The Roaring Forties - Winds of Change: Leadership, Learning, Performance

It was organised by the Tasmanian Principals  Association and was held  as a combined ASPA and APPA conference - the first time that this has occurred for a number of years. About 700 delegates attended the conference. 

Session notes from the keynote speakers are published below. Click on the presenter's name to go directly to the session notes for that presenter. The audio recordings will be available soon.

The program consisted of several types of sessions.

Addresses:

•  David Bartlett, Minister for Education - session notes and the full text of his address are published below - audio file (9.97Mb mp3 file).

Keynote Addresses:

• Bill Mulford & Steven Jacobson - Successful Principalship of High-Performance Schools in High Poverty Communities - presentation (10.2 Mb pdf file), audio recording (37.7Mb mp3 file).

• Allana Corbin - She told her inspirational story of survival and overcoming adversity and disability - session notes only.

• Dennis Littky - He and his colleagues told the story of the Big Picture Story and how it works for students - session notes only.

• Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli - Adolescent Sexualisation: Results from her Research - presentation (2.57Mb pdf file), audio recording (27.6Mb pdf file), session notes.

• International Panel - Issues of National Testing in Canada, England, and Canada - audio recording (27.0Mb mp3 file), session notes.

• Mark McKeon - Performance - session notes, audio recording part 1 (38.1Mb mp3 file), audio recording part 2 (15.9Mb mp3 file).

Workshop Sessions:

• Successful School Principalship in Late-Career - Bill Edmunds & Bill Mulford - presentation (1.91Mb pdf file).
• Building a Professional Learning Inquiry Community in the Context of Learner Wellbeing and the Professional Standards for Teachers - Marion Mayes - presentation (1.92Mb pdf file) audio recording (21.2Mb mp3 file).

• Knowledge is Power - Know Your Parliament - Chris Reid (PDF - 908 Kb) .
• DEEP Thinking: A Framework for Critically Evaluating Pedagogical Practice? - Daniel White - presentation (2.05Mb pdf file).
• School Leader Preparation in Finland - Cathy Pianta, the winner of the 2006 MSP/ASPA Research fellowship - presentation (8.03Mb pdf file).
• Leading with Leverage - Greg Morgan & Lucy McCarthy - presentation (6.95Mb ppt file).
• Dare To Lead: 4 years on; what have we learnt? - Brian Giles-Browne - presentation (1.57Mb pdf file).
• Batten down the Hatches: Charting a Successful Transition from Junior to Middle or Senior Schools amidst the Roaring Change of Teens, "Tweens" and Emerging Adolescence - Ian Price - presentation (1.78Mb pdf file).
• The Development of a Personal Leadership Framework through Reflective Practice - Paul Dillon - presentation (2.52Mb pdf file).
• School Improvement: The Lean, Mean and Smart Way - Susan O'Donnell - presentation (1.52Mb pdf file).
• Leaders Learning: A Journey, Not a Destination - Wendy House & Virginia Gill - presentation (7.03Mb pdf file).
• Successful Principalship in Small Schools - John Ewington & Bill Mulford - presentation (PDF - 111 Kb) .
• Innovative Leadership in Developing Strong Teams in the School and Community to Promote Positive Imbedded Change - Jan Matthews - presentation (2.12Mb pdf file), audio recording (28.9Mb mp3 file).

• Educational Leadership for Possible, Probable and Preferred Futures - Liz Veel & Maree Bredhauer - presentation (2.77Mb pdf file).
• Leadership of Learning Communities - Liliana Mularczyk - presentation (3.89Mb pdf file).
• The Principles of Wise Leadership - Melinda Zanetich - presentation (1.46Mb pdf file).
• Reading Hits a High - Wendy Inman - presentation (PDF - 394 Kb).
• The Transition of a School to Learning Teams - Dennis Yarrington - presentation (897Kb pdf file).
• Principals: Creating the Climate for Change - Rowena Zwart - presentation (PDF - 1465 Kb).
• A Survey: Observational and Experimental Evaluation of Online Curriculum - Peter Freebody - presentation (PDF - 510 Kb) .
• The Perils of Producing a Curriculum that is really suited to the 21st Century - Penny Andersen - presentation (239Kb pdf file).
• Differentiation Instruction: What is it? How do we do it? - Craig Fullerton - presentation (1.77Mb pdf file).
• The Business of Boys and Brains: What's Different about Teaching and Learning in a Boys' Class, and What Difference Does It Make? - Robyn Waller - presentation (5.83Mb pdf file).
• Enhancing the Philosophy to Create a Community of Learning - Angela Drysdale - presentation (912Kb pdf file).
• Being Entrepreneurial with Multimedia - Phillip Wells - presentation file 1 (5.04Mb pdf file) and presentation file 2 (2.15Mb pdf file) and presentation file 3 (231Kb pdf file).
• Perspectives on Personalising Learning - Angela Bird - presentation (3.08Mb pdf file).
• Having the Hard Conversations for Performance Management - Jan D'Arcy & Lynn Healy - presentation (799Kb pdf file), audio recording (27.0Mb mp3 file).

David Bartlett – Minister for Education.

• Welcome to the conference.
• Leadership: he chose one of the three themes of the conference to talk about.
• Leadership is about knowledge and action – not a magical prescription bestowed at birth, but a never-ending journey.
• A few leadership attributes and traits:
• Trait 1 – know the context – the data that drives the environment, community and school.
• Trait 2 – act ethically and with compassion. Must take a strand on ethics and values. Might even be about reaching out to others, and placing their needs above our own.
• Trait 3 – focus on the important rather than the urgent.
• Trait 4 – to live dangerously; when lead people through difficult change, you challenge people.
• Trait 5 – must nurture leadership in others, both at school and system level.
• Trait 6 – must persuade people that they are doing the right thing, not just do the right thing. Momentum + conflict + novelty = leadership in politics.

