L@S 2009

We start with a challenge: "Schools need to change to meet children's needs instead of being out of date. Too many children are leaving school without qualifications and not being prepared for their future. It's time for bravery and a new way of thinking and teaching and learning. E-Learning has a powerful part to play in making learning interesting, meaningful and personalised for our students." Andy Hargreaves, talking about the Fourth Way (of Leadership i.e. inspiration, innovation and sustainability) of Educational Change that we need to move into the future. He reminds us that any piece of ICT, however flash, will NOT positively improve student outcomes unless backed up by good teaching pedagogy. First Way - innovation, flexibility, autonomy but not shared, spread or cohesive. Second Way - standardisation of curriculum, testing, competition, targets, parent choice. Third Way - improvement by sharing good practice, combination of pressure to perform and support for change but still dictated by targets in narrow areas. Era of public-private sector partnerships. Andy makes an interesting point about moving leadership and positions within organisations so that a perosn's loyalty is not to self or position, but the organisation as a whole - perhaps there's a message there for schools, maybe it's time to not be a maths teacher or a new entrant teacher for ever. He's talking about Finland and it's example - high quality teachers, drawn by the mission of teaching, lots of co-construction of curriculum, schools full of trust, co-operation, responsibility and a sense of collaboration and big picture vision. I think we've picked up on some of these themes and also the message of community - schools working together in an area for the betterment of each other and all children. We should not compete by pitting school against school and be happy or relieved if another school fails. Strong School? - Then Help the Weak! What about a diverse, or poor community - can it work there? Tower Hamlets, a high Bengali population area in London shows "Yes it can". Target setting was collaborative (not imposed top down), goals were established over time - "Poverty is not an excuse". Aim high. They knew their people, targets weren't being set by people from the Ministry who didn't know the communities. Another key was having quality teachers with commitment to the community - this commitment was visible and different stakeholders in the community agreed to initiatives like ensuring that kids were at school. And, giving schools lots of support so teachers get to concentrate on teaching and learning - everyone liked this, although I do like doing my own presentations - not sure I could let that go! An inspiring session - with challenge but also reassurance that we are heading the right way in NZ, perhaps more devotion to the mission of teaching, more social responsibility and more of students as change partners - how do we achieve this in primary schools?