools for sharing your learning, approaches and advice with us new school principals!

Key takeaways from each school can be viewed in the following slides (Slides 5-19).

                          

SingularityU Synergy - Akoranga Adventure with Mel

My Exponential and Abundant Learning at #SUAU18 - UNDERSTAND. ADAPT. THRIVE.

Re-spect means to look again so for me the SingularityU Australia Summit was the convergence of transformative thinking from experts in artificial intelligence, technology, robotics, medicine, biotechnology, criminology, public policy.  The experience empowered me to appreciate and visualise where we’ve come, where we’re going, and what’s possible for humanity in the face of accelerated change and technological empowerment.  As an educational leader charged with opening a new school, it is imperative for me to stay informed, aware and resilient because the future is now.  We owe it to our learners to arm them with the the permission to imagine, a growth mindset and the adaptable skills they need to engage with the, yet to be imagined, exponentially technological and innovative opportunities of tomorrow.   

"The future is limitless. We need to encourage the imaginations of our children to shape this future with hope and possibilities." - Edie Weiner

Our world is no longer on the cusp of exponential change, it is well within it!  Moore’s Law dictates exponential growth and both the rate of improvement and amplification potential of technological advances is no longer linear.  It would seem that we will be in a global place of inequity in terms of technology and resources but Tiago Mattos challenges this mindset with a mental model of abundance, rather than one of scarcity.  As the primary leader of learning at Matua Ngaru School it is essential that I ensure that our systems are designed with this in mind and this will first require careful unpacking of our vision and alignment of this to everything we do.  What do we believe as a school community?

“The first step to making a difference is realising we actually can, realising one person can make a change and that we need to show up and stand up for what is right.”  ~David Roberts

What will we do at Matua Ngaru School to expand horizons through imagination, to say ‘yes’, to foster creativity, to solve problems, to get it wrong to get it right and to nurture wonderful, compassionate, critically thinking human beings who want to contribute positively to the world by believing they can make a difference? I hope to develop a curriculum and pedagogical approach that makes Matua Ngaru School a ‘billionaire’ school that grows kind, curious change agents who can collectively touch a billion lives. So how can we become a place that nurtures the soft skills that future work will require? Our NZC is a wonderful guide, especially the values, principles and key competencies which will frame our learning design and ready our learners for work in the future spaces Edie Weiner predicts as vertical farmers, food printing specialists, compost designers, global policy makers or even AI food designers!‘

In addition, the opportunities that our vision of ‘ubiquitous learning, on a wave of change’ affords are #limitless. We have a wonderful community where we can innovate- looking at the things that matter to our learners. Will our school be a place where ideas will be born, ideated, prototyped, tested, failed and iterated again? Yes!  I believe that we will make our school a place that breathes the philosophy that ‘you can’t break an idea’, where you can contribute to science as a child by being bio-curious or acting as a citizen scientist and a place that is forever on a wave of change.  What an exciting place this will be!  Impossible = I’m possible. Let’s be #futurehunters!!

"I'm very optimistic. The best is yet to come – but there's one area I'm worried about... A crisis of imagination. Because of exponential technologies, your reach exceeds your imagination. So the biggest risk is not thinking big enough." – Amin Toufani

#ubiquitous   #abundance  #disruption   #globalgrandchallenges   #4DPrinter   #ubiquitousrobotos #virtualVERSUSreality   #innovate  #MooresLaw  #everythingisenergy   #bio-curious    #limitless #futurism  #youcan’tbreakanidea   #templosion  #bebrave #exponential   #liquidbiopsy #citizenscientists   #cryptocurrency   #BAANGFUEL   #hackitup #re-spect #convergence #waitbutwhy #cyborg   #humanity #compassion

A manic two weeks of planning and learning!

Week 2 and 3 have been manic!

What the haps highlights:

• Budget- continued work on the budget in preparation for the Board Meeting
• Met with Georgina and Paul from Spotless to begin the FF&E review
• Updated the Team with the events and plans for the first month
• Engaged with TELA to procure a device for myself and the DPs
• Worked on the creation of a vision media to share with the communicaty
• Visited Ken White at the MOE to discuss some queries around staffing and funding
• Met with Phil from Torque IP to discuss the IT infrastructure that will suit our needs
• Met with Roy Fletcher from NZEI to learn more about how to engage with this organisation
• Communication with School Docs to set up our school with a site for policies and procedures
• First official Board meeting of 2018 held at Huapai District School

Key Learning:
FTP Meetings were fruitful.  First meeting with Brian Gower (FTP Leadership Advisor) to discuss how the support will work with the First Time Principal's Programme.  It turns out that as I am in the establishment year of my school, I will receive three years of support.  Brian suggested that I hold off on enlisting an official mentor, and that aligned well with my thinking, as I am currently being unofficially mentored by Daniel @HPPS, Luke @OJC and Heath @OrmPS.  I will likely be in a better position to identify an 'official' mentor next year.  Other items we covered were my appraisal, tips and tricks for leadership info gathering, collaboration with other schools, budgeting advice, the leadership dimensions, the role of the Board Chair and Governance Facilitator and suggested professional learning/readings for me.  We will meet twice a term and I keep an agenda/notes of these.

