Term 3 - Week 1 @MatuaNgaru Spotlight

This term sees us based in Room 6 at Huapai District School. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to collaborate with our neighbour school and to base ourselves close to our school community. The staff at Huapai have made us feel very welcome, and we are looking forward to being part of the community.

Our Strategic Leadership Team continues to grow, with Monday being the first official day for our Office Administrator, Amanda Culverwell. Amanda will be in touch with many of you as the term progresses, as we start to set up enrolment interviews later in the term.

Communicative:
On Wednesday morning we attended the second session of a 12 week course in conversational Maori, held at AUT. Each session is 3 hours long and provides us with an opportunity to build our confidence and competence in communicating using Te Reo. This week we focused on introducing ourselves and where we come from, as well as asking others questions to find out the same from them.  We also had an opportunity to learn quite a comprehensive list of words for expressing our feelings in answer to the question, "Kei te pehea koe?"

We also received some wonderful news from the Resourcing department at the MOE regarding our staffing.  We had requested an earlier start date for our Learning Coaches and this has been granted, with the opportunity to appoint learning coaches (teachers) for a Term 4 start.  For a primary school, this is unprecedented.  Historically the MOE policy has enabled primary schools to start staff 2 weeks prior to the school opening.  This news gifts us the time to build our team, develop our curriculum, establish our school culture, co-construct robust induction processes and time to honour our cultural narrative.   This also signals the need for us to adapt our appointment timeframe.  We hope to appoint our learning coaches as quickly as possible so that our successful applicants can negotiate and provide as much notice as possible to their existing schools.  We are so excited to have this time together with the candidates that are able to join us on our journey earlier than we had anticipated.

Collaborative:
Wednesday afternoon saw Diana, Wendy and Kirstin heading down to Mount Maunganui to join the leadership teams from Te Uho o Te Nikau School, Te Ao Marama School and Taumata School, for a Leadership Retreat. Each of these schools will be opening in 2019, which means that all of us are on a similar journey towards developing the different components required to bring a school to life.

During our time away, we had an opportunity to network with each other, share ideas and ask questions. The Deputy Principals from each of the schools met together on Friday morning to establish a Professional Learning Group (PLG). This will enable us to support and learn with, from and alongside each other throughout this year, as well as next year once our schools are open. The Principals, already working together in a PLG, also spent Friday morning engaged in professional learning and discussion, relevant to their role.

Curious:
As part of the Leadership Retreat, we had the privilege of working with Mark Osborne  on Thursday, to explore Managing Change. We began the session by each sharing our personal and professional histories, and it was really powerful to have an opportunity to learn more about our colleagues.

A key message was the idea that preparing for change and sustaining change are just as important as the change itself. An interesting point raised was that resistance to change is not in and of itself a bad thing, and that it may actually be pointing to an area you have taken very little care of. Mark talked to us about the importance of ensuring our systems and structures are scalable and sustainable, meaning that anything we put in place will continue to hold firm over time and as the school grows.

We looked at 5 features of organisations that have adaptive capacity:

• Name the elephants
• Shared responsibility for the organisation
• Independent judgement expected
• Leadership capacity developed
• Continuous reflection and self review

Mark highlighted the importance of building relational trust in order to develop high functioning, supportive teams. This includes taking the time to really get to know our people and to care for their well being, and involves respect, integrity and competence on the part of all involved. 

The final part of the session was spent looking at Organisational Culture and how we can define, build, support and sustain a robust school culture that reflects our vision and values.

Creative:
With all of the amazing new learning we gained during our time away, the next step for the SLT is to look at the different ideas presented, and identify the ideas and practices we can put in place as we build our team of educators and establish the systems and strategies that will help us to make Matua Ngaru School a responsive and supportive learning community.

Coming Up In Week Two:
Tuesday - Uniform consultation afternoon - see our Facebook page for details
Wednesday - SLT Te Reo Course Session 3

Huapai (and Term 3) here we come!

Our term has come to an end, OMG, yes already!

