PB4L - PLD Staff Meeting with Linda Ahokava

PB4L is all about teaching behaviours that we want students to present as opposed to focusing on behaviours not appropriate.  Our school began our PB4L journey last year and we have implemented a variety strategies to reinforce behaviours that contribute to a school environments that are positive, caring and safe.  Our school culture has grown partly as a result of the implementation of the PB4L programme and this includes a spin off with positive staff relationships by way of collegiality and support.
PB4L focuses on teaching expected behaviours.   The introduction slide to our session read:
 If a student doesn't know how to read, we teach.
If a student doesn't know how to swim, we teach.
If a student doesn't know how to multiply, we teach.
If a student doesn't know how to behave, we punish. 

The systems we have put in place include:

• giving students tokens for displaying PB4L during class time or in the playground. The tokens are valued as 'house point' and the points system is collated throughout the term.
• the winning house are rewarded at the end of each term with a treat of their choice - e.g: colour shirt day & pizza.
• giving students assembly awards for displaying our school values of Manaakitanga, Whanaungatanga, Tukumarie, Ako and Rangimaire.
• if students are recognised as consistently displaying the school values, they will receive a values badge correlating to the value they are displaying. 

The benefits we have seen since we have put PB4L in place are:

- Improvements in academic engagement & attainment

- Improvements in behaviour

- Improved school & teacher capability

- Improved teacher confidence & satisfaction

- Improved school climate and perceptions of organisational health and safety

- Improved relationships between staff, students & whanau/ community

- Improved targeting of students for specialist service referral

- Reduced major disciplinary infractions

- Reduced teacher reported bullying behaviour

Understanding Behaviour - Responding Safely (UBRS)

Responding to behaviours is a tricky part of teaching.  Teachers hold the power to make or break situations that are emotionally charged and can either contribute to a culture of harmony or an atmosphere of fear.

We are often torn between our beliefs in justice and our knowledge of the students we teach.  Picking your battles becomes a catch cry parked at the forefront of classroom management.   Experience, both personally and professionally makes dealing with emotionally charged incidents clearer to read and therefore easier to foresee and respond to.   Reflective practice plays are huge role in developing teacher's understanding of behaviour and teachers must consider the importance of really knowing their student's values and beliefs as well as their own.  

Our staff participated in UBRS training.  The modules covered during the programme included - Understanding Behaviour, Encouraging Ready-to-Learn Behaviour, Responding Safely, and Reflection and Embedding.  Throughout the day, staff shared thoughts, ideas and experiences of behaviour incidences and their responses to them.  We watched videos and gave opinions regarding handling different scenarios and we talked about preventative measures.  

The main messages I received throughout the day was the importance of knowing your students well, setting up sound classroom systems and expectations with your students and developing strong working relationships with them.  Teacher's reactions and understanding how and why we manage situations the way we do is important too.  A strong culture of shared values around behaviour expectations also adds to the atmosphere and environment of the school.

One of the take homes I got from the day was the 'Zone of Regulation'.  Walking students through the zones, getting them to examine and understand how they feel and act within each zone is a positive step to developing self management in stressful situations.  This same idea relates closely to the Mana Enhancement programme we have used with students who sometimes struggle to understand why they feel the way they do and how they react to those feelings.

When entering into todays workshop, I thought the messages were going to be all about 'how to restrain a student' in situations of crisis.  While restraint was talked about and examples given, most of the day was spent examining behaviours, reactions and pre-empting them.  It was a valuable day of training and reflection, with a lot of sharing, reflection and laughter.  Well worth it!

West Coast School Visits - Kokatahi Kowhaitirangi School

Kokatahi was a fabulous little school of 48 students about 20mins from the Hokitika Gorge.  Our visit began with a welcome from the whole school, who presented a mihi and songs to our group. The school is made up of predominantly pakeha students from farming families.  Students sang Waiata and the Principal presented a Mihi.  I was impressed with the effort gone into the songs and the mihi, made all the more special because the Principal was South African and not long in the school.

The school itself is in its second year of the Manaiakalani Outreach programme and the progress they have made over that time is phenomenal.  Students were confident and enthusiastic in showing us what they could do and revealed that they use a variety of apps in their learning.  One app that they shared was Aurasma an app they described as augmented reality.  Holding an ipad over a painting they created, a video clip of the student who created the painting popped up and it was of them saying their pepeha - relating to the painting.  

Students also shared their work via QR codes which were posted on the walls around the room.  This had me thinking about how teachers could use the QR code idea for collating evidence of student's rich assessment tasks.  

