Where to start? Extend What you Value!

I always remember reading in one of Fullan's leadership article "Visions That Blind" the statement,  "Extend what you value".

Fullan quotes Shein, (1985) observation "The process of developing collaborative work cultures is complex. It requires great sophistication for school leaders: to express their own values without being imposing; to draw out other peoples values and concerns; to manage conflict and problem solving; to give direction and to be open at the same time".

I often think we feel locked into organisational systems in terms of the way that we do things, and that these ways often go back to how schools were organised in the 1960s or back in even further. We need to rethink last years  organisational structures in our schools to align with what we want to happen today, to drive our vision around personalizing learning to a reality.

In the article above Fullan expresses the need  to have recruitment action to allow for the development of leading collaborative culture in schools. He contends that teacher professional development based on collaboratively developing the school vision is required in the short and long term. This will allow the development of a collective understanding of the learning vision of the school. The areas of focus he suggests are:

• collaborative inquiry
• reflective practice
• growing technical expertise
• restructuring 

A key organisational event that ticked the boxes above that we employed was to create a new leadership position where the school leader, with prestige of salary and release from classroom teaching would lead professional learning and e-learning (blended learning) throughout the school. Effectively this school leader would map the professional learning, curriculum and ICT use in the school. This was an unusual move for a school in New Zealand of under 400 students at the time. It was pivotal to the first restructure of our infrastructure to support strengthening collaboration and personalising learning and coherence around our vision development. 

We decided a good place to start was to define what we want in terms of teaching and learning. What would that look like if it was in place in every learning area of our school. 

This professional learning collaborative inquiry is ongoing.  The model involves collaborative inquiry, reflective practice, growing technical expertise and restructuring. This professional learning model has developed a strong sense of purposeful teaching and learning practice which has led to new ways of organising teaching and learning. This has supported the process of redesigning old spaces, structures and practices that support our vision of "Engage, Enrich and Empower".

This infrastructure change and inquiry based professional learning is a strong transition component for readiness to move into our new buildings in the future. It also led to other innovative organisational and physical changes that support  transition and coherence of our school vision. These I will explore in the next few posts. I look forward to your thoughts.

  

Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic view, by Edgar H. Schein. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1985,

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.

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.

Creative response to growing rolls at Lauriston School, London

Laureston School, Hackney in London   had a growing roll and needed to replace and increase their current school size  and then demolish the old buildings. Performance, creativity and the arts are important drivers for Lauriston School and it was important that these key beliefs were reflected in the new build. The site is very tight and the school needed to be  in operation during the works. The solution was to build a new 3 storey building that created a school more than twice that of the original, at the same time increasing the play space. The foundation stage younger classes are located on ground level with free flow access to outside play. Raised classrooms create a covered playground which is a great space for all weather play. There are  roof decks at various levels   which increase the amount of external playspace and outdoor learning experiences. The school is constructed with large prefabricated timber panels and these provide an exposed timber internal environment that is  warm and visually appealing. They also work well for mounting displays. Large wooden vents, easily operated, provide a sustainable ventilation system. The  way the teaching and learning seemed to work was for the core teaching and learning to be delivered in classrooms and creative experiences in the adjoining creative spaces. Small group teaching also utilised these shared spaces. The school has some great outdoor spaces including school vege gardens and a wonderful tree house.

   Strategies to strengthen learning  links with the community was impressive,  including  a separate art studio for 

   artists in residence  and  also utilised for school and community workshops and exhibitions 

