Aligning Practice with Vision

While our school has been in operation for 5 school terms we've been on the establishment journey for 10 terms. Over that period we spent a lot of time on establishing our vision, values and principles. The intent of the New Zealand Curriculum has been central in driving this establishment. Most of our time during the roll out phase, especially last year, has been spent on prototyping how we might bring life to to our vision, values and principles.

As a consequence of this prototyping we're onto our 3rd Specialised Learning Module structure and accompanying timetable, we've firmed up our Learning Hub and Learning Community curriculum, we've developed a rigorous Big Project planning and process model linked to our values and we've developed rigour around the planning and delivery of MyTime which links it firmly to our Hobsonville Habits.

We're constantly breaking new ground and, in fact, all of these are and will remain in prototype stage as we keep refining and being responsive.

The fact that we're constantly checking our plans against our vision, values and principles has meant that things seem to be fitting quite well. I suspect this is what experts are talking about when they speak of alignment. And it is this sense of alignment which gives me the confidence to work with our team to break new ground when we roll out our approach to NCEA.

At HPSS we are determined to provide our students with a high quality NCEA qualification which aligns strongly with our vision, values and principles and which breaks the cycle of credit chasing by students, 'teaching to the test' by teachers and the inordinate level of stress and assessment anxiety which disengages students from learning.

Last week Claire and I hosted the 13 Year 11 students and their parents and laid out our plans on how they would be prepared to achieve NCEA L2, as a minimum qualification, without devoting their Year 11 Year to the pointless pursuit of dozens of credits which only serves to take their focus off deep learning and understanding.

While we were questioned closely we were able to get our vision and message across and parents left with a great understanding. In one sense I was surprised how well our ideas were received, but on reflection I shouldn't have been. Our vision, values and principles are strong and well thought-out and because our qualifications plans are so strongly linked to them it all just felt right; this thing called alignment again.

Last Thursday I spoke in Wellington at the National Aspiring Principals Programme workshop for secondary. My topic was leading for the future with moral purpose. When preparing for this event I was sometimes overwhelmed by the vastness of such a topic. It wasn't until a few minutes before I spoke that I simplified it in my head down to:

• have a clear vision and set of values and principles and have the courage to be determined to have them drive the practices and structures you implement and oversee in your school

The leading for the future part, of course, is making sure your vision, values and principles are appropriate for the future we are preparing our students for, but that's another post/story.

Leadership, Moral Purpose and Courage

Sometimes, I must admit, I used to often feel like the Leunig dude in the boat above. It fitted the perception of leadership being a solitary action and one in which you had little control or ability to set a particular direction.

I've got a 24 hour adventure race coming up in a fortnight so I have spent many long hours out trekking in the wonderful Waitakeres with only my own thoughts for company. I have found this valuable time to ruminate on a wide range of issues.

I use this time to think about what I will share with my staff on my weekly 15 minutes of "Mondays With Maurie". I use these weekly sessions to try to tie together our vision with the current issues we are grappling with.

My session this morning was an attempt to pull together common threads between our current 'next big thing' i.e. How Might We Align NCEA Pathways With Our Vision?, the troubling findings from the ERO National Report on Student Wellbeing in Secondary Schools (which, unfortunately, will end up having little impact on many schools and their practices) and what Leading For The Future With a Moral Purpose (the topic of a spotlight address I am making this week at the NAPP day in Wellington) actually means.

On reflecting on leadership I have experienced in schools in the past I realised most leadership was about managing the status quo (hardly an inspirational imperative for leadership). Then things changed a little so leaders had to now "manage change" as if it was an inconvenience that was disrupting the status quo. Change can't be managed, especially rapid change. Managing something means dealing with it when it's here and now so it is quite reactive. I came to the conclusion that leading for the future requires us to lead change.

