Interpreting Student reports - Principals' responsibility

 As a school Principal I would strive to ensure that it was easy for parents to understand the periodic student progress reports that they receive.

In recently viewing one of my grandchildren's semester primary (elementary) school reports I found no explanatory preamble to assist me interpreting the detail of the report.  I decided to write what I considered would be helpful in the preamble as follows: (The school name is fictional, but appropriate in recognising the forward thinking of the great 18th century Genevan {Swiss} philosopher Jean-Jaques Rousseau and his timeless educational treatise "Emile".)

Advice to parents/guardians to assist their interpretation of their child’s school Report 

 

 

In order to better interpret your child’s Report we encourage parents/guardians to read the following.

 

Rousseau Primary School Learning Program is based on the WA version of the Australian National Curriculum. If you wish to view the detail use the URL  k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au .  This should reveal the relationship between the headings on the report form and the prescribed curriculum subjects for your child’s age/grade. In mathematics we have adopted the “Oxford Mathematics for Australian Schools” program and have familiarised parents with this. It is aligned with the WA Mathematics syllabus.

 

When your child enters the school gates each day we ensure that they feel safe, secure and respected for who they are.

 

As a key general principle the Rousseau Primary School community believes that each student is performing at a level commensurate with all the factors affecting their lives day by day. These factors are part of the in-school and out-of-school environments in which each child lives. If a child is not enthusiastically applying themselves to the learning experiences offered, we do not think of unhelpful negative labels like ‘lazy’; ‘disruptive’ or ‘not working to potential’. Rather we make it an urgent priority to constructively ascertain why and rectify the situation in conjunction with parents/guardians.  At the first signs of a serious lapse in learning attainment across the curriculum subjects we will contact parents/guardians immediately.  We do not believe in worrying surprises after the horse has bolted.

 

With regard to a crucial in-school factor, be assured that our teachers are true professionals, who along with mentoring by the Principal, and participation in in-service opportunities, ensure that their performance is of the highest standard.

 

We have a school policy that in the syllabus areas of English (literacy), mathematics (numeracy), Science and Digital Technology we do not move students to new learning unless they have mastered the pre-requisites for that new learning. To not adhere to such a policy means that learning gaps occur and become cumulative over the school journey. We apply this policy based on detailed data records of each child’s attainment. This could mean for example that a year 4 student who did not fully master the year 4 syllabus Fractions section will need as a year 5 to be working on that year 4 Fractions section to a mastery level when fractions are due to be studied in year 5. We will discuss this with parents as deemed necessary as we don’t want you to feel that your child is ‘behind’. We urge you to view their learning in the context of the general principle described above. To allow gaps to accumulate in learning areas like mathematics is to see year 10 students with severe numeracy incompetency as has been identified for some secondary school students in WA. The same can be said for literacy (Google OLNA testing WA).

 

 

In all other learning areas (subjects) we rigorously ensure that students cover every aspect of the prescribed syllabus with all members of class moving through at the same pace. We do not apply the mastery principle in these learning areas.

 

The learning in English and mathematics is resulting in the development of functional literacy and numeracy.  You will be reassured to know that attention is paid to functional literacy and numeracy across all subjects in the curriculum.

 

The school has an eye on jobs that are likely to emerge in the future. Key vocational areas are in IT; scientific and medical research and applications; environmental sustainability, food production and the caring services.  Accordingly, we have a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) emphasis in student projects that straddle these learning areas. We also emphasise through our studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences the importance of the caring vocations. We are open to integrated learning whereby the Humanities and the Arts may also contribute to STEM projects. It is our responsibility even at primary school level to contribute to students being prepared for a future that is difficult to predict.

 

In each learning area (subject) the student is assessed about their knowledge (facts); understanding (concepts) and skills (processes like calculating); and a set of generic learning skills like researching, analysing, questioning, evaluating, communicating and creative and critical thinking.  In researching the WA Curriculum you will see various of these skills outlined. The ABCDE ratings in your child’s report are based on performance across the areas described in this paragraph.

 

More specifically the ABCDE ratings can be described as follows:

 

‘A’ represents a level of learning well beyond the expectations for a student at the particular year level.

‘B’ represents a very high level of learning for a student at the particular year level.

‘C’ represents a steady, satisfactory level of learning for a student at the particular year level.

‘D’ represents a level of learning that is slightly worrying and likely to trigger contact with parents/guardians.

‘E’ represents a level of learning that will trigger contact with parents/guardians.

 

We do not become bogged down by the concepts of ‘fail’ and ‘pass’ as we are more concerned with what each child knows and can do and regularly congratulating them on their success. A constructive approach to assessment is the principle on which we operate. Across the compulsory school years your child will gradually come to terms with ‘fail’ and ‘pass’.  ‘Fail’ is a concept that is for those more mature than primary school students.

 

We trust that the above explanation will aid you in interpreting your child’s Report. Please contact us if you have queries.

 

 

May the Force be with you!  Keep safe in these Covid times.

GD

Curriculum relevance

 In case some readers are unaware January 26, 1788 is a very significant date in Australian history. On this date 11 ships from England carrying convicts transported to the colonies for crimes committed came ashore in what is now Port Jackson, Sydney Australia.  They formed a colony known as NSW.

January 26th, now celebrated as Australia Day, is perceived by the indigenous peoples of Australia as 'invasion day',  marking the beginning of the systematic destruction of their cultures that had existed on the land for more than 60,000 years.

