Mentor Training

I have just spent 2 days in Auckland being part of First Time Principal Mentoring training. Once again I was a bit peeved at having to use the time, but once again I found it hugely useful.

The stuff really gets to the core of school leadership with a big focus on strategic thinking, open-to-learning conversations (which I find fascinating and valuable) and with face to face access with world-leading thinkers such as Viviane Robinson and video access to Graeme Aitken and John Hattie.

I certainly have a lot of resources and ideas to use with my FTP Principals, but, just as importantly, I can use them for the development of our Senior Leadership Team and staff in general.

The big problem I have is that these resources and ideas need aa lot of thinking through and developing for our context and once school gets underway, which is from now on, I have little time for this type of reflection.

I have tried to schedule a half day each Thursday to go off site and get things done, but these tasks are generally administrative such as newsletter, BOT report, Charter, milestone reports etc. I can't afford any more time off site but I have to find a way of making time at school. If I could spend most of my time on teacher observation and feedback and the strategic stuff described above I am sure I would be a better principal.

Perhaps I could schedule a 90 minute slot once per week with no phone or walk-in interruptions (other than outright emergencies) where I could focus on mentoring and strategic reflection. I'm tempted to try and see how it works in reality.

I'm currently planning my two hour session for our start of year Teacher Only Day on Friday. This has largely moved from an administrative time to a focus on the year's curriculum and pedagogy direction.

Our focus this year is to develop Opotiki College as a Thinking and Asking Place. We want inquiry to be the focus of our work and we want to promote higher levels of thinking for teachers and students.

Amongst this we want the staff to concentrate on three key words: Collaboration, Consistency and High Expectations.

And of course, ERO arrives at the start of Term II.