Growth Coaching and the Professional Learning Cycle

 Our school uses the 'C2C' (Coach2Coach) model as part of our appraisal process.  When I first started as Principal, I could see that teachers valued the process and enjoyed the learning achieved through this approach.  I knew growth coaching was a system I needed to learn and fast, so I enrolled in the Introduction to Leadership Coaching course facilitated by The Education Group.  It just so happened that the previous principal of our school now worked as a facilitator of coaching with this group, so I was fortunate to have her guiding this two day workshop.  The workshop served as a good introduction to understanding the process and benefits of it to my staff, however as a newby to coaching, my skills in this as apposed to mentoring, which I was more familiar with, needed a lot of work.   I felt as though I stumbled through the process with the poor teachers who were my coachees.  My questioning techniques were very poor and I couldn't help myself in giving advice as sessions went on.  I knew I wasn't doing it right and apologised to my coachee on a number of occasions but she was gracious in working with me throughout the year.

This year, I made it a goal to work on my coaching skills and further highlight coaching as a means for PLD and inquiry with our staff.  We had 8 staff members, both new and old who had not been on coaching PLD so we made the decision to get them started through the Video Enhanced Coaching workshops. Unfortunately, COVID had a hand in postponing these workshops as the year progressed, so it wasn't until term 3 that we managed to attend our courses.  While those staff partook in video coaching, I began the level 2&3 accredited coaching course.  These courses are intended to grow the skills of teachers involved and further embed the value of the coaching programme at our school.                                              For me there was plenty to take away from the 2 day workshop I attended at Level 2 of accreditation.  My understanding of the process is much clearer and with that so too is my understanding of the role of a coach.  We unpacked the different types of support given across different spaces i.e: Counselling, training, mentoring, consulting and coaching.  That clarity gave me a much improved understanding of how the questioning worked in the coaching process.  I feel much more confident in how to question my coachee and the benefits of coaching compared to mentoring. 

We were asked to identify an imaginary 'board of directors' - a small group of people you would select as a board of leaders you most admire - it could be anyone in the world.  I went all out and listed Jacinda Adern, Michelle Obama, Brene Brown, Maya Angelou - to name a few.  We then identified qualities these people had that you considered admirable in a leader/coach.  Top of the list for me was trustworthy, I felt that all of these people gained my trust through their honesty of experience, their passion for what they believe in and their willingness to share it...and their vulnerability in doing so.  By unpacking this, I was made more aware of the importance of trust as a coach and made me consider how I can gain the trust of my coachee.                                        The topic of a 'Coaching way of being' was also interesting and gave me heightened awareness of what that means and looks like.  I reflected on whether I had a coaching way of being as a school leader and now have my own areas to work on within this.  I realised that I have a pretty healthy unconditional positive regard for most things - I try to keep this focus for staff otherwise negativity from the top will only drag everyone down.  I do know that mindfulness and growth mindset need to be more openly practiced with staff to imbed it in the culture of the school.  This is something I want to work on within my own leadership practice.                                                                There is still much to done on my coaching journey, but I feel after this workshop, I am now on my way to growing my own coaching 'way of being'.  

Being prepared...Media Training.

Being in the role of principal, learning and leadership are at the forefront of everything we do.  Most principals are happy to work in the background, completely focused on their students, teachers and community.  Probably one of the biggest jobs that I'm sure all principals would rather avoid is being the face of the school in front of media.  We all want the best for our schools but as I'm sure we've all seen over the years, stuff happens that is not always in the best interest of school and Principals are faced with scrutiny in the media.

With COVID being at the forefront of the current media cycle, school leaders have been contacted to seek comment around the Government and Ministries of Health and Education's handling of the pandemic within a school setting.  I was contacted by a journalist from ONEnews to comment on the disruption, barriers and concerns I was facing as a school leader during COVID.  Being inexperienced in working with media, I was reluctant to make a comment, so gave a very general apology for being very busy in managing our pandemic plan so was unavailable for an interview.  Whew...dodged that interview but this highlighted for me the need to be prepared if a brush with the media ever did eventuate.  So after seeking some advice from my BP mentor I was guided to Mr Pete Burdon, media consultant.  I sought his course outline and costings and then shared the information with three other principals in my CoL and proceeded to engage his services for an in-house media workshop.

It was an intense course where we were given a variety of scenarios and were filmed carrying out dummy interviews.   I appreciated the opportunity to review each interview, all the while unpacking and highlighting aspects of my responses I could improve on or in some cases avoid all together.  Doing the interviews with my fellow principals gave us a shared understanding of interview techniques, and insight into what reporters may be looking for and how they may take your responses and rework them possibly to your detriment.

My biggest takeout from the day was unquestionably the three 'R's - Regret - Respond - Reassure.  

REGRET - without apologising/saying sorry which indicates blame, show regret for the scenario/situation and understanding for how the 'wronged' party may be feeling.

RESPOND - indicate how you/the school/the board intend to correct the situation, what will be put in place, actions to be undertaken.

