Schools That Deliver 4 years on; a day to share and celebrate progress & successes

In a 'school that delivers', the principal carries the vision, sensitivities, and skill sets of cultural change and creates the conditions in which teachers become the leaders of instruction and students become the leaders of the future (Edwards, J. and Martin, B., 2016, p.xiii). You can read more about a school that delivers where students become the leaders of the future in a blogpost from 2017 at this link.

On a Monday in May, our staff came together for a professional learning day with the Schools That Deliver facilitators Mary and Lab Wilson. The day was about learning, sharing and celebrating our achievements. 

As I prepare to finish at St Patrick's and take up a new role supporting and growing the leadership capability at several schools, I feel a genuine sense of pride in the self motivated actions of the staff at St Patrick's. The staff are all leaders in their own right and with the support of their colleagues in the three faith teams: Faith and Community; Faith and Curriculum; Faith, Wellbeing and Diversity; teachers are engaging and motivating their students to become the leaders of the future.

Here is a reflection from the facilitators...

The team at St Patricks have been on a journey since 2018 to realise a shared vision that was created with listening respectfully to every voice. Through the last four years the team has stayed focused and developed aligned actions to deliver on their vision ensuring they stop regularly, review actions and their impact. From this point new actions have been developed and the journey continued. This has required strong focused leadership and time to deepen community trust and involvement. Alongside these actions has been the building of leadership capacity and capability school wide focusing on how to use their faith in all they do. This was achieved by all staff belonging to one of three teams ( Faith & Community, Faith & Curriculum, Faith, Diversity & Wellbeing). Last week the three teams presented their achievements to date, the data that has informed these actions and suggested next steps. We were blown away with the passion, depth and enthusiasm. The excitement, ownership and pride of what they have achieved was clearly evident. This showed how much each of them was invested in the process. Their ability to articulate what they had done, why they are doing it and the impact it had was outstanding. There was clear evidence of growth in them all.

 Mary & Lab Wilson May 2022

Here is some feedback from the staff...

• As I was a staff member when the Schools That Deliver initiative was started at St Patrick’s it was so great to see all our progress over the years and celebrate our achievements. Notably how the core values which we came up with as a staff are so ingrained with all members of our school community. It was a really valuable day that allowed us to look back at how much we have done to move our school forward in a positive manner. The development of our school vision was such a wonderful process and I feel like all our voices were heard.“The knowledge is in the room” is a quote that I have taken away from the professional learning days as we all have so much to offer and a certain expertise that we can delve into it.“Less is more” We need to take our time and do things well. 

• The day gave us an opportunity to share all of our hard work, and celebrate all the teams’ efforts. It's interesting to see where we started from and all the positive things we have achieved. I like the development of our vision and how we using our vision as our guide. Our vision is a working document that can be changed to suit our school.

• Presenting to the staff helped me reflect on what we have achieved. Sometimes I feel like we haven’t achieved much as a team because it’s not always visible, but the process of collating everything and sharing it with the staff, as well as the feedback received, helped to reinforce what we have done this semester and where we are headed.

• It was good to be able to present our team’s work. It was a great opportunity to reflect on all the hard work put in by every team... It was positive to come together as a staff and own the shared vision.

Below is a synopsis of the work of our 3 teams and a summary of their presentations to colleagues. 

The Faith and Community Team share their presentation

The Faith and Curriculum Team share their presentation

The Faith, Wellbeing and Diversity Team share their presentation

Here is a reflection from an impartial observer who visited St Patrick's on the day.

Dear Jenny,

It was an honour and privilege to be an observer at St. Patrick's, as you and the staff participated in a day of Professional Learning on Schools That Deliver - an internationally renowned initiative that St.Patrick's commenced four years ago.

From the moment I arrived I felt very welcome at St. Patrick's. Sincere thanks to all staff of St. Patrick's.

Listening and seeing the presentations of the three teams, Faith and Community, Faith and Curriculum, Faith, Diversity and Wellbeing, sent such powerful messages. The passion and commitment of each team was clearly evident as they shared what they have done and are doing; their goals, achievements, actions, community involvement, the ongoing growth of the pedagogical expertise of staff, building relationships, developing a safe and positive learning environment and so much more. 

