How can OPENING up our school to visitors help us learn and grow ?

Our very first visitors to our open, engaging learning spaces (ELS's) have been and gone.
But that's not where the learning stops.
Having a growth mind set attitude means actively reflecting on events through a learning lens. This helps to reveal the underlying new learning that can stimulate and strengthen our capacity for further growth.
Before our visitors went and explored our ELS's, they were asked to record at least one thing that they hoped to learn from the visit. 

These 'wonderings'  were incorporated into a google document that was shared with our staff. Our staff actively reflected on their own learning by contributing their responses to this informative document (see screenshotsbelow). The very process of  having to articulate responses connected to our ELS's in relation to specific questions from our visitors was an authentic, reflective learning opportunity for our staff.
Similarly, through our visitors questioning our children, our children had to authentically articulate their learning processes. Immediately this brings to mind, the potential challenge for some of our children to prepare a purposeful learning project that captures the essence of our ELS's in a succinct presentation for future visitors. I will follow this up before our next visitors are due in a couple of week's time.
Our ELS's are not only engaging learning spaces for our children but they are engaging for our adult learners too. Teachers and children have designed them together. They are still evolving and changing in response to individual and group learning needs. The ELS's are a living school wide inquiry that is constantly adjusting and developing to include and respond to learning and growth for the whole school community. Such visits that generate rich discussions for students and staff can only contribute positively to our open, growth mindset community. Providing opportunities for students and parents from other schools to be included in such visits could be the magical key to unlocking the door to future authentic growth and change across the educational sector.
Thinking about the future ? A thought provoking article in Mind Shift by author David Price is well worth a read What will education look like in our more open future ?

Going OPEN one year anniversary Ch 8

Almost twelve months has passed since : 

• My 10 week principal sabbatical, sabbatical report and video
• I joined Twitter @jennyljackson and started blogging
• I started studying Masters in Educational Leadership and writing about OPEN: How we'll work, live and learn in the future by David Price

Meanwhile, in the course of applying the principles of OPEN within the context of our school and community, creative, engaging, challenging CHANGE is happening. 

Screenshot Image reference: Professional Renewal Centre www.prckansas.org

During the past few years, we have developed our future focused pedagogical culture, trapped within the chrysalis of a traditional school structure. 

This year, we have triumphantly emerged out of the chrysallis into our Engaging Learning Spaces (ELS's) and have become totally OPEN in all that we do.

We have not relocated into a new modern learning building. Inspired by @ DavidPriceOBE and @ timl27 (read more here) we have been creative within our existing spaces. 

Through dedicating some 'free time' for staff  (no staff meetings) it has allowed staff a chance to find some "sacred space" (Duignan, 2008). It is through this downtime that  staff authenticity, creativity, innovation and passion has found room to flourish.
We are about to commence our second term in our ELS's and already have staff from two schools keen to visit and see our ELS's in action.

I am only part way through reviewing Chapter 8 of the nine chapter book OPEN. Spending almost twelve months reviewing this book has been an ongoing learning opportunity. "Stretching out" my responses to this book has meant that I have the benefit of a never ending read. Maybe I will have to tweet David @ DavidPriceOBE and ask him to write a sequel. Instead, I need to keep reading his engaged learning blogposts engagedlearning.co.uk

Here are just a few highlights from Chapter 8:
On page 166 Price questions the value of the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessments) in an educational world where knowledge transmission is being replaced by key competencies.
Heng Swee Keat's (Singapore's Minister of Education since 2011 - I noticed he has a Facebook fanpage with almost 19,000 likes ) agrees and shares a list of 5 traits of the 21st  century teacher  -
1. Ethical Educator
2.Competent professional
3,Collaborative learner
4. Transformational leader
5. Community builder

Price shares engaging details about the following innovative schools. 
School of Communication Arts 2.0. London

Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL)

High Tech High Schools, San Diego County, USA

These are a must read. I would love to plan a staff visit to a boot camp at SCIL  Stephen Harris @Stephen_H is the principal of Northern Beaches Christian School and Founding Director of SCIL.  Ann Knock @AnneKnock is an inspirational professional leader on the team. Both leaders share their skills on Twitter.
There is much more in this chapter, some of it I have referred to here. I am not the only local person reading OPEN. Colleagues across New Zealand have also been reflecting on it's content as well as local members in our community. 