Visiting this small school gave me insight into what teaching is like in a rural setting.   Conversations with students and teachers was warm and open.  Learning about learning from their perspective, within a rural context, was really interesting.  Some of the students had never left the community they lived in.  Some of them had been to Auckland and were excited about the Sky Tower and Harbour Bridge.  When I mentioned that I was from a little school in Auckland of 230 students, students were amazed and 'woah' was the reaction I received.  I did wonder what students from Tamaki schools would think if we were to take then on a trip to the West Coast to see how these children lived and were schooled.  I'm sure they'd give a 'woah' reaction too.  I know that some schools in the Manaiakalani programme have blogging links with schools on the WC...my next goal is to hook up more of our classes with students from there too.

Manaiakalani Principals Tour

This year the Manaiakalani Principals Tour ventured down to the West Coast of New Zealand to look at school who are part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme.  The schools were all part of the Toki Pounamu cluster which covers Kumara, Hokitika and Greymouth.  There are 13 schools in the cluster which spreads approximately square 200km.

There were 25 Principals, DPs, APs, HODs, Col leaders and Manaiakalani administrators all come along to see and learn.  The organisation by the Manaiakalani team has been exceptional, with all staff being kept inform of every facet of the trip, before, during and after.  Transport, accommodation, school visits, meals, gifts, speeches...all timed to perfection.  I have to say a huge thank you to the Manaiakalani team who made this whole trip happen.  Their foresight and group management was excellent...there was something for everyone on this trip.  The schools we visited were wide and varied from small schools of 20 students to others of over 300.  Listening to individual teachers and students on their own Manaiakalani learning journey put a lot of what we are doing into perspective and I could relate the different points people were at in their learning.

We were kept busy everyday, leaving our accommodation at 8am and returning between 8-9pm each night.  We did manage to do a bit of sight seeing and touristy stuff in between visiting all the amazing schools along the coast.  Among the pit stops between schools we were fortunate to  experience fantastic southern hospitality and exceptional sights and views that our beautiful country has to offer.  Highlights included the bus trip from Christchurch over Arthurs Pass to the coast, ably driven by our bus driver Cedric where we learned all about the Pass, the highest power pole in NZ, very old hedges and the erection of kia signs.

While I will be more writing posts around the learning I received on this tour, for this post I am focusing on the relationships that were built during the trip.  As we are part of a Col (Community of Learning) I know who the management teams are in the surrounding schools but I don't 'know' them personally at all.  During Hui or PLD meetings, there isn't really a chance to get to know people well and most schools who attend these meetings go with colleagues, so generally sit together. 

This tour gave me the opportunity to get to know the Principal's, DPs, lead teachers and Manaiakalani staff a little better.  Professional conversations were optimal and it was great to share thoughts, opinions and new learning with new colleagues.  Being able to share what is happening across our schools with others and making connections for further sharing when we get home was a real positive.  There was also a lot of laughter and collegiality, making the tour a lot of fun.  I was given the idea by one principal, of arranging a 'get together' of DPs/APs across our CoL to establish a support network with colleagues carrying out like responsibilities.  An opportunity to share, compare, collaborate and network would be beneficial to professional practice around leadership.  Principals to do it, so maybe we should too! Watch this space...

Interlead - The Appraisal Tool

This year we have started on a new pathway of inquiry and reflection using the tool 'Interlead'.  The interlead tool provides a space for teachers to inquire into their professional practice through high quality inquiry, high quality journaling and high quality reflection.  The process encourages teachers to be introspective thinkers, sharpening the edge of their practice.

Over the course of the year so far I have had opportunity to attend PLD sessions on the tool, each one giving me deeper insight into how the tool can be used most effectively.  Each session has opened doors on my own thinking around professional practice.   This post is a collation of notes I have gathered across the sessions I attended.  I think the biggest learning around using this tool for me is the 'pull model' of learning - receiving feedback.

Feedback is important for growth, I know this and I appreciate it.  However, it is difficult to receive feedback and at times not take offense to being criticized.  An important point of learning for me has been not being defensive.  Challenging my own thinking of how I think is paramount to raising my capacity as a school manager.  During the one of the interlead sessions, discussion focused around learning and two types of learning were identified;

• Information learning - My students need to be fixed.  
• Transformational learning - I need to be fixed. 

Transformational learning is introspectively thinking about what I've changed in my teaching/leadership to improve my capacity?  A shift from a push model of learning (where learning is selected from an outside source or authority) to a pull model of learning (that is motivated from within based on ones own preferences and decisions).   The pull model is where teachers/managers ask for areas to work on, seek critical feedback, question what it is they need to be asking themselves what they need to improve, drive their own learning.