Current Australian school curricula have only relatively recently acknowledged the history of the Aboriginal peoples, including the pervasive and often brutal removal of indigenous persons from their tribal lands. I have been able to work with this more contemporary view of the history of Australia in tutoring one of my grandchildren during online schooling as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic. It was so uplifting.

As a school Principal I would welcome this long awaited adjustment to the history that Australian students now learn. When I was actively a Principal in the late 1970s racial intolerance was alive in the community and decisions my wife and I made to help indigenous children were often regarded with suspicion in the community at large.  We were not saints, but educators making decisions that educators have to make. On reflection our efforts were not as well-grounded in a true understanding of what it meant to be an indigenous person in that hostile environment.

Racial prejudice in contemporary Australia is nowhere near the levels I describe above, with indigenous Australians in the process of seeking recognition in the constitution of Australia. It is exciting and school Principals need to be on top of the significance of this happening and ensure that is objectively portrayed in the appropriate school syllabuses.

In a wider context of a multi-cultural Australia Principals need to be sensitive to the many cultures that now make up Australian society. I have every confidence that contemporary school Principals are doing a great job in this respect. Their work in inspiring their school communities daily helps to build a much admired and resilient Australia. There is still much to be done as Australia still has to face up to becoming a republic and once and for all cut the ties with its inglorious colonial past.

Sorry folks all this is a bit of a hobby horse of mine so please be understanding of this more subjective post.

Keep safe in these covid times.

Must away and play some guitar to keep my poor old brain active and to bring myself some peace and joy.

May the Force be with you.

GD

Gaps in learning continuity

 I hold to my view that the prime work for the school Principal is to be the leader in  learning for their school community.

Let us ponder a year 4 student leaning about fractions. It is not an easy concept to grasp in a comprehensive fashion, especially when one encounters what I call the naughty fractions, that is, improper fractions. It is relatively easy for students to understand the concept of proper fractions using examples from everyday life, but not so easy to do this for improper fractions. Everyday applications of the latter are there and need to be used to help students understand this more difficult fraction concept.

Having worked the class through fractions at year 4 level the teacher decides to move on to the next topic. Some students will have grasped the concept of fractions fully, some will have a reasonable grasp and some will still be floundering. The major decision confronting the teacher is whether to develop some special individualised focus to bring the strugglers up to speed before they move to the next topic or to leave the gaps in place and hope that maturity in say year 5 will allow better understanding when fractions are encountered in year 5. If the decision is to move all students to the next topic the risk is run that the strugglers may carry this fraction knowledge and understanding deficit throughout their school lives.

In practical terms it is difficult to individualise learning in core areas like mathematics as a student progresses through the school years. If a teacher can do this well and good. In these contemporary times there are many online programs that the struggling student could use. Within a class of say 25 the teacher may individualise to the extent that three groups emerge, with a group that grasps concepts at first try, a group that grasps concepts to an acceptable level often called average, and a group that struggles with almost every new concept. This is very simplistic but teaching to groups as described is bread and butter for junior primary class teachers and could be extended into the higher grades.

To let a student develop gaps such that a cumulative deficit builds up is unacceptable and Principals need to work with their teachers to find ways to minimise this happening. Such an accumulation of gaps is regularly observed in literacy and numeracy learning with say year 10 students who still struggle.

Principals the challenge is there daily. My suggestion at least at primary (elementary) school level is to focus the gap minimisation on the numeracy and literacy areas of learning, maybe including digital literacy, and in all other learning areas ensure comprehensive coverage of syllabus requirements readying the students for the specialisation focus that comes in the secondary (high) school years. The secondary schools receiving students from several primary schools need detailed records of what each student has mastered in the literacy and numeracy areas along with an assurance that all other syllabus areas have received comprehensive coverage. There does not need to be the detailed handover of mastery information in these other syllabus areas.

Once again I am probably preaching a heresy, but my experience with in-servicing primary level teachers suggests they warm to this more practical approach to the demands of individualising learning.

May the Force be with You!

GD

Women in democracies

 It's a while since I posted, but with all the focus and concern in our Australian media about:

1.  The role of women and the glass ceiling, and

2. The abuse of women and girls

.....I imagine myself back in my role as a school Principal pondering on how I would manage this as part of the staff and student wellbeing programs in my school community.

Horror of horrors most of the mail on these topics has emerged because of poor practices in respect of women in of all places our federal parliament and some state parliaments.

The big word that is emerging is "respect".  This is not new in the minds of thinking women and men.

The second word that is emerging loud and clear in respect of the close relationships between adults is "consent".  Again this is not new in the minds of thinking women and men.

On point 1 above it remains clear that the current conservative federal government has a serious skewing of more men than women as Members of Parliament and now this government is talking quotas to right the imbalance.  The main opposition Labor Party has largely been down that road and created a balance of men and women. Many boardrooms in the commercial world have imbalances skewing towards more men board members, but it is fair to say that the world of commerce is far ahead of what has recently emerged in our parliamentary system. Also their are many female CEOs of large companies in Australia.

For a school Principal the only pathway is to make sure that it is part of the culture of their school that men and women are to be treated equally in providing opportunities for learning and after formal learning in the workplace. We are long past the days of restricting women to having the opportunity for a comprehensive education and the results of year 12 school graduates show that girls are right up there with their male counterparts. Girls opt for the tough STEM courses and do well. Part of this school culture is that male students may need a lot of guidance to see girls as equals in the learning space.