The whole time I was at St. Patrick's I also saw and felt what I had read on the school's website, that "Catholic identity underpins all we do."

Throughout the day I was so aware of the active engagement and participation of each person in the room. The enthusiasm, the trust shown in sharing their experiences and ideas and the alignment evident in what they are doing; their goals and openness in moving forward and building on their learning as they continue to transform the research and practice based ideas and strategies of Schools That Deliver into action so constructively as they move closer to their shared vision.

Congratulations on all that St. Patrick's is doing.

Sincerely,
Karin Morrison May 2022

In a 'school that delivers', the principal carries the vision, sensitivities, and skill sets of cultural change and creates the conditions in which teachers become the leaders of instruction and students become the leaders of the future (Edwards, J. and Martin, B., 2016, p.xiii). 

I leave St Patrick's assured that the teachers are the leaders of instruction. The staff are self motivated and they are creating the conditions for the students to become the leaders of the future.

The new principal of St Patrick's will receive the vision as a gift from the staff and together with the staff will ensure that all learners will continue to be engaged and motivated learners always faithful to a loving God and ....Learners will leave St Patrick's ready to make a positive impact on their world.

Acknowledgements:
Mary & Lab Wilson from BATS Your vision your future

Karen Morrison Observer & colleague of John Edwards

The passionate and enthusiastic leaders and staff of St Patrick's for permission to share their photos, presentations and stories and be part of their incredible journey for the last 6 years.

Engaging Learning Spaces ELS's: 5 questions on the eve of our first open morning for parents

We are continually striving to stay focused on our school wide goal : Engage every student in deep learning for success
Seven weeks ago, we launched our new 'Engaging Learning Spaces' (ELS's) across the school from Year One to Year Eight.
In a valiant effort to support parents to understand how our collaborative team teaching spaces operate, we planned some open mornings.

I am writing this post on the eve of our very first open morning and wondering:

1.Will any parents actually turn up?
 We have advertised it on our calendar since the start of the year. It has been in our newsblog and on our Facebook page.

2. If they do come along, will they be open to understanding how the ELS's work ? 

 We hope that the support we have provided through the Family Learning Huis and the transparency on the Teaching and Learning site will help.

 3. Will they be brave enough to ask questions ?

 It will be up to us to create the environment where they feel at ease to ask questions and make comments. We will need to be prepared for challenging questions.

 4. Will they be able to link what they see to the planning on the Teaching & Learning Site ?

 We will be able to point this out before the tour starts by having a quick look together on the site and seeing what we expect to be happening in the ELE's.

5. How will our teachers and students feel about the experience ?

 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.

This afternoon, Lorraine Frances-Rees and I gave a presentation to staff at St Joseph's in Timaru (an hour north of Oamaru). We shared our journey from the past few years in relation to our ELS's. Their staff will be coming to visit us in a few weeks time to see our learning hubs in action. Our open morning for parents will be an excellent opportunity for all of us to reflect and review on how our students are engaging in deep learning for success as we continue to strive for transparency around everything we do.

I will let you know what and who tomorrow brings...........

Evolving ELS's for Powerful # Open Learning Experiences

We are only two weeks into our new school year and our vibrant "Engaging Learning Spaces" (ELS's) are already generating excitement, enthusiasm and engagement in learning for children, staff and families at St Joseph's.

After completing my sabbatical research in 2014, I challenged educators to actively engage learners in deep learning by creating dynamic, innovative learning environments in partnership with learners and families where passion, motivation and excitement for learning flourishes.

Link to sabbatical video

This year, we are putting into practice a concerted school wide community approach to engaging all learners in deep learning for success. We have moved beyond the traditional "Open Door" approach to an "Open Learning in Education" philosophy.

