Global Schools Alliance

I recently had an interesting email from the New Zealand High Commissioner's office in Delhi inviting me to accept and invitation for Freemans Bay School to become a member  of The Global Schools Alliance. 

This is an organisation that was established in 2014 with members from all over the world. These educationalists agree to share practice to support other progressive thinking schools in their journeys to provide education that is personalised, innovative, authentic and relevant to their learners.

The current schools involved are: 

AB Combs School, USA - rated No 1 Magnet School in the United States of America. Each child's journey is mapped for success in the real world based on the timeless principles of Steven Covey's "7 habits of highly successful people". 

Matthew Moss School, UK - ranked by Innovation Unit (UK Govt) amongst the top 10 schools (of the 21st century) in the world. Is known for its ability to align learning (through projects) with individual passions of children.

EOS Teaching Alliance, UK - Hartsholme Academy, member EOS, is rated as the most innovative primary school in the UK. Vega is a member of the EOS Teaching Alliance. 

Hilltop Road Public School, Australia - A 'learning frontiers' school that leads in embedding technology in Teaching & Learning, awarded NSW School Cohesive Awards for strong community links.

Ørestad Gymnasium, Denmark -  an award winning Scandinavian school that constantly tests new ways of organizing teaching and uses modern technology to support it. Also among the top 10 schools (of the 21st century) in the world. 

I have been spending a bit of time learning about these schools.This is an interesting clip that explains thinking from Mathew Moss School around "Slow Learning" at their school.

I can see connections with what we do at Freemans Bay School - particularly around our Passion project learning. Definitely links to personalising learning and student choice. 

It is amazing to have this opportunity to connect with The Alliance is an opportunity to connect with like-minded schools across the globe.  It will be a new journey to explore the thinking and  the journeys of these schools and their leaders. 

Personalising learning at Skapskolan.

I was delighted to be hosted by Marcus Lighting  at Skapskolan. http://skapaskolan.se/vad/ This is a small country school that has students from6years old to 12 years old.   Lene Jensby Lange had suggested the visit and set it up for me - and it was an inspirational visit. The ride on the  train and buses were also very enjoyable as we left the  country to  green fields and farmland. Marcus and his co-teacher have mixed age group teaching in differentiated spaces for individualised and group learning. They have utilised every space available in the room - including elevated seating (mountain top) and a cave room  underneath. The room is full of options for working including quiet and collaborative spaces and making spaces. There are lots of nooks and crannies for learners to choose from.   The space challenge has not compromised the schools vision of personalised learning. The students are engaged and have an enthusiastic attitude to their the current learning enviroment. Plans are under way for a building extension creating and upper level. For the extension they will continue to work with architect Peter Lippman, from Australia. Lippman's design  focuses on environmental quality of lighting, air quality and temperature as well as a focus on  student choice and flexibility in how they learn. You could observe the older students caring and encouraging the younger students  both indoors and outdoors. This is due to  the relationship building that happens with the vertical  grouping in the classroom. The take out for me at Skapskolan is how the creative and efficient use of  space for personalising learning is aligned school design with their beliefs around personalising learning. In the literature review completed as part of my travel fellowship research there was consensus that personalising learning is a desire to give students more choice and control over what they were learning and where and how the learning was to take place. In terms of school design this means providing an environment where:  Learning is flexible - in a range of places that could support small groups, large groups or independent activities. Learning is holistic – the whole child and their learning needs supported Learning styles are acknowledged and supported. A range of learning opportunities provided where students are empowered  Students are grouped according to learning stage not age. Reflection, self-management and collaboration incorporated as part of the learning. Personalisation refers to educational systems that prioritise the individual needs of the learner. Such systems focus on an holistic approach to meet each learners needs.  Milibrand (2004,p.8) personalised learning definition is generally accepted,  “High expectations of every child, given practical form by high quality teaching based on sound knowledge and understanding of each child needs”.      The school visit to  Skapskolan and discussions with Marcus and later Lene gave opportunities to consider the literature review findings and observe and discuss how teaching and learning  and  school design reflected and supported the school vision around personalisation.  I felt really inspired by my visit to this small country school. I look forward to news of the  next iteration - I wonder how the learning from the current build will be reflected in the new build?

Creativity and passion in Copenhagen

Strandgårdsskolen is located in a low socio economic  suburb in Copenhagen. It has been rebuilt over several years and has a clear pedagogical strategy. This school has succeeded with a big turn-around with significant improvements to student achievement results. The learning spaces are varied and attractive. They include subject based classrooms, breakout spaces and specialist teaching areas.

   There was strong link between the indoor and outdoor spaces demonstrating a commitment to utilising outdoor    spaces for learning.

AFUK – The Academy for Untamed Creativity This is an alternative provision for under 24 year olds who have dropped out of the ordinary school and youth education system. It is built in an old rolling stock factory and has a creativity focus, including design, drama,  art and circus performance. This creative approach to engaging at risk students in education is very successful. Once again I was impressed with the Danish way of hooking into passion and creativity in a very personalised way. Students have opportunities to explore different activities such as circus, performance, theatre, writing, visual arts, design and at the same time exploring options for their future.

Ørestad Skole, Copenhagen This school was built in 2010.  The school is located in an entirely new area  of  Copenhagen called Ørestad.    Currently the student intake is  5-9 year olds and  is planning to take older students in  the near future.  They are one of the Copenhagen’s specialist schools – the school  vision is to deliver a curriculum that is  virtual and aesthetic. There is a local library next door as part of the premises. Orestad Gymnasium is also  next door. I was impressed  with  the variety of specialist spaces such as art, music,  science, robotics and making models.

