Are you willing to create disturbance and be disturbed? Reflections via @MelAinscow

Are you willing to create disturbance and be disturbed yourself ? This challenge to educators by Professor Mel Ainscow, turns those gentle ripples alluded to in my sabbatical video into waves. Ainscow calls it the "trickle effect".

Message from sabbatical video. You can access the 4 minute video here.

What captured my attention and drew me to register for a seminar at the University of Otago, entitled Moving Knowledge Around: A strategy for fostering equity in education by Professor Mel Ainscow CBE, University of Manchester, UK ?

On reflection it was the promotional material about Ainscow's latest book that ignited my curiosity. Renowned educators Hargraves and Fullan were both quoted as recommending this "..extraordinarily powerful book'' (Hargraves) "..that captures with great clarity how to lead change.." (Fullan).
Towards self-improving school systems presents a strategic framework that can help to foster new, more fruitful working relationships: between national and local government; within and between schools; and between schools and their local communities. What is distinctive in the approach is that this is mainly led from within schools, with senior staff having a central role as system leaders.

Two points that truly resonated with me were:

1. Self - improving school systems - this is a particular passion of mine. How can we keep our finger on the pulse and continually improve and offer a high quality of education ?

2. Led from within schools, with senior staff having a central role as system leaders - what can we learn from the success of the Greater Manchester Challenge ( an initiative to improve educational outcomes 2007-2011) ?

In addition to this, having been a principal for almost eight years and now studying leadership at master's level, I find that I am continually exploring a wider, strategic view around ways to initiate positive educational change not only within but beyond our school system.

Here is my interpretation of some of the key points from Ainscow's succinct and thought provoking seminar :

• We need to be willing to disturb and be disturbed - to make people stop and think aloud, talk and innovate at all levels. Use difference to challenge and stimulate reflection that can grow practice for teachers and leaders.
• "Moving the knowledge around" within, between and beyond schools leads to equity of success for all involved. The "knowledge" refers to expertise of existing human resources. It's about making better use of "untapped potential".
• The key to the Manchester success story was the effective matching up of schools. When these partnerships worked, they were mutually beneficial. Sharing stimulated experimentation and new ways of working.

• 

  Slide attributed to Ainscow

• Humankind has much to gain from drawing on the immense cultural, religious and linguistic diversity within schools.
• Effective collaboration uses a range of data as a stimulus. Such evidence brings a critical dimension to the table that can be used to challenge expectations. "Numbers are dead and only come to life when you talk about them and ask questions. So what next?"
• We need to make space and allow time for family and community groups "beyond the school" to be involved. They are all invested in educational success.
• Sustainability. How do we stop things fading once the initiative and the funding finishes? An entity "by schools for schools" was set up and is internally driven by school leaders.
• A bottom up movement gained momentum and traction with local authorities enabling and facilitating rather than commanding and controlling.
• Children's zones based on the Harlem's Children's Zone  help improve the lives and education of children in disadvantaged areas.
• Allow time for teachers to observe one another and reflect and stimulate talk on their practice. The Lesson Study method from Japan is very powerful and pays off for the children. Build on the latent expertise in the staffroom.
• Involve the voice of learners. What is it like to be a learner in this class, in this school ?

So much is "technically simple but socially complex" - find the best people and get on with it. Ainscow concluded by stating, "The most important factor is the collaborative will to make it happen".

What have we achieved in North Otago in relation to some of the features of Ainscow's model ?

We have made elements of this happen through the Whitestone LCN (Learning and Change Network). You can learn more about the power of collaborative practice from this video about the nature and value of learning and change networks for engagement in deep learning for success.

We firmly believe that the LCN is the catalyst for the energising learning communities that abound in our Whitestone schools. We are living proof that school environments and communities, steeped in tradition can evolve into authentic student led entities that are open to embracing motivational forward thinking learning and change.This passion must exist to drive the network forward and sustain future growth and innovation. You can learn more by watching this prezi below.

Yet..there is still so much more that we can do.

I have ordered Ainscow's book and look forward to learning about how to contribute to fostering equity in education locally, nationally and globally.
I am willing to create disturbance and to be disturbed. Are you ?

