I currently am employed at Hobsonville Point Primary School where I work in a year 5-7 learning common, this is my 8th year at HPPS. I teach, lead and learn. Previously, I spent 3 years teaching at Henderson North School with a class of Year 5-6 students.
“I’m really pleased to be out of Auckland,” my daughter shared. I smiled, we were waiting in the car at Hamilton Hospital, while Hillary, her Mum, was visiting my father-in-law. We were on our way to New Plymouth, where my mother-in-law was also in hospital. Her sense of positivity was exactly what the article in front of me was referring to. There has been much to bemoan during this pandemic, but as leaders, parents and teachers, keeping a lid on this is important as we mitigate our impact on others.
Somewhere between the realisation that lockdown 5.0 was going to be a while and the incoming Education vaccination mandates, I made the decision to filter negative energy. I was worried about my own energy spiralling and the affect this could have on my own family, class and my colleagues. Misinformation, politicking, poor weather, and distance teaching had me in a funk. As I started to get some clarity on my own personal response to these variables I looked for a way out, a degree of filtering was needed. Choosing to engage in anything that was going to facilitate a downwards spiral would be destructive. However, choosing not to engage is only part of the solution as friends, family, colleagues and the wider public can decide to interact or focus on topics that are intensely challenging. A simple tool at this point is understanding your own pressure points or triggers, whilst having a range of exit strategies prepared in advance of difficult conversations.
Lounging in the sun this Boxing Day, I chatted with family. There was widespread agreement that leaders in this period are often faced with two choices and both of them are rubbish! No question that this period has been difficult, in schools there is constant pivoting as the situation changes. Compounding this,changes take place in a setting where all stakeholders are highly charged.
With every email, request, reflection or instruction from those around me, I’ve needed to step back and consider my responses. What is being asked? What is the purpose? What lies behind the words? What is the impact on others? What is within my sphere of influence?
Each lockdown HPPS has felt well prepared for the different variants. Documentation has been available, much pre-thinking has taken place, distance plans or templates ready to launch and the mindset of staff, while anxious, has been largely positive. Phase 3 felt different, Omicron forced a dynamic environment, with high numbers of cases, the ability to close classes rather than whole schools and limited relievers reducing capacity to cover isolating teachers. Covid fatigue is higher amongst children, parents and the teaching community too. From the onset of the teaching year, teams have been readying themselves. Are students prepared with online and offline resources, devices and account details? If I had to take a RAT test and find myself or my colleagues needing to isolate where would we be placed?
The world has been getting on with things, NZ has slowly played the cards it’s been dealt and ever so slowly we’ve put one foot in front of the other. Of course social media has provided some assistance too with plenty of interesting reading available (this one was great), such as the following visual.
This term has felt lengthy, necessary measures have left many feeling exhausted, isolated and looking for easy solutions. Perspective has been important, others have done it rough, and others have had it tougher still. But as we approach the end, through the fog I can see the light and I feel invigorated. Around me magic is happening, this is inspirational as we look to spiral up and onto the next thing. My own team is reflecting, deconstructing our successes and our wonderings but giving ourselves permissions too.
This post is a part of me looking forward, backward and all around as I reflect. I’m trying to keep it real, pragmatic, and continually looking for the spark.
I loved buying my colleagues coffee and showing them they were appreciated. Avoidingsocial media, keeping some thoughts for a select few and constant reminders about icebergs have all helped. Trying to find magic has also kept me super positive. What strategies do you utilise to keep it real during these times? How are you ensuring that you’re looking forward and being the best teacher you can be?
"I want to be a fairy." She grinned as she said it. "But not an ordinary one, one with a job, like the tooth fairy". My little 5 year old had let me know about her future plans as we travelled in the car.
