Development of the Morningside School Vision

I have a quote that I used to have attached to the top of my laptop.

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.” Joel Barker

In most settings where I taught there was a vision statement usually followed by a mission statement. My expectations were that these statements are what drove a school forward and were the foundation upon which all was developed, as is very much the case in successful businesses, and in successful schools. It always puzzled me as to why in the settings that I found myself in that the vision was never referred to. I solved this puzzle. The answer was poor leadership.  A lack of understanding that a vision statement is the glue holding so much together and that it is a powerful reference for direction, for school community purpose and a reflection of the aspirations that the school community has for its children.

As shared in my first post, the vision statement at Morningside School had outlived its use by date. As a leadership team my AP and I recognised that in order for us to make a significant difference in raising student achievement we needed to challenge ourselves as leaders and to challenge our staff. We needed a plan. As is the case with all plans we knew where we needed to start, but intrinsic in this was knowing where we wanted to get to--in essence the vision.

The Final Version

We began our process by consulting our staff with a draft vision document. We had the staff work with this document and had them pull it apart. This was an excellent process. It really tested my ability to be able to speak with clarity to key elements in this document--my beliefs, my expectations, and showcased my passion for ensuring that I was able to deliver a clear and precise message about what I believed was important for our children.
The first thing that staff gave clarity to was the statement on the top of the document. This was edited with the staff understanding that as a community of learners we all have to be competent, curious and independent. This also showed a clear link to the expectations for how we wanted the curriculum to develop from Years 1 through to Year 6 as can be seen on the right hand side of the above graphic.

We had done enough in-house professional development for me to be able to bring clarity to pedagogy. In essence this was to have the key competencies as its base, be formative in its approach, child centred and led and support authentic learning contexts.

We had done extensive work as a staff in promoting our values and rules over the last three years for all of us to have good clarity on these and the way in which they support our school community.

Teaching as Inquiry was essential in examining all aspects of our practice, especially for our at risk and cause for concern students. My vision for this is that Teaching as Inquiry can only be truly effective in making sustainable changes in teaching practice and better student outcomes if it is done collaboratively. Quite simply two heads or even three heads are better than one in achieving high impact and enduring outcomes. This can only happen in a collaborative team teaching environment--the ultimate aim for the start of 2014. Which happened.

The circular arrows around the outside of the body of the graphic used to contain the words self review. My study and research on self review convinced me that it would be better to talk about a process. When we start a self review process we reflect first. In this reflection process discussions take place, baseline data is gathered, a timeline may be discussed and outcomes are may be established. It may also be that through a process of reflection it has been determined that the status quo is acceptable at present. So to reflect is to either assist a process of action or not. The second part of the process is to review. A call to action. All necessary data is gathered, examined and desired outcomes and the necessary resourcing put in place is identified and sourced. The third part of the process is to refine. This means to put in to action the desired outcomes, monitor these and refine and tweak where necessary. For my school this three step process is in constant motion. This gives me an excellent oversight over all areas of the school. I am very fortunate that my principal and my AP are strong communicators. We work hard at making sure that we are all aware of what is happening and consult everyday. We also encourage this with our staff. I will talk more about this later.

To give more relevance to this document I knew that there needed to drivers moving us forward and elements of school culture that we needed to embody. We just couldn't pluck ideas out of thin air and implement them. The real core of this document is working towards a Morningside School curriculum for our students so that they become competent, curious and independent learners. On the right hand side I placed the words "Guided By". At all times we need to be guided by our school vision-an obvious point but one that I am well aware of that becomes lost. We need to make sure that our school values that support all aspects of school culture are there to support and provide good professional and community boundaries.

Beliefs cover all aspects of the implementation of the vision and also provide good depth to any rationales that we may have. For example, I believe that the best professional development that all staff have the opportunity to grow in and to best meet the needs of the school, is in-house professional development. By gathering data from class observations, conversations with students, parents and staff, tracking and monitoring unit evaluations, reading school progress reports, keeping up to date with my professional readings and taking on board the views of others such as those in the Virtual Learning Network, I can form beliefs about what I think will make a positive difference and also support the school's strategic overview. In believing this I must also give further depth to this by highlighting research that can support this.