Point 2 above is very complex because it cuts to the heart of how men relate to women. The latest conversations in Australia report a poor attitude in some workplaces of men towards women. A lot of bullying occurs along with sexual advances exploited to various degrees from unwanted flirtation to rape. So many women have come out and declared such experiences in the commercial workplace and lately in the halls of federal parliament.  Fortunately rape is not of a high frequency but one rape is one too many. Female staffers, who work for Members of Parliament (MP), report bullying and unwanted flirtations as common in the culture of federal parliamentary administration. Rape is alleged to have occurred relatively recently in the office of a Minister in the government cabinet. "Consent" and "respect' of men for women seems to have gone out the window in the halls of our government. One should hasten to add that there are many upright male MPs to whom such accusations do not apply.  The Prime Minister is having to manage all this flak and is trying to take positive action to change the culture.  A major and very difficult task.

Also across Australia are the alarming statistics of domestic violence perpetrated almost solely by men on women.  Women die on a regular basis having been killed usually by a partner.

For the school Principal the wellbeing programs have to teach "respect" as the basis for humane relationships between and among students as they mature and as "consenting" adults of the future. The programs about sexual relationships may need strengthening to confront and remove the probabilities of men and women growing up without the "respect" that should be part of the way they live. If the schools can achieve this then the workplaces can carry on from there and observe "respect". I add here that men and women is a narrow definition of the human condition as the school needs to take into account the  LGBTQ communities. This is a difficult area for the learning program and careful communication is needed to have parents onside. Further it is clear that some men feel downgraded by the conversations that are presently occurring and the school program needs to work hard to build a culture of equality in a context that the differences between men, women and LGBTQ individuals are a strength of the democratic existence of humans in their various communities.

Within the school environment teenage and young adult students need a robust sex education program as their hormones kick in.  There has been a lot come out about senior school girls experiencing unwanted sexual advances from their male peers in the social interactions that are part of the extra-curricular and/or hidden school curriculum. Part of the robust program is to have discussion about the influence of social media and readily available pornography. What are the warning signs that various sexual behaviours are taboo in a context of "respect" and "consent"? Also peer pressure needs discussion to enable these young persons to have the strength and insight to know when resisting peer pressure is acceptable or more realistically, essential.  Again in a context of "respect" and "consent".

Oh dear I just hope that I have done this difficult topic justice being a very senior person who has been part of a gradual change from a time when a woman's place was in the kitchen to the way we are in 2021.

I thank my Mother who with little formal education gave me in my early years the view of the rightful place of women in our society.

"Life wasn't meant to be easy" is applicable to the imperatives for a school Principal in the areas of human behaviour discussed above.

May the Force be with you.

GD

 

Student well being programs vital in Covid times

 With Covid still raging around our communities across the world, Principals would do well to ensure that their staff and student well being programs are in order and up and running.

In this context I share with my reader(s) a wonderful statement by an Aboriginal woman who is Senior Australian of the year 2021:

She said: "You can't just be floating around in this world not knowing where you belong."

Wish I'd said it! Inspiring hey!

May the Force be with you!

GD

Covid upsets WA's record

 After 10 months in Western Australia (WA) with no community distribution of the virus lo and behold yesterday a case of the UK strain escaped from the quarantine regime.  Immediately the Premier locked us all down for 5 days while the authorities got straight to grips with this new threat.

Children were scheduled to return to school today, but the schools will not open for the next 5 days. A longer holiday for the students, more agony for the parents depending on how you look at it and Principals having to think about reactivating online learning plans just in case the lockdown has to continue.

Who would be a Principal in these tricky and uncertain times? I wouldn't mind being back in harness, but have to admit I would be on a steep learning curve. Hope my Principal colleagues have renewed their energies over the long summer break so that they can cope with the uncertainty that 2021 is likely to bring.

May the Force be with you!

GD

Singing

I have just attended my grand daughter's end of year concert. It was most enjoyable and cleverly built around the theme of the Covid pandemic.

I am pleased to say the the standard of singing had vastly improved on the previous year's effort.  Shouting is not singing.

As one who places a lot of credence in the value of the Performing Arts to help build self esteem I am always keen to promote excellence in whatever performance medium is used.  It takes a lot of work to teach a child to sing with sweetness and clarity.  The school choir at the recent concert was getting there but more training is needed.  Being  a co-ed primary (elementary) school I was disappointed at the few boys in the choir.  There is nothing like a well trained boy soprano voice. I listened also for the descant applied during the performance, but sadly this was not forthcoming this year.

The school band was in tune and did a good job.  I was pleased that a solo guitar was utilised to back one song with the young teenage guitarist executing brilliantly on his electric guitar.

Overall I worry that the modern pop/rock dominance in our society too strongly influences what schools do in the Performing Arts areas of song and dance. The more classical singing and dancing might be being pushed into the background. There needs to be a balance between the classic and the contemporary.

All hail the value of the Performing Arts in the development of the whole student.

May the Force be with us!

GD

Congratulations to all school Principals

 Covid 19 has meant a tense and worrying 2020 for school Principals across the world. Being ready to react at any time to a school closure due to Covid was a big challenge I am sure, followed by establishing a home schooling regime if needed.

The coming year 2021 in some countries is unlikely to be much better until vaccination programs begin to stop the spread of the virus.

Maybe the festive season will allow the drawing of breath and the recharging of batteries ready for the anticipated challenges. I hope so for the sake of my Principal colleagues and their school staff members and students.

May the Force be with you!

