A Vision???

It is widely accepted that for a school to be successful it needs a VISION. I do wonder how many leaders can actually explain what a vision is. How about these as explanations:

- A Vision is a disclosure of an unseen reality

- A Vision connects what can be to to what is

- A Vision is an invisible hand that guides what happens

Visions should always be an:

inscription - written

description - shows the next step

subscription - people have to buy into it

prescription - should be a solution

As leaders we are the keepers of the vision!

(See Jonathan Sprinkles for more on this)

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

We had the Manawatu Principals' Association One day Conference on Friday. We were joined by colleagues from Wanganui and further afield.

Some of the more interesting things that were said:

John O'Neil:

We need to be careful not to end up with a curriculum for poor kids and a curriculum for rich kids.

Gary Punler:

An efficient school vs an effective school - what is the difference and where do you sit on this?

Iain Lees Galloway:

What will the successor to the Internet be?

Perry Rush:

How do we assess to show learning and understanding outside if the core areas?

What are your thoughts on these ideas?

We are getting there

Our new block of Learning Spaces is just about completed (the last few bits always take forever) and ready for the official opening on Friday 24th August. The Minister of Education will be our guest and will unveil a plaque.

The new block consists of four main learning spaces (call the classrooms if you want), 2 student work rooms and a big internal space that serves as an extention to 7 classrooms. This new facility has been designed to help support 21st century learning and break down some of the barriers to learning that traditional designs impose on students. They are L shaped, very flexible, no "front" and have a mixture of student desks.

I am very excited about this development and it was just amasing to see how the students started using in exactly the way we hoped.

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would - yes, like fish to water.

Lucky Lucky Lucky

I have been very fortunate to go on the USA Educational Experience earlier this Term. The tour focused on visiting schools that are on the 1:1 initiative. We talked to distinguished educators and visited classrooms to look at the impact of having a laptop per student is having on their learning.

We met some wonderful teachers and some delightful kids in Florida and in California. The last two days were spent at Apple's Campus in Silicon Valley where different members of the Apple team briefed us on various aspects of software and hardware development.

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