A good resource given during our interlead sessions was a brief clip from the Harvard Business Review of an interview with Sheila Heen, co-author of "Thanks for the feedback" - Douglas Stone, Sheila Heen.  There is a great explanation in this interview of the importance of receiving feedback to develop capacity.  For me as a leader, the importance of developing a culture of learning through critical thinking and feedback is critical to progress.  Learning how to receive, positively react and learn from feedback is an area I would like to focus on and personally work on.

Thinking points from PLD around Interlead as an appraisal tool:

• Do you want to learn? Do you want to improve?

• 3 types of feedback - appreciative feedback, evaluative feedback, developmental feedback.

• What feedback do teachers ask their students?  What are the right questions we should be asking them as constructive criticism?  Data collation of student voice provides data to inform inquiry.

• Teaching Practice - how I teach - behaviour management, current curriculum knowledge, instructional practice, formative assessment(constantly need to be sharpened and honed).  These reflections are often introspective journalling.

• Teaching strategies - what I teach - Maths, Reading, Writing.  These reflections are often diarised  journalling.

• How do we raise student achievement and raise teacher capacity?

• Learning through dialogue - learning about differences
• Learning through criticism - Learning through critical feedback

• To exponentially improve the our teaching/leadership we need to seek criticism. 

• Observation as part of appraisals includes 2 fifteen minute obs - as expected by the Education Council. 

Using the interlead tool to create an inquiry:
1st staff meeting - I want you to select/rate out of the ten things how I'm going in the area of...
2nd staff meeting - Last week I asked you to rate how I'm going in this area out of 10 things.  I noted that 8 out of 11 of you though # 5 was an area to work on, and 5 out of 11 thought #8 was one.
3rd staff meeting - present my inquiry

OBSERVATION FRAMEWORK:
Appreciative feedback
Evaluative feedback
Coaching feedback
Reflective questions
Resources and Useful materials

ULearn 2016 - keynote and breakout notes.

I have the privledge to attend this year's ULearn conference in Rotorua.  Its the first ULearn conference I have attended in 4 years.  There are approx. 2000 teachers in attendance.  The atmosphere is one of anticipation....I guess because the Minister of Education is speaking.

The Waiata we sang together was:

There are three things
Three important things
In the bible
Belief, faith and love
That keep us together




The opening included welcoming speeches and a performance from the Selwyn Primary School Kapa Haka group.


Reimagining leadership
Tranforming professional practice, teaching approaches
Modern conference for practice

Keynote speaker: Larry Rosenstock
Reimagining - "the Lie"
Sometimes we have to treat different differently in order to treat them equally.

Jackie from Ruapotaka
Chrome book celebrations with whanau.  Survey carried out with whanau.
Creation of a whanau blog

Heather Matthews - Hornby Primary
Antword profiler - app to analyse writing
Multi modal approach - padlet
Using experiential and multimodal approach to motivate writing

Nicola Wells - Tamaki College
Using online posting and shared docs for students to revisit, catch up

Sandy Lagitupu
Using film to motivate writers - character descriptions, setting descriptions

Christina Fortes
The listening guide - Jane Van der Zeyden
https://goo.gl/mYSGFz - a site being developed for Samoan English language learners


the Pulse of te reo Maori - Strong or not?
Charisma Rangipunga
Translation of modern language to Maori is difficult to make relevant to the young.
After 25 years, still learning the language.

• 8Billion people
• 250 Nations
• 6000 languages
• 1/3 of all languages in the world have less than 1000 speakers
• 450 languages with only have a handful of speakers left
• A language dies every 12 days 
• By 2100 90% of the worlds languages would have vanished.
• For a language to survive, it needs to be the primary communication between parents, children and grandparents.
• For te reo to survive...it needs to become normal.
• Played kahoot - 210624
• 460 Kohunga, 72 Kura
• 29 iwi maori radio stations
• $225 million per year on te reo maori 
• 1 in 7 NZers is Maori
• Average age of Maori is 24, Average age of pakeha is 40
• It is estimated Maori will be the bulk of the workforce in 2050
• 2.5% of Maori live in Auckland, 90% live in the North, 10% in the South Island
• 10% of the Maori population have a tertiary degree
• 30% of Maori are under the age of 15.
• Nga Puhi have 20% of the Maori population - 1 in 5 maori hail from Nga puhi
• 10.5% have no affiliation with any Iwi
•  60% of Maori know which of Marae they affiliate to
• 30% of Maori know their pepeha - have confidence in their identity as Maori
• 70% are still in some way searching for their identity
• 60% of the maori population have been to their marae at some point in time
• 30% have visited their Marae in the last 12 months.
• 10.5% have been to their marae more than once in last 12months.
• If marae is the one place that we can get access to te reo maori, how do maori get access if they don't go?
• 10% of Maori children are learning te reo Maori at school.  90% have no or little access of te reo Maori in the current school system.