However, we are not talking about change for change's sake. The change we lead has to have a moral purpose. What that moral purpose is will be different for every school and every leader, but it will define our contribution to the education sector in which we lead. At HPSS we believe that the current model of secondary schooling is not fit for purpose. It is, therefore, morally imperative that we lead a change so that it is fit for purpose.

How is this linked to the ERO Report and our thinking in relation to NCEA? I have always been concerned about something which is labelled by ERO as assessment anxiety. I have sat in staffrooms and at network meetings when teachers complain that the kids were refusing to do some learning activities because they didn't have credits attached to them or grizzled about Year 12 students who had their 60 credits by October and had "stopped learning" and I have seen kids struggling with the demands of internal and external assessment over their last 3 years at school.

ERO noted that in all 60+ secondary schools it looked at for its report that, "the key factor was that students in all schools were experiencing an assessment driven curriculum and assessment anxiety" and "In many schools the only people who understood the overall curriculum and the competing demands on them were the students."

These findings are intolerable and school leaders will respond not only according to their moral purpose but also according to their level of courage to be guided by it. That's what we are grappling with at the moment. Do we have the courage to set a different course with our wonderful NCEA qualification, a course that allows our students to retain their love of learning and joy of discovery and that addresses the growing incidence of assessment anxiety and mental unwellbeing?

I hope and think that we do have the courage to set a new course and I'm looking forward to sharing our planning.

Let The Moment Seize Us

While out trekking in the bush and in the rain this morning I was beginning to formulate what I was going to post this week. Thinking about the previous week I decided to theme and title it around "not letting history pass us quietly by" and then thought I would call it "Seize The Moment." However, after the trek I went to the cinema to see Boyhood (which, by the way is the best thing I've seen since Dark Horse) and was blown away by the last scene. Mason and his new friend commented that rather than seizing the moment it seemed it was more often the other way around and that "the moment seizes us".

Over the last 2 weeks I have found myself in hui at school, or simply part of conversations, and sitting back a little and observing, listening and reflecting on what was happening before me. Several times I was moved to comment that it was important to be consciously aware that something special was taking place which will contribute to a new way of looking at secondary schooling in our country.

At one of our first Learning Area Leaders (LALs) meeting while we were reflecting on a new timetable structure that appeared to have less freedoms in it our Science LAL, Andrea, asked if it would be OK since there were 2 Science modules on at the same time (both linked to 2 other learning areas) could they treat it as one large group and run a programme drawing on the strengths of the four teachers across both groups. It was a #tearsinmyeyes moment.

At our first Leaders of Learning (LOL) meeting Danielle, who has been leading the operation of MyTime (see Claire's post describing our curriculum elements), came in to present her plans for MyTime in 2015. She had shared her plans with SLT and I loved them because they built a strong structure and rigour around an important aspect of our curriculum model which could easily have become a bit fluffy. But I was a little nervous as MyTime and its structure had caused a lot of angst within our staff as a result of differeing views on its purpose. Because Danielle placed her proposals firmly within the values of our school with tight links to our Hobsonville Habits her proposal met with total support and approval. #tearsinmyeyes again!

Assessment processes had caused a lot of issues for us last year as we made a few decisions on the hoof in our attempts to include what we valued. It was an important place to be and has resulted in what I believe to be a rigorous process of collecting student and staff narratives for each learner which can be used to have meaningful conversations with learners and also to report to parents. In order to meet some of the concerns from parents we have agreed to report on the curriculum levels that students are working in, but in order to make it more meaningful, especially for our students, I have been determined to show differentiation within the levels by use of a thinking taxonomy. While we have some experts on our staff we also have some who are not.

At our next LAL meeting, our SCT and a bit of a guru with Solo, Cindy, presented on how SOLO could be used in a number of ways to achieve the differentiation, as well as being an outstanding tool for showing progressions for small sections of learning. Her introduction of Big and Little
Rubrics was another #tearsinmyeyes moment.

