The LOls were off site on Thursday: Di and the SLLs in a room at the Catalina where they have been looking closely at QA for the modular elements of our curriculum and Lea and the SLLs were at Sally's whare in Muriwai finalising their planning for the Professional Learning and Planning we are about to embark on.
It was cool to hang out for the day with the rest of the staff though I must admit I concentrated on preparing for BOT meeting and other admin type stuff.
Sarah spent a lot of the day working with her Project Planning Team and it was while coming out to take a break that Martin paused to make a comment to me about the nature of the team work he was experiencing. He commented that he had done a lot of study about teams and collaboration and that he had worked in many teams but had come to the realisation that he had, in fact, never worked in truly collaborative teams but was now doing so. When I explored with him what he was experiencing he shared that, like in all of the teams he was part of at HPSS, there was a team 'leader' but that everyone contributed equally, everyone was challenged equally and all points of view contributed to whatever the outcome was.
Later on at morning tea Danielle, who was about to leave for NEAL commitments walked in and announced she was excited. When quizzed about that she explained that for years she had been involved in project learning that was just mush, but that the work Sarah and her team was doing was applying real rigour to this important element of our curriculum.
Later in the day I shared these comments with Sarah who responded by saying that the clear and rigorously justified vision and values created by the Senior Leadership Team was acting as a trampoline from which everyone else was able to launch from.
That evening I presented the curriculum elements and timetable plan to the BOT who were impressed with our thinking and planning. After the hui our Governance Facilitator told me that he expected us to deliver something quite different but not as different as what we did present. e was impressed.
Now to impress ERO with it all on Monday.
Friday was just as busy and as exciting but the highlight for me was running into Georgi The Search Engine who had returned from a day visiting libraries throughout Auckland on a SLANZA tour with Leigh. She was alive with enthusiasm and possibilities, not because of what she saw but because of what she didn't see. Her parting comment was something like, "We're going to shake a few cages (and be a truly future focused library)".
Friday night's highlight was ColinMathura Jeffrey favouriting my tweet made at the museum talk on beauty!
closely followed by another wonderful performance by the Moderm Maori Quartet (musical director: Tama Waipara).
See them if you get the chance!
Apart from a paddle on the harbour (once again in choppy seas) with Lea, a whanau swim afternoon at Muriwai and a great MTB in Woodhill with Pete, the other weekend highlight was Art in the Dark where people were struggling to escape the clutches of a pohutukawa and its roots:
A horse being brought to life by being towed by a bike:
And my favourite was the two dudes on bikes creating enough power to power 2 laptops, a chandelier and, best of all, a turntable which was playing Bowie's Ziggy Stardust!
Catch you later in the week!
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