Transition : Time for our graduates to speak to their future high school teachers

Staff and students from schools in our Whitestone Learning and Change Network came together to watch this prezi. This prezi encompasses the learning and change that has taken place in the schools during the past two years. It is a celebration of the innovative learning and development that has featured at all of our schools. 

Here is the link to the prezi presentation.

Then the Year 8 students from Weston school and St Joseph's school shared a slideshow that they had prepared with the high school staff. The students from both schools collaborated on a google slide show and adapted it to reflect their learning needs and their school cultures. The idea was to reflect on what worked well for their learning at primary school and share that with the high school staff. Here is our St Joseph's school presentation. The students collaborated on the design, images and text used.



Year 8 students, Trish and Mannix, can be seen sharing their learning in this video with high school teachers. The high school teachers asked them questions and spoke about learning (the way they do things) at high school.

Principal of St Kevin's College, Paul Olsen, reflects and sums up the messages from the Year 8 students and what this means for transition to high school.

Here are all of the students who bravely shared their learning to the Whitestone Learning and Change network.

Are you aspiring to be authentic teachers and leaders ?

Authenticity is something we should all be aspiring towards. It is summed up very well in this leadership definition from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authentic_leadership

How do we promote openness in our workplace and build honest relationships with everyone we are connected too ?
I was privileged to be able to present a seminar with Lorraine Francis Rees (Principal of St Joseph's, Pleasant Point) at the recent Catholic Convention in Wellington. Although the presentation is based around authentic Catholic leadership, much of the content is applicable to all teachers and leaders aspiring towards authenticity.
Lorraine and I planned the synopses for the presentation in 2014 when Lorraine was Deputy Principal at our school in Oamaru. 

Lorraine started her her new principalship eight weeks ago. Yet we still managed to make time to meet and prepare our presentation. Special thanks to Anne Pratt, the principal of St Patrick's school, Waimate (half way between Oamaru and Pleasant Point) for letting us use her office for one of our planning sessions.
Initially sixty-five people had registered to attend our seminar. On the day, our venue filled to about one hundred attendees.
Here is the google presentation. Just click on the arrows and you should be able to view the slides. There are some You Tube videos embedded as well. 
This presentation encompasses as much as we could fit within our sixty minute timeframe. It is just a taster of what happens at St Joseph's in Oamaru. For those of you wanting more detail, I have shared my notes from a selection of the slides below.

Slide 1: Aspiring towards authentic Catholic leadership. This presentation brings together our understandings based on our practice and studies as leaders in our Catholic system focussed on Christ centred growth. Our studies have made us reflect deeply on our authenticity as leaders in Catholic schools. Pope Francis says,“I am a living mission”, so are we. We are Jesus’ hands, mouths and feet in our Catholic schools. We must WALK the TALK and bring the scripture to life through our everyday actions and relationships.

Good  leaders helps build vibrant faith communities that help build the Kingdom of God by using Jesus as the ultimate model of leadership.
Slide 2:

It's our responsibility to keep Christ at the centre, we need to hold on to the Holy Spirit that is within our hearts. As Catholic leaders we work within the framework of :

Bible - Message from Vatican synod 2008…Bring the joy of the gospel into the lives of families.….so that parents and children read it, pray with it….listen with love and faith.

Handbook for Catholic Integrated Schools - our legal requirements and integration agreements.

Catholic Review Indicators - “...that the Catholic character is protected and promoted” - continual self-review (eg. refers to restorative practices for behavioural management ).

The Catholic Education of School Age Children - The introduction from the bishops “indispensable reference point… highlights challenges for all of us...".

No-one else in our schools will be checking these documents - it is our responsibility as leaders to bring them to life and work within their framework, keeping Christ at the centre.

Slide 3:

We must also have a 'growth mindset' towards our Catholicity and develop our theological knowledge and spiritual leadership skills

We have high expectations of success for our learners, we must be role models and set the same high standards for ourselves as part of our commitment as educators in Catholic schools.

This requires strong Catholic leadership and is especially challenging when New Zealand is one of the most secular countries in the world. A vital part of a Catholic principal’s ministry is to ensure that there are potentially qualified future Catholic leaders nurtured in an environment that truly reflects the church’s mission (Swanson, 2012).