At one of our regular SLT Hui there were at least 3 more #tearsinmyeyes moments. We had a rigorous discussion around processes that supported our important IEMs (Individual Education Meetings) and we started off with some differences of opinion that soon found an equilibrium. We were able to live out our aspiration of being a team that had robust discussion followed by solid commitment to our agreed position.

At that same hui Lea, DP responsible for our Learning Hub programme, took us through the newly developed Learning Hub Handbook with its outline of a Learning Hub curriculum structure underpinned by a philosophy of responsiveness to the need at the time. The coup de grace, which produced this #tearsinmyeye moment was the rubric that had been developed to track, with links to evidence based on SOLO, each learners progress through the Hobsonville Habits. We are committed to pursuing Personal Excellence for each of our learners but I had been worried as I had not ever seen a way of evidencing progress within a dispositional curriculum. We're on our way to cracking this!

And then Claire presented to us on the plan to align NCEA processes with our vision and values. This is a whole new post, or series of posts.

We have had to be courageous in setting out to establish our school with our set of vision, values and principles. There have been many stressful times, but all have been outweighed by the many tearsinmyeyes moments.

There is no doubt that our plans for NCEA will require a high level of courage as we again do things differently so that we ensure that in the area of national qualifications we do not default to the norm but stay true to the vision, values and principles of our school.

A summary of what is affecting our thinking is:

• NCEA L1 is a qualification that does not provide access to careers or tertiary study.
• There is a growing concern of the impact of assessment driven curriculum on student well-being and we wish to alleviate the high levels of anxiety too many learners experience.

The recent ERO Report on student wellbeing in secondary schools makes a couple of damning conclusions:

• "Very few schools were responding to this overload by reviewing and changing their curriculum and assessment practices"
• "In many secondary the only people who understood the school curriculum and the competing demands on them, were the students"

I have been traumatised by this last statement since I read it last Thursday. At HPSS we are determined to show the courage necessary to not be a school that this can be said about.

The moment to have the opportunity to establish a different climate within a school concerning qualifications is about to seize us.

Kia kaha!

Infectious Dispositions and Powerful Partnerships

When reading Charlie's latest post I was reminded of something I used to say quite often at my last school to keep myself on track in developing my own mindset or to encourage others to develop their own mindset.

Both optimism and pessimism are infectious. Which one do you want to catch? Which one do you want to infect others with?

When I was first dabbling in school leadership I received some advice which directed me to spend time in all parts of the staffroom making sure I sat and talked with all staff and all groups. I followed this advice for several years consigning myself to some miserable and motivation-sapping experiences. While torturing myself on one particular occasion I kept having my attention drawn to a noisy, laughing crew across the staffroom. I soon recognised them as the movers and shakers in the school and they seemed to be feeding off each other's energy. As well, around them were other staff members with smiles on their faces being quietly infected by this raucous crew. Around me was doom and despair!

From that moment I decided to reject the earlier advice and make sure that whenever possible I was in the company of positive, optimistic, excited and energetic people. It's proven to be a great tactic. I think I had come across something which now falls into my understanding of growth mindset.

Google search for Warm and Demanding came up with this. Go Steve!

I also got to thinking about the concept of Warm and Demanding which has been gaining some currency. I recalled a conversation I had with a Social Studies teacher about 20 years ago who was performing below what I expected from a teacher. When he dismissed my concerns and expressed what I saw as low expectations for his students and the low expectations he had for himself I said firmly to him that these kids would only ever be in Form 4 Social Studies once in their whole life and they deserved to be given the best teaching we could give them.

I ended up having little impact on that particular teacher who very shortly after moved away from teaching in NZ. I think that was one of the first times I began to explore what initially became 'warm and strict' and has now emerged as 'warm and demanding'.

Both of these thoughts have made me realise that it takes a long time for thoughts to percolate in a meaningful way and that 'philosophies of leadership' develop through experience over time.

I can't let this post go by without celebrating the awesome living out of our principle of powerful partnerships that occurred as a result of our Waitangi Whanau celebration last Thursday.

