The beautiful Wellington Sunrise Last week was the NZPF Conference down in beautiful Wellington. As always, it was a good opportunity to spend time with other leaders at the end of a very busy term, and a chance to think about all things educational – both locally and internationally. Todays blog is simply…
The ‘F’ Word – Part Two
I recently blogged about ‘Why Schools Need to Employ the ‘F’ Word More’ and by ‘F’ word, I was referring to FUN. In my last post I discussed the importance of authentic learning opportunities and engaging students in the learning process. At the end of that post I made mention that we had a SNOW DAY. Today was…
Why Schools Need To Employ the ‘F’ Word More
I use my favourite ‘F’ word at work all the time. So much so, that I am sure that my staff get tired of hearing me banging on about it. In fact, it is almost a running joke around our place. Only, it is not a joke – I am quite serious.This ‘F’ word you…
Those Dreaded Few Words…Do You Have a Minute?
Imagine if you will, that you are sitting at your desk, busily beavering away at the three quadtrillion (yes that is a word) things on your ‘to do’ list. Outwardly, you are looking calm and on top of all your tasks, even if your heart is doing that flip-jack, twitchy thing that suggests that inwardly,…
BMWs and Fur Coats
Recently I had the privilege to visit another school with my Digital Improvement Team leader. It gave us the opportunity to converse with other like minded educationalists, poke around in a few of their classrooms, and most importantly, see education through the lens of someone other than ourselves. It is not often we get an…
12 Solution Focused Coaching Takeaways
At the end of last week I attended a Solutions Focus Master Coaching class. It was two days of jam packed coaching goodness, where we were taken through the process of how to incorporate the Solutions Focus approach into our coaching. It was enlightening and it gave me additional skills that I can use as…
Self Review and Change
This morning I was participating in a Twitter chat on Change at #asiaED. The question that inspired this blog post was “How do you stay focussed and take care of you when working on change projects?”. My answer to that was that I have found self review is a good driver of change because it…
School Principal’s Day – I know
This is my first #edsketch2015 for May – seemed fitting at the timeno awards for drawing heading my way anytime soon! Today, May 1st, is School Principal’s day. I have been doing this job for over a decade, and if it wasn’t for the presenter…
When Your Strengths Blindside You
I have had an epiphany. Not a world changing, best thing since sliced bread kind of sudden enlightenment, but one that might help with my own leadership.One of the books I am reading is The Principal: Three Keys to Maximising Impact by Michael Fullan. It is a follow up from his book Whats Worth Fighting…
Strengths Vs Weaknesses
In a previous post, I wrote about how sometimes your strengths as a leader can blindside you and become your weakness. You can read about that here. As a leader, it is always a good thing to know more about ourselves so that we can continue to improve and do the best we can. After…