Slide 4 - 8 Images of Jesus the perfect role model for aspiring leaders.

Slide 9:

Active evangelisation is the essence of what we are called to do, as an “out-reaching church”. It is a sacred responsibility explicit in the purpose of our Catholic Schools. It is a task that is both richly rewarding and demanding. It is about “planting seeds”, recognising opportunities, nurturing possibilities, transforming lives, rekindling fervour and the privilege of “walking with” as we each journey in our human quest for wholeness.

In the day to day today busyness and business, we must come back to our Christ-centred framework. We must continually push ourselves out of our comfort zones within our faith.

Make a sacred space, create the silence to let go and let God in.

Slide 10:

We need to “connect to the minds, hearts and souls (spirits) of others” (Duignan, 2008).  

Walking into school in week eleven of a term after a ten week sabbatical, I connected with the end of term tiredness, stress and busyness. It was time to calm the seas. I gave staff a sabbatical space from all meetings in Term 2, 2014. I wanted staff to feel the passion, enthusiasm, engagement and creativity that I discovered during my sabbatical. I wanted to expose the gifts and talents of students, staff and whanau. Allowing space and time for these to flourish, lead to innovation.

Lorraine wrote in an article we published in the Aoraki magazine, “From what has happened on our sabbatical so far, the religious sense of creating a holy space for renewal is now so much stronger. Not only have we rested but it feels like we have re-connected with our source – God, the Holy Spirit, inspiring us”.

Slide 11:

Our charter curriculum goal developed from every child in 2011 to encompass every learner (staff and parents) in 2012 and included engagement in DEEP learning (2014) as well as a reminder to embrace our Catholic Faith (2015). We need to live our vision. How do we bring deep engagement in learning alive through Religious Education (RE) and our Catholic 
faith ?

Slides 12-14: Student driven open-ended curriculum, effective pedagogy and SOLO taxonomy used in RE.

Slide 15:

Going OPEN - We are open to sharing with other schools. This is a way for outreach. I learnt about going open during my sabbatical through reading "Open, how we will work, live and learn in the future" by David Price. I have written several reviews of chapters from this book on my blog. We are OPEN. There is total transparency with no hidden agendas. This enables us to reach out and connect with the school and wider community. We model transparency through our own actions as leaders with our own blogs, videos and prezis. If we expect our students to engage in these modes of learning then we must be prepared to do the same. We connect with our community in ways that reflect our goal to engage in deep learning for success.

Slide 16:

The teaching and learning site is our one stop public teaching and learning site. Everyone has access to everything connected to learning at St Joseph's. We are truly open. Teachers have their weekly planning on the site by 5pm on a Sunday ready for the new week. Families can access weekly goals and prepare for the week.

Slide 21:

We are also OPEN to our own personal faith development. We created a sacred space for personal and spiritual growth and development. In Term 2, 2015 in response to staff study needs we postponed staff meetings. We gave staff time to work on their RE study papers as well as gave them RE Study Time (REST). They have one day release per paper to enable quality time towards completing their assessment and to recognise their existing workload. We must continually push ourselves out of our comfort zones within our own faith development. "Good leadership develops and transforms those who are being led " (Swanson 2012).

Slide 22: Images of inclusivity. Slide 23: Parish Involvement
Slide 24: Learner agency - students and staff designed engaging learning spaces. Family Learning huis - families are immersed in an informal, social environment to engage with modern learning practices.
Slide 25: Images of an authentic leader in action today - Pope Francis. Acknowledgement goes to Christopher M. Branson, Professor of Educational Leadership Faculty of Education University of Waikato Hamilton New Zealand for use of these images from EDLE 641 Values and Leadership.
Slide 26: Final slide was a reflection - John 15:12-17 Love one another as I love you.
Extra slides-
Slides 27-31: Links to SOLO, e-learning, inquiry links modern pedagogy and RE
Slide 32:

A video that explains how the students have agency and collaborate. This was part of a presentation by the Year 8 students to St Kevin's College high school staff.






Slide 33: Links to parent education and agency examples. A video sharing engagement in deep learning as students share their learning with the community.