We were sad to say farewell to the amazing team at HPPS as we packed up and headed off to our new, larger space at Huapai District School.  We provided and catered a thank you morning tea for the team at HPPS and guaranteed them that we would be back!

Huapai District School is just down the road from our school site so it is a much better venue for us as we begin our family interviews mid-term.  We had Torque IP set us up with a printer etc. so we are ready to rock and roll in Term 3.

Some highlights for me this term have been:

• Kirstin and Wendy!
• Amanda!
• Refining our Cultural Narrative
• School Visits with TUONT
• ERO Visit
• Community Consultation Evening
• Learning Coach Recruitment
• Set up of Linc Ed and School Docs
• Starting our Pre-Enrolments
• Uniform decisions
• Website almost ready to go live!

Looking ahead what I am excited about:

• Leadership Retreat with other new schools in Week 1
• Appointment of Learning Coaches (finding out re: staffing)
• Curriculum approach and design in alignment with vision
• Design of Induction Process
• Meeting our families
• Resourcing
• Linc-Ed development
• Next site visit and ERO visit
• A possible trip to Oz to visit amazing schools and network with inspirational educational leaders

I am also looking forward to sharing the Blog posts with Kirstin and Wendy as well:)

Recruiting our Learning Coaches

The time has come to recruit the rest of the @MatuaNgaru #DreamTeam, although we have not yet had confirmation of a Term 4 or Term 1,2019 start date for them.  We have advertised in the Education Gazette

We are very excited to continue in the process of designing our #DreamTeam and hope to make appointments by the beginning of Week 3.

Process for candidates:

• Apply via application pack
• Shortlisted candidates involved in Collaborative Evening in Week 10 including all SLT

• Second shortlist email
• School Visit
• Interview & Presentation
• Appointments

A progress update with ERO Visit #3 - June 27

We were thrilled to host Cynthia and Graham from ERO on June 27th at HPPS to share our progress to date.  Again we used the 12 areas they supplied to us in November 2017 but added what we shared in our March visit and our next steps.  It was a rather interesting day of sharing as I had laryngitis, but my amazing DPs demonstrated how successful their induction has been as they took over various aspects of our sharing when my voice gave out!  Talk about #DreamTeam.  See our slides below:

ERO was particularly impressed with the depth and breadth of our integration and alignment with our Cultural Narrative and it was wonderful to have Te Rongoapai, Megan, James and Alan from the Board reaffirm much of what the SLT shared in the morning.

We shared with them photos of our site visit as we weren't able to arrange one for them this time but we look forward to joining Cynthia and Graham on a site visit when they return in September.

Two weeks of #Awesome School Visits

Week 7 and 8 saw our team plus the #TUONT #DreamTeam join us for an epic tour of some amazing Auckland Schools.  In addition, Mel and I attended our second FTP Hui at Alexander Park and I attended a few NZSTA workshops to learn more about Governance, Financial Management and Principal Appraisal.

See the Padlet I have used to capture the essence of our takeaways from each school below (linking is work in progress):

Leading Learner Centred Practice With Mary-Anne Murphy

I spent a day with Mary-Anne Murphy as she unpacked ways in which we as  leaders can support our learners and learning coaches as they begin to develop more personalised approaches to teaching and learning.

In recent years, there has been a shift from teacher led to student driven classroom practices, and one of Mary-Anne’s key messages was the importance of having all the essential elements (criteria) in place in order for effective teaching and learning to occur. She used the parts of a house as a metaphor for the different elements, reinforcing the notion that, all the elements need to be present as they all have an important role to play in supporting the structure as a whole.

Before unpacking the criteria, it was important to clarify our shared understanding of the difference between personalised, differentiated and individualised learning, with reference to the work of Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey. Essentially, individualised learning is designed by the learning coach in order to meet the specific needs of an individual learner. Differentiated learning, on the the other hand, is designed by the learning coach for a group of learners, with the learning adapted to meet the needs of the group - a guided reading group would be an example of this. Personalised learning differs in that the learner is an active participant in the design of the learning and has a voice and choice in what the learning designed for them will look like based on their passions, needs and interests.

