One of the big concentrations of our work has been in the area of I of GPLISEO (Institutions) as we have been working on creating new institutions of schooling in our minds and then constructing them in reality. As my previous post mentioned, along with the many posts from our staff (access them in my sidebar for the various perspectives), one of the highlights of this week was the revealing of the institutions that will support the Specialised Learning Modules element of our curriculum.
The L of GPILSEO (Leadership) has been vital in getting to this point. A new way of schooling definitely requires a new way of leadership.
I have been a principal for 11 years. All of those years have been tough and challenging, but also very rewarding. Despite the absence of students and all the teaching interactions and relationships that go with that this year has been no less challenging. Every aspect of leadership has been open to scrutiny, which is how it should be, while trying to assist and guide others as they develop their leadership.
I would definitely call all of our staff leaders though all have come from environments with traditional leadership structures. As well, very few have been involved in leadership of major change across a whole school. But leadership is blossoming at our school!
Di's team of SLLs certainly has shown what happens when people assume the elements of autonomy and accountability in areas that they aspire to lead. Lea's team of LTL's have also exhibited the same in running hands-on workshops on how to know our learners. Claire's team of Professional Learning Leaders has begun to hit its straps with awesome plans emerging for teaching inquiry, library development and staff appraisal. And Sarah's work in developing the Big Project aspect of our curriculum is benefiting from her leadership and passion.
But leadership is at all levels and I'm convinced more and more that leadership is a diposition and not a position and true accountability comes with the sense of our collective responsibility to get this right for the learners of Hobsonville or as Maliina so beautifully put it ....
The strong sense of whanaungatanga that is driving our teams is truly impressive; whether that be in planning innovative curriculum structures or compiling budget requests. Everywhere there are leaders:
But just as importantly all of these leaders are happy to allow themselves to be led by their colleagues:
We're working hard, but we're also having fun!
Well done to Team Tahi for winning last Friday's Masterchef!
What does the coming week hold? There will be some stunning leadership and whanaungatanga will strengthen further. We'll have completed the first part of our budgeting processing (adding up what everyone has asked for!), settled on our IT services contract as well as our printing and photocopying, prepared for next Monday's all important ERO visit, had a BOT meeting at which I hope to get permission to spend some money and appoint some more staff, enrolled a few more students, formed teams to plan to address achievement of Maori and Pasifica students and to prepare for Consent to Assess against NCEA, planned Orientation Day, visited Marina View Primary, continued development of our school Charter, participated in workshops and presentations delivered by several of our wonderful leaders and had some fun!
A weekend of kayaking on a choppy Waitemata, mountainbiking in the Woodhill Forest, going to the movies (Rush), finding a new craft beer pub, eating great food at a new (for me) Malaysian Restaurant (Selena) has me almost ready for another great week.
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