We all have an idea of who we want to be. Its a question that children are asked by teachers and parents and as children we all have kinds of responses. So fairy was an acceptable response for a doting father, especially when followed with a great explanation. As a 17 year old being a teacher was the furtherest thing from my aspirations, and the poor english teacher who suggested it received the type of disrespectful and tactless response that now make me cringe as a teacher. That 17 year old is still there, deep inside. But the 17 year old is mitigated by the love and knowledge of being a father of two, experience in a range of different industries, and the product of professional development, experience and challenges his early 40's self values. I have a strong awareness of the teacher I desire to be. What I have come to learn, is that my identity as leader is less clear. It may even be an identity crisis.
My experience of leadership is quite divergent, I'm fortunate to have worked for leaders in a variety of industries, organisations and titles. These have included General Managers, CEOs, Owners, Principals and Heads of Departments, and to steal a phrase, I believe I've seen the good, the bad and ugly. My own experience has included leading teams in retail and academic settings. So it was with eyes wide open that I took on some leadership responsibilities at Hobsonville Point Primary this year. I recognised that there would be obvious challenges in the range of communication, organisational and emotional demands that come hand in hand with leadership roles. I also anticipated that there was also going to be an element of things that I didn't know. Eyes wide open, but no idea of the leader I really wanted to be.
I spent the holidays reading some introductory documentation and considering goals. Self-knowledge is invaluable, choosing goals to provide some direction in response to what I anticipated was a useful way to walk into 2019 and could be considered in terms of my HBDI profile (shown). However, it was two conversations early that resonated more, possibly even foreshadowing the impending identity crisis.
Meeting with two colleagues socially, I was taken aback when they mentioned the language of love, "Do you know your love language?" they enquired. Surprised by this sudden tangential shift, I stammered out my naïvety. As they explained what it was about how this affects them as teachers I began to see their point, knowing your learners as a leader is just as important as knowing your learners in the classroom. A little professional reading proved enlightening (https://www.5lovelanguages.com/), I could see how love languages and knowing how other teachers functioned could be part of the toolkit. But as my colleagues and I had talked that night one of them shared an important and more serious insight, "Reid, you don't have to always have the answers. Take time if you need it, it will be ok to say you're not sure".
Early in term 1, meeting formally with the leadership team, Daniel began with provocations about positive and negative experiences of leaders we'd had in the past. Three leaders stood out for different aspects I admired, several others provided examples of things I would work hard not to emulate. Reflecting on the positive qualities was somewhat useful, but it was the notion than these people were vastly different in their styles and how they impacted on my own learning. Like a recipe, it was taking these positives and adding them to the recipe of creating my own leadership style.
The emotional aspects of dealing with people I find extremely challenging. I can be quite a blunt person but have developed a certain resilience alongside this, other experiences being blunt have taught me that if I want to live by the sword, I also have to die by it. Age (and emotional intelligence) has improved this personal trait, but I still find it hard to read body language. The combination of shooting from the lip and not reading body language is unfavourable, especially when talking with colleagues whose own thinking preferences favour emotional responses first. As a tool to help me with empathy and understanding I've read the Elephant in the Staffroom. It definitely helped as it provided an insight into the triggers for teachers in general and framed the emotional responses in several useful ways that I've considered as I've gone through 2019. My own emotional responses (which can be blunt and irrational) require management also, I don't want to jeopardise the working relationships with my colleagues or senior management team. I'm prepared to be collegial and have difficult conversations, but am finding myself taking more and more time to map out conversations in my mind and seek feedback on these conversational maps. The reading of body language and getting better at just listening has improved (the nail in the head video helped, as did The Elephant In the Staffroom). I certainly hope my abilities with this has improved but only my colleagues could truly tell me if this has improved.