REASSURE - give parties reassurance that measures are being put in place, the situation is being delt with and that health/safety/security is paramount in our minds for our students/staff/whanau/community.

Keeping a level head, giving an initial general response in order to create breathing space for developing amore concise, thoughtful and accurate reply is important to avoid serious fallout.  It's also important to seek help from advisers when unsure or not confident.  If you're ever in a situation where media seek comment or show interest, it's not beneficial to try to put interviews off completely as that could give the media opportunity to mould the story.  It's better to get in front of the story and steer your narrative than give media range to modify or sensationalise aspects of it.

This was a workshop definitely worth taking and the learning is something myself and my team of principals will continue to revisit and practice.

Four, three, two....one - Post COVID

We are almost on the other side of COVID...or so we hope, as a nation.  We spent two weeks at level 2 and are now in level one.  We've been back at school, fully open for five weeks now and our reintegration to our new normal has been slow and steady.  At best we've had 88% of students back at school, but due to illness or parent prerogative this fluctuates greatly.
Since our return, our main focus has been on wellbeing - students and teachers. In class students have been reuniting, getting their bearings and navigating where they are in their learning.  While many of our students were engaged in home learning in some way, shape or form, those who didn't have found engaging in learning full time, a struggle.  I believe that is also the reason for the fluctuation in attendance.

Life back at the chalk face will change due to COVID.  We intend to fully utilise our learning during the pandemic so while we are focusing on wellbeing across the school, we are also evaluating and reflecting on what worked with online learning, what didn't and where to from here.  We have carried out surveys with students and teachers to tease out the new learning we achieved and how we can adapt and embed it from home to school.  We also intend to seek thoughts from parents through a home survey, using this feedback to inform our learning pathways.
There are two things that we have implemented so far as a result of our COVID experiences.  Firstly, we have revamped our mid year report formats to reflect learning at home during lockdown.  The format includes a specific section for whanau to comment on their child's home learning in addition to tick boxes indicating how the child learned e.g: engaged in learning independently, with whanau and completing tasks (both online and hardcopy).  This report is an interim one, we will also write an end of year report based on the old style, which has a strong element of National Standards in it.  Our intention is that next year we will introduce 'live reporting' to parents through an app called Seesaw and this is the second outcome of our COVID experience.  During the lockdown parents were

presented with the opportunity to learn with their children in a wide variety of ways.  One way for us to encourage home learning to take place was to ask parents to share their child's learning on our facebook page.  For many households providing an audience engaged students more readily with a number of families sharing what they were doing with our community.  This provided a catalyst for us to fast track Seesaw in our school.  Seesaw is the educational equivalent to facebook, where student's work is uploaded to the app and parents receive posts in real time showing learning in action.
There is still much to do with COVID providing the platform for many changes within our old school system.  We're excited.  Stay tuned.

Moving from Level 4 to Level 3 - Shifts in thinking

Yesterday the government gave guidelines to what a shift from Level 4 in this lockdown to Level 3 would look like.  For educators it was a lot to think about.
Under alert level 3 students from Year 1 to Year 10 are able to attend school and this is voluntary.  For students of parents who will be returning to work, this will be a relief as it will for students who are unable to learn via distance learning.    The government do advise that children who are able should remain at home.  Children, young people and staff who are at greater risk should also remain at home.
So what does that mean for us?  As an estimate I would say that 60-70% of our families have internet connectivity.  Of those families, a number do not have a suitable device for students to access online learning or they have to share the device between siblings.  Currently we have 2 staff in the senior school who are ready for home learning and are running online programmes during the lockdown.  Our remaining staff are working via phone, text and email messaging while supporting children with hard copy home learning packs and other resources.  For those at school it will look different.  There will be fewer students on school grounds and they will stay in small groups.  Some teachers will will be teaching students at school while others will be providing distance learning.  The biggest concern staff have will be the idea of 'social distancing' in school, especially with younger students.  How can this accomplished?  If we have some students working from home and others at school, how will teachers run parallel programmes?  Does this mean an increase in workload?
There is a lot to think about but the most important thing will be keeping it all in perspective and not panicking.  I know some staff will have major concerns and voice them.  My job will be to keep our sights set above the line, looking for the positives and how we can make this work.  In many respects this is the exciting bit, this is the paradigm shift I talked about in my previous post.  We, our community, are masters of our own destiny in this shift and we need to be open to new ways to learn, new things to learn and be pragmatic in our approach.
When meeting with my teams I will seek their opinion on what Level 3 means to them, what the positives will be, what concerns they may have, how they envisage it might look like in their classrooms, what they would like to do, what they think they may need to make it happen, what questions they have.  I don't expect answers right away, they will need to go away and ruminate on their thoughts and the discussion we will have had...as will I.
Most importantly for me and our team is the wellbeing of all involved.  What is right for us will be of our making and we will approach this with resilience, a positive mindset and a can do attitude!