Criteria One: Curriculum Design

When looking at personalised learning, curriculum design needs to be responsive, based on a constructivist approach, carefully scaffolded and start with the learner. Traditional models of curriculum design have started with ‘the what’, with ‘the who’, in other words the learner, the last to be considered. Personalised learning flips this, with learning coaches starting with who and the what becomes the last step in the process. Thus, when implementing responsive curriculum design, you consider the following questions in this order:

Who: How might we create learning that starts with their experiences, understandings, interests?

Why: Where would I apply this learning?

How: might I teach them this/will they learn this?

What: is it that they need to be learning?

One idea that we explored is the notion that Inquiry is an organic process, it is neither a circle model nor a linear one. Mary-Anne suggested that if anything it is more a figure of 8, particularly if you consider Inquiry in terms of the model below:

Wondering is central to everything, and a simple way to create an Inquiry is to  turn your learning intention into a question. Whatever you do, you need to ask yourself, “Is this learning context relevant to their world?”

Criteria Two: Learning to Learn

A key component of this is Learning Talk, and keeping in mind that the language learners use is a window into their world and how they feel about themselves as a learner. As educators, we need to be aware of each learners ‘inside voice’, this is what they are saying to themselves, about themselves as a learner. Mary-Anne reinforced that as teachers what we need to be doing is to pattern interrupt when we hear an inside voice coming out in a way that is not helpful to the learner e.g. the child who says “I’m no good at Maths.”

As educators, we are not simply  “teaching growth mindset,” we are shifting how learners perceive themselves as individuals and learners. One way of doing this is to ask these questions when you hear unhelpful self -talk.

• What did you say to yourself after we had that conversation?
• What led you to that decision to do it that way?

The idea is to be non- judgmental but try to pattern interrupt that voice. You are wanting to unpack why they made that decision at that time.

Another aspect to consider is what messages do they get about themselves as a learner from others? e.g. someone saying, "I was no good at Maths so that’s ok you probably won’t be either". This is important because the messages they receive from others can either reinforce or disrupt the story they are telling themselves.

This was an area that really captured my attention and provoked me to think deeply about what this could look like at Matua Ngaru. It is something I am going to continue to research and explore as we look at curriculum design and what teaching and learning might look like at our kura.

Criteria Three: Assessment as/for Learning

Mary-Anne described the difference between Assessment as Learning and Assessment for Learning in a way that I feel clearly illustrates the difference. Assessment for Learning is held in the teacher’s hands, whereas Assessment as Learning is held in the student’s hands.  It is Assessment as Learning that allows a learner to know exactly where they are in their learning and where they need to go next.

Criteria Four: Personalised Learning

We looked at some different approaches to personalising learning, which really goes hand in hand with assessment as learning and negotiated choice.

Criteria Five: Negotiated Choice

This is where learners are supported and empowered to plan parts of their day within a scaffold developed with teacher. This might occur within a block of time e.g. Literacy, or throughout the school day. Learners may have choice over when to complete a task, which task(s) they will choose, how they might share their learning, or which teacher led workshops they will attend. It is important to keep in mind that there needs to be careful scaffolding and structures underpinning this, and educators need to know the strengths and needs of their learners, as well as what they are doing.

Criteria Six: Technologies

Perhaps one of the most powerful uses of digital technology within the school setting is that it enables learners to connect with the outside world, to have the ability to speak with experts, or to collaborate on a project with a class in another part of the globe.

Mary-Anne also reminded us that there are new parts to the Technology curriculum in the form of the Digital Technologies, and that it  is compulsory to be including these in classroom programmes from 2020 onwards.

