Waimairi Visit Reflection

Waimairi Visit Reflection

Something to look at… http://www.waimairi.school.nz/educators.html

In week 8 Kayla, Kelsey and myself spent a morning at Waimairi School. Waimairi School is widely praised for its collaborative staff and student led learning environments. Our focus was to see what was happening at this school and take away ideas that could be implemented at Gilberthorpe School. Mike Anderson, principal of Waimairi School hosted our visit and we are very grateful for his time and the opportunity.

Waimairi is yet to undergo their rebuild and so currently operate out of traditional single cell blocks, which have been creatively modified to provide flow through between the classes. This allowed for greater collaboration between teachers and children. We typically saw two classes working in a shared space with one teacher involved in Literacy/Numeracy instruction with a small group and the second teacher facilitating learning with the rest of the children.

The things that inspired us during our visit were:

• There was a high level of engagement in every classroom: Every child was engrossed in their learning.
• The use of SOLO Taxonomy to provide a universal framework that the children could use to self assess. The classrooms were filled with visuals with hand signals providing a kinesthetic way to communicate your thinking.
• There was a structure in place to ensure that the children’s project was purposeful. Before embarking on a project the student carried out a plan that was structured around SOLO. This put emphasis on the why (why are you doing it?) ensuring that the child’s task had a purpose and involved thinking and learning.  
• A strong supportive staff culture was evident within the school. In this time of change and exploration staff were given trust to try new things, to work to their individual strengths without judgement. This seems to the the foundation of success in a developing environment.
• Knowing the learner is a vital part of education. Equally as important is knowing our staff. Our children are all at different stages in their learning and as teachers we are all at different stages of our learning too. Our needs are as unique as our learner’s needs. A change in education delivery will require a lot of adjustment, exploration and learning for staff and children alike.
• Staff at Waimairi were allowed the freedom to plan in a way that suited their way of thinking. There was an expectation that all staff could demonstrate (through written document or verbal discussion) the learning needs of their students and how their program was meeting their needs. This is a system built on trust and of knowing the teachers.  
• Mike stressed the importance of knowing why you’re making changes. There is a lot of hype around the changes that are occurring in our education system and of course it provides a great marketing opportunity for school furniture suppliers. When designing our school we must always consider the purpose we are trying to achieve.  
• Our visit promoted thought around the type of apps that children have access to at school. Waimairi favoured the use of ipad apps that provided Redefinition activities (apps that require creative thinking such as Explain Everything or Book Creator). These are apps were the outcome can not be achieved without the use of ICT (SAMR model). Apps such as Maths games were not favoured as there is little difference to the outcome of playing a Maths game with or without ICT.   

After our look around the classrooms, we regrouped for discussion and questions. We wanted to know how children were transitioned into this style of education delivery. Mike highlighted here the importance of the metacognitive framework (SOLO). He cautioned that while we want to develop children into autonomous learners that this does not occur simply because you have knocked down walls and filled the space with funky, brightly coloured furniture. Within any school there will be children with a variety of needs regarding the amount of direction they need to make appropriate choices regarding their learning. As teachers we need to know the needs of our students and cater to them, assisting them in the direction of autonomy and supporting them on their journey.  

Waimairi School have taken a slow, considerate approach to their changes. They have taken the time to trial, reflect and adjust.

We are asking the community...let's ask ourselves!!!

Hi all.

We are currently asking the community to feedback the skills that whanau want their children to leave our school with.  Let's find out what we think!

Post below 3-5 words  ( individual words only)  e.g. creative , showing the most important skills you think children should have when they leave our school and head into year 7...

2020 Conference- Two school visits and Anne Knock from the Sydney centre for innovative learning

2020 conference , school visits and Anne Knock from the Sydney Centre  for innovative learning.

Our conference started with visits to two Christchurch schools- Thorrington Primary and Christchurch South Intermediate.  Thanks to both of these schools for hosting us.

Thorrington school

The experience here was fantastic and it was clear how much time, energy and thinking had been put into making sure that systems and structures had been well thought through before working in the collaborative environments.

Thorrington had a few key roles- Instructing teacher, working teacher and orientation teacher.  These roles were unpacked so that each knew the expectation when performing this role.  They also had designated instructing space, working space, meeting space, creating space, exploring space and a home base!  