We all know that relationships are at the heart of learning, but how successfully do schools really play that out? I am so rapt that we have stuck to our guns and committed our first 2 weeks of school to 'induction' (= getting to know each other as learners). And how many schools take the opportunity to cement relationships from the start of the year with their parents and wider community?

We had a stunning evening at HPPS sharing time with our families and many affirming conversations were held. I was moved to tweet 2 of the conversations when I got home.

One of the highlights for me was seeing a Dad, his daughter and Pete, our teacher, performing music together to the crowd.

I encourage you to check out both Sally's and Steve's blogs on the evening as they describe so well the link to our principles of learning.

I was blown away by last year's Waitangi Whanau event and wondered how this would compare. I think this year's was another step up. There seemed to be a real sense of pride from our parents about their schools. I kept hearing parents talking about high levels of engagement by their kids, their keenness to get back to school and how much they felt part of the schools.

I can't help but think that both students and parents are chomping at the bit to be fully engaged in schooling. Let's make sure we don't get in their way.

Enabling Constraints

Enabling constraints - this is a term that has been appearing in conversations I've been having over the last few months. When others have used it I've nodded wisely and tried to contribute to the conversation. Like with a number of concepts, such as growth mindset or warm and demanding, it's not until you are within a situation that brings these concepts to the fore that you truly understand them.

At the end of last year, after prototyping 2 timetables, we decided on a timetable structure for our new context ( 2 and a bit year levels, expanding staff, closer to NCEA). I needed convincing that we had settled on the correct model but was won around and set about building a structure that would deliver it and allow us to function at the start of the next year.

One of the things I loved that despite being this modern school with lots of technology the best way to do it was with brown paper and stickies. I viewed it as a retro masterpiece. It also proved to be an effective tool for collaborating as well. Anyone who wanted to come and contribute had to come into the room and do it rather than from their space in an on-line format. This meant misconceptions could be talked through in front of this beautiful structure. As well it was easy to see the whole picture at once and to move things around. I did worry that leaving it at school over the holidays without any useable copy of it was a bit risky (a cleaner could have rolled it up and/or the stickies could have fallen off!)

Despite revelling in it's beauty all holidays I still had disquiet about some of it's features. Apart from my own disuiet I did worry how some of our pioneering staff would view it, though most took the opportunity to help build it.

When I shared my disquiet with my Leadership Team, DP, Di Cavallo, agreed, but also talked about the power of enabling constraints to foster creativity and innovation. That's when I understood it!

With a mich higher level of confidence I rolled the brown paper out at our TOD and spoke about the enabling constraints (without using those terms). Shortly after that we met with our LALs (Learning Area Leaders) and Di nailed the power of enabling constraints and set the LALs the challenge of achieving innovation and creativity within that framework.

The brown paper reveal!

Doesn't look too bad in digital form either

How have staff responded? I encourage you to read recent posts from two of our leaders Ros MacEachern and Steve Mouldey. We were warned by a Principal who had been involved in creating a new school that often it was the staff who were appointed first who resisted any changes to what was initially created because of a sense of pride and/or ownership. These two posts show that this does not seem to be the case in our environment. We've done a lot of work on growth mindset and I think that has shown its value.

I was blown away in the LAL meeting when Andrea (Science) immediately saw the potential of testing the boundaries of the constraints and checked if her creative proposal was a flyer. I sat back and relished the moment.

And to see staff in action taking the time made available to collaboratively plan and to determinedly find connections in areas they wouldn't have naturally expected has me in even more awe of them.

Why Must We and How Might We?

Even though my last post joined the call to stop talking about it and just get on with it we still keep getting reminders of why the schooling system needs transformation. I've referred in previous posts to the demise faced by Kodak, the Swiss Watch Industry and the impending impact of change on the newspaper industry.

In the last 10 days three other examples of established businesses which we have taken for granted facing enormous unrest as the personalisation we want to promote in schooling is being demanded elsewhere.