GD

ENTHUSIASM

 Corny, but one to share with students:

ENTHUSIASM

A code to live by

 

E nergy – Work hard; do your best at all times; throw yourself wholeheartedly into what you are doing

N ous – using your common sense to arrive at effective outcomes

T houghtfulness – Thinking you way through events, processes, actions; being helpful to others

H umour – able to laugh with others; able to laugh at yourself; generating positive happiness

U nderstanding – understanding what you need to do; being understanding of others needs

S tamina – stick to the task with grit, perseverance and courage

I nterest – be alert and interested towards everything and everyone in your immediate environment

A cumen – show sensitivity, intelligence and good judgment in what you do, in how you behave and act

S incerity – in general in life mean what you say and do; be loyal where it is deserved

M emory – apply and use your memory to help you through life; apply past learning

 

ENTHUSIASM

GD  May the Force be with you!

Once Upon A Time

 Once upon a time, many eons ago, I used to teach at primary (elementary) school level. I loved involving my students in what was labelled in the then curriculum "Nature Study".  I always hoped that by studying nature, birds, ants, reptiles, bees, and so on to light up a wonder in children for the world in which they lived. I had to set this up within my generalist classroom having no laboratory in the school and this was very restrictive.  I did not use the outside environment as much as I could have as it was not very rich in natural flora and fauna. It was inductive learning of the most basic sort yet I believe it yielded some of the wonder I was aiming for.

In 2020 the schools are so much better resourced and in a Covid free world students experience camps and excursions that provide the opportunities to develop a wonder for the natural world.  There is so much access to observable natural species and events by prima facie observation or by secondary observation through the wonderful media streams now available.

I have to recall that as a student in secondary (high) school in the 1940s and 50s : yes that long ago : I only received flashes of the wonder of the natural world, especially being intrigued by the atomic and ionic structures of matter. I think that was my fault with a lack of maturity obstructing me from benefiting from the wisdom of my science teachers.

As a school Principal I regret not interacting more with the science teachers in my school to encourage them to excite every day. To have their students thirsting for the next science learning experiences.  I suspect it is easier to excite in the biological sciences than in physics and chemistry, although when I see some of the robotics studies in today's schools and the excited faces of the students I should reserve such judgements. 

In the contemporary educational context the emphasis on environmental responsibility for the Earth and the Universe has the potential to make scientific studies more relevant to a wider range of students. I also wonder whether teachers of literature could work in a symbiotic relationship with their science colleagues through poetry genres that light one up about the natural world.  There is the whole pantheist movement of Wordsworth, Keats, Byron and Shelley. Today also drifting into my consciousness was a poem by William Henry Davies entitled "Leisure".  You may recall it

"What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs.......and so on.  Go on Google it! 

I am fascinated by clouds and love to sit and watch the changing formations, especially imagining the forces in play as clouds build up for a thunderstorm. I have even written a sonnet about this, but having mentioned Wordsworth and Co would be ashamed to bore you with it.

As a university student studying metaphysics in philosophy I was fascinated by the argument by Design for the existence of God or if you will a Supreme Being. It would be exciting to open a biology lesson with the argument by Design, where we were to microscopically explore the delicate minutiae of some organism where intricate patterns are revealed. This would not be an attempt to convert students to a belief in God, but to show them how areas of learning connect in the creative minds of humans.  All good fuel to light up the wonderment in learning. We could then pose the question: How could evolution come up with such intricate designs within these organisms?  The teacher, if not framing all this carefully might expect emails from some parents about having raised the Creation theory/evolution theory debate that challenges many educators across the United States. Might be a bit radical to do this and I would only suggest it with Senior High School students.

Buy a microscope and or a telescope for your children or grand children. If you are a school Principal, a leader of learning in your school, take a major interest about what goes on with the science teaching. I wish I'd been more active in this regard when I was a school Principal.

You probably expected I was a bit eccentric from previous posts, and now all doubts can be cast aside.

May the Force be with you!

GD

Sport in schools

 I have always loved sport and played as best I could with my lack of leg speed but reasonable ball sense. As an Australian I live in a country where sport has an almost religious fervour and sporting stars are held up as role models for the young.  My country almost becomes paranoid when an olympic games is due fuelled by a national fervour to win gold.  Underlying this fervour is the economic benefit that governments see to any country hosting the games, or the Soccer world cup or the Cricket world cup one day series and so on.  The captains of our national teams are revered. The same accord is not given to scientists or social workers although I see signs of this changing.

As a school Principal I enthusiastically promoted school athletics carnivals and team sports. Now as a reflective retired school Principal, father and grandfather I think about the involvement of my children and grandchildren in this cauldron of sporting fever.  I have mellowed considerably and changed my views about the value of sport as part of the school education journey.

First I focus my attention on the cross country running events that many schools run annually.  I see the slower runners a long way behind straggle into the finish line when to all intents and purposes the whole thing is over. I worry that one of my grand daughters spends nights of sleep loss when this annual event looms. She is not a runner, but after coming last in 2019 bravely let her parents enrol her in the running club so she could improve.  It didn't help for the 2020 cross country event and several races in the general athletics carnival that has just occurred. Some of the feedback from the school was that competing develops resilience and helps the children I guess toughen up. I have seen anecdotal research that dismissed this notion of resilience building, especially when one comes last regularly.  The researchers point to what can be a very public humiliation as one trundles up the straight when all others have long completed the event.  The good news is that my grand daughter competed in 2020 without showing much concern that she ran last in her events.  Privately she told me she was glad it was over for another year and that she hated it. In her events she ran against others of similar skill and being only four in each event she was awarded two 4th ribbons.  I guess this helped her manage any feelings of once again being last.  This is a child who performs in the top groups academically and I have gently pointed out to her that in the end it will be mathletics not athletics that matter in her life. I also share with her that her grand father was a very slow runner and had to put up with all that she is experiencing.