   I was interested to find out that  Denmark schools  basically work  in two shifts - the more 

   academic subjects are taken in the morning and in the afternoon they are taught by 

   professionals  I called the "happy life teachers". 

   This is where the programme becomes truly personalised with students choosing from a 

   range of learning  activities including art, dance, robotics, outdoor building and cooking - 

   basically following their interest and passions.

   However this 'free play way" is about to change following resolution of a major dispute 

   between the local authorities and the teachers union. Teachers were locked out for 4

   weeks!     I hope that the strong focus on personalising learning, innovation and creativity 

   will continue as I found the students engaged, motivated and very passionate about

   their learning.

  

Hellerup School - a great place to learn

Hellerup School was built in 2001. It has learning home zones instead of classrooms. Each learning zone is a  home base for 3-4 classes. The learning zones are shared with the pedagogs who take the after school programme. The building is multi storey with connecting areas utilised for learning. Internal timber cladding is a feature and gives a warm feeling with lots of natural light. The library zone is central on the ground floor. The library or information centre is central on the ground floor, creating a welcome through zone for the learning community and with high visibility from every floor.  There are around 100 students per learning hub with about 4 teachers plus support staff. The design incorporates lots of breakout spaces including: ·        rooms within rooms ·        Mountain tops ·        Breakout spaces ·        Specific areas for art / science ·        Physical activity encouraged eg climbing walls / table tennis inside buidling

The staffroom is a particularly impressive. It is an open comfortable space which encourages staff to relax in a 

informal atmosphere. I think it is important for staff to have their own space to take a break from the business of 

the learning zones - and good to give something back to staff to appreciate the work they do.

Learning Space Design

Last week we took 12 of our school leaders and teachers to visit three schools in Auckland. We were looking at the relationship between teaching and learning and the design of the classroom spaces.  We were interested to explore how recent built learning environments are really working. How has the design supported personalised learning or other thoughts on contemporary educational practice. What was working and what were the challenges and what would the teachers working in them do differently if they had the chance?

Such visits help us to inform our thinking about our future school design as most of our school is to be demolished and a new school built over the next two years.We believe that it is important that our educators have a role to informing our future school design to ensure that our new environments reflect the needs of future education rather than where education is  currently at.

We were impressed with the designs and the discussions.

The spaces we saw were supportive of:

• personalising learning
• inside and outside connections
• e-learning
• collaboration
• engaging learners
• linking thinking about teaching to design spaces

School design and teaching and learning tour on PhotoPeach

Framing learning through our class online learning links on KnowledgeNET

Each teacher frames the class learning through the online class learning links pages on our online learning environment, KnowledgeNET.

Students access these at school for their collaborative  and independent learning. They can of course access this from home or anywhere they happen to be. This means that the learning framework can be accessed from any place at any time.

Generally the learning links page of each class has four areas: reading, writing, maths and learning pathways - (this is our student enquiry area).

The learning links welcome page looks like this or similar.

The students click on the links to access their work - I will show the Learning Pathways link as it is associated with the next post which shows students reflecting on their learning pathway work for the term.  On this page the teachers have framed the lessons around the student enquiry on attracting birds to the school grounds. The authentic task was  to design a bird feeder.

You can also view an article written by the students on their work on creating bird feeders on our school website.http://www.freemansbay.school.nz/article/bird-feeders/111067/21504/

You can see from the photographs and the article that the students are engaged, enriched and empowered which is our vision for learning at Freemans Bay School.

I wonder how other educators have used OLEs to frame pedagogy - in particular encouraging students to reflect on their learning and their thinking - I would be interested in your sharing and feedback.

Student weekly learning reflections

Our learning is about enriching, empowering and engaging students in authentic learning tasks. As part of the weekly programme, student make reflective comments on their learning on the class authentic student centered enquiry.

This example is from a Year 3 and Year 4 composite class. They have been studying about birds and their enquiry has been around how to attract birds into our city school playground.

This group has designed bird feeders.

They have been asked to reflect on their design and what they would do change if they made another bird feeder in the future.

Here is a selection from this class blog this week.

Parents are able to check in on the class blog, view the student and teacher comments and support the learning at home.

I wonder what other strategies educators have utilised to encourage feedback from student peers, parents and teachers in an online environment. What has worked? What has been tricky? What are the challenges and successes? I look forward to your sharing.

Goal sharing Conferences

At Freemans Bay School we embrace the concept of students being in charge of their learning. Feuerstein promotes that planning for and reflecting on learning experiences deepens the students learning experience. We have a holistic approach that puts the locus of control as much as possible with the learner. We believe in the importance of encouraging students to reflect on and analyse their learning so that their learning is meaningful to them.

We have just had our goal sharing conferences. Students were supported by their teachers to share their learning goals with their parents through Knowledge Net - our online learning management system.

The next steps for students is to provide some evidence on how they are working towards achieving their goal. This can be written, spoken, a video, a photograph or a picture of their work.

Parents have access to the goal reflections and can support their students at home, through the "Cloud". Thus supporting the home / school partnership around learning.

At the conference each student and their parents had a 15 minute slot with the teacher. This was a valuable time for all, strengthening the partnership between the school and the family around learning.

This goal sharing event reinforced the importance of reflection to maximise learning in a meaningful way for students and their families.