A message for David Price from Gloria Hurst in Oamaru

News about going OPEN is slowly spreading through Oamaru. Gloria Hurst, a passionate community educator, who connected with our school through the Whitestone Learning and Change network and the Community Gardens sums it all up here:

"Oamaru is a small town learning fast about connecting,sharing and collaboration.

We are seeing this change of attitude within families,schools and businesses.

Even council is understanding the benefits of working alongside community.

There appears to be a critical mass going OPEN.

It is exhilarating and magical to live in a connected town.

Your book,OPEN has reinforced what we are experiencing.

The timing was perfect .

As we share it with others, awareness grows.

Thank you David for putting this ‘dynamic energy’ into words.

Love to have you visit OPEN OAMARU one day.

Your philosophies are in action here!"

Reflections before we welcome our first visitors to our ELS's

Over the next two days we will have twelve teachers from St Joseph's in Timaru visiting our Engaging Learning Spaces (ELS's). 

Our ELS's have been designed by the staff, with the students to proactively respond to our strategic goal "To engage every student in deep learning for success" (St Joseph's Oamaru Strategic Plan).

Determined not to let the fact that plans to modernise our traditional school building simply aren't an immediate reality for our Catholic diocese, we decided to be creative and innovative with our existing spaces. Inspired by a visit to Myross Bush School where Tim Lovelock and his team have enabled team teaching to happen in single cell classrooms, we have worked hard to redesign our school layout to match our modern pedagogical practices. As our ELS's evolve, feedback from our community after ten weeks is already showing that we are successfully bringing our strategic goal vibrantly alive in new and challenging ways.

We are definitely beginning to show that we are much more than simply a "school". We are beginning to reflect a "Learning Commons" (Price 2013). We see our school as part of its community that welcomes mentors, experts and families into its learning spaces; is radically transparent and freely shares its expertise with others and stimulates conversations about learning with the widest target audiences. Learning spaces welcome the disruption of visitors, because, as Stephen Harris (principal  Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning SCIL) says, "the more students have to articulate their learning, the more they live it " (Price, 2013,p.186).

"Modern learning environments (MLE's) can support teaching as inquiry better than single-cell classrooms. Working in an open, flexible learning environment where inquiries are shared, interventions devised collaboratively and reflections based on both self and peer observations, leads to a more robust, continuously improving community of practice " (Osborne, 2013).

Our ELS's are not MLE's but we believe that they offer similar benefits to MLE's. Our ELS's are continually evolving. Just as inquiries evolve, our whole learning commons is a living inquiry where students, staff and families are the researchers and developers continually reflecting on actions, resources and plans to bring learning alive for all participants.

We are looking forward to welcoming our visitors and sharing our ELS's as we extend our learning relationships beyond the boundaries of our school walls. 

Are you ready for the new school term ? 5 key reminders

I was fortunate to go to a stunning performance of Aladdin in the Ink Box at the Opera House last night. Congratulations to the whole cast of Aladdin especially our talented team from St Joseph's.

Last term we went OPEN with our teaching and learning at St Joseph's. Our Teaching and Learning Site went live and our ELS's (Engaging Learning Spaces) have continued to evolve. Our school wide goal is "To engage every student in deep learning for success". We do this in our Catholic faith-filled  environment as we "Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith". We focus on our school values, the 4 R's: Respect, Reverence, Resilience and good Relationships. This is what we keep coming back to as we continually  create a learning culture with our students and families that reflects the needs of our community.Go to these links to learn more about some of the happenings that contributed to our Term 1 community learning culture: family learning hui, open morning, culturally responsive environments and ELS's

Are you ready for the new term ? 5 key reminders:

1. Winter uniform - It's time to change into the winter uniform for Terms 2 and 3. As an outcome of our last survey, children from Year 1- 6 are no longer expected to wear ties. Our leaders in Year 7 & 8 will keep the ties to support their transition to high school. We have some winter shirts in our uniform shop. I will be at school for some time on Sunday 19th April. Text me 0272031516 if you need access to a shirt for Monday morning. Otherwise, the lovely Adele will open the shop on Monday morning 20th April. 