Why am I going on about one of my own, acting as an over-protective grand parent. I was not surprised to find, following on from the different insights of the researchers mentioned above, that schools having a free choice whether they will run a competitive event where everyone must participate regardless of their inherent physical skills, are adopting a new approach.  Recognising that some people are not fast runners or swimmers they are creating sporting events that allow the speedy to have their races while the rest of the school is involved in other cheerleader and team events. It becomes more of a fun day when all can enjoy themselves regardless of their physical attributes. This is now occurring in a private secondary school not far from where I live. Interestingly talking with one of the students I learned that she was not one of the speedy ones during her primary school years, but now having grown a lot she has discovered a talent for the longer distances in running.

If I retuned to running a school I think I would now adopt this newer approach that removes the possibility of public humiliation potentially there in competitive compulsory racing. I would also make the physical education program a focus for personal fitness inclusive of the opportunity to hone the skills and the frame that the student has inherited. I am big on this and see it as a way to build confidence in self and to move the mindset of students into the preventive medicine mode, to make each person a good steward of the physical attributes they have inherited.

May the Force be with you!

GD

 

What A World We Are Living In

 Having now experienced online learning with my grand children I take my hat off to the innovative teachers who, at a moments notice, because that is all the notice Covid19 gives us, switched to a full online learning program.  Each morning the program for the day divided into typical school periods was ready for download.  The day commenced with a Zoom meeting setting up the planned learning experiences. Then we got on with it, stopping for morning recess and lunch.  It was like a school day at home. Apart from the wifi groaning under the strain of three students from our house being online all went well until eventually the children were able to return to school full time.

At present the students of the state of Victoria, Australia are back online as the authorities and the populace of Victoria battle to bring a devastating Covid outbreak under control. The good news is that they are winning the battle day by day.

In this unpredictable environment I imagine myself back in harness as a school Principal. I would need to be very agile, as commentators are won't to say these days. As well as disaster plans and building evacuation plans I would now have to be in daily readiness with a Covid19 plan. If and when an outbreak occurred the school would be closed for 'deep cleaning' and we would need to flick the switch to online learning. Underlying this would be the understandable nervousness of the student and staff bodies now faced with a probable 14 days home isolation and Covid testing.

In maintaining preparedness in this fluid environment I as the Principal would have to give much thought about the longer term effects on student learning and the related student wellbeing. I would not be over worried at gaps in the learning of the students at this point, but if there were to be more Covid disruption this could become disastrous for students who do not find learning easy. Solutions do not spring to mind as I write this post. Of a more focussed and immediate concern I would have to have action plans right now for the cohort of students facing final year 12 assessments. This is a stressful and vital time in their lives. 

In Australia there is a team response to this with state assessment bodies and on-the-ground educators seeking the best solution for the 2020 cohort.  Principals will thankfully know what to do, but only time will tell if the decisions were appropriate for these senior students.

My blog is themed as "Schoolprincipalship,yougottaloveit", but many of today's Principals might find this a bit of a stretch under the current pandemic.

May the Force be with all who wage the battle to bring the pandemic to a close.

GD

Preparing for the Unknown

Been off air for a time, but here I am again.

Still stuck on this theme of school Principals and their teachers needing to seriously contemplate preparing students for an unknown world and what this means for the contemporary curriculum. It would be a process of thinking into the future maybe guided by the views of top futurists and ethicists. In a crowded organisational environment like a school this requires valuable time, but I believe it to now be essential.

The Covid19 pandemic has made us all sit up and think how vulnerable we are as humans on this planet. How can we survive such things if we do not act in a globally constructive manner? Nationalism is rife as countries withdraw into themselves.  The pandemic has once again revealed that under such disastrous happenings the inequalities of peoples across the world, including within my own country Australia, are heightened. The poor, the unemployed, the displaced persons as refugees will suffer most. While the pandemic rages people are still being killed by modern weaponry in various conflicts fuelled by power struggles based on religion, territorial disputes and what I can only describe as power-grabbing narcism of some would be dictators.

Ways of waging war are advancing at an exponential rate and are becoming more insidious like the computer hacking attacks by one country upon another that are now commonly reported. Unmanned drones fly in and bomb with so-called precision however the collateral damage to the innocent bystanders still occurs.

This morning I read the following quotation from the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov:

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."

I also am becoming aware of the concept of "cultural cancelling" fanned by the mind blowing communication power of social media.  If you don't like what someone says cancel them! Of course this has to be tempered by the stand we must make against hate type speech. We cannot allow blatant verbal and physical attacks on vulnerable people, for example, as manifest in racial discrimination. Also maybe it is acceptable to cancel the accolades that a statue of a slave trader might receive as a part of our history. Cultural cancelling has a positive and negative side and I see in my own country those who would cancel the pleas and protests from our indigenous Aboriginal people to be recognised in the Australian constitution and to have a special 'voice to parliament'. Surprise, surprise, they even want a treaty in a context of the 1788 colonial invasion of their lands as they perceive it to be. I pray that all this is achieved for them before I leave this mortal coil and at my age this is something that I contemplate a little more often than in the past.

