KNOWLEDGE IN OUR HANDS – NZPF CONFERENCE 2016
Liz Hawes & Patrick Purcell
Conference Opening
SKYCITY Convention Centre set the stage for the splendidopening ceremony of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation (NZPF)/Australian Primary Principals’ Association (APPA)Trans-Tasman conference this year. Almost one thousand delegates from both countries, together with special guests from Canada, The UK and the Pacific Islands were treated to a rousing powhiri followed by an Aboriginal ‘Acknowledgement of Country’ led by two aboriginal educators, Donna Bridge from Western Australia and Leonie Ebzery from Eastern Australia. It was the perfect way to demonstrate the strong connections each country has to their cultural roots and to each other.
More than that, in the true spirit of embracing the wider Oceania region, the conference welcomed five principals from the Pacific Islands, three from Samoa and two from Tonga. These principals were all sponsored by New Zealand Principals’ Associations includingCanterbury (CPPA), Auckland (APPA) and Otago (OPPA). We extend our sincere thanks to these associations for their generosity. The Pacific Island principals all found the experience hugely worthwhile, and would never have had the opportunity to attend without the support of New Zealand principals. As Sao Tolaiwrote, on returning home after the conference:
‘I express my sincere thanks and bring you words of gratitude for the golden opportunity you have given me to attend the 2016 Trans-Tasman conference. It was a great experience to learn from your people and the principals that I have met. Presentations were so interesting and I have learned and gained a lot from all those awesome stories that have been shared…I am now back to work and still the memories of the conference and the time over there in New Zealand remain.’
As a Pacific country, we are proud to support our Pacific neighbours and hope that the connections now made will endure. We hope to extend our support to more principals in the Pacific in the future.
At the conclusion of the traditional hongi ceremony NZPF President Iain Taylor energetically welcomed the conference delegates and special guests. He highlighted challenges that both Australian and New Zealand school leadersshare. The global education reform movement, he said, had hit both our countries hard with a relentless emphasis on data analysis and league tables for comparing schools. On the positive side he talked about the Principal Leadership Advisory Service emerging in New Zealand and thanked ‘our Australian colleagues from New South Wales’ who last year shared their own model of principal support with NZPF leaders. ‘We were able to translate many features of your system into a system for our own principals here in New Zealand,’ he said, ‘and we thank you for that.’
In reference to the conference theme ‘Knowledge in our hands’ he reminded the principals that they are the curriculum experts. They are the ones with the knowledge and experience and it’s up to them to give every kid the best future possible irrespective of politics.
A spine-tingling haka and poi dance followed. The electrified audience gave the performers a rousing ovation forwhat had been a very movingand powerful welcome ceremony.
New Zealand and Australian Presidents’ Opening Speeches
A highly spirited display of story-telling through music and dance by the ‘Pacific Fusion Group’ was the backdrop to NZPF President Iain Taylor’s ‘state of the nation’ speech.He acknowledged the dazzling performance of his own Manurewa Intermediate School students andaddressed his audience saying, ‘They arethe reason we are all here!’
The conference programme, he said,was testimony to the fact that the most qualified group to address twenty-first century educational challenges was the teaching profession itself. The knowledge is in our hands, he told his audience, along with the experience and the skills to promote learning and to find solutions to learning challenges. He urged his audience not to buckle under system and policy changes if they did not help children learn better, strengthen our teaching teams or make us more passionate leaders. Children’s learning, he said, is far too important. We must not divert our energies away from this task for a single second and anything that gets in the way must be minimised, he said.
He defended the model of a high quality public education system which allows every parent to send their child to the local school knowing that it will be a great school. He located public education as a corner stone of democracy where the public good of creating knowledgeable, informed, critically aware, caring, tolerant citizens far outweighed any private advantage.
Taylor did not endorse global education reforms, describing them as ‘a misguided movement’ that had captured our government, like many others around the world. Driven by privatisation ideology the global reforms focus on turning state schools into publicly funded private schools. Taylor used the UK example to show how state schools are being converted into branded ‘Academy’ (sponsored) schools which in turn are clustered under ‘Multi-Academy Trusts’ (MATs). MATs have a single principal to lead the schools in the cluster. Through the MATs, PLD and other funded education services are distributed to the cluster member schools. Accountabilities under this system lie in artificially constructed assessment scores in literacy and numeracy incentivising schools to compete for the highest school performance measure in these two areas rather than embracing a broad curriculum which would better prepare students for a successful and productive future.
‘That is not the Kiwi way,’ Taylor insisted. ‘That is a system that cheats children of a full and fair education,’ he said. ‘We are not mainstream standardised thinkers and nor do we want to be,’ he said. He offered a number of examples of inventive New Zealanders to illustrate his point, including renowned architect IanAthfield. ‘We are creative thinkers and must be free to think differently because that’s who we are as Kiwis,’ he said.