What does leading in a collaborative space look like? It certainly does not look like me getting my own way and in fact, if this was the case then I'm sure the students would be missing out. I'm fortunate enough to teach with two other experienced teachers, we all have good self-knowledge but with a fair dose of our own strengths and growth areas it creates a space where there is lots of robust conversation in regards to process, choices and anything and everything that being a teacher encompasses. It is certainly not an echo chamber and nor does it demonstrate a high degree of group think, many conversations require clarification, processing time and at times things have needed to be parked in order that they can be reviewed later. Within this though, I have to admit that delegation/stepping back in some areas continues to be a challenge. Because of the experience that I'm surrounded with I know that some tasks can be completed or led by either or both of my colleagues, learning to let them do that has been a journey, as has asking them to give me some space in order that something else can be completed. Amusingly, my principal has at times asked me if I'm at the point that I need to offload something and I smile and think about the pot and the kettle.
Recently, my own leadership wonderings have been around communication, data and the effectiveness of teams. As I got through my mid-year appraisal, I was challenged to rethink my goals and agreed that I was looking for something gruntier within leadership. Partly based on my own desire to soak in as much as possible, I've been doing far more listening than sharing, especially in leadership meetings. But with an interest in all things technological, a need to develop a more analytical approach to leadership and growing our school capability in reporting, I've decided to focus on building my own capabilities in school-wide and year group level data analysis. We're in the initial years of working with Linc-Ed as a reporting system and school management system. While Linc-Ed has a huge amount of potential, pragmatically it is still a very new system and as such we need to grow our school's intellectual capital with this product. This allows me to develop a better understanding of how the data is informing our school while at the same time learning more about a technological tool, I can pass this knowledge and processing on quickly as I find it relatively easy to upskill with technology.
Collaborative leadership can be challenging in regards to both communication and the effectiveness of teams. Getting the balance of communication correct is essential to moving your team forward, I'm not naive enough to think that this is solely about my leadership but it does bear thinking about. Setting teams up for success in meetings, informal conversations and one-on-ones is crucial and a large part of this requires effective communication. In a full team meeting I've had up to 15 staff, with student teachers present, and in a collaborative space there is lots of people wanting/expecting to have their say. It's imperative that everyone has a voice in order to encourage buy-in but is this effective? Arguably, it's not, or not all at the same time. Especially when you consider the different personalities, processing, and preferences that are at play. Hence, my beginning feelings about communication. Furthering the need to focus on communication is our school initiating it's 4 minute walk throughs again, this time I'm facilitating teams as they walk through and it is important that I lead and model these reflections appropriately. I've been looking into two different texts as a source of learning, the first Collaborative Leadership, where there is a great section on communication and secondly, The Power of Teacher Rounds to support facilitating the walkthroughs.
During my time at HPPS I've also had the pleasure to meet a number of the staff at Hobsonville Point Secondary and they too have provided all sorts of learning. Many of these Hobsonville Point staff, both the primary and secondary, have inspired, challenged, and given me opportunities I'm very thankful for. At other times though, I sometimes revert to type or back into the familiar (consider the Learning Pit and Dreyfus model) and comfortable, and forget to push forward with my own pedagogy. It is in the continual push forward that I become excited as a teacher, it sparks me with ideas, wonder and awe that I can then transfer into the classroom.
But this brings me to the crux of my identity crisis. Is Reid the teacher, the same as Reid the leader? Are these two people congruent, mutually exclusive or just reflections of each other? Is it ironic that many of the conversations I've had with leaders throughout my time teaching, are the same conversations I've had with others as a leader this year? It has me sometimes questioning the narratives I hear, what would I have meant if I was using the same narrative? Is this what they mean or is there a prevailing discourse that I should consider or coach for? Early in the year I had some quite significant insecurities around leadership, I know that my seniors were aware that I wanted to be seen as capable by others. Not in a deliberate, completely insecure way, but I was fully aware that if my behaviour, language, and all the components of Reid the teacher, role modelled someone who was lacking capability, then it was unlikely that teachers would look to me for support. As 2019 has progressed I've become more comfortable in my own abilities, while I still suffer from bouts of self-doubt, it is not capability-based. In preparing this blog post, I happened across the Congruence Model again, something I was vaguely familiar with but it led me to the Leadership Shadow diagram and someone else's blog. The model resonates, and the blog that is attached contains many useful reminders of things that have an impact on your leadership shadow. Implicit in the leadership shadow, is the difficulties facing someone in collaborative leadership in a de-privatised classroom, the teacher and the leader can be one and the same, affecting each other no matter how you strive to seperate them.