Authentic leaders create transparent, trusting environments where everyone is supported to share their gifts and talents and shine. 
In our Catholic schools, this happens within the sacred space of an agentic, inclusive and collaborative culture with Christ at the centre of all that we do.

Student agency: small steps, giant leaps

We are now half way through our second term of ELS's ( engaging learning spaces - our very own MLE's modern learning environments) and we need to remind ourselves of our purpose. We aim to "Engage every student in deep learning for success" within our special character Catholic school.
Yesterday I joined our Senior Hub 2 (Year 6, 7 and 8) team meeting. It was encouraging to hear the team ask the same question to each other at different times during the meeting: How is this activity providing student agency? The meeting began with staff sharing ways that they had adapted their own practices to allow student agency.

A quick reminder on what student agency means as sited in the elearning infusion blog by Nick Rate :

• Teachers use planned pedagogical approaches that engage students and enable them to take charge of their learning leading to high achievement (Mark Osborne).
• Students are empowered through curriculum approaches that; engage them, are respectful of and seek their opinions, give them opportunities to feel connected to school life, promote positive and caring relationships between all members of the school community, promote wellbeing and focus on the whole student, relate to real-life experiences, are safe and supportive (Values Centered Schools).

These were some of the ways that our senior team have adapted their teaching practices taken from Senior Hub 2 minutes (thanks Becci, Morgan and Thomas).

Actually involving the learners in decisions and structured choices can be challenging. It means that teachers have to move out of their 'being in control' comfort zone. It starts with small steps. Here is an example. Last term the learning hubs introduced Learner Licences. This was an idea adapted from our visit to Myross Bush School. Our staff created their own rubrik linked to the key competencies.
Key competencies are an integral part of the NZ Curriculum and TKI online describes them in this way: Key competencies are the capabilities people have, and need to develop, to live and learn today and in the future.

St Joseph's SH 2 Learner License rubrik

At the start of the year, the teachers directed the students to the appropriate level of the learner's licence. One of the questions that our recent visitors asked was: "Do the children or the teachers move names on the learner license board ?" Now that the year is well underway and the teachers have built quality relationships with the learners, they arranged a whole hub meeting yesterday.The students were able to express how they were feeling in relation to the learner license levels. They looked at the rubrik in their learner groups and discussed the indicators and where they felt that they saw themselves. They were then given the opportunity to move their names to where they believed they should be. They shared evidence for their decisions. Further teacher support and next steps were suggested for those students who felt that they were still at the learner level and wanted to move to the restricted level.
Student agency began with little steps. However, giant leaps were made during the course of this meeting with learners in response to student voice.

Minutes from the SH 2 meeting in response to student voice leading to student agency

Learner License display in SH 2

Listen to Kaleb and Joseph share their thoughts on the Learner License process.

Cushla and Trish share their thoughts as well.

As staff take small steps towards increasing student agency, students begin to make giant leaps in their learning.

Going OPEN : Visitors from Invercargill, troughs, growth mindset & student agency

Going OPEN, is an authentic way to reflect on the resiliency of our systems and processes and ensure that engagement in deep learning continually underpins everything WE do at St Joseph's in Oamaru.
We have just completed our thirteenth week of going OPEN in our Engaging Learning Spaces (ELS's). Our ELS's evolved to meet the needs of our learners after several years of pedagogical exploration as a staff.  A desire to have our learners passionately drive their own learning has been the catalyst for our deep inquiries. It is the "WHY " for us.
If we imagine this "WHY" as being at the innermost heart of an onion, then we have spent the past few years peeling away the outer layers. WE are steel peeling away. WE are doing that together with each other, our students and their families. It is the WE that is important. WE are all committed to our WHY: To engage EVERY student in deep learning for success. 
How do WE move from I to WE ? How do WE ensure that WE are all peeling back the layers together. How do WE survive the troughs? 
Troughs
Recently, we welcomed Deputy Principal Helen Kennedy @HKKH18 and colleague Carolyn Williams from Waverley Park school, Invercargill into our (ELS's). They visited during our twelfth week of teaching and learning in the ELS's and the very first week that we experienced teacher absence due to unforeseen circumstances. One of Helen's first questions was: "What have been your troughs?" Our visitors from Timaru a couple of weeks earlier, were also keen to know about our challenges. 

