Establishing Connections, Building Culture and Cultivating Relationships The beginning of the school year holds special significance for both educators and students. The arrival of a new class brings about feelings of excitement, anticipation and fresh starts. It is essential to take the time to understand your students on both an academic and personal level, as […]

6 Key Elements to Effective Leadership Effective leadership is not only essential for the success of any organisation, it is also critical for the development of its members. As a school principal, your primary responsibility is to create an environment that fosters your students’ academic, social, and emotional growth. To do this, you must lead […]

Project-based learning through Genius Hour provides a structure to help students succeed. There are three main components to Genius Hour. Research: Students must research something. Students cannot spend time going over the information they already know. The key is learning and as a bi-product of this, learning and refining research skills. Create: Students have to […]

There is growing talk in education circles about empowering students to be self-directed in their learning. Whilst there is much talk, the actual implementation of this takes years of scaffolding and planning, as well as a true understanding and change in the role of the teacher within the learning environment. This, of course, is an […]

Being aware of your own thoughts, strategies, feelings and actions and their effects on others is what metacognition is about. It’s about knowing what you know and don’t know. The ability to take the balcony view, to look down upon yourself and reflect on your behaviour, ask internal questions and develop mental maps and plans […]

I’ve been pondering… what if education looked different? What if we truly valued what really matters rather than what used to matter? What if we cared more about the progress students are making rather than the marks, grades or number of credits they get? What if we were more concerned about the skills that will […]

Recently I was privileged to visit Khan Lab School in San Francisco*. The school is the brainchild of Salman (Sal) Khan who started Khan Academy – a non-profit educational organisation with a goal of creating a set of online tools that help educate students. The school is innovative, learner centred, is pioneering new models and questions […]

“I don’t learn anything at school!” shouted my daughter (Miss 14) as she left the house. Not a new revelation from her – but today she seemed more intent on ensuring I knew I was wasting my time sending her each day. So I decided to ask the BIG question. “How do you know when […]

I was honoured last month by my speaker colleagues – National Speakers Association- as NZ’s Educator of the Year. Last year I won NZ Speaker of the Year. It is always wonderful to have your work acknowledged by your colleagues and the hundreds of congratulations emails, posts and messages are always lovely to receive. However, […]

I am really excited that tomorrow is our daughters Matariki – mid winter festival. This time two years ago I wrote an article for the Teachers Matter Magazine about the power of having rites of passage built within the school system. Here is an extract from that article… Last term my daughter’s school celebrated the winter solstice, […]