I don't know anything about Uber but I think it is a customer-on-demand taxi service which is bypassing the established taxi companies. What I do know is that the taxi industry is demanding government intervention to reduce the impact on them. May be the best tactic would be to see how the current businesses could shift and explore how they might provide a similar experience.

A few days later I saw an ad for, Harmony, a peer-to-peer money lending system which bypasses banks and links lenders directly with borrowers. I suspect the banking system is going to have to either develop some agility and responsiveness or......?

Then today I read an article that described the major changes that we are going to be experiencing in our TV viewing over the next few weeks which will see traditional TV scheduling and viewing disappearing into the sunset, along with any organisation involved which doesn't develop the necessary agility.

There is no doubt that more and more of the 'institutions' we have been accustomed to are being transformed by the increasing demand for personalisation. Another example is the number of people I know who now no longer listen to a radio station but personalise their learning through Spotify.

Make no mistake; schools are going to be subjected to the same demands and we all need to be stretching to ensure we will be agile enough to transform. Future (not too far away!) focused schools are doing more than stretching and are already developing models that are able to respond to the desire for personalisation in schooling.

Even those of us (schools I mean) who are at the leading edge of this development need to keep testing if they are delivering.

I was comfortable, though a little disappointed, that five students were not to return this year. In each case it was because we had shifted too far from the traditional model for those parents (not necessarily supported by their kids). It has made sure that we will pose the question: "How Might We ensure our vision and practices are shared with our parents so that all develop confidence in us as an effective school?"

To hear tonight that one student was not returning because we hadn't been able to break free from the shackles of traditional schooling enough has made me sit up and think. This student and her family appreciate how far we have gone with inquiry and critical thinking but feel we haven't been able to place a student's creativity at the centre of all of their learning. They want their daughter's programme to be based entirely around her passions and areas of interest, totally unshackled from the constraints of a curriculum document's requirements for Learning Area coverage and from the shackles of a whole school timetable.

Bugger it! That's the sort of school I want!

How might we create a school that allows some young people to construct their own curriculum?

This is a big HMW and I'm looking forward to exploring some answers and I feel confident we'll give it a good crack. Why? You should see the team we have on deck for 2015:

Staff exploring the dimensions of what it means to be Warm and Demanding

How Might We unleash the potential of the people in this space to answer all of our HMWs?

On The Cusp

I am writing this post the night before we begin a 3 day induction of our 7 new staff with the week culminating with a full Teacher Day. I feel as if I have had a refreshing break and am really looking forward to the next year in the establishment of our school. Two weeks ago I set myself the goal of reading (in some cases re-reading) some key books that have been driving my thinking.

I have managed to get through three of them.

The first was Grant Lichtman's #Edjourney: A Roadmap to the Future of Education. I reckon this is a compulsory read for anyone involved in or aspiring to be involved in any form of school leadership. I made dozens of notes of what I saw as key messages but the extract that resonated the most was:

"Project-based learning, flipped classrooms, design thinking, expeditions, collaborative work groups, makerspaces, differentiated learning programs, transdisciplinary courses, mutated schedules, teacher Twitter chats, performance-based assessment–the roots of all of these are found in the core lessons of Dewey: Learning is born of passion, which is founded in engagement, relevance, and the experience of the learner."

I also loved his final sentence:

"I passionately urge us all to stop talking and start doing."

The second was Ewan McIntosh's How to Come Up With Great Ideas. This book and the valuable day Claire Amos, Daniel Birch and I had with Ewan earlier in the year has been the most useful resource I have come across to guide me through the complex pathways of strategic planning and change leadership. Linking his strategies to Te Kotahitanga's GPILSEO model of change processes has been extremely useful and has driven our schools' recent strategic planning and resulted in a powerful document made up of a series of "How Might We" ponderings.

I also loved his concluding call:

"Well, start somewhere, but start. Now."