Full Text of his Address:

WELCOME
Good morning. Thanks for inviting me to officially open the joint conference of the Australian Primary Principals Association and the Australian Secondary Principals Association.   

I’d like to warmly welcome all delegates from our Government, Catholic and Independent schools in Tasmania and, indeed, from across the country. I also welcome New Zealand delegates and our other international friends who are with us this week.

I hope you have a productive few days networking at the conference, followed by a few days enjoying the scenery, food and fine wine Tasmania has to offer!

Your conference title is The Winds of Change, looking at the themes of Leadership, Learning and Performance. My main priorities as Education Minister reflect these themes.

VISION
My vision is about quality curriculum, quality facilities and quality educators.

GOALS
Our goals are to improve support for children in their Early Years; improve Literacy and Numeracy outcomes for students and lift retention of students to Year 12 or equivalent.

STRATEGIES
Strategies have developed from taskforces, reference groups and focus groups around building stronger community and parent relationships, providing more resources for schools and improving teaching, learning and curriculum.

As principals you often have the responsibility of bringing all of these pieces together. You provide inspiration, knowledge and leadership to your staff and students and to parents.

Your job couldn’t be more important.

STUDENT AT THE CENTRE
The Tasmanian Government’s Student at the Centre reforms recognise that as principals you are in  the best position to make decisions about resourcing and the day-to-day running of your schools.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Student at the Centre, it’s an 18-month plan to give schools more control over the resources and direction of the Department of Education and focus on the needs of students. We’re moving from a centralist approach to one driven by teachers and principals in our schools.

The capacity to bring about improvement rests in our schools, and it also depends on leadership. This is about giving principals and teachers the support they need and recognising that decision making needs to occur at a local level.

To achieve this we’re putting more money through the school gate. We’re giving the funds to those who know how best to use them – by returning resources to principals and school communities. Just last week, on the recommendation of a Reference Group of school principals, we announced an additional $12 million will be provided to support high and additional needs students in our schools. This money had previously been tied up in co-ordination and administration activities.

We’ve also formed four new regional School Improvement Boards, made up of business and community leaders and school principals, to help achieve better outcomes for students.

Business and community leaders will bring their own practical skills to the boards, to help schools in areas like finance and links with the community. These boards provide the opportunity for leaders from schools, businesses and communities to work together for the benefit of all Tasmanian students.

PRINCIPALS AS LEADERS

I believe you, the Principals of our schools, are the educational leaders of our nation.

Noted education leader William Spady says:

"But in too many schools in too many countries, the structure of the education system has undermined the leadership role of teachers. These systems have set up policymakers as "the leaders", principals as "the managers" charged with putting the policies in place, and teachers as "the implementers" of the policies. This model assumes that the policymakers know everything and have it right; the principals only need to be watchful and make sure the policies are carried out; and the teachers should simply follow orders. Despite all claims to the contrary, this way of thinking about education has never worked and cannot work."

This quote for me best describes the organisation we have been working in and the type of organisation I want to move rapidly away from. I believe leadership is about taking people on a journey with you. If only it were that easy. How do we know our journey is the right journey? How do we bring people with us? Leadership is a subject that truly fascinates me.

LEARNING FROM COLLEAGUES
I don’t believe leadership is some magical charismatic quality that is bestowed upon someone at birth…  but that good leadership, when experienced, can be distilled down to knowledge and action.

I witness that knowledge and action every time I visit a school.  My own biases and thoughts about leadership are shaped every day by the leadership I see happening in Tasmanian schools. I have distilled my ideas on leadership into a few attributes or traits of leadership.

They are the attributes or traits that I endeavour to bring to my job every day. I don’t pretend that they are the be all and end all of leadership study.

To understand leadership is, of course a never ending journey.  But I do believe the successful leaders I have observed share some traits. No doubt each of us here has our own ‘take’ on leadership. Here is mine.

First Trait – leaders they know their context.

Ronald A. Heifitz, author of books such as Leadership without Easy Answers and Leadership OnThe Line, argues that leaders who want to effect real and long lasting change, must first deeply understand the context that they are working in.

I remember receiving an email from Brian Wightman, principal of Winnaleah Primary school in the far North-East of this state before heading up there. He had just conducted a warts and all review of how his school was traveling and shared the information with me.

It was clear to me Brian understood his community and where his school was at. The school was well positioned to build on the wonderful things already happening there. Similarly, on the same trip, Peter Daniels at Deloraine Primary school stopped me in the front foyer of his school and pointed to a display on the wall showing his school’s test and performance data over recent years. Peter too, was very clear on what this information meant for his school and where it needed to go. It wasn’t just wallpaper. The school was using this information to do great things for its students.

Second Trait – leaders act ethically and with compassion
I believe we, as leaders, need to take a stand on the issues of values and ethics. As Heifitz puts it, “How can we possibly guide and challenge people without the capacity to put ourselves in their shoes and imagine what they are going through?” I wonder whether leadership may even be about love? By that I mean reaching out to others, giving of ourselves to them and placing their needs above our own. I know this is easier said than done.
I fondly remember my visit to Glen Huon Primary School last year which was so well led by the late Michael Pearce. The close relationship and mutual respect between Michael and his students, staff parents and community was clearly evident. Just as evident was the capacity of the school and its people to add value to very dollar it received. Adventure playgrounds, vegetable gardens, converted buildings and newly paved and fenced areas had all been achieved largely through goodwill.  

I also remember visiting Beaconsfield Primary school not long after the Beaconsfield mine disaster and being struck by the care and compassion evident among each member of the school and its community and the way they had all rallied together in difficult times. The acting principal of the time, Troy Roberts, had clearly played a pivotal role in supporting his school and community, placing their needs above his own. 

