Organisational Values - Making them Visible

Over the last eighteen months the Staff and Board have been brainstorming and drafting the organisational values for our recently established School.  Rather than norms to underpin 'how we do things around here' we have developed a set of values and mindsets that underpin the culture we wish to establish.

We have a very clever designer (Visual Evolution) who helped bring these values to life as shown below.

This shared language is already helping us to further deepen the culture we set out to establish.  It is powerful at informing our practice and behaviour when faced with decisions, problems and opportunities.

Red Beach School Conference - Great Buzz

What a thrill to share with delegates yesterday from near and far. We had over 100 attendees who asked great questions, talked to our students and heard about the journey we have been on since the beginning of 2005. As we shared in the initial address we by no means believe we have all the answers, rather we saw the day as an opportunity to share in the highs and lows of our own journey. We too feel privileged to have talked and visited many colleagues and shared in others journeys too. We felt it was our turn to give back and contribute to the greater good of education and continue the dialogue and debate.

For any conference participants - this link takes you to the
Powerful Learning Presentation
Teacher Effectiveness Presentation

Look forward to continuing the dialogue.

Learning is the Business

Schools like any business are organisations which are driven by a CORE business, what differs is the outcome. In business it is about making money, in education driving learning. It has continued to surprise me over the last decade that in spite of educations core business being that of learning we seem to spend little time talking about it.

What is learning? What conditions support learning? What are the barriers to learning deeply? How does the brain learn? what strategies help me continue to learn when I am stuck?

A few examples of questions that require time to unpack, dialogue about and reflect on for both teachers and their students.
The unrealistic pressure of covering content often only results in surface learning. To learn powerfully and deeply, decisions need to be made by the organisation about what students should be
1 – learning about what content will aid individuals in making sense of the world they live in and contribute creatively.
2 – develop the necessary ‘Learning Power’ as Guy Claxton terms or capacity to learn deeply and powerfully. Both need to be developed simultaneously.

Clarity about the end in mind profile of a student needs careful deliberation and dialogue. A futuristic vision of the knowledge, dispositions and values a student would need to be equipped with based on the principles embedded in the vision is essential in reframing 20th century mental models of coverage verses depth.

Time to Vision, Revision - Where to start?

Do you know what the vision and purpose of the organisation you are within is? Is it obvious to all stakeholders? Are you a newly appointed principal and wanting to make your mark? Is the current environment comfortable, worn out ready for a refresh?

What ever the purpose for visioning or re-visioning I would like to think it is well justified and far from being about any one persons ego.
To vision is to gain collective understanding, hope and clarity about an organisations future endeavours. It is about binding an organisations personnel in pursuit of greatness, creating momentum, direction and success for all.

Any such process could begin by asking questions like;
“What is the purpose of school?”
What should our school stand for?”
“What dispositions will help all our students succeed in the 21st century?”
“What do we need to consider that our past education has not?”

Such questions require processing and time to dialogue with colleagues. It is not something achieved in a one hour after school staff meeting!

Leader Vision or Collective Vision - Our Story

A vision is not a collective one unless all stakeholders are heard, difference appreciated and valued. We began by working collaboratively with the teaching staff of our school. There was the Board of Trustees, parent community and students themselves to share in the process. I believe we are often guilty of doing this well.
Our Board questioned us deeply about the chosen concepts and did not disagree with what the teaching staff had come up with they did however point out that we had missed a very important concept that the school had stood for historically. That was the word achievement.
A representative parent group was consulted with. If we had our time again would we have consulted more widely amongst the parent community? Was it representational of the whole community?
Our students were not consulted – this was a mistake. If we had our time again this would be changed. I think given what we have since learnt from our students we would consult them first.

Synthesizing Success

It's not about adding new ideas and flavors of the month on to current practice.  Two words need to go hand in hand.  Embedding and Abandonment.  What are we going to let go of to embed future focused initiatives to improve student outcomes for all? Developing a shared vision, collective purpose and synthesizing current global thinking can help to set the stage.  The major topics under the current educational microscope are how do we develop student learning capacity in conjunction to teaching content.  Thinking skills, learner dispositions (key competencies) and conceptualizing curriculum in meaningful and manageable ways is quiet some task.  The following link is a draft attempt in doing so in 2005.  The big ideas reside under I, We, It and Make a difference headings.  The matrix has proven to be a helpful way of providing a framework in which each piece has been further unpacked and embedded in practice.  How important is the development of such a framework?  How influential ha it been in the strategic direction? What would have happened without such a structure?  When is structure helpful/ unhelpful?  All questions I like to continue to ponder.