The third was Hipkins, Bolstad, Boyd, McDowell Key Competencies For the Future. Their use of exemplars based on their own areas of interest to draw out how the Key Competencies could be more central in a future focused curriculum is both innovative and enlightening. 

I also loved their call to arms in their concluding comments:

"Just jump in and go for it!"

By now I realised something weird was going on. How is it that these three important, but unrelated, books published in the last few months exhort educational leaders to do the same thing, i.e. get on with it and oversee the necessary change our schooling needs.

It reminded me of an email I got from a principal colleague who attended a workshop at our school and went home and met some stone walling from those opposed to any change with the comment, "Why fix it when it's not broken?" His response, to me, in capital letters and exclamation marks was, "IT IS F...N BROKEN!!" He'd love to stop the talking and get on with it.

I do feel as if we are on the cusp of something. Definitely at our school as we move into our second year with another group of outstanding staff,  but also right across the sector. If the esteemed authors mentioned are all calling for action this must give some impetus. As well, Twitter is alive with huge numbers of teachers who all have a part of the answer of what should be happening in schools.

What are their blockers? I hope it is not leadership!

Learning about Leading

When I reflected on 2014 and try to ignore the big events (inducting new staff, welcoming our first student cohort, trialing our curriculum models, opening our school, setting up student council, navigating parent concerns, a school show, outdoor ed camp, big project exhibitions, strategic planning, prizegiving etc) and focus on my own journey as a leader I soon realised that I have never received so much feedback about my own performance as a leader.

We did 2 major surveys of staff at the end of Term 1 and 2 to try to gauge how the crew of the build-it-while-we-fly-it plane were coping. Obviously we got some awesomely positive feedback, but just as obviously we got feedback that was critical of how people were being led. I am proud of how we responded to the feedback. If the skin had been less thick I could have wallowed in self-pity but the strength of our SLT meant that was not an option.

As well, I conducted two surveys of parents and students to explore the nature of their experience of our school. While these were overwhelmingly positive there was also some critical feedback;feedback which, if not kept in perspective, could easily reawaken any tendency to exhibit impostor syndrome.

During the last term I held 30 minute 1-on-1 hui with all teaching staff. The questions we went through (which were provided to them in advance) were:

• what made you the proudest in 2014?
• what was your biggest frustration in 2014?
• what would make next year even better for you?
• other issues?

Listening to the responses to the first question was great!

Early on in that process I soon realised that most of the frustrations people experienced pointed towards leadership and that most of the things that would make next year even better were also down to leadership.

As well, we have had several researchers operate in our school which has included interviewing staff and students. Sometimes I have been given a general debrief of the sorts of issues discussed and so this formed further feedback for me.

And, of course, I participated in a formal appraisal process in relation to my performance which also provided useful feedback to me. One of the aspects of my appraisal was focused on my own personal inquiry on how might I achieve the balance of being Warm and Demanding: something to which I aspired because it gives me a structure in which to focus on growing a growth mindset and developing true distributed leadership.

On a 5 point scale I was rated as '4' for being Warm, '3.7' for being Demanding and was rated '4' for overall Warm and Demanding. At one level, I should be really pleased with such high ratings and I am. However, when drilling down through the comments people were invited to make I have received enough feedback to continue with this inquiry in 2015 (I suspect aspiring to being Warm and Demanding is a life-time challenge for any school leader).

So a summary of my reflections on 2014:

• the balance between Warm and Demanding is a tightrope
• what is seen as Warm by one person is seen differently by another
• what is seen as Demanding by one person is seen differently by another
• 'leadership' is never nailed and requires continual learning and unlearning
• leadership is a team sport
• the tightrope is a great (and only) place to be

What about 2015:

• I'm going to try to stay on the Warm and Demanding tightrope - there's plenty of room up here and the view s great

We've Finally Opened

  I loved our official opening which was on Friday 7 November. What really struck me were the comments the three students who represented their Learning Communities made from the stage. As I was sitting there listening to them I was overcome with how clearly these three students, speaking on behalf of their school mates, really understood what we are on about. No one could more clearly describe the type of learning environment we had been hoping to create.  