I was also impressed by the level of detail taken to get to know each others likes and dislikes, something that if not brought up and discussed, could derail progress.

This was working well for the year 1 students.

We were also fortunate enough to walk through several rooms, this was about 30 adults at once and the kids barely flinched...most impressive and a testament to how well established routines and expectations were.

Christchurch South Intermediate

This was a great chance to fast forward to the other end of the school, intermediate. It was great to see many similarities, in terms of the organisational elements required to make this successful.

I was impressed at how engaged students were at this level, they were working on maths and there were using a huge range of strategies and methods to solve problems, great to see pen and paper out and about alongside ICT’s and class teaching.  Students here had an instructional space and then several breakout spaces and other rooms for the students to work in.  The acoustics within the building allowed this to flow with minimal interruptions.

What I took from both of these schools was that it is imperative to take the time to plan and prepare for what these environments will look like, what will happen in them, where and when it will happen and by whom.

The 2020 learner by Anne Knock from the Sydney Centre for Innovative Learning.

Sydney centre for Innovative learning

I want to start by emphasising that I found Anne to be one of the best speakers that I have heard and the conference was right on the mark for our current school needs.

Here were some key points :

A culture of learning should dominate all other cultures

Anywhere, anytime, ubiquitous learning

Naming spaces provides energy and enthusiasm, they used Manhattan and Barcelona for popular, shared areas

There were 3 key types of space- Physical, Virtual and Cultural ( as in the school culture)

Share, comfortable, open spaces are important

When approaching the process I loved the way Anne looked at it - “I’m a designer looking for solutions”

75% of space was shared

The change process

We must constantly look at this,  Sigmoid curve shows that we must re assess and make changes while still in a peak because inevitably this will decline, emphasising the importance of ongoing reflection of what we are doing and why!

Let’s prototype instead of piloting because prototyping is an iteration which means it is ongoing and reflective, piloting has a defined start and end date.

The analogy was given of  a DJ or sound technician, all of the levers can’t be on full at the same time to create the best music, we need to choose areas to focus on and get right before moving to another.

The OECD states that in order for schools to prepare 21st Century learners we need :

Strong leaders

Confident teachers

Innovative approaches

OECD also signalled that successful schools were using these strategies :

Grouping teachers

Grouping learners

Open scheduling of lessons etc…

Variety of approaches

Ownership of  their culture

Collaboration is often messy and uncomfortable but it is working!

“Great collaboration is when everyone has a voice and everyone is heard”  Anne Knock 2015.

HMW structure to help refine thinking was beneficial :

H- How, M- Might, W- We

e.g. HMW strengthen our school leadership  So that…. we have a strong culture of learning

What does this mean @ Gilberthorpe … What are our next steps?

1. Slow down and breathe…
2. Revisit the top - Our vision, values and practice, we need to get this right then everything else must align with this!
3. Bring the community along with this process
4. Then we look at how collaboration fits with this, what does it mean? what will it look like for us?

There is a lot to think about but this conference has provided a great opportunity to think about 2020 learners and how best we can prepare to educate them!

Derek Wenmoth on "does a MLE suit all learners?"

Quite an interesting article with Derek's thoughts on if MLE's suit everyone.

Does a MLE suit all learners?

Education in the 21st Century, a few of our thoughts :-)

Here are some of our reflections following our reflection meeting last week.

I am excited about the direction we are heading in.

There were 4 key questions during this time, here is a summary of the responses.

1. What does teaching and learning in the 21st Century look like to you?

• Student led, increased student agency/ownership
• Open, flexible, responsive learning environments
• High use of technology
• Huge community involvement
• Students learning how to be successful, what is required
• Teaching and learning any space, anytime
• Collaboration within school, cluster, nationally and internationally
• Colourful, vibrant learning environment
• Team teaching, learning from each other, utilising strengths of individuals
• Power of 3 (3:75), options to adapt as pedagogy develops
• Multiple activities happening at once
• Children can choose a learning environment to suit the need

     2) What do we need within our school and environments to achieve this vision?

