This is the fourth draft of our vision graphic. It has been presented to the board and is our launch pad for all future growth. I will discuss this more in upcoming posts.
Our key driver for all aspects of what we wanted to achieve was the implementation of our new school vision. However, we believed that this could not be done effectively until we raised our professional expectations for all teaching staff. Our number one focus was to have our staff unpack the New Zealand Teachers Council Registered Teachers Criteria. The leadership planned a staff meeting schedule that promoted collaboration and staff presentations so that we could gauge levels of understanding. It also gave us an excellent opportunity to see how well our staff were working together. We paired staff together and told them what their criteria was and when they were expected to present this to their colleagues during Term 1 2013. This pairing of staff also gave us an opportunity to see how well staff worked with each other, and with an eye to 2014, it also gave us an opportunity to see how effective some individuals were when working with different colleagues. This gave us some really good insights. We entrenched this approach for all staff meetings for the rest of the 2013 school year.
Staff Meeting Topics: Continued Reflection and Planning
At the start and during every term I would sit down with my AP and plan every staff meeting topic. We would reflect on our purpose for these meetings, how they are tied into our vision, expected outcomes and the format that these meetings would be take such as group work, jigsaw activities, presentations or a show and tell. This was-and still continues to be-a very thought engaging and productive process. We always aim to make sure that we keep things very simple.
We have two approaches when selecting staff meeting topics. One is what we call "Taster" sessions. These sessions were opportunities for us to give our colleagues a small taste of a larger topic that we knew we would revisit at at later date. "Taster" sessions focused on topics such as pedagogy-what pedagogical approach would be the best approach for our children and for teachers, 21st Century Learning-our aim here is to look at current thinking, especially with knowledge and how this is used, and Child Profile-we focused on profiling our children so that we understood traits and what we need to do to cater for need. These topics will be revisited this year. These "Taster" sessions also allowed us to trial resources and to make sure that we had a delivery style and approach that gave us small insights into what would work in the future.
Our second approach is our "Moving Forward" approach. These staff meetings are planned so that our absolutes are worked on and implemented into school practice and culture. Topics included the work we did on our Registered Teacher Criteria. This work saw us develop and implement a new performance management structure that has been implemented in 2014. It is an excellent tool. I will discuss this later. We also worked on our new Inquiry Learning structure and have developed our own approach for Morningside School that meets the needs of our children. This has been implemented in 2014. An outstanding approach that we are all excited about. We worked on Teaching As Inquiry. This has been unpacked to make sure that terms and process are understood. This has been entrenched in our classroom description documentation and attached as a vehicle for evidence in our performance management process.
In forward planning all of our staff meetings we have also been very flexible. After every staff meeting we debrief and evaluate all aspects of the meeting. It is a given that we do this. It provides us with rich opportunities to process the meeting format, the topic, the pairings, the feedback and comments during the meeting when we work with staff and to think about whether we need to do more work or to change the topic for the next staff meeting. We look at the next up and coming topics and decide whether to either continue with our meeting schedule or what we will change. My motto "Festina Lente"-hasten slowly-guides me in making sure that we do not rush our staff, we remain focused, we remain flexible and we listen and gauge effectiveness in the moment and change when and if we have to. Staff meetings have also seen me grow as an adult educator, as a leader and to take risks, to implement my ideas and those of my leadership team and to see my staff having buy in and seeing the purpose for doing all that we are doing. We work hard and I am having so much fun. But most importantly for me, I have the opportunity to assist in the implementation of our vision and purposeful targeted growth for my school community.
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