I struggle a bit with holidays. Really.
I get into working routines at school that get blown out of the water during the holidays, so I'm looking forward to Monday and getting back into stuff for term 2. Really. No irony. No sarcasm.
One of the things I'm looking forward to is the cold nights doing football practice and games each Tuesday and Wednesday after school. No - not really! Just testing.
But I am looking forward to Friday mornings and PLD (pretty sure that stands for professional learning development but it could be something else like profound literacy discussions or...).
Or maybe - I was looking forward to it.
A couple of caveats have emerged.
As I mentioned in my last edition - five weeks of scoping and other reconnaissance activities without an action is a worry.
Secondly the title for this activity is Staff Inquiry into Teaching and Learning to Empower
Learners (or SIT A LETL for short). Again with the passive emphasis.
I'm keen to invest in the inquiry/ action research model but this is input without the transformation.
Hard to expend a huge amount if there's little chance of grabbing those bananas. Let's hope it's not a banana peel.
On the positive side I will get to do that further deeper research into organisational cultures each week and that will bring a steady stream of blog posts.
Here's to looking forward!
I have a piece of paper attached to my bulletin board at school that I came across when doing some post grad diploma work a few years ago (wow - I just added them up - 14 actually!)
It's basically a summary of Inquiry methods like action research (wait! Stay with me!) but it came from Nissan and it's called The Nissan Way (bottom right corner on each picture).
The cycle is split into four sections and the cycle continues (like Spring Summer Autumn Winter...Spring): Plan > Do > Check > Action >... Plan >
They called it a cycle of continuous improvement and I like that idea.
I also like the simplicity on offer here. Less is more.
I was encouraged this morning in a staff meeting to think that that bunch of bananas I posted about recently is maybe (maybe...maybe) more within reach than I thought.
Next term we are working on some individual inquiries for the first five weeks during our Friday morning PD time. Guess what mine will be?
My thoughts on vertical vs horizontal tutor groups and vertical learning are things that have been on my mind recently as you know. So naturally I want to focus on this more next term.
I've done the kind of surface research on these things and my thinking about the organisational culture within the school will get some more freedom to roam next term.
I'm keen to actually formulate my thoughts in the form of The Nissan Way model
but at this stage it will have to be limited to the plan stage (as seen in the above Action Research diagram).
.jpg)