‘To prepare kids for their new world, he said, ‘we need a rich curriculum – and we have that. We have to teach kids to love learning, to dare to dream, be resilient and self-reliant, to have a go, persevere, be caring and contributing citizens, be culturally intelligent, be tolerant, work together as a team, be inventive, problem solve, question and be critical and creative thinkers.’
His final words reflected a return to his earlier mantra of not blindly following global trends. ‘We know what to do and I say to all of you, ignore the distractions! Put our kids first and just do it, our way, the Kiwi way!
The President of the Australian Primary Principals’ Association, Dennis Yarrington,focussed on three main areas. These included predictability of funding; leadership training; and lifting teacher standards.
He talked of the importance of politicians prioritising long-term investment in education so that the profession can better respond to every child’s educational needs. Yarrington called for ‘A funding arrangement that takes account of student need, values students equally and is transparent and predictable.’ School leaders, he said, need funding certainty to be effective leaders.
He had more to say on school leaders, adding that his Association supported ‘the development and implementation of a national course in leadership to prepare [first time] principals. He similarly endorsed lifting teacher standards through ‘A rigorous [initial teacher education] course curriculum that is contemporary and designed to see graduates ‘classroom ready’ …and prepared for the complexity of teaching.’
Primary education was the most important area to focus on in Yarrington’s view because ‘the early and primary years are where the educational and social foundation for a child’s future is established and where the parents and schools work together to deliver the best outcomes for every child.’
He concluded by thanking the organisers and sponsors of the conference and encouraged the delegates from both countries to go out and enjoy their conference experience.
Minister of Education Hon HekiaParata
President Iain Taylor had a message for Minister Parata as he introduced her. ‘You have often likened our education system to a jet plane saying teaching professionals are the jet fuel. Well we want to be more than that,’ he said, ‘we want to be in the room building that jet plane.’
Minister Parata thanked Taylor for his introduction, promising to return to the jet plane. She extended her own welcome to all the delegates acknowledging the indigenous Australian members, Canadian and Pacific Island visitors.
She referred to the ‘Pacific Fusion’school performance saying, ‘Sometimes challenge and difficulties blind us to the wonderful cultural mix that we have in our country and how normal it is for us to get up on a stage, irrespective of our cultural background and acknowledge our tangata whenua and position in the Pacific. She said New Zealanders are growing in cultural fluency and our challenge is to find out what turns each of our cultures on to learning. ‘We are getting stronger at doing this,’ she said. ‘We have to find ways of engaging with kids that work for them…We want the brightest future for all our kids irrespective. We can’t waste a generation for a single kid,’ she said.
The Minister then took up Taylor’s challenge, to be involved in ‘building the jet plane’ or co-creating education policy. She said she was often praised in international forums for taking account of sector views through reference groups and ministerial forums, adding ‘It’s not my job to tell you how to teach or lead. My job is building systems.’
She went on to say that there are concerns that our performance on international league tables such as PISA is flat-lining and we are dropping in Maths. She noted we do not have enough people trained in science, technology, engineering or mathematics and there are too many Māori, Pacific Island, educationally challenged and poorer children still not succeeding.
According to the Minister, the solutions do not lie in pouring more money into the system although the government had increased funding for Vote Education to $11billion. She acknowledged that there are factors outside of the school that can impact on achievement and so the government was supporting the ‘breakfast in schools’programme and had increased beneficiary levels. They were also investing in roll growth and new classrooms. She told the audience that her job was to shift system levers to lift achievement, not put money into extra initiatives.
One of the ways she was approaching this was through the funding review. ‘I share your concerns,’ she said, ‘about the unintentional outcomes of the decile system of funding. It stigmatises the lower decile schools and brands the high decile schools.’ Future funding would be targeting the size of a school’s challenge, not the size of the school roll.
Although voluntary, she also encouraged principals to join a Community of Learning (CoL), saying ‘Be early adopters!’ She noted that principals have always collaborated, ‘…but only with people you like!’ she quipped. ‘CoLson the other hand,are professional collaborations along whole pathways from early childhood to tertiary level,’ she said. One of the greatest points of vulnerability, she noted is transitions which‘…parents and kids have to negotiate alone.’ ‘CoLs are intended to fix that,’ she said.
She concluded by thanking the delegates for everything they do for kids on both sides of the Tasman and said:
‘We agree we want the best for every child. We agree education can make that difference and we agree you know best for your kids. And I know how to navigate big system levers like legislation, like data, to support you to be powerful actors in the lives of our fabulous future New Zealanders.’