Stirling Campus Office Block Conversion

Abington Vale Primary Late 2012, Abington Vale Primary school became part of the Northampton Primary Academy Trust. The school saw this as an opportunity for more autonomy to drive the school vision around collaboration. The academy joined together four schools which each became a campus of the Academy. Abington Vale is a primary school across two sites. Park Campus is the original site built in 1968. While in UK on my travel fellowship, we visited Stirling Campus which opened in 2013. The local council purchased Stirling House, a three story commercial office block in 2012. The office block conversion design principles are open, flexible and collaborative. This was the first initiative in the country but apparently it is common to refit commercial buildings as schools in Scandinavia and USA. The academy is committed to developing a dedicated outdoor space for the 4/5/6 year olds and this was under construction while we visited. The driver for building this new primary school was roll growth, as they are expecting more reception students over the next two years.   The council had commissioned a report to consider options for a new primary school and the cost of the commercial building fit out was significantly cheaper than a new build. The 180 reception students currently occupy the ground floor and the principal is working on getting the next levels ready for occupation as these reception students moves through the school. Principal Laura Cichuta is passionate about the spaces and ensuring that as the students move up through the school that the curriculum design of collaboration, flexibility and personalising learning will be consistent. The challenge for the school is that the allocation of space per pupil is less and there was not funding for furniture and computers. However they use lots of different funding routes for solutions to these issues. The take out for me was around the rich discussion had with Laura around the development of teaching and learning. She said that the starting point is working in teams and building those teams. You have to collaboratively work through; ·        How do we organise? ·        How do we make it work?  I was impressed with the fact that whole groups could progress through the building as the school grows- they just move up a level and the next intake moves in to the ground level. The big advantage with this is that the pedagogy, which is aspirational around personalising learning can gradually be imbedded as the school grows. The other huge advantage is the opportunity to experiment and play with the open spaces to consider the possibilities of future learning space and learning design opportunities. The idea of a school in an office block conversion is a bit of a foreign concept in New Zealand, however I can see if carefully designed and with a commitment to indoor as well as outdoor learning spaces - it can be an excellent, economic fit for purpose.

KIWIANA CORPORATE DESIGN... JOINING THE DOTS

JOINING THE DOTS .. FROM 2014 TO 2030
Five year olds starting school this year at Freemans Bay School will graduate to  start in the workforce in the  2030s. We are thinking about what those work places will look like by exploring  the thinking that informs ways of working in leading corporations, universities and other tertiary institutions. Two recent visits in Auckland to the ASB North Wharf Building and Lion Corporation gave an opportunity explore the philosophy behind their new buildings. 

Both corporations  have a focus on the key principles of collaboration, openness, innovation and sustainability. Like the recent school builds we have viewed, these new corporate headquarters breakdown traditional silo ways of working. These designs naturally draw people together  to share, collaborate and innovate through a series of  gathering and meeting places. The key principles of design in these future focused work places join the dots between the ways our students are working in schools today and their role in society in the future.  

ASB NORTH WHARF, WYNYARD QUARTER. AUCKLAND                     
           
Derek Shortt, ASBs property manager, took staff from Freemans Bay School on a tour of the new ASB North Wharf building. The spaces are made up of a series of 'neighbourhoods' and 'boatsheds' - both have a nautical and waterfront theme. Workspaces include places for highly focused individual work, spaces for meetings for small and larger groups to work. The design principles are based on ASBs business vision:

• Choice
• Collaboration
• Community
• Transparency

The principle of collaboration is intrinsic to the building design and to the organisations way of working. Put simply -  "people working togetherto make the outcome of their endeavours better than the sum of individual parts." (Navigating into the Future, ASB North Wharf, Auckland, New Zealand, 2013)-

The ASB design supports freedom of choice, flexibility, sharing expertise and building a powerful creative work community.

LION CORP, FREEMANS BAY, AUCKLAND

Lion Corps new headquarters adjacent to Freemans Bay School in Napier Street is a fun and funky environment. It has a village feel with design elements that  bring together quintessential Kiwiana, with motifs from Cape Reinga to the Bluff.                                                                                                     
Principles of collaboration, innovation and creativity are intrinsic to the Lion Corp fit out. Every aspect has been designed to bring people together throughout the day. People are encouraged to move around and utilise the various work spaces creating opportunities for dialogue as they encounter others while on the move. This creates a village feeling, building community and a sense of physical, personal connectivity and well-being.                                                                                                                                                                                                               

When thinking about design principles for our schools we need to look at other types of building design for inspiration. We need to consider future focused design of corporations, universities, art galleries and museums. When we look at solutions such as these two corporate case studies we can join the dots and aspire to create learning environments that are powerful, creative, flexible, collaborative, open communities of practice.