Criteria Seven: Environment

Learner agency can happen anywhere and doesn’t rely on the presence of a purpose built space or special furniture. What educators do need to consider is the way a space is set up in order to enable student agency. At Matua Ngaru, we are using the term Flexible Learning Space to describe our learning environment, and this is in keeping with the ideas Mary-Anne shared with our group. If a space is flexible it means it can change and adapt to suit different purposes at different times, and allow teaching and learning to happen in a multitude of ways. Learner agency is supported in this kind of environment as it has the flexibility to respond to their needs.

Overall, it was a really valuable day, with some interesting ideas to explore further as we work towards developing our curriculum and our teaching and learning approaches at Matua Ngaru School.

Site Visit & Community Consultation Evening

We have had to very significant and special events this week.  First, we had our first official site visit where the #DreamTeam plus James did a tour of the building in it's current state.  It was so valuable to be able to get a sense of the floor plan and the size of the spaces.  

We then went to Huapai District School to set up for our second Community Consultation evening.  A lot of preparation went into this evening, including a mail drop in the school zone conducted by Kirstin, Wendy and I (plus our whanau), advertising in the local papers and newsletters (thanks Sam!) and preparation of the resources and presentation on the night.See our slides from the evening below:

See the thank you email I sent to our EBoT and team below:

Yesterday was epic.  The Matua Ngaru team of educators had an amazing site visit with Andrew.  It was very exciting to see how the build is shaping up and for us to begin to visualise what our kura will look like when finished.  It was the fuel to fire me up!  See the photos here.

Then what followed was an outstanding team approach to our Community Consultation evening.  Micheal King reckons that we had around 100 guests- a great turn out for sure.  This wouldn't have been possible without John and Sam from Huapai for being the most accommodating hosts (soon to be roommates)- thanks to you both for the venue, the IT kit and Sam for organising the creche/early advertising as well.    

I  can't thank you all enough for your contributions to a very successful and insightful evening with our many prospective Matua Ngaru parents (and potential future Learning Coaches).  I can easily align our 4 Vision Principles to the night:

• Curious-Mahirahira:  the community was full of curiosity and had the opportunity to learn from our presentation.  They really enjoyed the opportunity to question us at the 6 stations

• Collaborative-Mahi tahi: the collective effort of the EBoT and SLT (including Amanda) was organic and I must say we make a great team!  Thanks to Wendy and Kirstin for getting our supplies, Michael for getting me on the wifi and Alan for coordinating catering and Micheal for blessing the food.   

• Creative-Auaha: our SLT pumped their creative juices into the evening through the displays, activities and the fab media Kirstin prepared.

• Communicative-Whakaro: this was our goal for the evening and... tick!  We were able to convey clarity around our vision and big picture ideas/approach and the essence of Matua Ngaru.  We are committed to using our 4Cs, adaptive expertise, the NZC and Te Reo/Tikanga Maori.  We will be adding the slides (with the community feedback) to our social media next week.

Finally, an extra special thank you to Michael, Heike and Amanda for taking the time to contribute to our evening- this is very much appreciated.

Heike, Wendy, Kirstin and I visited the Forest School today (and Heike's collaborative magic at Windy Ridge) and we were able to discuss the evening.  We are feeling really positive and invigorated.  

Thanks again everyone- he waka eke noa!

Our Cultural Narrative flourishes

Our learning model is finalised thanks to Te Rongopai, Dawn and the folks at Graphic Detail.

The learning model aligns with our 4 learning values which are how we strive for our vision.  Our four vision beliefs are, in essence, our learning values.  In addition to our vision beliefs (guided by educational researcher Dr Julia Atkin’s From Values and Beliefs about Learning to Principles and Practice, 1996) our emerging curriculum is aligned with both the three pedagogies associated with adaptive expertise and the 7 Principles of learning (influenced by the OECD’s Nature of Learning, 2013).  We will unpack these further with our team once all are appointed.

Matua Ngaru learners will explore their curiosities through immersive and self-directed learning experiences that can extend outside of the school day which enables our young people to connect with and build community.  We believe in cultivating curiosity because it fosters engagement, contributes to the development of knowledge and deeper understandings, and is what ultimately, motivates us to learn.