Jalen sharing his thoughts on HPSS

Antonia reflecting on how she has been challenged

Karea nailing the learning model

 

Alan and I expressing our joy after hearing our kids talk about their learning.

How might we ....Thinking about paddling in unison

Thinking about paddling the waka, not only in the same direction, but also in unison!

I'm about to get dangerously close to being excited by the prospect of strategic planning! The SLT has begun a round of workshops with Kay Hawk to help us formulate a structure for strategic planning. She has got us thinking about what are the Big Rocks that should form the foundations of our strategic thinking.

As well, Claire and I were fortunate to spend a day talking with Ewan McIntosh from NoTosh where we concentrated on specific actions  we could immerse ourselves in to better involve others and to capitalise on the huge pool of great ideas that exist in our building.

I followed up by reading his book How To Come Up With Great Ideas and was taken with the concept of "How might we ....?" The combination of these three words has helped me reconcile the conflict I have been experiencing with the legislative requirement to formulate a 3-5 year Strategic Plan and the desire to remain responsive and agile in a fast changing environment.

The "how" implies the need to explore a range of strategies. "Might" makes it clear that even though we might be successful with our strategy we may just easily be unsuccessful. And the "we" makes it clear that it is a shared activity.

The excitement comes from tying together the Big Rocks and the "How Might We" and linking them to our clearly established principles for learning. We're still in the early days of  strategising our strategic planning but this sort of thinking has put a neat energy into this activity.

Brainstorming the Big Rocks of Learning @ Hobsonville Point, Thinking @ Hobsonville Point and Relating @ Hobsonville Point

Linking the Big Rocks to our Principles: Innovate, Engage, Inspire

Once we've filled up the matrix with our brainstormed 'small rocks' we'll look at formulating them into "How Might We..." statements.

Such a process helps resolve the inner conflict. We're not going to base our venture on a plan but rather build it on a strategic foundation. If our foundation of Big Rocks are stable (as a result of firm links with our principles of learning) any plans we make can be fluid, allowing our school to remain an agile organisation.

An outstanding example of linking a myriad of processes (in this case around assessment and reporting) to one of our foundation rocks (learning design) to establish coherence is Di Cavallo's visual which she workshopped with our staff last week.

My desire is to have a strategic plan that looks more like the visual above than a numbered list of Strategic Goals and Targets.

Another important foundation rock for our school is a strong culture of collegial and collaborative professional learning where we openly share knowledge. The power of collaboration is brought home to me every day at Hobsonville Point Secondary School.

Sharing our best ideas on getting to know our learners

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Most of my posts have been describing the things we as teachers and students have been doing as we make our way through our first year. I have really enjoyed chronicling those things from my point of view.

Recently I have been doing a lot of pondering on leadership and how it plays out in an environment such as ours. I thought I would share some of my ponderings.

The title of the post refers to a great, inspirational book I read when I was at my athletic peak! (2 hrs 38 for a marathon!!). It emphasised the loneliness of such a crazy sport. Twice this week I have sought the peace and wonder of the Waitakere Ranges and done some great training. While the training is itself important I realised it was the aloneness I was seeking. Just like back in the marathon days it was those hours of solitude that helped bring some personal coherence to my thinking and I have found that happening again.

The question of leadership has been preying on my mind. Many of our people have been thrust into very big, important and impactful leadership areas which for many has been a big ask.

I remember when I was Deputy Principal I used to get frustrated with my boss (we're now great friends and he has been my most influential mentor) because he seemed to take so long to move some things forward. When I expressed these frustrations with him he used his great line of, "There might be another way of looking at this, Maurie."