Third Trait - Leaders focus on the important, not the urgent. 
As leaders, I believe we all need to make daily decisions between the urgent and the important.  And it shouldn’t always be the urgent that wins this battle.  If we only concern ourselves with the urgent, we will never address the important, the underlying drivers for improvement. This way of thinking was brought home to me in my meetings with principals in the Glenorchy and Jordan River clusters in Southern Tasmania. These principals are examining how their communities, as well as their schools, may be renewed and are considering some creative and innovative approaches to schooling.

In my current endeavours, I am working hard to free leaders like them from as much of the “urgent” as I can so that they  can focus on the “important”.

Fourth Trait - To be a leader is to live dangerously.
To lead is to live dangerously because when leadership counts, when you lead people through difficult change, you challenge what people hold dear—their daily habits, tools, loyalties, and ways of thinking—with nothing more to offer perhaps than a possibility of improvement. I remember my visit to Table Cape Primary school in Wynyard last year and listening to principal, John Heron talk about how he would like to re-organise the school. He wanted to establish an early childhood campus at one end of town and an upper primary campus at the other end of town. There were, at the time, two campuses both offering similar Kindergarten to Grade 6 programs. He felt the kids could get a better deal with these new arrangements. He has since done the hard yards, holding community meetings and bringing people on board with his vision, which is now coming to fruition. He is leading people through, what is for some, a difficult change. The children of Wynyard will be the long term beneficiaries of his risk taking.

Fifth Trait:  Leaders nurture leadership in others. 
I believe school leaders have got to trust other people to do a good job.  We can’t do it all ourselves. Sometimes other people will actually do a better job than we will. Leaders have got to commit themselves to dispersing leadership across their schools.

We, as a system, must also target and nurture the next generation of school leaders. As Bill Mulford, whom we will hear from shortly says, we cannot afford to ignore their selection, retention and continued learning if we want student outcomes to be the best they can be.

I feel uplifted every time I walk into schools and see the energy, commitment and skills of our current and aspiring leaders. For example, how lucky the communities of Bruny Island and Bicheno are to have young leaders like Ben Stockwin and Andrew Woodard to be cutting their teeth as school principals in those areas. 

We need to encourage more young people to take on similar challenges.

Sixth Trait:   Leaders must not just do the right thing but must persuade people they are doing the right thing.   
How do we get it right? How do we come to a position that we believe to be right? These questions have been grappled with for thousands of years so my two cents worth here isn’t about to change the world.
I do think, however, we owe it to ourselves to access the wisdom of others and agonise over decisions before we make them – not after!

I disagree with the current bulk of conventional wisdom about politics. Often those wishing to lead have a strategy is based on three things: momentum, conflict, and novelty. Whereas, Heifitz argues, the frontline in any organisation or community requires: empowerment, partnership and consistency. 

I believe that message is more important than money; issues are more central than image; strategy matters more than tactics; positives work better than negatives; substance is more salient than spin and values matter more than economics. People know if you’re fair dinkum or not.

The leadership of our Tasmanian colleagues Liz Banks, Malcolm Hales and Warren Pill on the relocation of Rocherlea Primary School to a site at Brooks High School must be a powerful example of not only doing the right thing, but persuading others such as the Rocherlea and surrounding  community that it is the right thing.

THANK YOU
In welcoming you, I want to conclude by saying that I’m really looking forward to participating in this conference and learning from my conversations with delegates and people such as Bill Mulford, Stephen Jacobson, Maria Pallotta-Chiarolloi, Allanna Corbin, Mark McKeon and, via satellite, Dennis Littky.
In Tasmania, we are very fortunate to have such ready access to Bill Mulford’s world class research on educational leadership, which we will use to inform our planning for, and nurturing of, school leadership.
I must also commend Conference Convenor, Rob Banfield, TPA President Jan Larcombe and their team on the outstanding program of workshops that support the keynote presentations. Many of these workshops are being led by current practicing school leaders. This is indeed a rich offering.

As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, 'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams'.
Enjoy your conference.

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Session 3 – Steve Jacobson & Bill Mulford.

Both are involved with the international successful school leadership project.

Bill Mulford:

