Hereora: A future focused collaboration

Learning with digital technologies is a big part of the future-focused inquiry but for us. We want to make sure that our leaders in our school, our key people who are driving transformation of learning in our school, that it’s not just about using those technologies but learning about the power of them and learning for those people. It’s about learning how to lead in that environment. And so, that for us has been one of the crucial elements of it, that it’s making sure that those people have the skills, and the ability, and the capacity to actually bring about key movement for our school. Our goal’s around collaborate, inquire, and aspire. The aspire one is incredibly exciting because it seems that things are almost boundless for what’s happening for students in the future. And, I think for them to continue to be curious and creative and all those things that we want young New Zealanders to be, we need to look at ways of meeting their needs. And so, we are spending a lot of time thinking about – how do we actually do that? How do we provide the environment, and the learning, and the opportunities so that students do have agency over what they’re doing and actually that they’re making decisions about their learning? We’re in a position where we’re just facilitating that and helping them grow and learn as they go. Within that, student agency is a really important part of that and that’s something that we’re needing to continue to develop. Hearing lots of voices and perspectives within what we do, I think for us there’s been a real shift in dialogue from what I’m hearing around the school that’s at student level and also at teacher level. So, the conversations have changed significantly that I’m hearing amongst the teachers and within their team meetings. The dialogue is different. The questions they’re asking each other are different and that’s filtering down to the children as well. When I walk around and speak to the children, they’re speaking differently about their learning and leading it significantly more.