Workshop 2: Envisioning – creating a shared vision

1. Workshop 2: Envisioning – creating a shared vision Audience: All staff and any wider stakeholders Deliverable: REORDER vision summary

2. Prerequisites for this workshop • From the introduction workshop - key features of this workshop such as the ‘Parts’, ‘Suggested Agenda’ and ‘Overview’ are described in the introduction to the workshops which is a general guide to the workshop series. • From workshop 1 - this workshop should be part of your annual planning including who you use it with and how it contributes to your continuous improvement cycle. It is expected that you will use these materials to meet your needs whether for full training events or a series of small meetings.

3. Workshop 2 of 8: Envisioning • There are eight broad workshops in the Innovative Schools Toolkit. • Each workshop provides ideas, activities, links to other resources, strategies and frameworks. • Please use the resources and PowerPoint called ‘Introduction to the IST workshop series’ for detailed guidance on the workshops. • Consider your local context to select the most appropriate strategies offered in these workshops. On-going Continuous Improvement

4. Overview Schools across the world that successfully sustain innovation have a clear vision that is shared and ‘lived’ by the whole school community. At its most basic a shared vision addresses the following: • What is the school most passionate about in terms of learner achievement? • Is this vision widely known and ‘alive’ in all aspects of school life and ethos? • How do we know that we are delivering on this vision? The outcome of this workshop is to develop a set of core aims (your vision) that has been debated and agreed by all stakeholders – these aims will be based on core moral purpose, not on short-term targets and equipment. The vision must be in a form that is measurable, easy to share and apply and should be focussed on improving learners’ abilities.

5. Guiding Questions • If you walked into any class would every learner be able to tell you the vision of this school? • Could every learner give examples of how the vision is evident in their day to day life? • Do the core aims of the school appear in every meeting through questions such as ‘how does this fit with our vision’? • Do the teachers, learners and parents that joined the school this year feel ownership of the current school vision?

6. Progression towards outstanding envisioning

7. Suggested Agenda for the Workshop

8. Part 1. Introduce the Innovative Schools Programme • If the school is new to the programme then use the slides from the previous workshop to explore such questions as: • What is the Continuous Improvement Cycle used by the Microsoft Innovative Schools Programme (IS Programme)? • What is meant by innovation? • Why must improvement be a continuous process? • If the school is a mentor school or has a long established relationship with the IS Programme, an update of current numbers involved and an introduction to the new Continuous Improvement Cycle will suffice.

9. Engagements and deliverables for the year • Replace this slide with key dates from the engagement plan constructed in workshop 1. • It is advised that a printed version of the plan is also provided to participants so that the workshop can be placed in context. • Further materials to explain the cycle can be found in workshop 1.

10. Part 2. Does education need to transform? • Over the next ten minutes you will be shown evidence of how the world is changing and information that has emerged from discoveries about how people learn. • This material is designed to encourage debate about if and how schools will need to change the way they educate. • Is not changing more risky than changing? • Some of the information in this toolkit will be out of date and some of you may have seen it before so where possible please add evidence from more recent studies.

11. 1. Changes in demand for jobs: Does the school support ‘workplace readiness’? • Should we teach information you can find on search engines or is it more important to teach how that information can be converted into knowledge? • What is the best way to prepare learners for economic self-reliance in the future? • There is some evidence that people will change jobs frequently in the future and that many of the most highly paid jobs will be in areas of employment that do not exist yet. • The following slide shows the change in types of jobs available in the US over the past few years – the results suggest that employers’ requirements are changing rapidly.

12. Changing requirements for skills in the workplace The dilemma of schools: The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource. Mean task input as percentiles of the 1960 task distribution (Levy and Murnane) (Example - economy-wide measures of routine and non-routine task input (US))

13. Suggested questions for discussing this topic • Why were routine cognitive skills so in demand in Victorian times but in steep decline now? • It is perhaps obvious that the skills computers are unable to deliver are the most in demand – if a computer can assess a skill, can it one day replace that skill? • Is anything testable by computer of no economic value to the learner? • Why do you think written tests have remained dominant for so long despite the severe drop in the jobs that require these skills? • How would you need to restructure your school if written tests were replaced by active involvement and collaboration tests?

14. 2. International recognition of the importance of competency development over ‘traditional’ exams • The research into the importance of competencies is widespread and has had a profound effect on many curriculum revisions internationally. • Unfortunately lack of reliable methods for assessing these competencies at scale leads countries to fall back on traditional methods of education. Scotland and New Zealand are examples of countries that have introduced competency based curricula but are having to use traditional methods to examine effectiveness. • The OECD has set the measurement of competencies as a priority and is in the process of defining and testing measures for them. They have produced research showing the importance of these on the economic growth of countries and time required to return investment. • UNESCO and the European Union have both produced definitions.