Keynote Speakers
Dr Linda Kaser and Dr Judy Halbert (BC, Canada) ‘Networks of Inquiry & Innovation, Curiosity & Teamwork’
The two Canadian academics were always going to please. First, Dr Kaser told us that much of their work is a think tank from work done in New Zealandby well-respected educational experts such as Helen Timperley, Viviane Robinson and Dame Marie Clay. Secondly, they represented ‘Inquiry Learning’,a teaching and learning philosophywell removed from the assessment data driven culture that has dominated New Zealand schools since the introduction of national standards. An inquiry approach is not a solution approach. It is not a standardised approach.
Inquiry learning has found favour with many teaching professionals in New Zealand because it enables deeper learning for students whilst simultaneously focuses on teachers as learning professionals.
Inquiry learning is about asking questions of one’s practice. It is not about looking outside for answers. In this way it takes account of context and the evidence that emerges from that. Context, then, is at the centre of change.
It is not surprising that New Zealand principals and teachers are attracted to the Inquiry approach to learning given the diversity of school contexts in New Zealand and the commitment to localised curriculum.
Diversity was also the subject of Kaser and Halbert and the importance of collaboration amongst countries. ‘How might we celebrate our common goals between the Yukon in Canada, Australia and New Zealand?’ asked Kaser. ‘We need to collaborate more,’ she said. She was quick to identify two outstanding school examples in New Zealand. She identified Willowbank Primary School and Albany Senior High Schoolfor the way they accommodate diversity with an inquiry based curriculum. She also talked about Lurnea Public School in a poorer Sydney suburb and the ways in which the young students there were learning to have agency over their own learning even though 27 of the teachers were all in their early teaching years. Every week, Kaser was sharing a video of literacy ideas with the Lurnea School teachers.
Kaser said there was so much to be learned from First Nations people and at the heart of this new Inquiry approach to learning was an aboriginal concept of ‘cwelelep’. Cwelelep refers to being in a place of dissonance, uncertainty and anticipation of new learning. Reflection is another important aspect of Inquiry and aboriginal colleagues bring to this the concept of ‘kat’il’a’ which means the act of becoming still, slowing down, despite an ingrained and urgent need to know and desire for busyness.
Kaser said they were fortunate to be in British Columbia (BC) which has one of the most multi-cultural and multi-linguistic education systems in the world. ‘In BC,’ she said, ‘we have networked Inquiry which provides a story of purpose, coherence, persistence and teamwork.’ ‘Our goal is that by 2020 we will have every learner crossing the stage with dignity, purpose and options.’ The challenge is palpable when you consider that one in five children in BC is living in poverty. Success is dependent on fostering children’s curiosity. ‘If we get our poor kids reading by grade four, they do better in tertiary education than richer kids,’ she said. One of the keys to this success, according to Kaser, is respect for an indigenous world view. ‘The more we understand, the better society we will have,’ she said.
Dr Judy Halbert then introduced the audience to ‘The Spiral of Inquiry’, a concept developed collaboratively by Timperley, Kaser and Halbert.
‘The Spiral of Inquiry,’ said Halbert, ‘is a maintenance programme which brings results.’ There are a number of elements beginning with ‘scanning’. ‘We scan to gain a deeper understanding of what’s going on for our learners,’ she said. ‘We ask questions of the students like ‘Can you name two adults in this setting who believe you will be a success in life? What are you learning and why is it important? How are you doing with your learning? Where are you going next with your learning?
‘The answers we get to these questions give us a focus or clarity, which is the next stage of Inquiry. ‘Focussing allows us to have conversations about where we direct our greatest resource for the best outcome,’ she said. This stage is energising and morale-boosting leading to short term wins and longer term understandings. By taking the time to reflect carefully and discuss thoroughly, teachers can develop approaches that are relevant to the students because they have come from the students. They might be as diverse as using i-pads for writing for the previously uninvolved learners or including a brisk physical activity at the start of the day.
To better understand where learners are at, we then ask deeper questions like ‘what is leading to this situation? How are we [as teachers] contributing to this? ‘We call this phase, developing a hunch,’ she said.It is about getting all the views on the table so they can be tested and discussed. It requires every participant to listen carefully to the different views and takes honesty and courage. Community and student views are also sought and care is taken not to blame any group or circumstance because blaming will not change anything. It is about standing back and considering how teachers may be contributing to learners’ situations and then developing new professional learning. What is important to this stage is deciding what to learn and how to access necessary new learning. Formal theories and research evidence form the basis of this stage to ensure that learning strategies are not chosen just because they are available. It may be that the answer lies in being open to the wisdom of Indigenous understandings. The goal is to produce innovative practices that work well in the context of the learners. One of the critical elements to achieving the goal is finding the time and the expertise for new learning to take place.