Amongst my own learning has been the regular observing of a secondary colleague, every time I meet with him I find myself invigorated with an innovative edge. He reminds me of all the things that excite me about teaching, but his ability to transfer this knowledge and expertise and inspire others allows me to believe that the identity of the leader and the teacher do not have to be mutually exclusive. I need to push forward both as a teacher and as a leader, and also consider what that looks like for members of my team. In my role it is necessary to continue pushing and evolving teaching staff to build their own capacity. This is where knowledge of others becomes so crucial, the ability to read body language, understand the nuances in their behaviour and communication so that the right challenges are made at the right time. I won't naively assume that I've got this aspect right, but my own knowledge of the importance of this feature is evolving, the mere fact that it is top-of-mind allows it to be part of my toolkit.
So, where to next? Professional reading, regularly attending coaching sessions with the senior leadership team at HPPS and availing myself of time with teachers and leaders I respect is key to building my own capacity. Continuing to read and learn from avenues outside of education is also important, both as a teacher and as a leader. I count myself lucky that all those I respect see leadership and growth as a journey. Thanks to all who have contributed so far, your ongoing patience, humour and willingness to be part of the crew make it all worthwhile.
My daughter is five and three quarters. Not five! One of her dreams is to be a tooth fairy, not a made up fairy like a doll, but a real one with a job who gives money to children for their teeth. It's quite a convincing job and is a stark reminder that a little magic is a beautiful thing. As adults we often lose the magic as the mundane and routine takes over, as teachers routine is equally undesirable and yet is also a key to success. Finding the moments of magic can be why many teach, but creating them is just as challenging as spotting that damn tooth fairy. Teachers are harsh self-critics! We're always looking for something better, a more effective or efficient way, a new teaching point or maybe even just a more interesting way of doing things. In doing so, are we creating the right conditions for magic or is it happening in spite of us? As a new school we're still developing systems, styles and knowledge with how we approach various aspects of teaching and learning. One area we have been developing our capacity is in the HPPS approach to topic/inquiry learning. We call it Immersion, you can read more about this in an earlier post from 2016 after Daniel and Lisa had challenged us all to engage more with the head (brain), than just the hands (hands-on, authentic learning) and heart (memorable experiences). In my time at HPPS the systems we use for planning this have changed considerably, the changes have been the foundation of several teacher-only days. With some of my colleagues we've reflected on whether or not we were getting the planning and teaching right for immersion. More recently, Daniel's challenge has been on how each team measures success. Unquestionably, getting the planning and teaching for immersion right is largely down to teacher input, our reflections weren't questioning management more whether we were getting the process and therefore the planning right. Was Immersion leading to powerful learning? Was Immersion leading to powerful projects? How do we know? As we entered another TOD, I felt uneasy about our most recent round of Immersion/Projects. For the most part the project phase had left me flat, with very little curiosity or wonder amongst the students, and generally a bit of confusion around what they'd learnt. Where had we gone wrong? It's easy to blame the documentation or the process for planning, in fact it's too easy (fixed mindset where capability and adversity is shifted away from the owner). We knew the planning process had been been undergoing slight changes every rotation for a couple of years and this does create cognitive dissonance, as there is very little room for developing expertise within the system (see the Dreyfus Model, ie we were still in the novice/beginner phases). I also know that the self-critic was being unfair if I recall the success with which we'd finished 2017 (see Return of the Moa post). I feel fortunate that I had several powerful discussions preceding this TOD, with a colleague we'd reflected and been self-critical but then discussed the additional expertise we could take into the next planning rotation and help to create more powerful learning and a conversation with Lisa where she'd shared some of her thinking as she considered a whole-brain approach to the planning (see photo on Hermann's Brain)
This was challenging but positive, I can become a bit silly with ideas (one ideas breeds another and then I'm excited), rather than a risk-taking, creative and imaginative focus, I wondered whether a holistic, synthesising, and big-picture approach was required? To help myself and my team, we'd gathered some student voice on what they wanted to learn about (see photo) and I'd had a brainstorming session knowing the general theme (Systems and Science - easy to think Solar System or Body Systems) but this wasn't the desired outcome as this was choosing based on an idea rather than the holistic thinking Lisa was seeking regarding Systems. Where would we take our students through immersion if we thought about a more encompassing idea of systems? We were provoked with this video: This still isn't enough to guarantee success though! Lisa's leadership on the TOD compared immersion to a geographic location. As teachers we have the power to differentiate the learning experience so that different children may experience a variety of activities, whether by this is a result of interest, learning need, curiosity or because of their dispositions. This in turn means that some may stay in the immersion phase throughout projects, while others transition earlier to the project phase.
