Archive for February, 2008

What lense do you use when looking at children’s writing?

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

I looked at this 6 year olds work on thinking and thought of this quote a team leader used at the annual parent information night: "We let children paint their faces, swing around poles, blow bubbles, build cubby houses, go down the street in their ballet dress or superhero suit and ...

What drives your classroom coaching program?

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

Last year I caught up with Barrie Bennett in Toronto and had the chance to talk through his framework for classroom improvement. It was one of those light bulb moments when it became clear for me what the missing focus was in both walkthroughs and in the schools coaching programme. We needed to strengthen ...

Leaders talking teaching and learning!

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

At this week's leadership meeting I set the context for our reading of John Hattie's article on building teacher quality. The article lists a number of key strategies [e.g. feedback] that have the greatest effect size on student learning. It concludes: "expert teachers do differ from experienced teachers .... most critically in ...

Raise the Bar and Close the Gap

Monday, February 18th, 2008

At last weeks principal network meeting we briefly talked about this notion of raising the bar on student achievement. Michael Fullan defines moral purpose for schools in terms of raising the bar and closing the achievement gap. The conversation was started from a report of a neighbouring network conducting principal walkthroughs in each ...

Principals turn to booze to cope

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Today a report is being released on principal workload. The report based on a national survey of 1,100 principals shows that while most love their job many are finding that "endless paperwork, dealing with abuse or grievances from angry parents, and the lack of administrative support in schools, were taking their ...

Student Leadership

Friday, February 1st, 2008

I was talking to the senior students at school this week and used this clip to start the discussion about leadership changing the world We often start in our own backyard so to speak in small ways and the students said by being kind to someone, or putting away sports equipment without being asked . I ...

Classroom Rules

Friday, February 1st, 2008

I found this clip may just in a fun way create a converstaion with students about classrooms rules.