Current and Next Practice - Feedback session with Terry White

During the Aug-Sept 2021 Lockdown - our leadership team decided to continue working on our PLS reflection and analysis of our school's value proposition. By working together with Terry White (PLS founder) - https://planninglearningspaces.com/, we get regular coaching and support to implement a framework for planning our new school. 

Each team has now completed workshop 3 of the PLS self-review,  our teams found it energizing, provided clarity of what we do well and some challenges. Terry summarised that as a school we are at the stage to start collating our themes i.e Pedagogy, Organization of learning, Curriculum, leadership, community engagement. 

The teams have decided to continue to clearly define the key features of each theme labeled as a current practice which we can see in our team spaces. Then the challenges we see in the current spaces that we need to address in the new build in respect to Pedagogy and then finally in the coming weeks start to look at addressing the next steps.  

We would like to review each other Hexes and see how the mapping of each theme will have a commonality and focusing on collaboratively working together as we will be developing a new strategic plan for 2022 to 2024. 

As a new principal, I am finding the process really heartening and a great way to understand what each team is thinking about what learning looks like at WPS. I am also mindful of the challenge to constantly evaluate and reflect in respect to strategic planning and financial implications of our grand designs, so I was encouraged that Terry said regarding the clarity this process provides. 

Kea Team gave us an example of how workshops A and B could be done and the parallels to the other PLS themes eg Curriculum, Organisation of learning. The kaiako passionately shared that knowing our students helped them to identify what has been working and also what they want to amplify in the new build. It was great to hear them being able to justify their pedagogical approaches that meet the needs of our learners culturally, academically and socially. 

I have also been reflecting on the cultural responsiveness aspect of the PLS process and one of the things that were highlighted today gave me a lot of hope as well - was the use of the Community Engagement and Leadership of learning themes. I am eager to see how these will start to be unpacked in the coming term. I am currently in the learning pit as a leader but am joined by a knowledgeable team of SLT who are courageous and willing to be vulnerable about their team's "wins" and "challenges".