Source: Lisa Squire.
Our team planned, reflected, challenged, wondered, sought feedback, took some risks and produced a rather shot-gun style planning document. But I feel it's been integral to our success this round. We've had a very clear idea of what we want to achieve and teach but have allowed enough room to be responsive to the needs and interests of the class as they develop. Ultimately, we've collaborated! Any of us could have planned and taught the immersion topic individually. However, I doubt it would have been as effective, as the collaboration has contributed additional value compared to the individual expertise. Relationships have been important too, knowing the children, their needs, interests, recording their student voice before entering. Developing our own systems for their success throughout the day and personalising their learning so that each could navigate the immersion island in their own powerful way. One of the activities we'd forward planned was for some work on assumptions, did we have those children who literally thought that milk came from the supermarket? Salt was the amongst the first assumptions to arise, someone had wondered if it was made from flour, but this had been preceded with the observation that "all foods have ingredients, but where do the ingredients come from?" The magic that has happened is born of these ingredients: relationships, collaboration, planning systems, reflection, teacher intellectual capital and a fair dose of teacher passion. Having the ingredients and creating the right spell/recipe can be quite separate however, this time we've just got it right as a teaching team and I hope that we can repeat it in the future. While we've taught, provoked and immersed our children into this world of food, they've responded with enthusiasm and curiosity. They've shared their wonderings about the intricacies of their digestive systems, or their taste buds, they've been designing the most amazing cakes and talked about "synthetic" cheeses and questioned if milk is the liquid and cream is the solid. For projects, they want to run Master Chef and bake Extreme Cakes, they want to learn more about their taste buds and learn about stomach acid. A non-writer is wanting to write a recipe book, another is sharing his cake designs and using actual measurements. Teachers are happy, proud and feeling like something positive is happening. Magic is happening! Planning is easy, most teachers can complete a topic planning outline to a reasonable degree. Turning that recipe into something magical is more than just the right ingredients and resources with a healthy seasoning of teacher passion. It might just be timing or having students who are receptive to this topic. I suspect that if I reflect enough I can unpack a myriad of rationale for the contributing factors, but like my daughter I choose magic! There is a synergy at work this immersion that is greater than the ingredients, it has raised the bar in LC5 and I await the project phase with excitement. What will this magic create?
Two teachers bouncing ideas about how to merge technology, drama and dance in a performance
Three teachers questioning if they could make it work in the timeframe,
A principal challenging his staff to add value and learning for the students,
Students raising excitement levels as they share their wondering, "Could we do a play?!"
Student teachers offering to do choreography and script writing, taking responsibility,
Children brainstorming ideas, "I can add to his idea by..."
12 learners writing a script, that their peers and teachers contribute ideas to afterwards
5 writers sharing a play, getting feedback "Are we going to do this?"