• Draw a mirror – what makes you a successful leader? Reflect on that.
• Then he talked about his journey – as a child, he stood like Churchill; as a scout, he learned to be prepared; trained as a teacher; learned to give orders; learned to be a principal; learned to be social; work with and through others; learned to be professional and to promote the profession; to be an advocate for the profession; sense of humour.
• Success depends on which areas you choose to spend time and attention on. A single input by you can have multiple outcomes and so you need to understand and act on the whole of everything you are involved with, as well as the individual characteristics of the elements that make you successful. Biggest current challenge professional principals – provide the highest quality leadership in leadership, learning and performance.
• Handout has two models of success school principalship.
• Model 1: from the international project that he is a part of.
• Starts with the context – yellow. Understanding the whole – all the elements and their interactions.
• Then the principal’s characteristics and values – their interactions of them and the contaxt help explain why things happen.
• Providing individual support, capacity and commitment to other individuals.
• Then the collective school capacity – vision and mission.
• That is the ‘how’ of successful school principalship.
• Teaching and learning outcomes; student outcomes; community social capital outcomes = the ‘what’ of successful school leadership.
• Arrows show the relationships.
• Final element is an ability to evaluate what you do. How do you know you are being successful. That sits outside al the other elements. Need the ability to question the context.  Need to question all elements.
• Did some survey work. Student success measures: from the slide. 2nd one – social success is the critical one.
• Research in the UK – slide on social maladjustment. Started in 1958. Developed a social maladjustment scale. 12-14,000 7 year olds – now 42 years old. Those who teachers judged in 1958 to be socially maladjusted were in trouble with the people by 16, teenage mothers, lower performance in higher education, lower employment, lower wages.
• Relationship between primary literacy and numeracy and ENI. Slide with graph. Scale on bottom = richest to the left. Some schools are outliers and do much better than expected, and some do worse than expected.
• Same results in terms of social success – next graph – wider than previous one – not as great a relationship = a successful principal can do more about social success than about literacy and numeracy, so will have a greater influence in later life.
• What is the relationship between principal characteristics?
• 5Ps = slide. No relationship between principal characteristics and literacy and numeracy = see the graph. Same with social success.
• 4 characteristics to summarise school capacities = slide trust, respect, etc. They are sequential and developmental. Unless you have the trust and empowerment, you can not have the last two.
• Relationship between school capacities and lit/num – trust and respect high for all; differences with the last two. Major differences when you look at social success.
• Successful principalship is indirect through the school capacity and it’s developmental.
• Model 2: in South Australia and Tasmania – 3500 year 10 student + 2500 teachers in secondary schools – follow-up with same students when they were in year 12.
• Starts with principal leadership; then 2 forms of distributed leadership (admin team; teacher leadership); then organizational learning (developmental characteristics) = see slide with circles. Slide with 70 at bottom right.
• Year 10s spoke about teacher’s work and what they thought of the teachers and how they thought about their own work and the school. Slide with 77 then 78. no link from self-concept to academic achievement. Does not matter if you think that the social outcomes of school are also important for later life chances.
• School size made a difference – dotted lines are negative relationships (bigger = worse). Higher socioeconomic status, the more negatively they see their teachers.
• Strong relationship between home education environment and how they saw teachers work and non-academic outcomes.

Steve Jacobson:

• Successful principalship in high poverty schools:
• Use the same starting model 1.
• The US has two systems – excellent one for middle class and terrible one for the poverty areas.
• Leithwood: common characteristics are necessary but not sufficient.

1.  
   1. Setting directions. See slide. Creating high performance expectations – most important – for all involved in the school.
   2. Developing people. Hard when lack resources..
   3. Re-designing the organization – so that all the things on the slide take place.

• And it’s about creating safe places in those communities.
• Looked at three high poverty high performing schools in NY state. Slide showing a table of the three schools. Costello is too big - concentrated diversity in the one place/school. Other two are homogeneous – African American. Get the whole report from the website in the reference list at the end of the handout.
• Illustrative example: see slides – use quotes.
• Hamilton – the principal taught the maths class that was tested – walked the talk – raised the grades. Put the high expectations into practice.
• The principal at Fraser was the mentor of the Principal at Hamilton. She would not tolerate complacency – moved on the ones who eased off.
• Re-designing the organization – creating the safe and secure environment. See the quote.
• First thing they did was to lock down the school – literally – to stop people wandering into the school and confronting staff or students. Buzzer entry for those who have business being there. So safe place for 6-7 hours for the kids each day.
• Then the Principal at Fraser got the parents involved in the school – in meaningful ways. See the quote from the parent. Parents said: “We are involved because we would not want to disappoint her.” People moved into the community so that their kids could go to the school. Influx of African-American parents into the area.
• So they have been able to improve their students’ grades on the standardized tests through the three dot points on the slide. Principal’s work is indirect through other things. Never a linear improvement – lots of hiccups along the way.

Bill Mulford:

• That is a rich case study.
• He then told the story of the Swedish warship Vasa: Sweden museum – read a story about how this 1625 warship was commissioned and built. Swap Vasa for the latest fad in your system and king for Minister for Education. Had to have as many guns as possible. To be finished quickly. 1626, started work. 400men employed. 100 trees felled. 3 years, all sorts of tradesmen worked on it. Lots of ornaments – celebrating the power of the king. Huge ship with all the bells and whistles. 1628, when almost complete, then floated and last bits added. New ship aroused admiration and pride. When completed in half the normal time, lots of people on board, first voyage started, everyone watched. Vasa has to be pulled, as the wind too light. Then Danish captain ordered the setting of 4 of the 10 sails, guns fire a salute. Then the ship capsized and sank inside the harbour – travelled 1300 metres only. Letter to the king described the disaster. King was in Prussia, and he heard about it two weeks later. King ordered the punishing of the guilty parties. Captain was interrogated and swore no drinking – ship was too unstable by the design. So the captain blamed the design and so the builder. Crew blamed top heaviness. Shipmaster told that stability had been tested – 30 men ran back and forth across the deck had to stop after 3 runs or the ship would have capsized. Admiral was present. The builder had dies the year before – but the builders conformed to the plans as signed by the king. So whose fault? God only knows, said the shipyard owner. So God and King drawn in, and no one was ever punished.
• Reference: http://dossantos.cbpa.louisville.edu/courses/cis675/vasa/index.htm
• Substitute education for the above people, and it applies to lots of educational initiatives.
• OECD – devised 6 future scenarios for schooling:

1.  
   1. Bureaucratic status quo would continue.
   2. Re-schooling – schools as social centres.
   3. Re-schooling – schools as learning organisations or knowledge centres.
   4. De-schooling – technology / home schooling / no schools /; networks.
   5. De-schooling – privatized – vouchers.
   6. Total meltdown of schooling.

• Latest test of the most popularity of the above – see slide – 90% say that 1 will continue in the next 5-20 years. Most desirable = 2 and 3.
• So why don’t principals change the system?
• Peter Hyman – book “1 out of 10”. See slides. Score for relationship between ed policy and what actually happens in schools. Also 1 person out of 10 Downing Street. Was Blair’s speech writer for 10 years and then left.
• Conclusion: see slide “As professionals, it’s time for you to move on from …” and the following ones.
• Success will depend on which areas you choose to put your effort into.
• So have another look into the mirror that we started with.