~We value māhirahira

Matua Ngaru learners will discover, create and direct their learning anywhere, anytime and with anyone, connecting with whanau and experts in their pursuit to explore and celebrate our unique individual and collective identities.  We believe in fostering collaboration because it enables us to orchestrate our skills to amplify the learning.

~We value mahi tahi

Matua Ngaru learners will practise and develop skills for successful sharing of learning with all types of audiences and through all types of media.  We believe in developing communication because it empowers us to build connections and interpersonal relationships that flourish through the voices of our learners.      

~We value whakaaro

Matua Ngaru learners will use a variety of pathways (including Digital Technology), models, strategies and materials to make,build, construct and design.  We believe in nurturing creativity because it acts as a catalyst for innovation.

~ We value auaha

We have also refined out kainga names and rationale. (draft)

Kāinga Wheke- DISCOVERING: the Octopus is a curious creature who loves exploring  their environment by using the 5 senses. They are playful and interactive, spending time discovering by themselves and with others. The learners in this Kāiinga are learning to discover how their world works and exploring relationships within and outside our Kura.

**Wheke are kaitiaki - meaning they are guardians for Ngati Whatua o Kaipara

Kāinga Mangōpare - EXPLORING: the Hammerhead Shark is a resilient and feisty fish that gathers in groups during the day, whilst being a solitary hunter at night. The learners in this Kāinga are developing a growing sense of self, developing the confidence to go forward and explore on their own, while also seeking the support and social interactions that come from being part of a larger group.

**Mangōpare are an important food source for Ngati Whatua o Kaipara

Kāinga Pōpoto - GUIDING the Maui Dolphin is a highly social, communicative animal that is skilled at navigating. These animals display empathy for others and embody a collaborative spirit.  The learners in this Kāiinga will exemplify the teacher/guide element of tuakana-teina by caring for and helping the younger learners learn while they play and explore.

**Pōpoto are viewed as beacons of safety to Ngati Whatua o Kaipara

Kāinga Parāo - LEADING the Sperm whale is a nurturing mammal that is highly unique.  The learners in this kāiinga require freedom to explore and compassion while they: develop relationships with others, a strong sense of self and learn to belong (puberty!). Navigation using echolocation is symbolic of how these learners can learn/communicate with a global reach.

**Parāoa are a  very important, kindred, animal to Ngati Whatua o Kaipara

Next Practice Assessment @OJC

On Saturday, May 26 our #DreamTeam banded together to amplify our learning at an exciting event at Ormiston Junior College called "Next Practice Assessment".  This day was inspired by the removal of National Standards and the presenters shared a range of research, strategies and thoughts on where we will go next as a country.  What a real opportunity for us to think and act differently in our new kura.  Some takeaways for me included:

• transdisciplanry versus interdisciplinary and how this impact assessment practices

• need to unpack the 'essence' of the learning areas int he NZC

• use of the NZC levels, not NSs, will we also use progressions?

• designour approach to give our educators 'permission' to try new approaches

• look at relationships BEFORE timetables

• revisit what we VALUE frequently, it's about our learners being happy so they can learn (sing, laugh, move and love)

• integrate Maori values authentically, teach through Maori culture

• consider our approach to andragogy- digital badging for our staff nduction

• relationships require trust, trust requires relationship- #culturecounts

• how will our approach truly embrace the 'teachable' moment? the 'learnable' moments?

• honour the Arts, they have a high cognitive load (countries who value music also do well in maths/tests eg. Japan

• soft systems and hard systems must align -  Learning Furniture Guide

• have a language of AND and BOTH

• Design versus Planning

• Valuable time needs to be spent establishing NORMS and embedding our beliefs about learning- need to align mental models 

• Fix, clarify or LET IT BE

• Share levels of consultation with staff, they only need to know and participate in some things, yet keep it all transparent to make BETTER use of EVRYONE's time

• Perry Rush says we need only to look at our learners- THERE is our curriculum. Powerful pedagogical tools 1.Questioning  2.think aloud, modelling this   3 research yourself-third person

• Learning to learn grows the learning muscle

• Investigate 3  pedagogies- problem based-Hattie, primary experiences (Brooks and Brooks, 1993), memorable (Nuthall, 2007) to have a clearer picture of our approach

See the collective brain dump below.