Adapted from images www.slideshare.net

Another word for trough within an educational setting is a learning pit. If we never find ourselves in the trough or pit, then we aren't being challenged in our learning.
During the seventh week of a nine week term, some of our staff found themselves in the learning pit. For team teaching to be successful, continual collaboration is a must. This is where our school values the 4 R's come in: respect, reverence, resilience and good relationships. We have to understand, apply and live out these values if we expect our students to follow them. Understanding that the quality of engaged learning that we are providing for our learners is amplified when we teach collaboratively rather than individually helps. Applying our values as we work closely as teams also helps. Luckily, deep reflection and collegiality supported our staff to climb out of the pit and we continued on until our next trough. 
This coincided with new part time teachers and relief teachers coming into our ELS's for very the first time this term. We thought that collaborative team teaching would make it easier for new personnel to teach in our ELS's. The children still have the consistency and familiarity of their regular teachers but we need to ensure that they aren't relied upon to carry the full teaching load. We need to actively support new personnel to engage proactively in the ELS's. Our teachers have worked hard to set up systems that allow space and flexibility for learner agency and engagement, within a respectful and well organised environment. Due to the fact that our ELS's differ in some ways to single cell, traditional classroom environments, we need to ensure continued success for our learners across the school. This has led to an induction process and some explicit guidelines around environmental expectations for relief teachers. 

All teachers have immediate access to timetables and planning on our public Teaching and Learning site. This site includes an overview of our school systems and process. This means that any relieving teachers can get a full understanding of the environment that they will be working in at our school. As a result of further reflection and our learning from the twelfth week trough, we have added in a section for relieving teacher to our site under the communication tab.

You can access these guidelines via this link

Growth Mindset
It's the resilient attitude that we apply during these times that helps us to move forward and deepen our learning. It's about having a growth mindset. 
Each of us our committed to the WHY. It is about our learners. It is about all of us believing that we are all learners : children, staff and families. We all have gifts and talents to share. We share these with humility, dignity, trust and respect. We are OPEN to new learning. We have a GROWTH MINDSET. We believe that our abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication. 
I first heard about the term growth mindset during a discussion with @MarkMoorhouseMM on my visit to Matthew Moss school in the UK. I explored Professor Carol Dweck's growth mindset work as part of my sabbatical study and included reference to it in this video.

Passion and a growth mindset feature in this video

It was a genuinely awesome surprise to be presented with Dweck's book:Mindset - The new Psychology of Success as part of an extremely thoughtful thank you gift from our Waverley Park visitors. As soon as I finish my ongoing reviews of OPEN: How we'll work, live and learn in the future by David Price I will devote some serious blog reflection time to this new book and share it with our staff and community.

A generous and unnecessary but greatly appreciated gift from Helen and Carolyn, our Waverley Park visitors

Having a GROWTH MINDSET attitude to the learning for all of us that comes from going OPEN and welcoming visitors from other schools, means being prepared. In order to ensure that the visit was well worth their while, I asked Helen to email us with exactly what they were hoping to get out of the visit. Waverley Park are also part of a Learning and Change network and Helen encapsulated their Big Ideas in this innovative poster.

Helen's poster captures Waverley Park School's Big Ideas for their learning environments 

Helen also shared the following: Brenda and myself have started teaching collaboratively this year with 60+ students.  We ability group our students for maths, reading and writing. We share the teaching for the arts, maori, fitness, PE.  Inquiry is an area that we will work on this term as a large group.  Because we have a traditional building footprint the students move between our spaces throughout the day.We would like to observe how you go about this in your school, looking at facets such as timetabling, movement of students between spaces, collaborative teaching and workshops,  student agency, groupings, collaborative planning, integration of ICT. 
To make the most of their time during the visit, our staff collaborated to create opportunities for our visitors to experience as much as possible from the above list.
Student Agency
I also asked if any of our senior students would be willing to share their thoughts about learning at St Joseph's in our ELS's with our visitors. Everyone was keen !! Joel (Yr 8) and Rhea (Yr 7) were given the opportunity to be interviewed by our visitors. 
Here are some video vignette's from the interview that capture student agency and deep engagement in learning.

