Whitney Street School
Alan Straker discusses understanding and supporting quality in an environment of school isolation and rapid change.
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Clip duration: 2:14
Appraise environment
In 2001 all the staff attended a Quality Schools seminar with Eric Shaw from Spotswood School in Taranaki, and that was really the germination of the whole project. Following that, two groups of staff went to Taranaki and visited a number of schools. We saw elements such as consistency through the classroom programmes and a lot of collaborative planning, which fitted into our style here.
The visits also showed us environments that were especially appealing in terms of teaching and learning, so one of the first things that we did when we returned was to have a 'quality walk' around the school. We met at the school gate at 8.30 one morning and we imagined ourselves as our students and parents coming to our school. We didn't like what we saw and so we set about doing something about it. We've made a real attempt to improve the physical environment of the school and classrooms because it made the teachers feel better about coming to work and it made the students feel better about coming to learn.
It quickly became apparent that quality wasn't something extra; it was really something that pervaded right through the activities in the school. We decided what we wanted to achieve for our school - whether as a whole school, a syndicate, or relating to students, staff or parents - and then we looked at ways of achieving it through a variety of practices.
Unless there's good thinking underpinning A1 standards, what you may call the flashy stuff (presentation on walls and in books), then it's not going to make a huge difference for the students - and that's what we're here for. It's the philosophy of good quality teaching and learning that will have a lasting effect in terms of student learning.
Nurture teachers
Once a person said to me, our job as principal is to get the best teachers we can in front of the kids and then get out of the way to let them get on with the job. But I've quickly come to realise that it's far more than that. The staff have to be nurtured just the same as the students, in terms of their learning.
You can't expect that they'll just carry on forever and a day being really good teachers. You have to give them space sometimes to allow them to grow in terms of their learning.
I think one of the most powerful things in this school is the amount of coming back to look at things together as a group and we have done that in several different ways over the years.
We've done it through written feedback, round table, and a meeting where we used an external facilitator. And I think every time, it hasn't mattered which way we have done that - we've reflected on what we have done. Sometimes we haven't changed things; it's going great so why change it? I think it's made me more focused as a leader.
One of the things we need to do is provide opportunities for extending teachers' experience in terms of their ideas of quality. We've had quite a bit of involvement with a person called Maggie Bolton who is a spokesperson for the Glasser Institute in Australia. We've used her both at our conference locally and also sent teachers to her courses in Christchurch in our holiday break. Maggie talks about what's called a 'quality world'. The things that are really important in the teacher's world can often be translated into a student's world as well.
Collaborate and celebrate
I get challenged regularly by staff – it's a real bottom-up model. A lot of the ideas are generated from the grass roots and they don't necessarily all flow down from me. So I think it's a real collaborative approach and a shared, challenging decision-making process where, if I'm not on track, then someone will tell me. And I think that's great.
We make opportunities to celebrate all the good things that are happening in our classrooms. We have what we call a quality walk, where I have identified several things I would like to bring to the teachers' attention. I take the staff into a classroom and point those things out and get the teacher of that room to explain what they did. It gives them a real buzz to know that their endeavours have been acknowledged, not just by me but by the other staff as well.
I think the quality walks also reaffirm that the ideas we've discussed are actually being taken on board. We're walking the talk and not just nodding our heads wisely at the staff meeting, saying that's a great idea, we should do that one day. We can actually see it in action. Teachers are constantly conversing after school, before school, at break times, supporting each other, challenging each other and helping each other solve problems, so it's a real shared process.
The school's Te Reo Māori immersion unit, while retaining a special identity within the school, has been enhanced by the school wide application of the Quality Schools philosophy. Things like planning, presentation in books, and participating in school wide events have shown marked improvement.
Build student confidence
We try to get the students to articulate what quality means to them. And we've come up with a snappy little saying, "At Whitney Street School we always do our very best". If you go and ask any of the students, hopefully they will be able to say that. If you prompt them with, "At Whitney Street..." they will be able to finish the statement for you.
Part of that work with students is goal setting and revisiting their understanding of what quality is. There are physical things such as signs and displays that demonstrate what it is, but often we ask students what their view of quality is. What makes a particular piece of work quality work? Each class may develop that a little bit differently to other classes, and the teacher can often just refer to things around the wall that the class has decided are quality pieces to strive for.
One of the things that became apparent to us was that the year 3 group, what I call the 'grey students', often tend to mark time. What we've done is create a middle syndicate of the school, which probably for the size of the school isn't justified in terms of its numbers, but in terms of the delivery for those students, it's made a huge, huge difference.
We've created separate budgets for that area of the school. We've purchased separate resources to cater for that area of the school and we've seen a huge impact in terms of student learning and their independence, in particular with writing and reading. By doing that we've raised the performance of students right through the school as well. We're finding students coming through now to the senior classes who are much more independent and confident.
Involve parents
More and more the board are making quality decisions – getting away from arguing about the colour of the paint scheme and how much sand we are going to buy for the sandpit, and actually focusing on making a difference for kids. I think the STA training has been very supportive in that regard, getting to focus on the needs of the students in the school. I think we have still got a lot of work to do in the area, especially with parents, but I know the board have been totally part of the whole project.
We have a quality corner in our newsletter where we promote the fortnightly theme that we run. These are based around value themes.
But we also consulted widely with our school community and they came up with many of the same values that the staff had identified as being very important - and the students as well.
Recently we had our annual meeting and rather than have the normal one or two parents come along and be bored to tears, we wrote personal letters and invitations to a wide number of parents and we had a significant group come along to our meeting.
We spent as small amount of time as possible on the formal stuff and then we got into the important stuff about what their children are doing at school, showing them where we've come from, how we're using technology to record student progress and achievement. Several staff talked about specific programmes that the school's promoting at the moment to let them have a feeling for some of the actions we are doing.
Revisit ideas
A couple of years ago I would have said we're going pretty well so let's keep it rolling. But what actually happens is you are constantly refining what you do and revisiting the ideas; some things will change, some things don't change. The challenge for me and for the staff and probably for the community as well, is to never stop thinking that you have got to a certain point, to always be challenging ourselves to think, "What's next? What can we go on to? What can we work at? What can we make better?" And at the end of the day keeping the students totally to the forefront of our thinking.
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