I have also spent a few days with Mel Bland (who is anything but!) from Te Uho O Te Nikau.  We visited Ken White at the Ministry to gain clarity on how our schools are funded, to gain access to the associated policy, to get copies of the 'blue dot' map for our schools and to pitch for increased staffing.  Mel, Tony, Gen and I, along with our Boards, are all keen to have the Ministry review their policy around how new primary schools are staffed to gain equity with junior colleges/high schools.  We would like to be able to recruit and hire the Learning Coaches for Term 4 of this year.  Ken has suggested we contact Resourcing and that is our next step.  In addition to this, Mel and I met with Phil from Torque IP to review the maps of our schools and discuss IT infrastructure and procurement. I am very excited about how we can align our vision, the needs of our learners with future focused digital technologies.  Procurement will start in Term 2.  Other points covered in our meetings included:

• Planning our trip to Sydney for the SingularityU Conference
• Planning our trip to Christchurch to visit recommended schools
• Isthmus planting designs for both schools- lovely designs for both schools
• PL Plan- we are keen to band together to share PL costs for some 'retreat weekends' in Term 4 (if we do not get our staffing requests approved, we do get funding to release the teachers we appoint for 5 days in term 4) and we identified a number of other local, national and global PL opportunities that could be enlightening 
• Shared and discussed the Principal Report formats that each are using with their EBoT

But... the standout learning highlight of the past two weeks for me was joining in (crashing?) the Flat Bush Schools PL at Ormiston Junior College that featured Tony Burkin from Interlead.  Tony challenged us all to unpack and strive for Stretch Collaboration in our quest to lead "Metanoia".  Moving from Conventional Collaboration where we Force- Adapt-Exit to Stretch Collaboration involves us accepting that there cannot always be harmony within relationships:

• Stretch #1 recognise that people have different ideas- dialogue and fighting take place and are preferred to silence.  (Leader- foster DISSONANCE)
• Stretch #2 Adapt- experiment with finding a way forward, take risks to see what works rather than trying to build the ultimate plan in advance before committing (Leader- cannot be people pleaser)
• Stretch #3 we cannot control what other people will do.  Shift in how we understand our role (Leader from director to contributor) in the problem-solution.   "Ïf you can't see how you are part of the problem then it follows logically there no way you can be part of the solution except from the outside through force".  

So whatever the problem is... well-being, culture, accountability-responsibility, work-life balance, providing thinking space, educator voice, building team, PD vs PL, grit/growth mindset, failing is learning, expertise, defining our role... we have to use Stretch Collaboration.  This will take considerable learning and discomfort to embed as standard practice within our teams in our schools.  See my brain dump from the day in my blog post here.


What's coming up:
Looking forward to Sydney!

(see the next blog post for the awesomeness from SingularityU !)

New Year, New Principal, New School...

Kia Ora, Namaste, Nin Hao, Sat Sri Akal, Choum Reap Sor, Sawubona, Talofa Lava, Kia Orana, Bonjour & Hello

What the haps highlights:

So my first official week as a Principal has now come to an end!  And what a week it has been. I started at Hobsonville Point Primary School on Tuesday where Daniel Birch and his amazing leadership team welcomed me into their school and have provided us a home base for the next two terms.  It has been fascinating for me to see how much they have grown and I am looking forward to learning more from Dan, Lisa, Kristen and Megan- particularly around how their pedagogy and curriculum have evolved since I last spent time with them in 2014. I am especially grateful to have Dan as an interim mentor, as he is the only other full primary principal who has opened a new PPP school in Auckland, not to mention that he is a future focused innovative leader!

I have also spent time framing our budget for the foundation year, aligning it with our Teaching and Learning grant, the administration grant and the library grant as well using budgets from other new schools, the KiwiPark model and others as a guide- budgets are definitely new learning for me.  I also met with Michael Harrison from Aurcon and Alan Curtis, our Board Chair regarding the joinery that is planned for the design in the build of the school. It was great to have this opportunity to review some drawings of the school and get a better sense for the layout. 

Other key points of business have included reviewing the Torque IP agreement (they are our Technology Infrastructure Consultants and Project Manager) and advertising our proposed zone in the local papers: NorWest News and the Kumeu Courier.  Sam Wells from Huapai District School, who is our EBoT Secretary, has been an absolute marvel in this.  I have also submitted a request with a rationale to the Ministry for us to be able to appoint a Specialist teacher to start in term 4. Fingers crossed.Lastly, I have rejigged our Establishment Project Action Plan into a format that suits me.



Key Learning:
Some key areas of operational and professional learning this week has involved spending time with Koral Doidge from Ormiston Primary School to set up and navigate Novopay and Xero along with some self-directed learning using their online modules and video guides.

I spent a day setting up our Microsoft 365 platform with Crispin Lockwood- Microsoft Learning Delivery Specialist (and also my husband!) to ensure we can support teaching and learning approaches within both the Google and Office digital landscapes.  I am excited to learn more about how other schools are using MS365 in schools as this is not my area of speciality, being a Google Innovator myself:)

I also reviewed a lot of documents that the wonderful and generous NZ school principals have shared in the NZ Principals Facebook shared google folder and investigated which professional organisations to join.

A wonderful aspect of my new role is that I am not alone.  Mel Bland, the vibrant and amazing principal of the other Auckland PPP school- Te Uho O Te Nikau Primary and I are committed to a collaborative approach in our new school, new principal journey.  Mel and I are also networking with Tony Grey and Gen Fuller who are started new schools in 2019 as well.  Mel and I will share the same First Time Principal Mentor, Brian Gower who I meet next week.  I am hopeful that the new program, facilitated by Evaluation Associates and led by Diane Manners, will be of the high caliber that the National Aspiring Principal's Programme was (led by Micheal King, Cognition Education, as part of Te Toi Tupu) where I was lucky enough to be mentored by Lionel Mickell in 2015.

What's coming up:

• arrange an ESL login and subscribe to APPA, WAPA and NZPF
• meet with Megan to review budget
• Flat Bush Schools PL Day
• Meet with Brian Gower re FTPP
• Book flights to Christchurch for school visits with Mel