Linc-Ed linking us together

Induction by fire for Wendy!
We had the lovely Glenys join us for a full on day of learning around how to set up our LMS Linc-Ed.  We have all come from schools who have used alternate systems and are excited about the affordances that Linc-Ed will provide our kura, having been developed by a principal.  The features that excite us, and which framed our rationale, include:

• intuitive and styly!
• usable by learners, parents and staff as a truly interactive, useful LMS
• unique to NZ and simple, secure
• enables our educators to add links, embed artifacts and provide feedback to learners
• empowers our tamariki to share their learning process and products digitally
• parent portal capable- creating a unique home-school partnership that enables whanau to engage in real time and have ubiquitous access to their children's learning and assessment and this all aligns with the #ubiquitouslearning component of our vision
• Have the ability for us to design a badging system should we wish to gamify aspects of our curriculum

Site customization Presentation here.

WAPA Leadership PL - Reflective Practice

As part of a symposium hosted by the West Auckland Principals' Association, the Strategic Leadership Team had an opportunity to listen to American educator, Pete Hall, share his ideas around creating a culture of reflective practice within a school setting.

When there is a culture of reflective practice, the commonalities define the culture, whether it is good, bad or mismatched. Hall identified the following fundamentals or building blocks for reflective practice:

• Relationships, roles and responsibilities (based around interpersonal safety and identified strengths)
• Clear expectations and communication
• Celebrating and also calibrating - when things go ary
• Goal setting and follow through
• Professional learning communities (PLC) and teacher leadership support
• Transformational feedback
• Differentiated coaching strategies

There are 4 stages along the continuum of Self Reflection - Unaware, Conscious, Action and Refinement. Pete walked us through the tool he has designed for self reflection, it is part continuum and part matrix, but is a comprehensive tool for exploring where you may be sitting in terms of your development as an educator. 

The video below provides a metaphor for understanding the Continuum of Self Reflection.

We need to consider that when we categorise people, we often miss the  important details, both the good and the bad that give us a fuller picture of that individual. We have an obligation to recognise people's strengths, to name them and to build upon them. As a leader, it is important to pay attention, to know what motivates and inspires an individual, and how each team member wants to be celebrated and acknowledged. 

An interesting point to keep in mind is, the way each of us teaches is a reflection of self. Observable behaviours and actions are just the tip of the iceberg. Below the water, the unseen, the driving forces include each individual's decisions, feelings, thoughts and beliefs. When exploring choices made by educators, a useful question could be to ask, " I noticed you did this...What other actions/options did you forgo in order to do this?"

Building teacher capacity needs time. We need to consider how to increase collective capacity - through robust professional learning communities, and also how to increase individual capacity - differentiate supervisory, coaching and feedback practices. You can't just work on a team, you need to work on both the team and individuals. We need to ensure we match our teachers needs and work deliberately towards point B.

The Cycle of Reflective Teaching

"The more reflective you are, the more effective you are." Hall & Simeral.

Reflection is thinking with purpose, that leads to outcomes. There are 4 key steps in the reflective cycle.

1. Awareness: keeping ideas, goals and outcomes in mind
2. Thinking intentionally
3. Assess impact: pay attention. Ask "Am I getting better?"
4. Responsiveness: make adaptations

The reflective cycle is like going up a spiral staircase, there is a little more expertise with each iteration.

Awareness

"Leaders don't change people. They create environments where people change themselves" Justin Tarte.

Educators need to know their why - why is it that they are in teaching in the first place? They need to know their learners, what they are teaching and the most effective pedagogical approaches to convey this.