"Open Learning in Education" is the theme of Chapter 8 in David Price's book "Open : How we'll work, live and learn in the future". I have reviewed Chapters 1 - 7 in previous blog posts. In Chapter 8, Price challenges us to reflect on "powerful and significant learning experiences in our lives " ( Page 157). For most of us, these experiences have taken place outside of school, like learning to ride a bike or learning to swim. They involved challenge, risk and learning from failure and forced us out of our comfort zones. Price points out that powerful learning experiences definitely don't come from completing worksheets. Powerful and significant learning experiences are taking place in informal social spaces outside of schools. The new concept of educational success has clearly moved away from " transmission of knowledge" to "nurturing of key skills and competencies".(Heng Swee Keat in Price, Page 166).

"Collaborative partnerships" are key to the success of this approach to learning. For several years at St Joseph's, we have focused on building quality relationships between teachers and learners.This has broadened to include families and between ourselves as educators. Every teacher is committed to working collaboratively with one or more teachers in "Learning Hubs" (shared spaces across 2-3 rooms) where there is an expectation that the progress and achievement of every learner is the responsibility of the teaching team rather than just one teacher. Last year we put a great deal of energy into supporting and involving our parents in learning and change. The extract below is taken from our school Newsblog after a recent Family Learning Hui and helps to explain how we develop "collaborative partnerships. "

Weekly Newsblog February 2015
Every student  Everyone engaged in deep learning for success
 Maybe we need to consider rewording our learning goal! We had a record turnout of families (about 100 participants) at our first learning Hui for 2015 and it wasn't only the students who were actively engaged in learning! We had parents, friends and staff all participating with the children in the learning activities. Everyone was learning together. We were participating in a social learning environment, supporting and challenging each other to open our hearts and our minds to new learning.

Having a growth mindset was the theme of one of our learning Hui's last year. If we are open to learning then age is no barrier to learning and change. It is only a closed mindset that can be a barrier to achieving our hopes, goals, dreams and ambitions. Being open to thinking in ways that may be challenging for us but move us out of our comfort zones as adults will help us grow our own learning capability.

This video helps us to understand that we need to create learning environments that truly engage our learners. We can't relay on technology alone but it can be used as a tool to support deep learning. Caring teachers effectively use the technology of today to help place learning in the context of the children's world. We are creating environments that inspire, engage and drive our students to be self motivated learners. Ultimately, we want them to drive their own learning. Strong self - management skills help our children to be active and independent learners. These are the skills that will support them to learn, achieve and succeed at high school and beyond.

Family Learning Hui questions - We have timetabled two learning Hui's per term as well as two open morrnings and set the dates for the year so that you can ensure that you keep these free.

1. Can the Hui's be at a different time? We tried the later time of 7pm last year but attendance was low (only about 15 people compared with 50 -100 ) for the 6pm time. The 6pm time slot allows a chance for working parents to get home and join if possible. The 6pm time also means that younger children can come and it's not too late for them to go to bed afterwards. Unfortunately we cannot suit the needs of all families. We are exploring a video option and also a live streaming possibility.
2. Can we have them on a different day? We have liaised with our Sports Coordinator and arranged Wednesday Hui's for Terms 1 and 4 and Thursdays for Terms 2 and 3 to best fit with coaching and sporting activities. 
3. Do my children need to come? No. You may certainly choose to come on on your own.The opportunity to bring the children means that you are not restricted by having to find a babysitter. You might decide that one parent comes with one child. It is your choice and there is no expectation from us.
4. Why should we come? It is a chance for you to understand and be able to support your children's learning in ways that are more proactive and insightful than in the past. We do expect that you as parents and caregivers accept the significant role that you play in your children's education. All of our teachers are expected to attend and will be there to learn alongside you and your families. We believe that learning at St Joseph's is a priority.

Teaching and Learning Site
We had a chance to explore our new 'go to' site at the Family Learning Hui. This site was set up to bring together all of the information that we were previously sharing in a range of places. 