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Session 4 – Allana Corbin (Arnot):

• "School was more about socializing for me, rather than for learning." Was more about dreaming than anything else. Not a bad things to have dreams.
• Career in aviation began at about age 18. Bought her mother a ride in a hot air balloon for her birthday - she had never been in the air before in any way. Started out a most magical experience. So Allana came back the next week to help out. Started working for the company and dating one of the guys, who was also a skydiver and pilot. She then got her pilot’s licence.
• A couple of years later, just before Xmas 1990, she heard about a lost light plane (Cessna 152 with young pilot) from her airport (in Sydney). That night, she was phoned to join the search as a pilot of a search plane. Left as an observer on a flight – zigzag pattern over a designated area. Thick canopy of trees – could not see the ground. After 40 minutes, huge explosion. Oil sprayed over windscreen, plane shook violently, and in trouble.
• The Cessna 210 with 6 on board crashed. 2 survived, with 4 dead. 3 minutes from the explosion to impact into the trees.
• She was in extreme pain, did not lose consciousness. Felt broken spine. Knew she had to stay very still. Smelled fuel from the ruptured tank. Terrified about fire. But was trapped in the seat. So felt that she was just sitting there waiting to die.
• What was important in her life became very clear. Thinking about the people in her life who were close to her – about what she wished she could have said to them. Also thought that she would leave nothing behind her – had never really done anything. Prayed for another chance.
• Location transmitter was still working in the plane. The Channel 9 helicopter tracked them and found them in 15 minutes. About 3.5 hours to get her free and took her to the Prince Henry Hospital. Told them she had broken her back; tested her and they then said that she had broken her back badly and that she would never walk again. She abused him angrily.
• Did not ever believe that she would not walk again. She had surgery to fix the other breaks – legs, etc., then fused the spine with nuts and bolts – sets off the airport alarms. Then flat on her back for 8 weeks. Whole world was a mirror above her - she did not want to look at herself. When she did, she was horrified.
• Then to the physiotherapist. Allana thought that she would just be able to get up and walk. Not true. 6 months in a turtle brace and calipers. Then to the parallel bars – could not feel her legs. So realized that it would be a long process to get out of her wheelchair. Like climbing the world’s biggest mountain – series of small steps. Promised herself that she would not give up.
• Carers kept saying she would be always in the chair. She could not believe their negativity. Signed herself out of hospital 6 weeks early. Learned the importance of setting goals every day – reaching daily milestones. Kept her motivated. Goals revolved around daily life – like grocery shopping and walking the aisles in Woolworths. 12 months to step out of the wheelchair and has never gone back.
• But had not focused on anything else but her physical needs – not had a cry or grieved. The day she realised she would be a paraplegic all her life, she collapsed and did not want to live – thought about suicide – took out a knife – was almost euphoric – put the knife to her wrist – then realized that it was going to hurt really badly – so she stopped. Realized she needed help and rang a psychiatrist friend of hers. Sent another psychiatrist to her – made her realize that she could be anything and to reinvent herself.
• Used to think “why me?”, which now says “what can I learn from this?”
• Can’t control other people but can control what they mean to her.
• Had to overcome the fear of flying. Then met Lace Maxwell – a wing walker. A month later, Lace phoned her to come and watch her. She did. Lace told the audience that Allana was going to do the wing walk. How could she get out of this? Really wanted to fly again. Her fear of dying was paralyzing her, not fear of flying. So she went for it. Panic, but could not get out of it.  Started taxi-ing. Closed her eyes. Opened her eyes – was amazed.
• Screamed: “Look, mum, I’m flying.” And she was fine. Most extraordinary thing in her life. Cured her totally.
• She went back to fly planes – had problems with the rudder pedals and then push on the brakes – could land but not brake to a stop. Suggested she learn to fly a helicopter. Signed up. Was great – free from her disability.
• Had a problem with the paperwork from the safety bureaus – never had a request form as person like her before – took 9 months to get her licence.
• She decided to fly around Australia – no woman had ever done that. Bought a chopper in USA – cheaper. Would keep the island on her left. Problem with getting aviation fuel up north – had to land at BP stations and fill it up with mogas.
• Worried about crocodiles. Was told to run a way in a zigzag. Just climb the nearest tree. Actually landed on top of waterfalls.
• Did the trip in 1999 (?). trip took 6 weeks and 4 days = 21000 kms = 165 hours in the air.
• Channel 9 filmed the end of it.
• Heard of someone who got out of bed when she heard about Allana. Allana thought that this was the reason she suffered this accident – to help others. So she thought that she would write a book – not a good English student. So she went to Pan Macmillan – interview with a panel. Told them that she had “written before” – not a specific question. They wrote her a cheque and went off and wrote the book – “The Best I can Be”.
• Then her 2nd book was “The Prisoners of the East” – story of her family who were POWs.
• Still flying. Wanted to learn the big choppers – she is female, blonde, and disabled in a male-oriented industry. A guy took her on. Went for a trial flight. After 20 minutes, he swore at her and yelled at her about her flying. Then landed and told here she flew like a girl. But she promised she would not give up. He kept training her; she kept persisting. She succeeded. They started dating. They married. Roger Corbin – now for 4 years. He crashed 3 times.
• Started a helicopter business. Won 2 government rescue contracts. Victoria (big one) and Tasmania (run-down one). Been in Tasmania for 8 years now – leader in primary rescue in Australia.
• Had twins – Indiana and Isabella – 2 years old now – 1450gm at birth.
• "Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I’ll look back as I go to sleep tonight and think that today was a winner."
• "This is not a trial run. We only get one shot." But she was given a second chance, so she took it. We have this hour to remember for the rest of our lives.
• So important to have dreams, to aspire to something. Don’t worry what others think of your dreams.

