Looking back to look forward

End of term is always a time of reflection and rightly so. Looking back is a great way to look forward as to where you are going. This has been an eventful term in so far as having a new team member, tweaking teaching and learning in our workshops. There is nothing static about this job!

I have been incredible grateful for having two superb team members who are open to new ideas (and I have plenty) and ways of doing things. They in turn are amazing with their creative input and IT skills. As we move to a more collaborative teaching team throughout this year, there is so much professional learning and growth I want to inspire in my team colleagues - small steps at a time (even though I wan to run!) We are all still teaching in a single cell classrooms but we are working towards seamless teaching and learning.

Relentless Restlessness
Today our school was very privileged to visit Waitakiri School.  If I was inspired before today to move forward into collaborative teaching to improve the learning outcomes of students, then after today I am fired up. Neil O'Reilly is truly an inspirational leader and I am sure most of Christchurch is incredibly grateful for his vision for growing 21st century learners and spearheading the change that teachers need to embrace to move beyond singular teaching to a more open and collaborative way of teaching.

As I mentioned above, my team colleagues and I have already started this journey but oh my, we have such a long way to go and yes, it will take time. I am so very thankful that we have started this journey as today has truly opened up a vision as to where we are headed for the benefit of our students learning - 21st century skills for their future.

A couple of weeks ago I received a blog post from George Curous whose blog I subscribe to and follow on Twitter (@gcouros). The title of this blog was  Relentless Restlessness. These words have never been far from my mind. They especially came running back while listening to Neil O'Reilly's talk on moving forward with co-teaching and learning.

Relentless Restlessness - the constant need for change

(George Couros) 

It is a fantastic (and at times scary) journey we are on and for the rest of my school colleagues, soon to begin. One of the key things here is to take small steps along this journey to allow all concerned time to adapt and change. Even more importantly to begin their own journey of discovery into what co-teaching might look like to them and how this change is backed up by solid research rather than just a passing fad.  It is time now to effect change in our students learning.

Lastly, I just want to run...run with this change, however it is, and always should be, a step by step journey moving forward together as a team. But this does not stop my constant feeling of Relentless Restlessness.  Maybe I could speed it up a little??