This is where you can now access our calendar of events, class blogs  and all of our curriculum information. Most importantly, you have an insight into the planning and preparation that our teachers do for your children. You now have access to weekly timetables, learning workshops, long term plans and inquiry units. 
Now you have a chance to have informed learning conversations, discussions and reflections with your children based on this valuable shared information.
What did you do at school today? You won't need to ask this question because you can actually read about what the children are doing on a specific day. Instead you can take the time to say, "Share with me some of the statistical learning or where are you at with your book review?" You have the valuable opportunity to proactively support your child in their learning.

Our ELS's are continually evolving and support an "Open Learning in Education" philosophy. They lend themselves to powerful and significant learning experiences. I will share some of these experiences from a learner's perspective in a future blog.

Out with the desk; changing the principal's office into a collaborative meeting hub

This was the introduction to a recent post about supporting parents through school wide learning and change: In 2015 every teacher at St Joseph's will teach in partnership with one or more teachers in collaborative learning hubs. Teaching and learning across the school from Year One to Year Eight will go live and be fully accessible to everyone inside and outside the school via a dedicated teaching and learning site.

What does this mean for me as a leader? 
While the staff are frantically rearranging and redesigning learning spaces preparing for the new school year, I have been proactively revamping my traditional principal's office.

First action - OUT WITH DESK !!

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I have never felt comfortable talking to anyone including students from behind a desk. I have always made a point of coming forward and standing beside or sitting with a visitor at a meeting table. While I was teaching at the De Blijberg Jenaplan School in Rotterdam in the 90's, I learnt to sit alongside learners. We would create a morning sharing circle 'cring' with our chairs rather than the archetypal junior classroom practice of the teacher on a chair talking to the students on the floor.
The Jenaplan schools operate according to 20 basic principles with the first being that each human being is unique. Therefore, each child and each adult has an irreplaceable value and a special dignity .

I also recall several years ago as a first time principal, my eagerness to visit and learn from an experienced principal. Unfortunately my enthusiasm was dampened before we even met. First of all, I was asked to wait for quite some time in the visitor's part of the office. This is understandable in the life of a 'busy' principal. Then I was invited into the principal's office to sit on a very small chair some distance from the principal who proceeded to speak to me from behind a very large desk. I felt disconnected and disesteemed. Needless to say, I went away feeling disillusioned yet determined to ensure I didn't duplicate that experience for any of my future visitors. 

Fast forward to 2014 when I arranged to visit @MarkMoorhouseMM principal of @MatthewMossHigh Rochdale, United Kingdom. Mark took time out of his busy day to sit alongside me and share some of the inspirational practices happening at Matthew Moss High School. It was a sheer pleasure to travel to the other side of the world and be treated like royalty. I am still sharing my learning from this visit.

What has all of this got to do with removing my office desk? As a leader, I need to be a role model for my team. Part of our school wide change for 2015 means that we are moving away from single cell teaching spaces to team teaching learning hubs. Inspired by David PriceOBE author of the powerful book  OPEN: How we'll work, live and learn in the future, we will become a much more open and collaborative school this year. In order to make this happen, we agreed to leave behind symbols of traditional classroom settings in our quest to develop agentic learning spaces. Along with other environmental changes, teacher's desks will be removed from learning spaces in order to create equally shared spaces - no individual student's desks, therefore no teacher's desk!

I have now decluttered and depersonalized my conventional principal's office and aim for it to be a creative, collaborative meeting hub for all learners: staff, parents and students. This means that I aim to spend more of my time in other learning hubs around the school.

BEFORE: 'Principal's office'  - with desk removed

AFTER: Redesignated 'Collaborative Meeting Hub'

We are about to revisit our job descriptions to reflect our team teaching roles in the new learning hubs. This is also a chance to revisit our role as senior leaders as we redefine our place as educators and leaders in a school culture focused on engagement in deep learning and success in this digital age. As leaders, we also need to ensure that these environments are equally as engaging and empowering for our adult learners too.

Next on the to do list: order a new sign to replace the existing 'principal' sign on the office door.

Have you redefined your office space and your job description? I am interested in learning more from you. Please share your experiences.