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Session 5 – Dennis Littky - http://www.bigpicture.org/

• About the Big Picture schools in the USA – company based in Providence, RI. Based on individualised programs for the learners. No more than 120 students in a school. Experiential and enquiry-driven learning.
• K-12 school – backwards planning for the curriculum organization, content and delivery.
• Learning from internships in high schools – external locations. Work towards that from bringing people into the school in the early years.

Dennis Littky:

• Philosophy can work with any age group. Will talk about high school today. Will open a college in 2 years. Started with high schools because the usual US high schools are the worst part of the schooling system.
• It’s about thinking about education differently. Starting with the student, not the curriculum. What works is to inspire students – how to light a fire. Not about adding information into a person but about inspiring them.
• We are talking about one student at a time. But they are all learning to think to read and write, but they are doing it in their own way.
• It’s about finding their interests and passions. Then look for some one who can work with them to help them learn – not about they passion necessarily but about learning things in general. The people act as mentors.
• Work on real projects with real purposes.
• Each gives a 1 hour presentation / exhibition every 9 weeks to the other students and teachers.
• Kids in elementary school must learn how to read and write and do maths. In high school, you can use those things to do deeper learning.
• No one ever said that lecturing to 30 kids is the best way to learn. We are taking the research and putting it into practice.
• One of the students spoke about her work with a radiographer – had completed a certificate of radiography.
• Another student – internship in an outpatients section of a hospital. Helping her work out what she wants to do as a career.
• Another student – working in an after-school program for teenage girls on self-esteem and self-image – through fashion design.
• Another – photography – working with a wedding photographer.
• Had to cut the link because of the poor sound quality. So the story continued from this end only.
• Showed a 6 minutes clip from an Australian school which follows the Big P icture concept of schooling.
• Elliot Washor is the co-Director of The Met, a school set up aligned with the BP philosophy. "There is no teaching; there is only learning."
• Internship – 2 full days each week with a mentor / professional. Students learn best when engaged with real world projects.
• 30 such schools across the USA. 100% accepted to college; 80% enrolled at college; 60% graduate from college – well above averages for the USA. 75% are the first college attendees in their families.
• Rigour (high expectations); relevance; relationships (small communities; personalisation; family engagement). Negotiated learning projects.
• Facilities design (Andrew Bunting): school/community facilities – after a community audit of available facilities.
• One of the drivers of schooling in C21 is the “school and the community”. Size is one of the critical elements for developing a community of learners. 150 = the best from the research (army caps their platoons at 150; Virgin splits divisions over 150). You can’t know everyone well enough in a group over 150.
• Lots of our kids don’t succeed in the schools that we currently set up for them. Example; we teach you algebra just in case you might need it one day.
• And this model is not just for disadvantaged kids – it is for all kids.
• The BP schools are following on from the Ted Sizer Coalition schools and John Dewey’s work.
• Then viewed the movie clip filmed at a number of Tasmanian schools working with individualised programs - problems with the video link to the USA.

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Session 6 – Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chiar/mariaind.htm

• Premise – talking about young people, but a lot of the stuff is about inheriting adult cultures – as the young people say to her.
• Brief synopsis of the research – 3 points on slide starting “we wanted to …”. Action research.
• See next slide – 2300 young people. Lots of individual interviews. Questions are on the slide. Did individual interviews because they would get more data on these issues this way.
• Girls have a major issue around self-image and social status. Boys have a role in this pressure. Hierarchies of femininity in the school – parties, drugs, alcohol, sexual – gender power. About success and achievement – need for this – pressure greater in more affluent schools – academic, appearance, etc.
• Girls talked a lot about their bodies – see slide. All varied according to class, culture, how sexual they were. Obesity vs thin-ness. Language among their friends. Ashamed about menstruation – boys teased them. These issues are also becoming more prevalent among boys around Australia – pressure comes from the girls.
• Obsessive need to live up to a particular standard – boys and girls.
• “Power” – girls talking about being sexually aggressive, not assertive, to get boys. Also about doing things that boys wanted, not things they wanted to do for themselves.
• Transgressive Femininity – more girls trying to break free from the “nice girl” construction. It’s cool to be more like a boy but in a girly way. Lots of girls talk about “revenge”. Stats around girls smoking and binge drinking are increasing rapidly. Doing things that have not worked for boys either.
• More girls becoming physically aggressive – Bitch Barbie – also using words and actions – turning your back on someone. Affluent backgrounds and Anglos.
• Bratz Girl image – lower class image construction. Non-Anglos and lower socio-economic. “Put boys in their place.”
• Not cool for boys to admit to being sexually harassed. Girls (from the local single-sex girls’ school) scoring the boys in the bus by their penis size. School had been doing work with the girls on being assertive!!
• Bridge to Terabithia has a very good example to use.
• “A strong line was policed …” 2 points on that slide.
• An unhealthy sexuality slide – not about telling them not to have sex, but it is about how it is being played out. Pleasing the boyfriend. Substance abuse.
• Need to look at the relationships between achievement and their social successes / lives. “The boys like watching girls kiss each other.” Masculinist power structure. It’s about the girl pleasing the boy, and not the other way around.
• Lots of young people say that anything short of penetration is not sex.
• Issue of coercion is serious – “she deserved it” because of dress or location.
• Heavily influenced by popular culture and TV and internet.
• Young people want to have these conversations – but not in a “don’t do it” sort of way – they say that adults do it visibly. Can use that to our advantage – don’t repeat unhealthy patterns of behaviour.
• Slide – drink, drugs and sex. “You have to have a Monday morning story.” Does not matter if it is untrue. And it has already been discussed on MySpace – getting younger, down to 9-10. Now just as much girls as boys.
• Must not enter into a moral panic. Children are sexual – how can we monitor it so that it is safe, consensual, etc.
• Doing wrong thing can have “hero status”.
• “Girls talk …”
• The parties are not the problem – it’s the coercion culture. Connection between misogyny and the girls being transgressive. Lack of protection emotionally as well as physically.
• All happening at a younger and younger age.
• Slide with mind map / spider diagram – 8 year old girl. About how harassment was being manifested with her. Where do the boys learn that about “Playboy”? Social learning – heterosexualised masculinity. Now also hearing that girls are being the aggressors towards girls.
• “How it affects …” – follows on from the mind map slide. And the next slide.
• Need for teachers to know about these things and do something.
• “We need to challenge … “ slide. Are we using the discourse of innocence to the disadvantage of our kids? Yes, they are too young to know the details, but they need to have the resources and opportunities to learn about the world around them and how to handle it.
• Some schools suffer from TPS – 3 parent syndrome = it takes only 3 parents to stop a program or to have a book taken out of the library.
• Cyberspace: cyberspace is fun and where you get real education. It is really hard for schools to compete. “School is so mono” = boring. But the internet does not always give the right information.
• How can we provide a school environment where we take on the real world?
• The Net as a safe social space – especially for those who do not fit in at school. Have to honour and acknowledge that many young people can find their place in the world on the net.
• Questions for educators slides.
• Further questions slide.
• So what do we do? See slide.
• Our school structures and rewards have to mirror the hierarchies that we want to set up in the school. What language do we accept / tolerate in our classrooms? What are we modeling for the young people?
• And what about marketing and labeling and the power of the image that is portrayed?
• Christine Aguilera – “Beautiful” – 3 versions of the video clip for different audiences.
• Last slide – get real – let’s make the young people get real about their lives as well as the adults.