All of the above sits in a context of how people will meet their basic needs in a future where the nature of work is unclear.

By now you will be exhausted or even offended by the picture I have painted.  My purpose is to declare that schools cannot solve these major issues, but they can produce graduates who believe in the power of the individual to make a difference, an individual who had the opportunity to study ethics at senior high school and first year university. I recommend that the study of ethics be compulsory at these levels, but not formally assessed as part of society's recognition of a need to prepare each student for the unknown.  Ethics will be a tool to enable better coping mechanisms in a context of the world described above. Ethics will provide a confidence in the young that they can cope with optimism and a true sense of humanity.

Now I've done it! Who knows how readers will react, but I must take the plunge. It is important in concluding that I note that contemporary curricula in Australia do provide opportunities to study ethics. I simply want to emphasise the importance of this field of learning.



May the Force be with you!


GD

Bullying

I'm sure there is a plethora of research studies on bullying in schools.

I've seen a bit of bullying lately from the subtle 'I was your buddy yesterday, but today am talking with other friends and am not inclined to include you in this interaction' to the outright nasty comment delivered in a variety of ways, not the least of which is via social media devices.

I've noted that girls can be particularly cruel to one another.  Even a little one of 8 years texting to another "I'm cool and you're not".

A mum said to me today that she agreed girls can be vicious to one another, but she does not observe this in boys. She has both amongst her family and cites a particularly bad year for bullying experienced by her daughter. She changed schools and all was well. I'm not saying the bullying caused the change to another school as I don't know the facts of that matter.

I ask the question : Are boys less prone to bullying than girls?  I just am not on top of the research in this area.

I hold to the view that a school community with a skilfully crafted student/staff wellbeing program will have less bullying.  Can anyone out there substantiate my hypothesis or on the other hand refute it with hard research evidence? In my time as a Principal I was concerned with the wellbeing of all staff and students, but did not have a purposefully crafted wellbeing program.  Such a thing was unheard of in my time. This is not an excuse it just wasn't talked about professionally to any great extent.



May the Force be with you!


GD

Still Learning

In my previous post I lauded teachers and principals for the way they have risen to the challenges of online learning for students as a result of the covid pandemic. I also mentioned that I'd been able to mentor my young grand children as they participated in the online learning from home.

It was a learning experience watching the skills of 8 and 9 year olds year olds in using the iPad, the vehicle for the learning.  Even more exciting was my re-education on how maths is taught today.

I had left the classroom environment before the use of mathematical things such as the number line appeared in the curriculum. I had been clinging to the view that a sound grounding in automatic response to knowing the multiplication tables and the number facts to 19 were a basic grounding to achieving numeracy. Also being effective in bridging tens for addition. I clung to this view even in the context of calculators being available. I was enlightened in seeing my grand children use the number line to carry out complex addition and subtraction. They were learning to tackle theses tasks in a problem solving sort of way rather than just utilising the automatic responses of which I speak.

I also marvelled at their knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes and how they understood faces, edges and vertices. They were even into a more geometric approach to angles within the 360 degree spectrum.

'Look it's nothing new', I hear you say, 'you have just been away form the coalface for too long'. Be that as it may I am beginning to see the STEM influence across the mathematic's curriculum.  I have been converted from a view that the mathematicians had hijacked the school maths syllabus to the detriment of the necessary attainment of functional numeracy.

Despite all of the above revelations I still think it would be easier all round for students if they achieved the automatic responses noted above.  These could be applied within the problem solving approach.  I could see where my grandies laboured at times because they did not know the appropriate tables and number facts.  They were resorting to counting on fingers and saying the appropriate time tables from the beginning until they reached the table needed.  Very laborious despite the new methods they had available.

A constructive blending of the old with the relatively new might be the answer.

Got to say that for my teenage grandchild I was blown away by the idea of using Excel in calculating
surface area variations in 3D shapes.  This for me is STEM truly in action in the contemporary mathematic's approach.

Oh to be young again and experiencing innovative teachers of maths going about the business of opening up such a wide range of career choices through the STEM approach.

Please don't be too hard on me you maths' experts out there.

May the Force be with you!


GD

An Educational Revolution

While universities have been running online learning for some time now Covid19 has meant that for weeks Australian schools have been teaching students online as they maintained isolation measures at home.

I was privileged to mentor my grand children in this online learning and I compliment the teachers on how they adjusted and brought effective learning into the many homes. This was a new thing for these teachers but they met the challenge as I always maintain teachers do.  I think it opened the eyes of many parents just how complex and demanding the teaching job can be. This week my grandies returned to full time attendance at school. I could hear the sighs of relief form many parents whispering across the land.

I take my hat off to the Principals who have been faced with complex decisions during the Covid pandemic.  Traditionally schools have a detailed emergency evacuation and disaster response plan. Now they also have a Covid plan to keep students and staff safe and to respond quickly to a student or staff member testing positive.

I've not written a post for some time owing to the passing of a loved one from my family, but here I am back on deck with maybe a few more tiresome thoughts from a retired Principal.  I say again being a school principal is one of the most rewarding jobs on the planet.

May the Force be with you!

GD

Educator bashing

Been off air for some time but becoming sick of the teacher and school Principal criticism by politicians in Australia.  They just don't get it, that is, how complex it is to run a school and to teach.

It is true that contemporary teachers and Principals are under more pressure than in my days as a teacher and Principal, however even in those days these vital jobs were no walk in the park.