Associate Teachers and Student teachers performing the play, modelling failure, high stakes,
A learning common listing the jobs and thinking of teams, "We'll have to do more than one job"
Timelines that challenge students to work together,
Acting group creating more speaking roles and adding to scripts,
Parents offering support, materials, time and expertise, Students choreographing dance numbers, supporting their team mates
Children analysing scripts, props identified, backdrops considered, costumes imagined,
Cast members helping each other learn lines and cues, new friendships made
One team member offering an idea, others adding to it "We could build on that by doing this"
Giving constructive feedback, "If use that idea, this might happen.."
Learners coming to school with props, costumes, materials to contribute to the performance,
Students staying after to school to talk through ideas with teachers
A marketing team creating posters, generating an audience, selling tickets,
ESOL teachers using prop making as oral language lessons
Problems identified, other staff or non-LC2 children solving them,
Children sharing how they're in the pit, peers helping them get out
A learning common making sure all the jobs get done, deadlines met, "Will this come together?"
Dress rehearsals, everyone has a role, more jobs still being found,
Technology team setting the stage, parents helping
Stage managers helping the cast get their props
Dressers helping actors change costumes
Ticketing team welcoming people to the show
Parents and staff children preparing the refreshments
Ushers showing an audience to their seats
Sound team reading scripts to ensure cues are hit
Actors, dancers, stage managers, singers, directors, leaders and learners all,
An audience clapping, collaboration shared and appreciated, successful.
Students beaming, celebrating their effort and the rewards. Together.
A stage cleared, costumes put away. Venue empty.
4 teachers, 3 teacher aides and relievers all working on the same goal
77 children all working on the same goal.
"It's all come together"
"This looks awesome, we've done all this and we're just 7 & 8 year olds and we've done it all in 9 weeks! I can't believe it has all come together".
Return of the Moa. LC2 Collaboration. Lifelong learning.
Fridays at Hobsonville Point Primary School have traditionally become PINs day. Most of the school chooses part of the day to focus on Passions, Interests and Needs (PINs). Students plan, resource, lead and reflect on workshops that they deliver to their peers. It has been led by the junior learning commons and filtered up through our school and although my initial experiences with PINs weren't convincing I'm quite satisfied with the impact it has on learning these days. The impact of PINs on teaching HPPS students our dispositional curriculum is complemented by extending the reach of the more academic learning, reaching into areas like the English Language Learning needs of our ESOL students, displaying aspects of Tataiako and fosters relationships with our children's Whanau.
Student-led learning is not new. It has always been valued at HPPS through the use of student-led workshops and responsive teaching. Similarly, at other schools projects, passion based learning, public speaking and the notion that there are many experts in the room have allowed teachers to allow for a more facilitative approach to teaching. We are definitely not the only expert in the room! Tataiako, formalises that for NZ teachers and promotes the valuing of the intellectual and cultural capital that Maori students in particular bring to the classroom, but is extrapolated to all students as a model for effective teaching.
HPPS has promoted student-led learning from its beginnings, through the promotion of student-led workshops. My first powerful experience was when a student came to me and asked if she could run a lesson to help some peers with their keyboard skills, that afternoon she ran a great workshop using Dance-Mat Typing. Projects also would see students helping others with things they needed, for instance iMovie skills, Google Draw, writing an information report or drawing a graph.
PINs is different, it plays on the hearts and minds of our learners. Asking students to share their passions and interests allows them to share their hobbies, habits, activities with their peers. Students submit their workshop plans during the week, we select the plans to be used, students opt into the workshops and we then supervise them. The next week it all happens again. Our 5 year olds are running workshops, teaching their friends about things they value. All manner of topics get selected, art, dance, sport, language, drama, computers to name just a few.
What might you see at HPPS on Fridays? You might see children playing in the playground, working in our learning commons or you might think it looks like organised chaos. Probe a little deeper, ask a few questions, reflect on what you know about learning and a very effective part of HPPS is taking place.