Education in Lockdown - A paradigm shift

The lockdown came through the COVID-19 global pandemic.  It was swift and scary and we were certainly on the back foot when it was announced.  The coronavirus had been in the news since the beginning of the year, with the virus spreading across the world and really hit NZ early in March.  Things ramped up about a week before the lockdown was announced so during that week, we were making plans, having meetings, gathering ideas for what learning might look like once lockdown started...we knew it was inevitable.  The speed at which it came we were not prepared for, the government gave us literally an hour.  The announcement was made at 1:45pm and school closed to students at 2:45pm.  Schools were then given 2 days to prepare some semblance of learning for home.  Teams of teachers met and discussed what they were going to give to their students and got to work, resourcing, photocopying and writing information to put in packs for parents to pick up from the school office.  It was a very stressful time but staff showed amazing resilience and care in getting things done for their learners.  Staff were instructed to make contact with their families, touch base and offer support with the learning packs that were sent home.  Of the 350 students in the school, 60% of our families picked up their packs.  40% hadn't, so teachers made particular efforts to connect with those parents and try to email the student's learning to them.

The Ministry of Education informed us that the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of the first week were considered school days, the following two weeks were to be considered the holidays (moved forward by 2 weeks) and that learning from home would begin the day after Easter Tuesday - 15th April.
So, it is now the second week of the holidays and I've spent much of my time sifting and digesting a myriad of information constantly being emailed and phoned through from the ministry and other sources.  It has been draining, but at the same time, quietly exciting as the realisation of the shift in educational paradigm is happening as we move through this lockdown.  There is still much to be done and as a staff we have much to learn.  Some staff have been dabbling in the digital space for a while, some have attempted very little in it.  This situation has opened the eyes of many to the affordances that digital spaces offer learning.  We have had online meetings this week, a new experience for many of us.  We have shared ideas to support learning at home, and we have reconnected with families to check online capabilities.  Our government will have a lot of work to do in our community as many homes have no connectivity so learning packs are being delivered to them before Term 2 begins.
It is a work in progress.  A new direction.  A new paradigm.  It's exciting...

Empowering Digital Pedagogy - Setting up Class Blogs at school

PLD for our teachers this year is centred around future focused learning and we have had a number of sessions on 'Empowering Digital Pedagogy'.  We are working with Kyla Hansell and Aireen Ahkui who have introduced staff to working with Google Suite and the apps it entails.  The beginning of

Term 2 was our first introduction with two PD days of "how to use Google Drive" - Docs, Spreadsheets, Slides, Drawing.  This gave teachers an opportunity to familiarise themselves with the apps and dabble with some ways to use them with their students in their classroom programmes.   In term 3 we have now moved into class blogs and during a teacher only day, teachers spent their time learning about what blogging is and what it entails in the classroom.  There was rich discussion around the impact blogs will have on student learning, concerns around the responsibilities of posting students work or images on the blog, educating students and parents on the purposes and outcomes of class blogs, setting up a positive blogging culture and much more.  Kyla and Aireen carefully guided teachers through the process of creating their class blogs and working with the blogging dashboard.  It was completely new learning for almost all of the staff, creating titles, changing backgrounds, setting up URLs...the learning curve was huge.    So, Nga Iwi School blogs are now live and kicking.  I'm excited to see the skills and pedagogy associated with blogging grow across the school and to see our students work being shared with an audience.  Very exciting!!!

NZ Pasifika Principals Association Fono - Wellington 21/22 August 2019

On the 21st and 22nd of August, I was privileged to attend the NZ Pasifika Principals meeting in Wellington.  This was a fantastic opportunity of growth in leadership, cultural competency and understanding.  After arriving in Wellington and settling in, the group of 23 Principal shared a meal and for those fairly new to the group (like me), got to know people and connect on common ground.  It was great to meet Principals from Wellington who arranged the events of the trip.  We started early the next morning, walking to the NZEI building in the heart of the city, where we were introduced to Linda Stewart (President of NZEI).

We began our meeting sharing our names, schools, whakapapa, and something that no-one knows about us.  It was amazing the talents being shared around the table...a number of athletes, musicians, artists, poets, and even a race car driver!  Following our korero, the Principal of Mangere Bridge School, Steph Tafa,  spoke to the group about the history and significance of the Ihumatoa occupation.  An important land issue that involves a Maori historical sight and the debate between Tangata Whenua and housing developers.  Steph's message was not about the politics of the debate, but more the context and significance of protecting the heritage and nature of the land.  It was humbling to listen to her thoughts and experiences and provided an opportunity for us to gain an understanding of why it was happening and what the hopeful outcomes would be.
After sharing morning tea with the Hon. Jenny Salesa, Associate Minister of Education and we had a session where she shared the Ministry and Government's vision and plan for Pasifika education.  It was informative and the Minister answered questions from Principals regarding the impact new changes will have on our students.
We then shared a discussion around the "Tautai o le Moana" project, an initiative currently underway headed by our Association.  This project is 'strengthen the capabilities of leaders to improve outcomes for Pasifika learners and contribute to culturally sustainable practices across Aotearoa'.  Being led through this discussion by Helen Varney (project leader and facilitator), I was excited by the kaupapa and intended outcomes.  I am excited to be part of the project by being one of the many research schools involved.