15. International recognition of the importance of competencies Self-managers Confident Individuals who are successful learners and responsible citizens Possessing competencies that enable them to be effective in a global knowledge economy probably without oil. Effective Participators Creative Thinkers Reflective Learners Independent Enquirers Team Workers

16. Alternative Numeracy and problem solving Oracy:Communication by speech and text. Confident Individuals who are successful learners and responsible citizens With the following competencies Self-managers Effective Participators Creative Thinkers Reflective Learners Independent Enquirers Team Workers

17. Suggested questions for discussing this topic • Numeracy and oracy could be included in these skills to make it NO SECRET (see slide 16) - are there any other skills or competencies you would include? • Peer assessment of these skills is scalable but is it reliable? How could peer assessment be made more reliable and easier to use? How could you prepare for this? • These competencies need to be practiced in parallel to subject teaching but to what extent must content be reduced to allow time to achieve this and what additional skills and structures would teachers need?

18. 3. Connection between child-centred or creative approaches and learner outcomes Perhaps unsurprisingly, the use of innovative teaching methods assists both the development of learners’ 21st century skills and enhances collaboration between teachers. View the speech by ‘Dalton Sherman’ on YouTube to connect with the purpose of education from a uniquely child-centred perspective. See also the NfER and OECD research SOURCE: ITL Research Pilot Year Report, October 2010

19. Learning tends to be accelerated with ‘P’ learning What aspects of your learners’ experience is currently T-route and which is P-route?

20. Suggested questions for discussing this topic • How could you introduce pupil led lessons in your school? • Can you name current ‘P’ type practice in the school? How can you build on this? • How can you introduce a choice of routes and content into your curriculum for learners? • How can you increase collaboration in learning? • Teachers hold the balance of power in the classroom – how can trust be improved to make this more of a democracy?

21. 4. Teacher as ‘action researcher’ The greatest gains are achieved through teachers networked in groups with other teachers who have the autonomy and authority to experiment and review their own work and progression. SOURCE: ITL Research Pilot Year Report, October 2010

22. Suggested questions for discussing this topic • How can you structure your school so that teachers can act on projects together regularly in small teams? • How can you recognise teacher action research and how can you measure its impact? • For teachers to work across subject disciplines they will need to research whole school problems – what examples of such problems are there? • Workshop planning – how can you ensure that during these workshops, teachers’ time to work together in groups is maximised?

23. 5. Globalisation and international competition • Below are some key headlines from the PowerPoint deck available on the internet called ‘Shift Happens’ - a number of these facts can be used to begin a debate about changes created by globalisation. • The 28% of people in India with the highest IQ outnumber the total population of the US. • China is soon to become the number one English speaking country in the world. • US labour department estimates that the average worker will have between 10 and 14 jobs before they are 38 years old. • The top ten jobs in demand in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.

24. End of Part 2. Does education need to transform? • At the end of this section, what did the workshop participants think? • ____% feel the school needs to transform its practice • ____% feel that improving current practice is all that is needed • In summary, the factors most consider when determining if transformation is needed are: • Changes in demand for jobs • International recognition of the importance of competencies over information recall • Connections between child-centred approaches and achievement of outcomes • The increasing autonomy of effective teachers and schools • Evidence of the effectiveness of the ‘teacher as action researcher’ approach • Globalisation and competition from distance working including environmental and population changes and challenges

25. Part 3. Agree on three core aims which unite the moral purpose of the school Whether the school is going to transform or just improve, the process will have more impact if all stakeholders are pulling in the same direction. This section will debate these common aims. For background to this task please read Michael Fullan’s account of the need for establishing the moral purpose at the heart of any community (see materials and video in the toolkit)

26. Task 1: If you could only guarantee to improve one thing for all learners who pass through your school what would it be? By the time learners leave our school, every one of them will have improved their ability to…what? • First decide on your own answer to this question – if you are having trouble, think of what you would want for your own child. • Next share your answer with the person next to you to arrive at either one or two answers. • Now, as a pair, join with another pair and try to arrive at three that you all agree on. • Write up your group’s three answers on separate sticky notes. • Your facilitator will compile all these into a list.

27. Are your top three in here? This list was compiled from asking the same question to schools in 48 countries. • Enjoys learning, un-learning and reflecting • Is healthy and able to stay healthy • Achieves progress every year • Achieves standardised qualifications • Learns the subject knowledge in our curriculum • Is prepared for today’s job market • Is a confident, resilient person • Contributes positively to society • Is literate and numerate • Is aware of bias and can question assumptions • Is able to work collaboratively in a team • Is creative and entrepreneurial Compile a list for your school, using answers from Task 1 and vote on the top three

28. Visualising your school’s three core aims Core aim 2 For all learners to improve [enter core aim 2 here] Core aim 1 For all learners to improve [enter core aim 1 here] Some activities the school does this year will impact on all three of these core aims Core aim 3 For all learners to improve [enter core aim 3 here]

29. End of Part 3. Our agreed Core Aims • The three core aims driving this school and uniting the passions and moral purpose of most staff and the learners themselves are: • Learners will improve _______________________________ • Learners will improve _______________________________ • Learners will improve _______________________________ • Our current vision will be updated by _______________ to reflect this agreement

30. Part 4. Check that the vision statement is aligned with the core aims • Most schools have a ‘big idea’, ‘vision statement’, ‘slogan’, ‘strap line’ or ‘mission statement’ that captures their ethos. • This statement is like an advertising slogan, designed to instantly inform people what drives the school. • They are often accompanied by a logo or image that helps convey the meaning more easily and to a wider audience. • By either using your existing school vision statement or designing a new one, discuss how much agreement there is between your statement and your core aims. • There are example vision statements on the following page.