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Session 7 – International Panel - Impact of national testing on the four countries.

NZ – Judy Hanna – no testing of 3/5/7/9 and no intention to allow it. Government tried to bring it in 10 years ago. Survey showed that 9 out of 10 would throw it in the bin. So the government backed off. Use John Hatty’s tools for assessment.

USA – Barry Stark – there are problems – in a re-authorisation year for the NCLB program. Testing is in a penalty mode – not aimed at improvement, but can be listed as a non-proficient school if any of the special audiences are not proficient. Also just 1 test is given – that 1 test rates your school, so it is very high stake test.

NZ – Peter Gall – secondary – no national testing, but they have a series of tools. Do have the NCEA – standards-based assessment system – implemented in haste – some major design changes since then.

Canada – Lisa Vincent – provincial – high degree of variation across the provinces – Ontario in grades 3 and 6 in reading / writing / mathematics – targets set. Maths in year 9 and high stakes in year 10 – Ontario Literacy Assessment Test – brought in a course if they have been unsuccessful in 2 previous attempts at the test. Some improvements in teaching as a result of the test, but the negatives outweigh that.

NAHT – David Tuck – is proud of what his school does and of the improvements in junior school education there, but his kids do not do well on the test scores – mainly Muslim kids with NESB. Government has a pathological obsession with statistics. He gets a lot of money. The tests are not the problem; the problem is with what they do with the results of the tests. They test the school and the HT, not the kids. Combine that with OFSTED, and the result is that HTs have replaced the fox as the target of the Hunt.

NAESP – Mary K Somers – wants to apologise for bring NCLB to the world – impact on kids and teachers and administrators is that the joy of learning has been replaced by a test focus. Great pressure when kids come from difficult backgrounds and still learning English.

UK – Malcolm Trobe – can’t think of many advantages of testing for kids and parents. UK kids are tested at 11 / 14 / 16 / 7 / 18. Would rather rely on the professional judgments of teachers. The test results are now used to “measure” how the teachers, and thus the schools, are going.

Barry Stark, USA – the testing gap (between the test and the scores getting back to the school) has made things worse – have to wait until the following year until work can start to improve the scores by remediation and intervention.

Mary K Somers, USA – spoke at a Congressional hearing – state should have the responsibility for testing (Nebraska has the best test program now). Multiple measures for the kids; like to measure growth of ability to learn – 2 major demands.

David Tuck, UK – getting the child to experience success is the most important thing – need to be able to measure the whole child, not the bits of the child as in the current tests.

Malcolm Trobe, UK – school has to set targets that they will achieve at age 14 / 16 / 18. HTs are held to account if the targets are not met. It is norm-referenced, so it is hard to go up if you are doing well – some must go up and others must go down. Governing bodies do not always understand that. Heavy inspection program – 4 grade levels for the school. If you are not in the top 50%, you can not get better than satisfactory. So we are having problems finding g people to take on the role of HT.

Lisa Vincent, Canada – current government is committed to continuing funding for the testing. Have a literacy and numeracy secretariat – everything is focused on achieving on the tests. Target is for 75% of the students at level 3 on a 4 point scale. Huge pressure. Affecting getting principals for schools.

Malcolm Trobe, UK – accountability does place more pressure on HTs and people are usually OK with that. It is about developing every kid in their school – and the whole kid. But the targets are artificial ones that set up barriers / hurdles for kids to try to get over. So it is much more difficult to get people to go in as HT, even to the top performing schools. Even better to go into poorly-performing schools – only way is up. NCSL is working to overcome that problem – training program. Challenge and support is the cry – now it is al challenge and little support.

Barry Stark, USA – no national program for school leaders – each state and each university has their own qualifications and standards. Not enough people looking at teaching being a whole-life career. 30-40% of school leaders will finish in the next 5-7 years. It is a major problem – no systemic program to reverse that.