                                     Joel shares about ELS's : 3 minute vignette

                    Rhea shares about google docs and inquiry projects : 1 minute vignette

          Joel shares about home learning and extended abstract SOLO learning : 1 minute

As part of our Whitestone Learning and Change network, we invited six of our Year 8's to prepare a slide show presentation to share with high school teachers at a combined staff event. I was fortunate to get to work with these students as we collaborated in real time together on a google slide show about their learning. We were able to adapt a slideshow prepared by our colleagues from Weston School who will also be presenting at the Whitestone Learning and Change event. 

I look forward to sharing the outcome of these presentations where student agency comes to the fore as students are given a chance to drive their learning. Where going OPEN, ensures that engagement in deep learning continually underpins everything WE do together at St Joseph's in Oamaru.

Our six Year 8 leaders working collaboratively on the presentation for High School teachers.

Authentic transforming learning relationships between adults and children blossom during Family Learning Hui Number 7

After twelve weeks of learning in newly redesigned Engaging Learning Spaces, our students have confidently been able to step up and support families to extend their thinking skills. During Family Learning Hui Number 7, our students became the teachers, as they guided families through the different levels of the SOLO thinking taxonomy with the goal to move from relational to extended abstract thinking. Families had to demonstrate how they could transfer their learning to new situations and apply it to different contexts.

Image Produced by Pam Hook (@arti_choke) http://pamhook.com/ 

Our Family Learning Hui's (FLH's) evolved as part of a commitment to support families to actively participate in deep learning experiences with their children. Being part of a Learning and Change Network (see this video link to learn more) motivated us to review our existing partnership with parents. Last year, we began to focus firmly on learning relationships. We held four FLH's and numerous parent workshops and forums. You can go to this link to learn more about our Family Learning Huis. Our huis enable families to be immersed into informal, social, collaborative and engaging learning environments that mirror our school wide teaching and learning practices.

Image from www.slideshare.net

Our goal as educators has been to move from the 'sage on the stage' to the 'guide on the side' in classrooms and when running events. We have had to pull back from a natural tendency to stand at the front and speak to our family audience during our FLH's. These FLH's replace our traditional staff meetings and so all teachers and some support staff attend.They sit with families to participate and learn along side them.

FLH Number 7 was a chance for some of our senior students (Yr 6,7,8) to share their project based learning experiences, followed by group work around the SOLO taxonomy ultimate level of extended abstract thinking. 

One of our Year 8's shares his project and applies extended abstract thinking.

Families participate in an icebreaker activity to determine areas of importance in learning for them and their families.

Students work with families to apply their project learning into new contexts and help parents to understand higher order thinking.

There was a definite transition from teacher led to student led direction during this event. It happened naturally in this informal learning environment where trust, support and integrity allowed space for authentic transforming relationships between adults and children to blossom (Burford,2005).
This has provided the guiding light for future FLH's. Teachers will be able to take a back seat while students take the lead. We are already planning our next FLH with our students.

Our students have their say about our ELS's. Read their responses to the question: What has gone well for you with your learning in Term 1?

Here is the raw student data from the online survey that our students (Yr 5-8) completed independently at the end of nine weeks of learning in our Engaging Learning Spaces (ELS's). These are their responses to the first question on the survey. They were asked to respond as succinctly as possibly using bullet points to the following question:

What has gone well for you with your learning in term 1?

·        Projects

·        independent learning time

·        working together

·        self managing to have more responsibility

·        the hub time has helped by mixing with other people

·        I think that the inquiry was a good look at learning to experience the real thing

·        I feel that I am learning a lot of new skills for maths and I have also so enjoyed our inquiry outing (Steampunk)

·        I have improved in my reading and writing which I am very happy with

·        getting my full license so that i can work in the hall way or anywhere i want that will fit in with my learning

·        These are some positive aspects of this new learning environment:
- It enables us to work with different age groups
- It helps us understand how different people think
- introduces us into class room changes
- and many other great opportunities.

·        I have really enjoyed being part of the school council.

·        i have enjoyed being able to go to the gym and start to construct a project out of the experience.

·        I learned a lot about the structure in writing and about how to create similes, metaphors and personification into a piece of writing.