2. Teaching and Learning Site and a Parent Forum on Learning Conversations - This is a chance for you as parents to become involved in your children's learning. The old days of asking "What did you learn at school today ?" have been flipped. Your son or daughter might reply with " Haven't you checked our Teaching and Learning site ?" Our teaching and learning is totally transparent now. Take advantage of this and challenge your children to develop their learning further by having informed "learning" conversations with them. At the first parent forum this term I will share how to have a learning conversation based on the Teaching and Learning site. Join me from 8:30 - 9:00 in the community room this Friday 24th April. All parents welcome. 

3. Events this week Coaching Evening and Anzac Celebrations - There will be a special sports coaching evening this Tuesday 21st April from 6:30 -7:30 for all existing coaches and other parents who are interested in being future coaches. The idea is to set up a mentoring and support network to ensure that we have a consistent approach to coaching especially with our winter codes starting this week. 
There will be a sausage sizzle fundraiser for Vanuatu on Friday (notes will go home on Monday) as previously planned. We will wear our school uniform (no mufti day) to respectfully participate in a very special Anzac Service at 2:30pm on Friday. This will replace our normal assembly. Please join us.

4. Survey outcomes - Thanks to everyone who participated in our end of term student, staff and parent surveys. We have some valuable feedback about our Term 1 learning and change. I will share this in our newsblog on Thursday and will be contacting some of you who volunteered to share their thoughts in a video.

5. New staff and Visitors - This week, we warmly welcome Miss Gray into Junior Hub 1 and part timers Miss Taylor, Mrs Gower and Mrs McNally to support teaching and learning throughout our school. We also welcome a team of teachers from St Joseph's Timaru on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to observe and learn about our ELS's.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow for the new term as we continue to "Reach for the Stars as Lifelong Learners in the Catholic Faith" together.

How can we capture learning and change growth for our whole community ?

As we come to the end of our first term of collaborative team teaching in our Engaging Learning Spaces (ELE's), it is time to gather some data. I am not referring to the kind of raw data that we collate from standardized assessments. I am referring to authentic and informative, evaluative reflections that Brian Annan referred to in a workshop that I attended last year. You can learn more in this blog link.  

Brian emphasized that the power of student agency shouldn't be confused with student voice. Student's learning must be driven by their own evaluation. They must be able to articulate what they need to change to take their learning forward. This is what must drive 'teaching as inquiry'. We need to move away from teacher ownership of the learning and change ideas and practices that we believe will support change. Instead we need to enable the students to articulate and action these.

For the last few years, as a staff we have been actively reflecting on our own pedagogical practice. We have been deliberately actioning change in our own practice to accelerate learning and achievement for our priority learners.

Yet, at times, we were still "doing learning to" or "doing learning for" the students.  How can we ensure that they truly take ownership of the learning process themselves ? They need to practice, to fail, to get stuck, to try again and to succeed on their own in order to experience authentic engagement in learning. They need to reflect on their learning and articulate what they need to change to take their learning forward and to a deeper a level. They need to drive their own learning.

We also need to involve parents in as much of this process as possible. We need to support parents to articulate what they can do to contribute to the learning process too. 

How can we support students and parents to reflect on purposeful learning and change ?

Last week, we attended a Learning and Change Regional networking day. The evaluative conversations that were part of the day focused on the wealth of informative knowledge that can come from "Learning Maps" and one minute videos. I decided that we need to revisit these authentic modes of data gathering as well as utilize google forms (surveys) to capture engagement and growth in learning and change for our whole community this term.

Here is a link to a video of TeAwitu a young boy, sharing his evaluative Learning Maps and Eli doing the same at this link.

We are going to start with a short learning survey for students, staff and parents. It was through a discussion about videos with a colleague, that I decided to ask our community in the survey if they would like to share their answers in a video. It helps to have time to reflect on a response. Even articulate adults need a chance to reflect to prepare authentic and succinct responses that truly capture the essence of their own learning and change. 

These are the questions for the surveys that have already been shared. All students who respond will go into the draw for a $50 gift card.

Online Google Form for year 5-8 students
What has gone well for you in your learning this term ?
What needs to change to make learning better for you ?
What are you looking forward to next term ?
Would you be willing to speak on a short video about this ?

