6 weeks into being the only DP in my school I find that life is crazier than ever. The role involves supporting every aspect of the school-something that shod be easy if I don't have a class to plan for?- bit in reality not easy at all.
Every day is planned out from the priorities I have on my worryingly large list... And every day has interesting and unexpected twists that mean the list is put on hold and then increased!
Earlier this year I talked about action plans and prioritising. This is working, I have action plans... So many in fact that I am considering creating an action plan for my action plans! But is this the most logical way to work? The action plans help, but when do we reach a point at which action plans are the only thing happening! They help me to track all my roles so I can try and ensure that I am allocating equitable amounts of my time to each role. Yet they also create friction and dissonance within my head about what constitutes equitable allocation of my time.
What is most important?
Student achievement is why we are all here, yet without support for teachers so they feel empowered, we won't have student achievement. Then there is community engagement, if we don't engage our parents in an honest, open way then nothing we do will help to accelerate achievement.
It's an interesting challenge to my thinking and I think is only answered by the word 'why'?
Why am I doing this? Does it relate back to our strategic plan or our vision?
Life is so exciting and a process of continual learning:)
I hope for a simple formula. But feel that complex algebra is what I will find....(good job I'm a math nerd!)
Thursday 24 July 2014
Friday 18 July 2014
CAAP plan and the difficulty of reliable OTJ's
Recently whilst constructing the mid-year mathematics report to the board, I discovered a blip in the data from a cohort group. It seemed fairly anomalous and investigation found that it was based on the difficulty for teachers and leaders to ensure consistency of OTJ's schoolwide.
Despite a reasonable start on how to gather evidence for making OTJ's, we still have a long way to go as a community of educators to ensure that this most abstract and tricky process can be made as authentic and valid as possible.
Our journey at MBS began with supporting teachers to understand how to analyse the schoolwide data and how this is only one part of the overall puzzle we have to put together in order to see where a students levels lie.
This year we are running both an ALiM and an ALL contract and an off shoot of these very valuable programs, has been the need for me to develop a CAAP plan ( Curriculum Action and Achievement Plan).
This is still an ongoing process of revision, feedback and more revision. However it has started to generate a document which aims to support all stakeholders within our school and wider community, see what a child achieving at a certain level, will 'look' like. Using the National Standards and also the ELLP, and numeracy progressions in order to build up a big picture of the skills and abilities a child will display. This is the start to building a deeper understanding of what a child who isn't achieving will look like, and also the structures we have in place for the different tiers of intervention.
As a school, we have spent a lot of time looking at moderation within writing and have constructed a more shared understanding of what each level of writing will look like. We have also focused a lot on the collection and analysis of mathematical assessment in order to feed this into effective planning.
However we now need to use all these areas we have been working in and start to feed what we know around maths and reading in order to see how we can deepen our understanding of how to make valid OTJ's within these areas. In order to align our abilities as a staff so that by the end of the year we are able to make reliable OTJ's on a students work, in any of the 3 areas and for students at all levels in our school.
Despite a reasonable start on how to gather evidence for making OTJ's, we still have a long way to go as a community of educators to ensure that this most abstract and tricky process can be made as authentic and valid as possible.
Our journey at MBS began with supporting teachers to understand how to analyse the schoolwide data and how this is only one part of the overall puzzle we have to put together in order to see where a students levels lie.
This year we are running both an ALiM and an ALL contract and an off shoot of these very valuable programs, has been the need for me to develop a CAAP plan ( Curriculum Action and Achievement Plan).
This is still an ongoing process of revision, feedback and more revision. However it has started to generate a document which aims to support all stakeholders within our school and wider community, see what a child achieving at a certain level, will 'look' like. Using the National Standards and also the ELLP, and numeracy progressions in order to build up a big picture of the skills and abilities a child will display. This is the start to building a deeper understanding of what a child who isn't achieving will look like, and also the structures we have in place for the different tiers of intervention.
As a school, we have spent a lot of time looking at moderation within writing and have constructed a more shared understanding of what each level of writing will look like. We have also focused a lot on the collection and analysis of mathematical assessment in order to feed this into effective planning.