Thinking Intentionally

Clarity precedes competence. Visionary leadership supports this when there is:

• a common language - so everyone knows what is meant by 'buzz phrases'
• common goals
• a clear plan for communicating these goals

4 Key Questions:

• What does success at our school look like?
• What are we truly trying to accomplish here?
• Why all this emphasis on reflective practice?
• How is reflective practice going to help us improve our results anyway?

Know your why. It makes a difference, as illustrated in the video, when we are connected to a purpose (the why). We often experience burnout when we've forgotten 'why?'

Assess Impact

"The applause is a celebration, not only of the actors, but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight." John Charles Polanyi

Celebrate what you value. Constantly assess the impact, results, effectiveness and short comings of anything you try.

Responsiveness

This is all about goal setting. Never mistake motion for action. Keep in mind that planning allows you to be adaptable, as opposed to blindly following the plan. We looked at SMART goal setting, with some tweaks and adjustments:

S: Strategically aligned to each other and our clear, compelling vision

M: Measurable

A: Attainable -Aggressive - Audacious (going from a low rung to a running jump)

R: Relevant

T: Time bound

Teachers need to reflect on:

1. What are we focused on as a school or team?
2. What is my personal, professional goal? What do I want to get better at?

So overall, a thought provoking day, with some useful tools and questions to apply to change leadership at Matua Ngaru School as we support our learners, educators and school community to ride the wave of change.

NZAIMs

NZAIMS  is an organisation that focuses specifically on learners in the Intermediate/Middle School years, and this event was an opportunity to explore issues and ideas relevant to our older learners. Two key presenters, Steve Francis and Alison Mooney,  facilitated the learning and discussion over the course of the day.

Adapt or Die:Thriving in Times of Change - Steve Francis
Steve suggested that we are reaching a tipping point in education, where change of some time is almost inevitable. With this in mind, we need to consider the implications for both our school staff and our parent community, as school is different from what they have previously experienced.

He talked about there being predictable stages of concern when people are faced with change (Ken Blanchard). These are:

• Give me all the information
• What does this mean for me?
• How will we start implementing?
• Impact (when you start doing)
• Collaboration (best done with someone experiencing the change alongside you, or a little way ahead)
• Refinement

It is important to keep in mind that you need to take time to address the first two points, before you can successfully address the others. Steve noted that there are two factors to successful change; your attitude and your ability to learn. Keep in mind that things tend to get worse before they get better.

When it comes to implementing change initiatives, you should only focus on 3 big areas per year (Steve referred to these as the 'big rocks'). It is important to communicate these clearly and consistently and monitor progress towards your goals. As a leader, you need to be clear about what it will be like after the change, paint a picture so that you have a clear and compelling vision. A suggestion was to priority plan and break the year into 5 week chunks, and to display this in the staff room so that everyone can see where they are heading and the progress made to date.

Motivation is the key to successful change and there are three key drivers for motivation:

• Purpose - people like to be purposeful
• Mastery - people like to be seen as good at what they do
• Autonomy - people like to have the power to make some choices

However, it is also important to be clear with everyone about the flip side of each of these:

• Responsibility - because we change lives
• Change - be willing to tweak and refine
• Accountability - yes you have choices, but if these are not leading to outcomes for our learners then this is a problem

In order to achieve desired change, you need to have a compelling vision or you will get confusion. Change needs to be planned and staged or people will feel that the pathway is unclear. Training needs to be provided, if required, or people will feel anxious. You need to ensure the necessary resourcing is in place or people will feel frustrated. Finally, momentum needs to be established or people will get 'change fatigue'.

Four Things Great Leaders Do and Three They Don't - Steve Francis

Leaders need to make sure all of their 'moments of truth' are sending the messages that they want to be sending. This includes when meeting with members of the school community, online interactions and all of the usual home/school communication. 

Great leaders focus on their teachers; they ensure they are doing everything they can to make them feel supported and valued, while also ensuring they are on the same page with the school's vision and beliefs, and that they are accountable for themselves and their learners.