·        Using devices for learning.

·        Having independent learning time.

·        Having the choice of being in any room (quiet room or discussion room)

·        I like having hubs and working in different classrooms for different subjects.

·        I like working with different students and teachers because it helps a little with my confidence and I find that I work well with different students.

·        Week goals, PC work, maths, reading, writing, hub time, Leadership groups, ECB's (Early Childhood Buddies) and different teachers.

·        new learning with device

·        new learning in a new environment

·        different learning from different teachers

·        new way to learn

·        able to manage your own time table

·        more choice in choosing where you sit

·        teaching us to use responsible choices and learning in the right atmosphere

·        You know what you have to strive for

·        get to know other people from different years

·        Having three teachers

·        I enjoy the new environment

·        Having three teachers

·        Devices

·        Hubs

·        licences

·        Standers (leaners )

·        Outings for inquiry

·        I have liked our week goals and our hub time.

·        having more help with everything because we basically have 3 teachers.

·        having the licenses to know where are in our learning and its a goal to get to a higher licence and we get rewarded.

·        its great having technology because we learn new skills.

·         Working by myself without any distractions

·        Open doors

·        Outings

·         Researching

·        Maths

·        Workshops

·        Working with different people

·        Planning

·        workshop and the working space

·         you have weekly goals do within a week.

·        you get to use technology to use to type up your work that is much faster than writing in a book.

·        Silent places to learn

·        Ability to do stuff at home

·        For me Hub time has helped not only me with my learning but others too because I get to interact with the younger ones and to support them when they need it.

·        Going out for games has helped me with my learning so that I will have some energy and that when I come back from the game I will be refreshed and ready to learn and to not get derailed.

·        Looking at the timetable in the morning after prayers has helped me with my learning because it helps me know where and what time I have to go for different workshops and also shows the teacher I manage my learning

·        New environment is more like high-school

·        Having three teachers

·        Higher standards/expectations

·        Trips for inquiry time

·         Our workshops in every subject have been fun especially maths has been much different and i like that. Also i like using mathletics i know we had it last year but we didn't use it as often. 

·         I am more confident on my place value and my equal addition

·        I have learnt how to do personification in my writing so its more detailed.

·        I have learnt that i should be exercise for 60 minutes everyday.

·        working on the devices

·        helping others in maths

·        moving up to high levels in reading

·        listening to who is talking like a teacher and a friend

·        working together as a class

·        supporting others

·        working on the leaners

·        being happy at writing and reading

·        learning hubs

·        device time

·        freedom

·        more challenges

·        I have made new friends at this new school. I like the blog and technology stuff because I haven’t used technology for learning before. Everything is different such as new devices, new school and new country. What I like about this school is that we don't have a specific spot to sit, I like to sit in the corridor.

·        I have loved doing our inquiry and our research.

·        I have loved working with the bigger kids because we have been given bigger tasks so we can stretch our abilities.

·        I also have loved having the Learner licenses because it's something that you have to work at.

·        Workshops and learning from the older kids and having week goals.

·        The workshops and working upstairs. Mr McEvoy's group.

·        A new teacher, my reading, having workshops and homeroom time. Working with other classes.

·        Being able to work in different places

·        I enjoyed working with the year 8's and year 7's

·        the hub system

·        having more than 1 teacher

·        new friends

·        be able to work in different places

·        getting to work with the year 7&8

·        working with yr. 7&8

·        love how we can have work shops

·        stepping up in our roles

·        having a goal to get to the top of the license

·        using computers for work

·         learning more about Jesus and St Dominic

·        workshops (working on things I have to know)

·        using blogs

·         moving to this school

·         making new friends

·        Having the choice of working in different rooms not just one.

·        Having different teachers- you learn more, not just from one teacher.

·        having learner licenses because it helps me to work towards something

·         I like to work with different teachers

·         work shops

·        working with year 7s and 8

·        learning about St Dominic and Jesus and filming my all about me

·        math workshops

·        meeting new people

·        That we can work with the year 7s and 8s. Being on the school council and full license.

·        The workshops and having three teachers.

What conclusions can we make from these responses ? Please share your thoughts and comments.