The nub of the criticism is that Australian students are falling behind in the world rankings in literacy, numeracy and science learning. The stats for Australian students on the PISA (Program or International Student Assessment) were viewed negatively, most recently in New South Wales where the Premier of that State expressed concern at the decline in mathematics on the PISA tests (Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February, 2020, p18).

The stats from the Australian annual NAPLAN (National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy) testing are always under eagle eye political scrutiny. The results in recent years have drawn a lot of criticism from politicians.  The irony in my view is that the administration of and coaching for these tests takes up too much teacher and student time that would be better spent on mastering the prescribed curriculum learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy. Australia has an excellent national curriculum K-12 and each state has its variations of this.

I have laboured long and hard in this blog to indicate the strategy to overcome the above deficiencies.  It is based at least in Primary (Elementary) school around mastery in the English language skills and mathematics skills, knowledge and understandings.  At this level of schooling there is no need for rigorous mastery of the prescribed syllabus learning outcomes in the other subject areas except perhaps for Digital Technology and Science.  I wouldn't even require mastery of in science at this level.  I would be contented to be able to say for these non mastery syllabus areas that my graduating students have covered all the required learning outcomes in these non mastery areas and are enthusiastic and ready for the more specialised requirements of Secondary (High) schooling. I would be able to have each graduating student carry detailed records for literacy and numeracy into the hands of the receiving Secondary school teachers.  Throughout the primary school years each student's report would show a special comment section on how they are progressing in attaining in functional literacy and numeracy. Parents want to know this.

Readers there is so much detail in previous posts about all this with the above being a brief recap.

As for School Principals any Principal worth their salt will be regularly assessing how their school community is going against a set of school effectiveness criteria.  Hopefully their training makes them competent  to do this.  Such effective Principals would be confident to open their schools to an external effectiveness audit at any time.  Previous posts cover all this in detail.

Without being a showoff it would be useful for politicians to read the posts in this blog.

Frustrated as ever!

May the Force be with you.

Email the blight of School Principals

I am told and read that one of the major problems for the contemporary school Principal is parents being able to email the school.  A proportion of these parents expect almost instant response and tend to become angry when this is not possible under the weight of all the emails a school receives. It is becoming more frequently reported that Principals experience parental abuse some of which is physical.

I can only imagine the additional burden this is for Principals, who are under other major pressures like the expectation of top level student academic output.  In Australia this latter pressure comes for the politicians when Australian students do not perform well in standardised compulsory academic tests.

Teachers also can be emailed and I am in no doubt are under the same pressures.

Physical abuse of teachers also seems to be on the rise from students and parents.  I recently observed a TV program interviewing teachers now in a poor mental state as a result of student abuse.

I hypothesise that the answer to this is to build a strong and purposeful wellbeing program that embraces within a school community the students, the staff and the parental cohort. I suspect that such a school community culture would push back on parental and student aggressiveness.  Within that climate of wellbeing there would be no room for such aggressiveness. It would become the exception rather than the rule.

I might now expect some comments that I have been out of the Principal game for too long and have become too altruistic.  I defend myself in anticipation by stating firmly that I would establish the wellbeing culture should I once again be in the position of Principal. Every child and every staff member should enter the school gates every day feeling respected and loved as members of their school community.  The same should apply to parents.

I have not touched upon the potential for parents and students to use social media platforms to stir up trouble for school Principals and teachers. I guess such perpetrators would have to be careful what they put out there in what could be classified as the public domain.



May the Force be with you!


GD

Light them up to learning

One of the key jobs of the school Principal as educational leader of their school community is to constantly and enthusiastically create a climate in which the students want to learn and every teacher is enthusiastic and inspirational.

Keeping an eye out for teachers who are losing their edge for whatever reason is vital.  Remedial action needs to be taken by the Principal to re-inspire that teacher.

An outsider coming into a school should feel the vibe of teachers at the top off their game and students filled with a desire to learn. Is it a happy school?

May the Force be with you!


GD

Helen - secondary (high) school Principal on future proofing students

At last I've got to Helen. What I write about her is in a context of my related posts about future proofing students.  Here goes:

Helen – Secondary School Principal

Helen faced a different situation in some ways to John. She knew that there were requirements for secondary school graduation to meet State defined standards and the entry requirements of Universities and the Vocational tertiary education providers.

She was determined to create a teacher in-service opportunity where she would lead a seminar where the pre-reading would be:

·      Best Careers for the Future 51 Jobs;

·      The blog post, What Does a future With No Jobs Look Like;

·      The Executive Briefing by McKinsey Global May 2017; 

·      Fullan Michael, “The nuance of academic achievement” Australian Educational Leader, Vol 41, Term 1, 2019, pp 8-10.

The purpose would be to inform the teaching team of her school and to attempt to draw out implications for implementing the Western Australian version of the Australian National Curriculum(WAANC). Her student population covered the school years 7 to 12. She knew she would have Leopards, Jaguars and Panthers. She had faith in classes being cross set for learning. She worried that in year 10 students would need to make a choice abut the path they would follow for university entrance, for entering the vocational education and job market stream or the general course stream for students who did not want to take up either of the other two pathways.  This latter was like a middle option.