Lisa Vincent, Canada – Ontario has a problem with attracting school leaders. OPC has an extensive program for aspiring leaders. Also a provincial institute of school leadership with multiple ownership (catholic, French, public). Big issue of work-life balance for our young teachers.

Peter Gall, NZ – same sorts of issues as elsewhere. Have a number of programs for principalship and aspirant principals. Only 8% of teachers aspire to be principals. Have a good first-time principal program through Auckland University.

Q&A:

In Islington, UK, there is outsourcing of the curriculum – comment on that? Quite common now to outsource education. This is a thing called Every Child Matters – child care programs – combine social services and education – run by social service directors – cutting staff. Services usually being provided by people from failed schools and local authorities – private contractors.

Admire NZ for standing up to the government; systemic authorities in Australia feared loss of funding. No, had a pedagogical belief that the testing would not help our kids.

PWC report in the UK on having Principals from non-education backgrounds – where has that gone? The 2 different unions have different views. NAHT believes that Principals should have some experience of teaching. 55% of NAHT members will retire in 10 years. HTs are being told to take on several schools = federating = joining schools to try to overcome the shortages of teachers and HTs. Average of 4.9 applicants for HT jobs. Lower in catholic schools. ASCL has only a slightly different view. Business Managers are usually part of the management team, with an NCSL qualification, and now eligible for the NPQH – a few might come through as Principals – but teachers must be in control of the pedagogy.

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Session 8 – Mark McKeon – Parts 1 & 2:

• Session about your individual performance as a leader in your school – complex job, with many nodes in your network.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff; operate only in your sphere of influence.
• Told the story about taking off – then the first officer did not like the sound of the engine, so went back to the airport – passengers sat for hours with no information – then they took off again – then the pilot said they changed the first officer. Mark was worried that he was not handling the pressure very well – and that is his job.
• Simple message about how to get the best out of people.
• Have a professional massage at least once a month.
• Take one step at a time and focus on the important things. Graph – positive – negative and closed to open. Top right is open and positive (believer); bottom left = closed and negative (saboteur). Top left = survivor (major %); bottom right = critic.
• How do you engage all those four types.
• Keys to leadership:
• 1. challenge – almost everyone likes to be challenge, except for the real bottom left people.
• 2. recognition – worked together with the first one.
• Recognise people by name each day – National Bank improved their culture dramatically. People were suspicious at first, but it soon spread. People are affected by the prevailing culture. You want the believers to stay for a long time, so set up a recognition system – had to show the survivors what was in it for them.
• Have to challenge the critics – justify why it is that way and challenge them to come up with a better way. They are open, so you have to get them up the positive scale. Don’t let them go – work with them.
• Saboteurs – either endure them (if the culture is strong enough) or purge them from the system.
• The more believers there are, the more they are the custodians of the culture. You can’t do it all as the leader – too many people on the staff. The culture can become self-supporting, but only if you keep challenging and recognising.
• Sometimes busy people operate in a sphere that does not help them. Need high levels of serotonin and melatonin – replenished by sunlight and sleep and green vegetables. Prozac artificially raises those levels. Don’t need adrenalin high – gives you better senses and power – makes it very hard to challenge and recognise people. Alcohol soaks up adrenalin, so the first drink always feels so good. So does food.
• Getting sick on a holiday is one of the healthiest things you can do – your adrenalin has dropped.
• Adrenalin masks pain. So you want high adrenalin levels if you are in a war. And bleeding slows. Adrenalin clots the blood. Also sends less oxygen to the brain – so you make mistakes, etc.
• If you feel cool below your collar at the back, you have too much adrenalin. Less blood at that spot.
• Time lag of about an hour plus between drop in adrenalin and raising of the serotonin. Happens after lunch usually – need to set up a challenge during that time of day to keep people awake.
• Quiz – on the slide. About things that make you tick – that also might make it hard for you to handle people who are in your face. This is the D (ominance) I(nfluence - people involvement) S (steadiness) C (compliance; risk profile) inventory. 32 or higher is a strong bias to that area. 19 or lower is a strong bias against that area. Slide with the 4 area characteristics.
• Then he got the whole group to stand in smaller groups by their score. And re-arranged them for the four different scores.
• End of part 1.

Part 2:

• Personal success factors:
• BASIC = see slide.
• "No matter how important you think you are, the size of your funeral depends a lot on the weather that day."
• Dr: What about sex? Patient: Infrequently. Dr: Is that one word or two?
• Boundaries – things like budgeting for time to do other things – e.g. switch off the phone after 6pm; leave school at 4pm twice each week. If you don’t control it, it controls you. Be open about your boundaries – if you respect them others will too.
• Quality time is a poor attempt at rationalizing a lack of making the effort to have quantity time.
• Acceptance of reality – athletes train then recover then play then recuperate – not trying to operate at peak levels all the time. Stress is not the problem; the problem is lack of recovery time. Adrenalin helps you live longer as long as you have recovery time.
• Symbolically set the limits for each day – put a worry peg on the tree at the gate.
• Self-confidence – FIGJAM is the nickname of Nathan Buckley – not arrogance. Do whatever you can to be confident. Fake it until you make it. Pretend to be more confident than you are.
• Instead of thinking that you can’t fight Mike Tyson, think about trying to stop him getting to the one you love most.
• Told the story about coming home quietly and getting yelled at vs coming home noisily and not being able to wake his wife up.
• Invest in You – are three things that you used to do and like but you don’t do now. Put some times and money into yourself. Do some selfish things.
• Consistency – do it all the time. And do not feel guilty. Do something that you really, really enjoy.
• Smile from the heart!
• Set a boundary every day. Must have a pressure relief valve/tap.
• We are always making a choice. Doing nothing is making a choice just as much as doing something.