There were 2 very important conclusions I formed from this man and our conversations. The first was the absolute golden rule that I would never express these frustrations with anyone else at all. He was the only one I shared them with. It is with a sense of pride that I understand the level of integrity that he presented me with as a way of acting.

The second realisation links to the blog post title. I had a much narrower view of the school and its complex relationships than he did.This is not surprising: I was a DP, a man of action, getting things done and ticking them off. He had a much broader view and was in for the long haul; not being there for years himself but promoting the vision, managing relationships so that was possible, charting a course through very complex issues and growing the people around him. Quick fire fixes may have given some short term solution but didn't keep us in the long game. And most importantly, quick fire fixes reduced the opportunity for people to learn from their leadership experiences and grow as leaders, rather than being shed.

By working with him I began to develop a sense that you didn't really understand the principal job until you actually were in the seat yourself. Even though he provided me with buckets of across school leadership opportunities, it wasn't until I took over from him that I truly realised it wasn't until you were there that you began to understand the role.

Especially in an environment as dynamic and challenging as ours it is vital that leadership, both of operation and preserving, promoting and growing our vision has to be distributed.

When speaking to a colleague who had opened a new school shortly after he had left he said one of the challenges he faced was continually pushing forward with new ideas as he was the one expected to be doing that. He felt that if he wasn't doing that then he would face criticism from those he was working with.

My view is different. I hope they say of my leadership at HPSS that I led the way with a vision and ideas early on in the journey but as time passed others picked up the mantle of bringing the vision to reality as a shared responsibility and that they saw this as opportunity and as a healthy way for a future focused school to travel.

Powerful Partnerships

I am often asked what I think are the most important aspects of our curriculum and pedagogy model at HPSS. I'm sure I've given lots of different answers but for the moment I've settled on the two that support our principle of powerful partnerships: authentic learning and collaborative teaching.

The power of authentic learning was made clearest to me at our first Big Project exhibition when the students presented their banners on our Hobsonville Habits to AV Jennings and the Hobsonville Land Company. The quality of the finished products and the way in which our students were able to talk about their learning was very impressive.

Big Projects this term have once again created an authentic context for our learners. We have partnered up with Auckland Council and half the school are working on creating an original show with original music that portrays Auckland 2025 through the eyes of young people.

Drama improvisation activities to prepare for show

The other half of the school are working on ways to heighten awareness for the local environment as we have discovered a site in our vicinity heavily polluted with nursery plant bags which is also the site of one of NZ's most threatened plants.

Students exploring the affected sites

Our students also experienced another authentic learning situation when they hosted candidates from the local Upper Harbour electorate at school where they questioned them on topics ranging from youth issues to child abuse to Auckland's transport problems.

Questions being posed

Paula Bennett replies while candidates wait their turn

All of these will need to keep their day job!

I spend a lot of my time viewing learning in action. This is because I'm either taking visiting groups, observing staff or just out and about. As a result of doing this I have realised the power of collaborative teaching.

As we move through the year teachers are trying different ways of making the most of collaboration. Sometimes one teacher will be addressing the whole group while other times each of the teachers in the team will be taking different groups and at other times they are all facilitating throughout the class.

I had the privilege of Steve and Danielle last week. While Danielle collected a group around her mobile classroom (a whiteboard) and provided scaffolds for their learning, Steve moved around the other groups of students and kept them focused by asking tem challenging questions.

Danielle in the background in her mobile classroom

while Steve works with a group

Cindy and Megan working together to support learning

Jill including Annette, our Business Manager, as students pitch their projects

However, the most heart warming authentic learning and collaborative teaching I witnessed last week when I came across 2 of our students, Angus and Josh, running a workshop where they had been supporting 6 year olds to create electrical circuits.

I am firmly of the opinion that it is these two things schools need to find ways to incorporate in their curriculum and pedagogy, no matter what context they operate in or what structures either enable or restrict them so that schooling is relevant and engaging for our students.

Try to make learning authentic for the learners and try to enable collaboration in planning and teaching for the teachers.