Changing for inquiry

We had a huge staff meeting on inquiry. Really had a lot of solid discussions on the unit we had planned to do and if it would be a true inquiry unit.
After a lot of discussion and clarrification, we decided that it wouldn't. YEY!!!!!
We were planning on doing a unit on the Olympics - what it takes to get gold - but we realised that the children wouldn't get the practical opportunities to 'work' for or with information, it would still be a research type unit with no 'hands on' or opportunities to fully engage.
We changed it to 'Who dares wins' - and edible garden project to promote participation in developing and maintaining edible vegetable gardens.
The staff got really excited really fast about the opportunities that they children could take ownership over.
We also focussed our learning intentions to the key competencies - this ensured that the children would take ownership and made us look at planning in a different light.
We developed a new planning format (again hehe) and tweeked the visual model (still think this needs further development - this is on going and will be so for quite some time yet I guess)
We discussed the importance of providing scaffolding for our learners and again refined the thinking tools that we will be using throughout this unit.
Our next step is to go through our second trial unit, focuss on the scaffolding and key competencies and continue to refine our thinking and opportunities.
The staff are coming to grips with the inquiry way, there will still be bumps and hiccups - to be expected when change is happening.
Congratulations to our staff for the open mindedness and commitment to providing great learning experiences for our children.