There are four key criteria for identifying a great leader:

• They expertly manage staff, students and parents, keeping in mind that all 3 groups are interrelated and connected
• They make decisions based on what their 'best people' will think
• They focus on people, not programmes
• They ruthlessly invest their time and do what only they can do, delegating other tasks as appropriate

Fostering Intelligent Relationships - Alison Mooney

This was an exploration of 4 key personality types: Playful, Powerful, Peaceful and Precise. Being aware of an individual's personality can help with responding and interacting with others in a purposeful and productive way. 

Alison identified a key word for each personality type:

• Playful - People
• Peaceful - Steady
• Precise - Thorough
• Powerful - Action

Each personality type has a specific leadership style:

• Playful - Inspirational leader. Loves to encourage
• Peaceful - Diplomatic. Cares about people
• Precise - Strategic. Sets goals and works backwards from them in order to work out steps
• Powerful - Visionary. Loves achieving things

Finally, each personality type has a different set of needs:

• Playful - attention, affection and approval
• Peaceful - respect, value and harmony
• Precise - space, quiet and sensitivity
• Powerful - credit, loyalty and appreciation

To explore the four personality types further, read Alison's book "Pressing the Right Buttons"

Making Connections with our iwi and HPPS

Lots to highlight in this post:

Iwi Consultation:

We have been so fortunate to have such high quality support and engagement from the local iwi Ngati Whatua O Kaipara.  It began with the gifting of our school name, alignment with our school vision and continues with support in aligning the cultural narrative to our school approach including our logo, branding and learning hub names.  Tracy Davis and Te Rongopai Morehu have been hugely instrumental and generous with their time and knowledge.  Tracy also connected us with Graeme Tipene who is a talented designer who worked with us to develop our logo, which will also begcome the framework for our learning model.  Te Rongopai and her colleague Dawn Piper have also gifted us PL time this term working with our SLT to ensure we are honouring the history of the local area, including appropriate tikanga in our process development and in selecting our whakatauki for our kainga (learning hubs).  They have also gifted us the names and stories of four animal with significance to the iwi to use symbolically for our kainga.  We'd also like to thank both Dawn and Te Rongopai for translating our mihi and planning ahead with us for Term 4 PL (we have applied for MOE PLD Funding to heighten our Te Reo and Tikanga knowledge- fingers crossed).

See all of our work in our Cultural Narrative document.

Growing our Team
I have been working with Alan Curtis to develop our process for recruiting our Office Administrator who will start in Term 3.  We have had a lot of interest and applications and interview our shorlist of candidates on Friday.

First Time Principal Support

My FTP support continues as well with meeting with Brian Gower who has provided me with essential advice and support with connecting at the MOE level.  Highlights from our March Hui included Appraisal with Dr Wendy Moore, Julien Le Sueur- Getting to Know Your Ministry, Carmel Riordon- Financial Mgmt and Patrick Ikiua from the NZSTA on Governance tips.

Here are my notes from the useful FTP Huis as well.


Immersion in our Current Context
Opportunities abound here at HPPS to learn from and with the team.  Kirstin and I joined in on a TOD session led by Daniel and Lisa that both inducted, grounded and guided their team into their approach to conceptual curriculum design.  So much goodness to borrow from their approach.  We also had an in depth tour of HPPS with Lisa who provided highlights of their leadership and learning journey as they have grown from 50 to 500 since opening.  She talked about how they are working to infuse more play based learning approaches to enhance their learner centred, dispositional approach to T&L.  There was also talk aout how they are focusing on HOW devices are being used in the school to maximise the impact of device use, while increasing exposure to and use of other media for learning.  We were also gifted some time with Kristyn, one of the DPS, who delved deeply with us into their coaching approach- including some very useful advice and some questions we can use to frame our MATEs (Mutually Agreed Team Expectations) which we will develop for the SLT in Term 2.  Kristyn is an absolute think tank and we will be hounding her for more insights along the way!