31. Examples: school ethos in a sentence • Every piece of work must be shared, presented, published or displayed. • Micro-society - a learner managed community with all the services and features of the society in which it sits. • Professionalism of children / equal facilities with teachers. • All roles in the school will one day be managed by children as a ‘real’ learning opportunity. • Creating the leaders of tomorrow. • Progress for self, society and the nation. • Helping each other to progress. • Caring, Sharing and Daring.

32. Task 2 Check that your vision statement is in agreement with your core aims • Call out the current school vision statement – is it widely known, easy to remember and easy to share? • In pairs discuss ‘are the vision statement and the three core aims pulling in the same direction?’ (e.g. if your vision statement is ‘Academic excellence for all’ and your core aims are ‘Collaboration’, ‘Creativity’ and ‘Participation’ , your statement may need updating to reflect the aims more clearly.) • Can progress towards your vision be measured? Are more learners achieving the vision each year? • Debate the question; ‘does our vision statement need to be updated?’

33. End of Part 4. Our Vision Statement • The vision statement for the school is as follows: ‘________________________________________________’ • We are able to measure the progress of our vision. • It is instantly understandable and therefore easy to share with others, including learners and their parents. • It is in line with our three core aims which are: • Learners will improve _______________________________ • Learners will improve _______________________________ • Learners will improve _______________________________

34. Part 5. Ensure that your vision and core aims are ‘alive’ in all aspects of school life • For your vision and core aims to be ‘alive’ and shared across the school they must be visible in the: • hidden curriculum of teacher-learner and learner-learner Relationships; • status and range of Environments; • curriculum Opportunities ; • distribution of funding for both human and physical Resources; • democracy and Distribution of leadership within the school; • Evaluation methods for checking that the school is in fact delivering on its vision; and • Recognition and status awarded to people who are moving in the right direction. • If any of the REORDER aspects does not reflect the core aims of the school, then there is likely to be a lack of alignment.

35. Task 3 – aspirations for the future Divide the group into seven smaller groups and allocate one of the REORDER categories shown below to each group. Each group must agree on an aspiration or hope that they have for the future. • For example, if I am looking at ‘Relationships’ one of the school’s core aims is to improve learners’ ability to take responsibility, then I may suggest one of the following: • There will be trust between teachers and learners • Learners will offer services to their peers such as tuck shops and peer counselling • Learners will be given all of the budget currently spent on vandalism and can spend anything left on positive purchases. Write your aspirations on post it notes and share them with colleagues

36. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on ‘Environments’ What contribution to your school ethos and vision is currently made / do you aspire to be made by your learning environments?

37. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on Opportunities What new opportunities must be provided to deliver on your vision? • Few schools provide the opportunities for learners to systematically further the skills they will need to operate in the transformed school - how do you know if the balance of opportunities is right? • How is the curriculum organised to give rich and appropriate opportunities to all?

38. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on Resources – deployed in support of the vision • Staff • Equipment • IT hardware • Curriculum materials • Specialists • Your Community • Innovative Schools Network • Which of these resources are you investing in as part of your vision strategy?

39. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on Distribution of Leadership • Sustainable and scalable innovation must attempt to distribute leadership as widely as possible. • What steps are in the vision to empower autonomous teachers? • What steps are in the vision to empower learners as leaders? • What is the further role of the community?

40. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on Evaluation ? • If these are your core aims how can you plot your progression towards them? • How will you know whether this year’s innovation has worked? • How will staff know that what they are doing is working? • How do you decide which projects are excellent and should be shared with the network?

41. Suggested stimulus question for the group working on Recognition What processes are you using to recognise the wide range of progress and achievement? Examinations are part of this but other schools will be interested in innovations that support the rest. This in part will arise from the Evaluation – once you know the successes, how will you use them to motivate further work from staff, learners and the community as a whole?

42. End of Part 5. REORDER vision summary [Your school logo or an image that typifies your ethos here] [Your school vision statement] Core aims to improve all learners ability to 1. 2. 3.

43. Part 6. Additional ideas and support • Visions for the future must be based on outcomes for learning and not on the latest technology. • In later workshops we consider the impact of choice of educational philosophy on the vision. Further reading of educational philosophies is encouraged but few schools can rely upon their staff having a working knowledge of such research. • It is vital that the school’s vision is developed by all stakeholders and owned by the whole school. It is useful, however, to correlate this work with national programmes as described on the next slide.

44. Some Aspirations may be unique to the school but others may already be regional or national goals + +

45. Overlap with School Self Review This workshop overlaps a number of the self reviews but especially the following:

46. © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.