Myross Bush School in Action

I travelled south for 315 km to Myross Bush School (MBS) and combined it with a Catholic principal's meeting in Invercargill (10km further south) on the following day. The long  journey was well worth it. Having heard Tim Lovelock and his team share their learning philosophy a few weeks earlier at a regional learning and change network meeting in Dunedin, and with our staff eager to team teach for 2015, I was looking forward to seeing MBS in action. Read more here or watch the photo slideshow below.

A breakdown of the MBS philosopy in post - it form

Although Tim described MBS as a school with very traditional buildings, the creative transformation of the buildings and grounds with multicolored poles and bright yellow signs gave the school a contemporary and welcoming feel.

I was greeted warmly by Tim (principal) and Evelyn (DP) and grateful for them giving up over two hours of their precious time during my visit. All of the staff and the children made me feel very welcome.
The breakdown of the MBS shared philosophy was evident on the large whiteboard in the staff room.This was the groundwork behind the school's vision that is now articulated around a 'Simon Senek golden circle' of why,what, how.

Junior boys screening up their milk video for all of us to view

I was interested in learning how the apple TV connector in the staff room made streaming from IOS devices so easy. Tim and Evelyn demonstrated by streaming up some of my photos immediately from my i phone. The highlight for me later on was seeing a few of the junior boys 'screen up' a milk video they had just made on their ipad and share it on the TV in the classroom. Not only was the video very engaging but the screen view was excellent as well.
Here are some answers to the questions my staff asked about MBS. We will definitely organise for our  junior and senior teams to visit. 

Maths planning template on ipad

Using single cell classrooms for team teaching - how is it different from cross-setting / streaming?  How is it different from the traditional teacher roaming / group teaching set up? 

They are not running single rooms with single sets of resources. You will have different learners during the day. You treat the two classes as one large class. For example, a class of 56 with 2 teachers. Each class has one teacher allocated for pastoral care & the daily register and the written reports are the only times that you work on your own. If there’s a meeting then they aim for both teachers to be present. apart from parent interviews.

An example of the junior action station record that they highlight

Two classrooms become one: all resources, furniture etc all go into one room and you need to reduce the doubling up of resources. The rooms were initially 'gutted'. There are no teacher desks and no filing cabinets. The rooms were made more colorful. There are individual blogs from Year 1. There is a blogger app that the juniors use to take a photo (one a week from Yr 1). This becomes a record of their progress over six years at school. This is like a sample book of progress.

What have they done to their spaces to make them suit particular learning styles and learning activities? No class sets of desks, movable learning spaces, kids design the two rooms - one for workshop, one for action station. The rooms change regularly and everyone needs to be flexible. Less is more.

How is the furniture arranged/organised-is there any? How are the rooms laid out? How do they manage the team teaching aspect? What does it look like? All planning is on the iPad with notabliity.School expectations are a guide.Whatever works for the teaching pair goes and if they can show that it meets the needs of the learners then that's fine. Each teacher has an iPad and laptop. The teachers working in partnership with the i pads make the single cell rooms become open plan.

How do the children know the expectations? How are the digital next steps made accessible/managed? Can we have a copy of what the children use? Google apps, learning pathways - say it proportions/ratio in maths for learning. First they sit together as a group. the teacher asks them what they already know and what they need to work on next. That informs the workshop. Then they must show evidence of what they can do via links on their blogs. Learners opt in and out of workshops and digital pathway.Learners move across different groups. They Integrate mixed ability workshops and continually build up evidence. They got rid of ultranet and now they just put all evidence on individual blogs. There is a governance site for the board and a staff pedagogy site. Both of these sites are private.

How did you get the whole staff on board and motivated to adopt changes in practice?It morphed through pedagogy and practice. 

How do you keep track of what each child has done when opting in and out of workshops? Originally learners moved names on Velcro on boards but they are now moving away from this to total student agency. Activity tracking sheets and digital group planning records are used.

How much support is given to children when identifying their next steps? Support happens with the workshop teacher. Teachers agree to swap weekly, fortnightly and plan together.

Do you find assessing children much easier with another teacher in the room? Only one teacher still in each room but you can get two opinions and you can discuss progress and learning together.

