Gilberthorpe school

Gilberthorpe school

Wednesday 18 June 2014

MLE Readiness seminars- A review

We have just finished the 3rd and final seminar looking at MLE readiness which has been run by Derek Wenmoth and the Core education team.  Derek is fantastic at outlining vision and pulling in experts to speak and share their experiences, I found these seminars highly motivating, you always left excited by the prospect of implementing in our school.

Some of the points that really resonated with me :

  • Your core values and beliefs drive this process and should be constructed with the entire school community.  This will guide the principles and the practice will be a living expression of these values.
  • Keep at the forefront- "What do we want for our school"  What are the priorities?  When the time comes, we can work with the budget.
  • Modern Learning Practice is vital, the buildings will come, they will look shiny, but what happens in them?  How do the teachers work together?  Variety is the spice of life... Inside the MLE we should see peer teaching, parallel teaching, small group teaching, knowledge groupings, student choice, individual work and sometimes whole group- COLLABORATION!
  • Change is coming, how to work with the people in our community to be on the same page and moving forward together...
  • "We" need to own this process, and constantly reflect on it.
  • Remember the NZ Curriculum, it allows for diversity, it is not narrow, if it is, what is going wrong?
  • How do we create reflection time for readings, examples etc...?  This is important in educating all of us.
Our final session involved Hamish Boyd from Jasmax architects.  He provided a key insight into how other schools have come about...
  • We want to design a place that motivates, everyone wants to be part of!
  • "Spacial drama"  "Spacial excitement" "Connectivity between buildings"
  • If a school is like a village, where is the heart of that village?
  • What is your schools story?  How did it come about? Listen to the stories and embed them in the designing.
Some common spaces in MLE's :
  • Group tables/spaces
  • Individual tables
  • High/Low tables
  • Variety of chairs/bean bags etc...
  • Silent rooms
  • Meeting rooms
  • Bookable rooms
  • Specialist rooms
  • Furniture that can be easily manipulated
  • Nooks/Crannies
    Every space is a working space!

5 comments:

  1. Great summary, Andrew - thank you!

    There is so much to think about, and it's difficult to know where to start.

    My starting point (for now) is around how our school might physically represent its connection to the local community. "Community" is a strong value at our school - not only because of the strong school community we have within our boundary, but also because of our links to the Hornby Cluster, our whanau, and other community organisations. For me, "Community" also means "potential" - potential for us to grow, and for us to engage with a wider leaning community. So I'm musing on these things: How can we redevelop our physical spaces to welcome the community into our space? How can we 'reach out'? How can we demonstrate our strong community culture, and facilitate more of it? What do our learning spaces look like as a result?

    It's easy to think about furniture/bright colours/windows/sliding doors, and so very, very tempting to want to skip straight to the bit where we put plans on paper. I can't wait for that part, but recognise the value in thinking more deeply/clearly about our vision and direction in connection to all of this.

    Fun times ahead!

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    Replies
    1. Kate, I think you have totally summed it all up :D I feel we are on the same page.
      Community is huge in our school and yes the visioning I think is one of the most important parts as we need to be able to identify our beliefs and where we see we want the school to be going etc

      However I too wish we could skip to the planning of spaces etc. As my students were working today i was picturing students working in a MLE especially as they ask to work in different areas. All the possibilities. BRING IT ON!

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  2. More ideas from me...

    There's a video I like on the Ministry's MLE website http://www.mle.education.govt.nz/ under the heading "How Do We Achieve These Qualities"... the video is the top righthand corner, about Milton and SIlverstream schools.

    I like the examples this video has of remodelled floorplans in existing buildings, and some of the floorplans look similar to our blocks. I know we need to establish a bit more of our vision first, but I'm quite a practical/visual person and it helps me to have something in mind so that I know what we might be dealing with.... looking at brand-spanking new buildings doesn't help me, because that's not what our situation is!

    Maybe other people are similar to me? I'm really looking forward to visiting Waimairi on Wednesday :)

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  3. The community is going to have a huge role to play in all of this, I am looking forward to establishing a team of parents asap, when you see these designs , you can start to picture what we might be able to do in the senior block, particularly if we knock down the wall to the current cloak bay and get rid of this area... I think we will have some quality space to work with.

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  4. This is what my mind keeps coming back to...from Andrew's summary. 'Modern Learning Practice is vital, the buildings will come, they will look shiny, but what happens in them? How do the teachers work together? Variety is the spice of life... Inside the MLE we should see peer teaching, parallel teaching, small group teaching, knowledge groupings, student choice, individual work and sometimes whole group- COLLABORATION!'

    This surprises me somewhat as I am actually very into beautiful spaces. I feel very strongly that what happens in the learning spaces however they may look, is what is vital. I will be looking into modern learning practice and collaborative teaching strategies throughout this process. Would be interested if anybody knows of any good websites that look specifically at what is happening in the learning spaces. The sites already shared are great...so much useful information.

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