Michael Fullen:

• Systems change - working with clusters of schools
• Building knowledge and practices that foster deep learning and whole system change.
• Humans are innately wired to connect, wired to create and wired to help humanity
•  life in education should amplify the innate characteristics, suppresses or eradicates them
• New Pedagogies for Deeper Learning.
• 6 Cs - global competencies are in line with the NZC KCs.
• Deep learning and equity go well hand in hand.
• DL  connects all their real world providing relevance, are especially congruent with native values, builds relationships of trust with students, creates a culture of high expectations, increases efficacy and optimism, provided support systems for students who do not have much.
• Whole Systems Change Strategies
• Accountability (history of failure)
• Standards (insufficient)
• System culture (promising success)
• Breakthrough Leadership
• Respect and reject the status quo
• Be an expert and apprentice at the same time
• Experiment and commit
• Dynamic Duo
• New developments in neurosciences
• New developments in Learning Environments

•  When you weaken hierarchies you open up lateral solutions.
• The young are the most connected and the least committed to the status quo.
• The above conditions cause learners to outrun leaders and researchers.
• The job leaders is to help learner run better.

• New Pedagogies for Deep Learning.
• 6Cs - Collaboration, communication, character, citizenship, creativity, critical thinking
• New Leadership for DL - Cycles of trying things and making meaning, co-learning (among all) dominates, Leaders listen learn and ask questions, Leaders help crystallize, articulate and feedbac back what they see, Act on emerging solutions, including focus on impact.
• Big ideas #1 - students as change agents.
• Big idea #2 - professional capital of teachers (Human, social and decisional)
• Big Idea #3 - Coherence (focusing direction, cultivating collaborative cultures, securing accountability, deepening learning)
• A change mindset exploits disruption.

Empowering Pasfika parents through ako fakataha to raise student achievement 

• Pasifika education plan made relevant through the school curriculum.
• Using parents cultural capital to engage them in students learning.
• Ako Fakataha - Learning together.

 Global Trends in Digital Education

This speaker spoke about her trip to Colorado to attend an elearning conference.

Not a great deal gained from this breakout other than we need to pick our conferences carefully - what is the purpose of attending, is it:

• For pedagogical development OR
• Hardware/software products

Challenging traditional leadership 

• Working differently to teach differently
• grow capacity for leaders
• Unlearning past practices
• Looking at our context within Community - locally, regionally, nationally and globally.
• Collaboration not competition
• The power of thinking, collaboration and partnership is the currency of our strength heading forward.
• Working as part of a network - locally regionally nationally globally
• Multi agency meetings - once a month for 90minutes.
• Not teaching to assessment, will not be driven by assessment - 
• creating meaningfully designed programmes, designing experiences for deep learning, with a focus on the best learning conditions (reflect on what conditions you have experienced your best learning in), meaningful learning experiences drawn from student interest.
• An area school model - mixed level hapari

Karen Spencer:

• Weave the aho and whenu together - the ideas the learning with your school community.
• To be an educator today is to yearn to be better tomorrow that we were today - getting better should be part of our DNA
• Read blogs of people you disagree with to check your thinking...
• Hold the line before you trial something - pause before you leap into the next great thing:
• Find the urgency - the most urgent area that your students need
• see the story behind the data - seek deliberately
• Embrace discomfort - learning and designing ways to embrace the discomfort

• Pause before you leap:
•  Hold your ideas lightly - we plan carefully before we introduce anything
• Ministry of Education - My world, Our vision
• Kia Aroha College

• Kia Eke Pahuku - stories of what Maori success looks like
• Treat data and the stories of your students like a piece of art - bring different view points in order to look for what is really going on in our classes and look for where we can spend our time where it's most urgently needed.
• The ladder of inference
• We need diverse view in order to highlight usumptions we make about our students
• As leaders in school your role is to "keep the fear off the set" 
•  
• Compare your vision to your learners curriculum
• Let the data open the door to your understanding of your students stories
• Resist soltionistis - make sure your vision is dripping off the classroom walls
• Agree on your strong signals before you test and trial
• The learning we do together is not the extra thing put on the plate...it is the plate.
• Education doesn't change the world, it changes people and its people that change the world.
•  

Vision

Mission

Strategy

Direction

People

Guidelines

• Education is what people do to you. Learning is what you do for yourself.