      

                                                                                      

BREAKTHROUGH AT STONEFIELDS NEW LEARNING HUBS

OPEN LEARNING SPACES PLG
In 2011 Chris Bradbeer, AP at Stonefields school started a PLG (Professional Learning Group) which meets once a term for a building tour and discussions around  thinking about the physical and learning design. The sites visited have included, primary, secondary schools, tertiary institutions, libraries and corporate organisations. Understanding the vision of these organisations and how learning and working happens from the inside has provided opportunities for meaningful conversations around how design, research and learning philosophy converge. I love these meetings and have been to most of them. I follow Chris's blog and enjoy his reflections on the design process that has continued at Stonefields school. 

STONEFIELDS NEW LEARNING HUBS
Last week we visited Stonefields School fantastic new learning hubs. Chris discussed with us his thinking about the optimum number of teachers that works well in a learning hub. Two is too little - as that relationship lacks bounce! More than three becomes too complicated. Three is the number that works best.

It was wonderful to see so much shared ownership of the school's vision through teacher and student voice. The leadership team  has spent a lot of time with their school community, parents, staff and students, reflecting on what had worked well in the first building stage and considering new steps for the latest learning hub. The learning hubs include kitchens, creative making spaces, digital recording rooms and breakout spaces. Although the hubs are distinct, they are open and interconnect visually.

We observed a range of student learning activities during our visit during their 'Breakthrough Time". Students were involved in a range of personalised, collaborative learning activities utilising both indoor and outside learning spaces.

It was a privilege to talk to these students  during Breakthrough and see their engagement  in  learning.  

The school staff have a real commitment to coaching students about how we learn, experiencing being stuck and developing strategies to get through being stuck. They are explicit about what learning feels like, that the frustration you experience is  OK - you just need to know what to do to get through it. 

The leadership team worked through a major consultation process to prioritise the ideas they wanted incorporated in the design. This process is continuing as they canvas parents,staff and students for ideas for the master planning of their site.

I am humbled by the generosity of  principal Sarah Martin and the team at Stonefields School who continue to share their thinking about their school design process and allow others to view it in action.

We have such a lot to reflect on from out visit  and really appreciated  the openness and time given at Stonefields School as we begin our own journey to rebuild  Freemans Bay School.

Enabling Teachers to Change Pedagogy through School Design

Last week I enjoyed the Australasia Region Conference of Council of Educational Facility Planners International. (CEFPI) here in Auckland.

Stephen Harris gave a thought provoking presentation called "Factories no More: The Key Role design and furniture has in enabling Teachers to Change Pedagogy"

Stephen Harris is principal of Northern Beaches Christian School in Sydney. On the  school website you can view information about the school, Stephen's blog and their professional development arm activities and related research called scil.

Stephen contends that schools that think about their vision for learning that prepares students for 2035 and beyond, that have modern open learning environments that promote flexibility, collaboration and personalised learning will disrupt old thinking and cause learning to happen that is fit for purpose.

I had a look on our Ministry of Education website examples of recent remodeled learning environments.Sadly they do look like classrooms that I experienced as a student in the 1960s.
They are currently  promoting examples of single celled classrooms with adjacent cloakbays.

Stephen was exploring the notion that the design of a school, that drives where education needs to go can cause teachers to shift from old last century thinking and learning to happen at a different level.

He provoked thinking around: What are we prepared to change in order to shape a positive, resilient learning culture?  Promote what you expect to happen in teaching and learning in the design of the building.

Use design to cause learning to happen otherwise we might end up with graduates like this one - who says - " I choose C!"

What are you prepared to design into the fabric of a  building for learnng?  How does this link with your thinking about learning, preparing students for 2030 and why?