She had heeded the warning in the McKinsey, May 2017, Executive Briefing that “The disruptions to the world of work that digital technologies are likely to bring about could pose significant challenges to policy makers and business leaders, as well as workers.” She had taken note from this Briefing that education systems and learning needed to evolve “…for a changed workplace” and that  “Policy makers working with education providers (traditional and nontraditional)”……had been advised that they “….could do more to improve basic STEM skills through the school systems, put a new emphasis on creativity as well as critical and systems thinking, and foster adaptive and life-long learning.”

During the mid 1980s she had been inspired by the education guru Michael Fullan as she valiantly tried to achieve a better understanding of how to bring about successful change in education.  Lo and behold she had now come across the guru again in an article “The nuance of academic achievement” in the Australian Educational Leader, Vol 41, Term 1 2019, pp 8-10.  Could this assist her introspection about how the WAANC might be implemented in her school in a context of a future partially predicted, but much of which was unknown.

Fullan’s central argument was that we had gone overboard in emphasising academic achievement and had paid scant attention to ‘connectedness’ or being ‘good at life’, wellbeing if you will.  Fullan postulates that the two go together and if they are treated together academic achievement and connectedness will feed off each other and be achieved at a high level.  Helen, like school Principals across Australia, had experience with the compulsory literacy and numeracy testing required annually by all years3,5,7 and 9 students. This was the NAPLAN system.  Politicians at the federal government level seemed for many years to be obsessed with Australia’s poor ranking in literacy and numeracy and science with other OECD countries.

Fullan writes of ‘deep learning’ the key goal of which is to ‘engage the world, change the world’. Fullan writes”

“Our six core learning goals similarly encompass academic and connectedness goals through the 6Cs:character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking. The strong pedagogy of our four pillars of learning (partnerships, engaging pedagogy, stimulating learning environments, and leveraging digital), are also in the service of centring on both academic and wellbeing goals.” (p10)

Helen reflected how the McKinsey Briefing revealed elements that resonated in the context of what Fullan proposed:

“Educational systems have not kept pace with the changing nature of work, resulting in many employers saying they cannot find enough workers with the skills they need. In a McKinsey survey of young people and employers in nine countries, 40 percent of employers said lack of skills was the main reason for entry-level job vacancies. Sixty per cent said that new graduates were not adequately prepared for the world of work. There were gaps in technical skills such as STEM subject degrees but also in soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and punctuality.”

Helen was comforted as she reflected on the purposeful student, staff and parent wellbeing programs working effectively across her school community.

Helen wanted to implement the policy of mastery of basic skills and knowledge that were prerequisites for the next step in learning within key subject areas such as: English literacy, mathematical numeracy, digital and design technologies.  It would be heads down and get the job done and all this within the context of the broader life understanding and participating subjects like the Humanities and the Arts, especially the performing Arts.  She had a sense too that some study of ethics would be vital as students faced the exponential rate of change that now existed and would exist into the future. The Western Australian Curriculum (WAANC) for years 11 and 12 had a Philosophy and Ethics offering the difficulty would be to enable every student to partake of this.

The organisation for learning in secondary schools had traditionally been specialist subject teachers working each within their speciality with not much scope for integrated across-subject studies. Helen wanted to make some adjustments within this speciality regime, especially within the STEM fields as the evidence was mounting that practical integrated study with life applications was an effective approach.  The challenge was whether within that structure the mastery principle could still be applied.

Helen reflected on a set of underlying principles and skills that must be evident across the learning program. In no particular order these were:

·      Curiosity – utilising and encouraging this student trait;

·      Enthusiasm – utilising and encouraging this in students and not just for school learning but for life in the wider sense;

·      Critical thinking – developing in students a high level of skill in this vital area

·      Lateral thinking – applauding and encouraging this.

·      Collaboration and teamwork – this would be vital for detailed across-subject integrated practical studies – also there would need to be an awareness creating about the dangers of ‘group think’ and that there is a place for mavericks who think laterally;

·      Creativity – fostering this at every opportunity;

·      Adaptive and lifelong learning – developing this within each student;

·      Communication – so vital for learning and living in general; educating about the dangers of the social media grabs and the power of social media for good and evil;

·      Validity of information – building a caution to always want to prove the validity of each source of information, refusing to accept vague and unproven materials; primary and secondary sources are the specifics of this – the internet can carry a lot of false and invalid information;

·      Digital excellence – digital literacy needed to be leveraged at all costs;

·      Connectedness and being good at life;

·      Ethical awareness – educating how this is an essential measure to be applied throughout life to all sorts of situations;

·      Self awareness – being comfortable in one’s skin – being able to reach a position on the ultimate nature of reality such that one is comfortable and not continually troubled – suggesting that a base for such reality is the loving relationships that one has with close loved ones and friends – it’s also okay to be Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish; Christian, Muslim as long as one avoids fundamentalism to the extent that one wants, even insists, that all others to be like them – fostering the Australian way of a ‘fair go’ for all, and the Australian mateship that defines us as a people;

·      Humour – develop and nurture a sense of humour in students.

Helen wanted desperately to have all her teachers identify positively with the above list with each ensuring that these principles are reflected in their teaching.  This would be a major in-service commitment, a venture not to be hurried. She was not going to be a radical change agent who is seen to want to be rid of the values of the traditional specialist teaching approach rather she wants to adjust for more flexible learning organisational structures.  She knows how thrilling it is to sit at the feet of an inspirational specialist teacher, a guru.

******************

I would relish the opportunity to be back as a school Principal educating my staff about the contexts for the future and how our curriculum implementation might take this into account.  

May the Force be with all school Principals who have one of the most important jobs on this planet in whatever country they live.

GD