• Instant access to the required resource
• Development of collaborative pedagogy
• Flexible, easily adapted teaching and learning spaces that are responsive to the current need
• Keeping up to date through observations of other schools, research, readings etc…
• Spaces opened up
• A welcoming feel, wow factor within the school
• Well organised storage areas
• Strong relationships between staff, students and whanau
• A collective, clear vision
• Breakout spaces to cater for diversity
• A physical space that allows for modern learning mindsets
• Passion and a positive attitude to change

     3) How must the environment be organised? What must be in this environment?

• 3 : 75 ratio, Power of three
• Ability to change space to fit the purpose, responsive
• Resources immediately available
• Learning hub is self sufficient, place for bags, resources, etc…
• Every space is a learning space
• Quiet spaces that are visible
• Breakout spaces for wet activities, dry activities, arts, technology etc…
• Space to display student work
• Colourful and vibrant
• Better heating and light
• Partitions available to mark off space/areas as required
• Every space belongs to everyone

    4) What factors have the biggest impact on student achievement?

• The people working with the students
• Catering and encouraging individual learning styles and needs
• Quality of feedback given to students
• Community involvement
• Strong leadership
• Relationships and rapports
• Students feeling safe, comfortable in the environment
• Being time efficient
• Student engagement, choice and therefore ownership
• To understand how to be a learner, what this means
• Developing a growth mindset
• Knowing the learner
• Consistency, everyone sailing on the same ship

Carol Dweck- Growth v Fixed mindset and the Bridge to yet.

Carol Dweck is an american professor who has provided some amazing research on the development of children and their learning.   This TED talk looks at building growth mindsets in our students.

There is a link below to view the clip and a link to her wikipedia page.

Really interesting information.

TED talks have some fantastic educational clips, access this website through our links page on this blog.

Carol Dweck- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Dweck

Carol Dweck- TED talk The bridge to yet

Please post any relevant comments or reflections on this clip.

An update...Where are we at???

Time to roar the blog back into life as there are many exciting things happening here @ Gilberthorpe. It is hard to know where to begin!

2015 is a huge year for us, we welcome 3 new teaching staff who have settled in very well and are making significant contributions to our school.  Our new caretaker has also been incredibly busy and is doing a wonderful job of making our place look fabulous.  We have a fantastic group of people involved with the school and the community and the outlook is incredibly positive.

Master planning for our re development
This is well and truly underway and we are now working with the architects and engineers to design a school environment that will fit our philosophy of teaching in the 21st Century.

Much discussion is happening among staff and the BOT about our teaching practice and ensuring that it is responsive enough to deliver a high quality teaching and learning programme for our students.

I will update the blog as this develops further.

Manaiakalani outreach programme
Our main professional learning development over the next three years will be based on the incredibly successful Manaiakalani cluster in Auckland.  manaiakalani.org
This is cutting edge professional learning that will ensure that our students are getting the best possible teaching programme. It has a strong emphasis on a Learn, Create and Share model that utilises technology both at school and in the home to create an anywhere, anytime learning environment.  This model has a had a huge impact on raising student achievement within the Auckland cluster and we look forward to benefiting from their knowledge.

Technology- Devices of choice...
As a school we have chosen to utilise and focus our energy into I pads for students in Year 0-3 and Google chrome books for Years 4-6.   Rimu class are currently 1-1 device and our new entrants/year 1 class are also virtually 1-1.  These devices are having a big impact on engagement levels. Later in the year all students in Year 4-6 will have the opportunity to lease to own their very own chrome book that will travel everywhere with them.

New furniture
We have had a lot of new furniture added to the classes and this is allowing the students to work much more collaboratively, it is interesting to watch how teachers and students are using this to reinforce modern learning pedagogy.

Modern learning
The dictionary states these definitions of "modern"

relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past: the pace of modern life | modern European history.

• characterised by or using the most up-to-date techniques, ideas, or equipment: they do not have modern weapons.

As a school we see the importance of having the highest quality teaching and learning programmes possible.  Keeping up with "modern" trends is top priority and we have excellent systems in place to do this.  Obviously the PLD plays a big part too.

Teachers have begun working collaboratively @ Gilberthorpe and this will continue to develop with time, next step is the buildings allowing this to happen much more easily.

Keep an eye on this site for more regular updates and articles, feel free to comment or contact us at anytime.

andrew@gilberthorpe.school.nz