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

Chrome books

This is an interesting article about the chrome books we have bought for our Year 5/6 class to trial.

It is also likely that in 2015 all students from Year 4-6 will have the opportunity to lease to own these devices.  Exciting times....


Chrome book use in schools