Students are eager to get their plans selected, throughout the year this encourages an up-skilling in their instructional writing and may even be their first introduction to this type of writing. In choosing to run a workshop many have negotiated with friends to decide on a topic. Once their plan has been selected, students opt in, head off to workshops and come back eager to share their learning. For the students running workshops they've needed to prepare their teaching resources/equipment, negotiate with others for teaching space, deliver content, manage the behaviours of their peers, manage time, solve conflicts, it is an absolute treasure trove for our dispositional curriculum. Do workshops go wrong, absolutely. But this just facilitates discussion on communication, resilience, perseverance, reflection and what the student might do differently next time.
If you were to see an art, language, science based PINs workshop, it is clear that learning is taking place, in others the learning is a little less evident but present nonetheless. Consider some of the drama or play based activities (Duck Duck Goose anyone?) a student might choose, to have ESOL students running these workshops and practising their oral language is a great reason for such an activity to go ahead. In talking to one of my peers in a junior class (Year 0-2) she said "they'd had enough colouring workshops, it was time for students to up their game". Her students needed to be doing a bit more, it had been acceptable for some first-time workshops but the expectations had clearly been elevated.
Parents come in to help run PINs also, this year we've had Mums and Dads helping their children run workshops cooking, doing science, sewing, sport and sharing their culture. Allowing this encourages stronger relationships with families as we open our doors, they share their values and also get to see a little part of what makes their child and his /her peers tick. A colleague reflected today that she believes the difference in engagement with PINs between our commons may even be due to parent engagement, opining that they only run PINs fortnightly and she wonders if it is a reflection on the lack of parent involvement.
I've recently become another teacher with children at school, which has resulted in a philosophical and emotional shift from the role of teacher. PINs has been part of this also. PINs was top-of-mind as we considered an educational choices, how would our darling daughter be able to celebrate her passions and interests? I imagined yoga, gymnastics and cooking workshops appearing in our future. It was to my surprise that in her first week she was running a session on some app, to my knowledge she had never seen this app. As I considered the possibilities I wondered about the use of these workshops to build mana amongst a student's peers. I suspect this may have what the learning advisors were thinking, as a Dad this would be a suitable motivation. Abby's excitement about her first workshop was Christmas-like, with the visit of her teacher-aunty to HPPS she quickly roped her in to help with another workshop.
Occasionally, we as teachers run workshops during this time too. We will opt students into a workshop because of a need, e.g., handwriting or tying shoe laces but our most effective one this year was when my colleague suggested a meeting with our Maori/Pasifika students. She begun the meeting explaining that she was sad that a recent cultural project in the learning common had focussed on many other cultures but that Maori and Pasifika wasn't getting the mana it deserved, what could they all do about this. This group have now introduced several waiata to the common and have created a class culture of singing after lunchtime.
The role of teachers in these sessions alters based on the needs of the individuals running the workshops, our ESOL support have chosen to run workshops alongside students or just be a member of the workshop. Some students require assistance with managing the set-up, others during the actual workshop. Occasionally, there are reports of someone not doing what they're supposed, again this just becomes a chance to lead a conversation with all parties. More often than not, its directing students how best to manage their time or their peers. We've taken the opportunity of PINs workshops to provide disposition-based feedback/forward to students, at one stage we tried to make this written feedback but like most feedback it needs to be passed on in the moment to have any impact. As another means to generate reflection fodder, we've provided the opportunity for students to complete a Google Form (as shown).
There are many ways that students get to leverage their intellectual capital in the classroom and this is only one. But in classrooms where student voice, engagement or agency are not being fully explored or utilised then PINs presents as a possible mechanism for opening up student-led learning. Our children love PINs, it's powerful and is a fantastic opportunity to allow students to lead their learning. "I like how we get to learn lots of different things and we don't have to do just reading, writing and maths everyday" (Janneke, year 2).