Year 3-4 students will be able to complete a paper version. I will personally interview a selection of younger students. 

Staff will also complete a survey. It is important that they have a chance to reflect and share feedback as we prepare for the new term.

Staff Google Form 
What has worked well for you this term ?
What has been challenging this term ?
What would you like to change to make the next term better for you ?
Would you be willing to speak on a short video about this ?

Parents and caregivers also need a chance to reflect and give feedback. This form has been shared on our weekly school newsblog and on our school Facebook Page.

Parent Google Form. 
What has gone well for you and your child with learning this term ?
What has been challenging ?
What would you like to change ?
Would you be willing to speak on a short video about this ? 

As the responses to the surveys start to come in, we can begin to capture the authentic voice of a whole community involved in learning and change. Video interviews and learning maps will provide further evidence of learning and change reflections that will inform future and purposeful growth for the whole community.

Family Learning Hui 2 for 2015 - committed parents, children and staff supporting and sharing learning

After an opening prayer from Mrs Dooley and a technical hitch with our data projector, Mr Cartlidge shared the Learner Licence quiz that Mrs Frances-Rees had prepared for everyone. The quiz had been posted onto the school Facebook page. The questionnaire helped parents to understand what it would it be like as a learner at the different levels of the licences we use with the children.  What would you need to be able to demonstrate in order to get to the next level of the license ?

Here is the link to the quiz on Facebook. Have a go and see if you can earn the Elite Special Forces License. for independent learner choices.

Then we watched this video about the learning that children lose over the Summer holiday period. This shows the value of extra support by families during out of school hours learning times. Our digital Teaching and Learning Site supports out of school learning and research proves that such learning can be hugely beneficial for our children and their progress.

 
After that we watched a video of some of our children being interviewed by Mrs Frances-Rees about their learning. It was a good chance to reflect on learning for our children after seven weeks of our new collaborative approach to learning at St Joseph's.

Then Mrs Brookes and Miss Clouston shared information about the junior Reading Eggs programme and Mathletics. Everyone had a chance to explore these sites using the junior school ipads.

Miss Clouston also spoke to some of these slides from this Mathletics slideshow. http://www.slideshare.net/karen3038712/mathletics-blog-presentation           

    
We finished with a reminder of how to comment on blogs. This is the video that Mannix made last year. We offfered personal support from staff as well.
Mannix’s video for blog instructions: https://youtu.be/mWAleYiSkfk


We finished by thanking families and staff for their support and reminded them that they could contribute to the agenda at our next Family Learning Hui in Term 2.

Next time : What can we learn from our first open morning ?

In my last post, I posed some questions in relation to our inaugural open morning. It's time to reflect after the event and see what can be improved about the open school process for next time.

1.Will any parents actually turn up?

Yes they did ! We had about twenty-five in the end. The majority of us started in the hall after a chat about the Teaching and Learning site. However, some visitors went directly to the hubs and missed the introductory session.

Next time: Ask all visitors to sign in at the office first. This is the normal procedure and by following this protocol, everyone could have been directed to the meeting place in the hall or to an existing tour group.

2.If they do come along, will they be open to understanding how the Engaging Learning Spaces (ELS's) work ? and 3. Will they be brave enough to ask questions ?

Yes. Our visitors were open to understanding how our ELS's work and were comfortable asking questions. 
Next time: Have some clarity around how available teachers would be to answer questions for parents. I would need to ensure that parents direct questions to the "tour guide" on the understanding that the teachers need to be fully focused in the learning spaces with the children. Teachers could be free to approach the visitors to talk if they were available.

4. Will they be able to link what they see to the planning on the Teaching & Learning Site ? Verbal feedback would suggest that they were able to see the links. I will send the visitors a brief google survey to obtain direct feedback.

5. How will our teachers and students feel about the experience ?
I have repeated the same reflection for number 5. as from my previous post
We have to remember to be supportive of our staff and students and remind parents and visitors that the staff and students might feel a little nervous with us around. Hopefully, everyone will respect each others feelings. After all, "respect" is one of our school values.

Overall, the feedback was genuinely positive from visitors. My next step is to get some feedback from students and staff. Our open sessions need to work both ways and be an enlightening experience for everyone concerned. I will share feedback from visitors, students and staff in another blog.....