Teacher Only Day - Developing our new vision

A teacher only day to continue our vision development was a fantastic day.......

1: What is LEARNING?
This was a great start, staff came with no preconceived ideas and didn’t really know what angle I was coming from. Some staff did misinterpret the task, but to their credit quickly modified their response to suit. We came up with an extensive list of attributes, already some staff were making connections between the attributes and key ideas for our learning community.
Next we looked at the thinking curriculum framework and converted our ideas into verbs for learning. At times this proved to be rather tricky so we decided to use our knowledge of the virtues to become descriptors of these attributes.
We categorised ideas and grouped them into similar areas. Next we discussed and decided which of these verbs fir into the following:
skills/knowledge
skills/behaviours
attitudes and values
This provided a great point for in depth discussion, it was great to listen to the justifications for decisions, staff challenging each others ideas, but also willing to listen and being confident enough to express their point of view. The whole day was really non threatening and definitely a team effort.

2: Attributes
Next I suggested that we could further group these ideas into the following categories.
Foundations of learning
Participating with learning
Life long learners
This was aimed to further clarify our beliefs as to what learning is and what aspects of that are important to our school.. This also provided a great avenue for discussion, really challenging our existing belief systems and requiring us to provide supporting evidence to show why we believe this, or not. We ended up with a fantastic list of skills, attitudes, behaviours, values and knowledge requirements. We also came to the conclusion, that in most cases:
· the foundation was the knowledge – the literacy, numeracy, digital literacies, all the knowledge that is needed to successfully participate in learning.
· Participating with learning – inquiry, thinking, interacting, justifying, challenging, questioning etc – really engagement with the learning experiences
· Life long learners mainly expressed the attitudes and values that the children take with them, the tools needed to contribute to the wider community, the notion of having the means to make decisions, take risks, knowing how to make adaptations in life. These skills taught through their schooling life that remain with them, that foster continuous learning, that develop the student into an active life long learner.

Previously we had our initial vision meeting, we came up with a list of knowledge, skills and attitudes that we thought were important. It was the aim of this exercise to reinforce our belief systems. Without knowing where I was going, we came up with a list that was similar to our original, it included the same content, it was just further refined. Once I brought out the original list, there was great satisfaction from all to see that we were all on the same page, we were forming our belief system, it may have been hidden behind ‘attributes’, but in the end, the same ideas/beliefs were exposed.

This was fantastic, all went according to plan, although if the ideas didn’t match up, it would have been a great starting point for an intense discussion.

It was very satisfying for me to see, that our team worked so well together, we supported each other, shared ideas with confidence, spoke up, challenged, discussed further, basically owned the whole process, rather than looking to me for all the answers. This is really exciting for me.

We then used a fishbone diagram, the reason why I am using thinking tools is to ensure exposure and show versatility of these strategies, so the staff can make connections with our inquiry tools.

We used the fish bone to collate ideas about what is important for our learning community. The headings were:

For the learner
Skills & knowledge
Attitudes & behaviours
Values
Life long learner
Scaffolding for the Learner
Classroom environment
Learning community environment
Wider community

Visual representation of our vision
The final task of the day is to create a visual representation of our thoughts of the day.
Took the staff into the ICT suite and looked at digital stories of schools in developing their curriculum, from the NZ Curriculum website. We experienced a few difficulties but eventually the short digital story was a great tools to culminate our work of the day. I asked the staff to create a visual representation of what they see as our vision, amazing results! This ended the session on a high note, the motivation was sparked, not exhausted, we are already forward planning as to our next workshop. It is very satisfying for me that all the hard work is paying off. It was interesting how the staff interpreted the task, images of key ideas, symbolism, analogies, environment was represented, unique things to our learning community were created in some amazing scribbles.

We discussed the key question:
Does our school have a vision, how widely known and shared is it?
I deliberately asked that question, simply to gage how many knew what our current mission statement was, how old it was, and where it was promoting the school, what do those children walking up the road mean to our school?
One staff member could give a vague definition, but that was better than not knowing. This has to change, we have to get our belief system out to the wider community.

The connections that I was leading to were seen, everything linked. It reaffirmed the opportunity we have to create our vision, create a learning community that best suits our children, to provide opportunities that inspire children to become lifelong learners. It reaffirmed the importance of our belief system that is the foundation of our new vision.
Opportunities

The idea is to make statements about these areas, confirming our beliefs. These statements will be sent to our community for consultation, the community will state their opinion and also rank these statements in order of importance.
I think this is extremely important, without a supportive community, there are barriers to development and change, ultimately change and progress is what we are aiming for. It may require education of our community, to get past the nostalgic mindset of education, but consultation is needed if we are to encourage support and create a partnership.

I was extremely proud of our small staff. Everyone was engaged and motivated. We discussed ideas freely and are all working towards a common goal, a really exciting start to our journey.

We have scheduled further vison meeting for the remainder of the term, the motivation is high so we want to keep the momentum going. We have plastered the staffroom with all our work we did on this day, teacher aides and parents are commenting on the great ideas they can see on display.

We are all reflecting on our thought and coming back to the next meeting with a vision in mind. I do feel it is important to give timefor reflection because if we rush into it, them a solid belief system wont be behind it. We ned to be able to challenge our own thoughts and ideas, and be able to justfiy out beliefs.

I would like to congratulate our team for their dedication and support - You guys ROCK!