I'd like to express my sincere thanks to Tim and Evelyn and their team for making me feel so welcome during my visit. I am further inspired to be bold and brave and keep creating those ripples that will keep our learners engaged in deep learning for success.

Flip the MLE building ; Team teaching can work with single cell classrooms.

As a future focused principal of a traditional style school building in Oamaru, listening to Tim Lovelock and his DP's share learning at Myross Bush school in the far south was sheer bliss. At St Joseph's, we have an enthusiastic, pedagogically switched on staff keen to experience team teaching but only two of our junior classes have been able to make it happen. We thought that we would have to knock down walls between classrooms. At Myross Bush school, effective team teaching happens within single cell classrooms. Learn more from my notes here.

Team teaching model at Myross Bush school, Invercargill

• Children experience one – three teachers a day and are moving around different spaces. School looks traditional on the outside but revolutionized inside.
• Team teaching is  visible to each other and to the kids – totally transparent. No busy stuff!!
• What is team teaching? We share it with the parents and show them what it looks like.
• Team teaching helps. It started with the new entrants and moved through the school. Teachers have agency. No planning checks. Come and sit in the room and talk through your programme.
• Team teaching makes it sustainable – each pair makes a philosophy on how they work together. Keep changing and mixing teams. Have different combinations and strengths.
• Team teaching but still in single cells classrooms.
• Myross Bush's school vision is articulated around Simon Senek's golden circle of why, what, how.

Myross Bush learning model. Go to the prezi here

• Philosophy based on Dean Finks Sustainable Leadership
• Attend U learn as a whole staff – immersed in future focused learning as a staff and all have a growth mindset. See expert practitioners in action.
• Child is always at the centre and learning all around the child. What sustains and compliments it?
• Always go back to the why and the pedagogy to check they are on track.
• One teacher in the cave/workshop room teaches traditional groups. Opportunities for kids to opt in and out.
• Workstation/ action station sheets, other teacher alongside/ flipped learning model
• Agency really important – learning centredness to opt in and out of workshops
• Action research alive, no place to hide when you team teach and plan together
• Environment has changed to aide the why and thus a MLE. Cloak bays have change to become extra classroom spaces
• Digital efficacy – bring it back to the why
• High agency & low agency students paired up
• Use SOLO thinking taxonomy for everything
• Students Hyperlink evidence from goals on progression to their blogs to share with whanau
• Prefer blogs as its totally open compared to ultranet (closed network). Parents RSS feed by using cellphone numbers when new blogposts come up.
• BYOD More than the device-but why you want to use it and what you want to do with it?
• What is it you want to do with it? – go with a tool that will give you the most connection over time, teacher dashboard,
• Have a go together as a staff. Just jump in. Won’t role out an official BYOD policy unless we know the why, what and how.
• Alvin Toffler quote ......... shared with parents: 'cannot learn and unlearn, and relearn'
• It’s NOT about the thing that you want them to bring ie. The device. 
• SOLO – Ask children, where you think your SOLO thinking is and why do  you think you are there?
• You don’t always need a rubric for everything.
• Don’t talk about reading , writing and maths but talk about ‘thinking and learning via SOLO'.
• Kids aren't pigeonholed into the red reading group.
• Numeracy is focussed on agency groups rather than ability groups in the senior school
• Movement within workshops all the time.
• Materials for maths at Solo 1 etc Solo stations – prestructural using materials
• Keep SOLO simple.
• One day a term is an inquiry time for a team as well as crt. Time out of your room as a team of 4.
• Apply the key competencies to staff as adults – ask questions!!!! Powerful and hard conversations.
• Growth mindset http://prezi.com/fqwtgh3cfnu_/growth-mindset/
• Why? – We keep coming back to it as a staff.
• Give staff time and space to experience everything together as a staff.
• New staff: We look for potential and initiative. Can they think outside the square ?
• Learner Licenses : Creates accountability for learners. Only level 3,4,5 can choose  independently Not reflective on learning ability based on solo taxonomy. How you work fits in with how you think.

Next steps for us: Visit Myross Bush as a staff and learn more