However we now need to use all these areas we have been working in and start to feed what we know around maths and reading in order to see how we can deepen our understanding of how to make valid OTJ's within these areas. In order to align our abilities as a staff so that by the end of the year we are able to make reliable OTJ's on a students work, in any of the 3 areas and for students at all levels in our school.
PLG group and the multiplier effect
Last term I joined a professional learning group facilitated by Maggie Ogram from Osprey Consulting.
The reasons for this are two fold:
First I knew that as I am relatively new to educational leadership and for that matter also to education itself- I have only been qualified as a teacher for 4 years!- that I need to ensure that I am double checking myself continually. Luckily I am an over achieving autodidact, who thrives on learning new things and I always research a concept or finding to ensure that what I am doing is pedagogically sound, and also proven to be effective. However I am keenly aware of what I don't know and so this PLG gives me an opportunity to collaborate in areas about which I may be unsure.
Secondly I knew that as my fellow DP was leaving, I would be loosing a very important professional relationship- the person whom I can bounce ideas off, have heated discussions with about practice and research ( not quite arguments as we have total respect for each other! but definitely good sound constructive conversations that lead to shared understandings) and who generally acted as a coach and mentor in one. So I knew that within the current structure of our school, I wouldn't be able to find that relationship for a while ( however approachable I ensure I am with other staff, it does seem that once one hits management level that people won't argue with you! and I need people to have a good argument/conversation with!) so the PLG has given me a forum with which to share ideas, bounce good conversations around and generally given me a group of coaches of which we are all equal and can all contribute valid points.
This last term we have looked at Certain readings in order to stimulate conversations in areas we all agreed we needed to work.
The first reading was around the kind of leader we are:
This is an excellent from a very interesting and thought provoking book
The ideas in this give a great reference point from which to set a series of leadership goals and I am finding that having these pinned to my wall above my lonely little desk in the dungeon office are helping to keep me connected with what is important to focus on
The reasons for this are two fold:
First I knew that as I am relatively new to educational leadership and for that matter also to education itself- I have only been qualified as a teacher for 4 years!- that I need to ensure that I am double checking myself continually. Luckily I am an over achieving autodidact, who thrives on learning new things and I always research a concept or finding to ensure that what I am doing is pedagogically sound, and also proven to be effective. However I am keenly aware of what I don't know and so this PLG gives me an opportunity to collaborate in areas about which I may be unsure.
Secondly I knew that as my fellow DP was leaving, I would be loosing a very important professional relationship- the person whom I can bounce ideas off, have heated discussions with about practice and research ( not quite arguments as we have total respect for each other! but definitely good sound constructive conversations that lead to shared understandings) and who generally acted as a coach and mentor in one. So I knew that within the current structure of our school, I wouldn't be able to find that relationship for a while ( however approachable I ensure I am with other staff, it does seem that once one hits management level that people won't argue with you! and I need people to have a good argument/conversation with!) so the PLG has given me a forum with which to share ideas, bounce good conversations around and generally given me a group of coaches of which we are all equal and can all contribute valid points.
This last term we have looked at Certain readings in order to stimulate conversations in areas we all agreed we needed to work.
The first reading was around the kind of leader we are:
This is an excellent from a very interesting and thought provoking book
The ideas in this give a great reference point from which to set a series of leadership goals and I am finding that having these pinned to my wall above my lonely little desk in the dungeon office are helping to keep me connected with what is important to focus on
Wednesday 9 July 2014
Presentation for ELN 2014
This is the second time I have presented to a group of peers through our ELN PLG group. This time my self confidence in what I was doing was much higher. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to share what we have been working towards at MBS and the huge leaps we have made over the past few years in our use of blended elearning.
Consequently I have been asked by a couple of schools to work with their staff as they build their ability to use GAFE. This kind of collaboration is hugely valuable to educators as it gives us a means to share our skills and ideas in order to improve educational outcomes for whole groups of schools. All PLD should be this collaborative.
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