Nearing The End Of a Busy Week

I'm buggared! but I feel good, content and still excited. This week had interviews and appointments, enrolments, BOT meeting and normal challenging work

The most important decision I made since starting was the appointment of Claire, Di and Lea. We've had a great 6 months. I wish I had captured our thinking and our expectations and our inter-connectedness from the start because I am convinced I would be surprised by the huge growth and shift we have experienced. Both as individual leaders and collectively as a team. We are much more different in our views and ways of operating than you might think. This is good and the challenge is to recognise and allow for those differences. For all of us it will be ongoing work.

The most important decisions they have had to help make was in the appointment of our 8 Leaders of Learning. I was always confident in our rigorous process and our collective ability to nail it. We certainly did that. Steve, Yasmin, Sarah, Sally, Jill, Megan, Kylee and Lisa have really added to our team. I find myself sitting back often while the work is under way and admiring the full team in operation and feeling very privileged and proud. I once got told off by a staff member for talking about the staff as my staff. We are definitely a team, but when no one is listening to me I do refer to the team as my team - I think just because of the pride I feel.

Moving on!

The next and equal most important decision we have had to make is the appointment of our next and final (in the meantime) group of teachers. When Danielle, Cindy, Bryce, Liz, Martin, Ros and Pete join us next term we will be even stronger and even better balanced. I like the way several of the LOLs are already getting excited about bringing the new team in.

This morning we performed our first ever public ukulele performance of our school welcome song (sung to the tune of Under The Boardwalk) to our visitor and critical friend, Mark Osborne. After a neat round of introductions when I learned even more about each of the team, Mark heard from the LOLs on their work on developing the sense and meaning of our Hobsonville Habits.

What did I hear:

• vision without management is hallucination
• the use of space should reflect our values
• sustainability is built by protecting the vision
• displayed work should reflect our values - do we value product or process?
• teachers, learners and whanau should be able to develop their own metaphors that best help them understand the values/habits
• the challenge for us is to change "hope to" to "ensure that".
• be wary of being the best school only for the first cohort

Time for a meeting with Di, then off to the clubrooms for a beer!