Student Leadership

As promised, I'm here to write about our amazing student leaders.

Last week at Tay Shores PS we handed out over 250 applications to students who wanted to become members of our Shore Squad Leadership Team. These students are all from grades 5-8 and are keenly interested in helping make Tay Shores PS the best school in the SCDSB.

After completing their applications, we opened up the gymnasium for a giant Job Fair. Students went around to the various tables to meet their Teacher coordinators and to 'interview' for their positions. This is a really fun process to observe and to take part in. The students milling about, trying to get 'hired' for leadership positions, teachers interviewing prospective leaders. As the saying goes, "You had to have been there", to witness this event.

Now our Shore Squad has been hired. We have over 100 students performing many leadership roles around our school. They are leading in the following ways: Library Helpers, Kindergarten Monitors, Primary Monitors, Recycling Helpers, Office Helpers, Athletic Equipment and Recess Equipment Monitors, Technology Set-Up Crew, House League Coordinators, Breakfast Club Helpers, Announcement Anchors, Publicity Photographers/Videographers, Bus Patrollers, RAK Team Members and our very popular Shore Squad Spirit Team.

I'd like to take the time to thank all of the students who took an interest in leadership and submitted their applications. We have outstanding young leaders in our school this year.

I'd also like to take the time to thank all of the teachers who have volunteered their time to mentor and coordinate these students this year. As they say on A&E, it is "Time Well Spent".

We are also on the lookout for outstanding Shore Squad leaders who we can send to OELC this year. The Ontario Educational Leadership Centre (OELC) is located on Lake Couchiching and offers a wonderful 4 day program for young leaders each year. This May we will be sending 6 students to this camp. Over the course of this year, we are offering 4 leadership training sessions at our school for all students who have given up their time to join the Shore Squad.

Your first opportunity to see our Shore Squad in action will be on Thursday September 29th, when we host our Grand Opening and Meet the Teacher event at the school. Our Shore Squad Spirit Team will be on hand to take parents/families on tours of our new building. You'll be able to spot them in their bright neon yellow t-shirts.

I look forward to working with these outstanding students this year!!

And we're off...

       It's been a long time since my last post. That's the reality of moving 500 students and all of their educational materials across a township and into a new facility - your writing time goes out the window.

       What an amazing week we've had. Every year, the first few days of school are always the best. It's always wonderful to see the students in their new clothes and backpacks and hear their excited voices as they reconnect with friends and meet their new teachers. This week has been better than any other year. The students, teachers and parents have come into our new building with eyes wide open, filled with awe and excitement, as they see and explore the new rooms and materials.

         We know that this process has been quite long. Students have had to move multiple times, meet new friends, close familiar buildings and go to school in really cramped quarters. I think our students are realizing that it was all worth it. Our new facility is state of the art. It's beautiful. It's large. And...it will be the envy of all of the schools in North Simcoe. The students and families of Tay Township deserve this amazing facility. If you haven't had the chance to come and see the building, please join us soon. You won't be disappointed.

        Speaking of visiting our school. Our official Grand Opening will take place on September 29th. It will take place alongside our "Meet the Teacher" event. Parents and students will have from 4:00pm to 7:00pm to tour the building and meet with our educational staff. At 7:00pm we will gather in the gymnasium for a more formal presentation. The Director of Education, along with Superintendents, and representatives from the Ministry of Education will be on hand to deliver greetings and our own Tay Shores Choir will entertain the attendees. We will also be officially naming our new meeting room, "The Paul Delaney Room". This new room will be used for student leadership meetings, school council meetings and other medium sized groups. We hope that all of our families and community members will choose to attend this celebration.

          In tomorrow's blog, I will proudly talk about our Shore Squad Leadership Team. They are getting themselves organized and ready for another busy year.

          Thanks, everyone, for the great start to our school year. I'm so glad to be working with all of you!!

A Sense of Community

        As the Principal of Tay Shores PS, I went home last night feeling so proud of our school community.

        Last night was our first-ever Spaghetti Dinner. This event was organized by our School Council and run by our Grade 8 students, parent volunteers and teachers. It was so amazing to see the constant roll-over of customers as they filtered through the Oakwood Community Centre to partake in great food, conversation and community-building. The food was very tasty and for only $8.00, your belly was full when you left. Our Grade 8 hosts and hostesses were extremely organized, polite and efficient. They were excellent ambassadors for Tay Shores PS. The volunteers in the kitchen staff were kept busy all night, but with the amount of laughter that was coming from within, I don't think they minded doing these chores. What really filled my heart was that at the end of the evening, when it was clear that we were going to have a lot of leftovers, our thoughtful School Council made a quick decision to donate all of the extra food to our local Soup Kitchen.

         

          As I ate and got a chance to mingle, I was so impressed with the number of families that came out to support this event. It really did feel like a giant family-reunion. I was able to interact with so many children and adults and the energy in the room was very positive. We've got a great group of people at Tay Shores.

          And, this was just the extension of the day that I already had at school. Earlier in the day, we hosted our March Recognition Assembly. This month, our school was focused on the character trait of "Integrity". To me this is the most important trait. In order to truly have integrity, you need to exhibit all of the other traits. What made our assembly so great was the amount of students who were recognized for demonstrating this trait. I handed out more certificates this month than in any other month - a testament to how great our students really are here at Tay Shores PS.

         During the afternoon, our RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) Team met with Michael Eisen, the founder of the Youth Wellness Network, to plan out mental health initiatives for our students to take part in during the month of May. These students, many of whom received Integrity certificates earlier in the day, work so hard to look out for others and to ensure that they treat all students with respect and compassion. Just spending time with these students is personally inspiring. Our future is in good hands!!

        I'm so lucky to work in such a close-knit, caring and supportive community. Our Titan Family is awesome!!!!

         

My "What If?"s

       I've recently been engaged in an ongoing learning conversation with educational leaders from across Ontario, through OSSEMOOC. These leaders are offering up their opinions and thinking around the George Couros book, "The Innovator's Mindset". In addition to the book review, there has been a challenge issued for participants to blog hop each week around a specific question. This week's challenge is to write about our "What If?"s, based on the questions that are asked in Couros's book.
       This post is my response to 3 of those questions:

       "What if we believed that everything that we had to make great schools was already in our organization, and we just needed to develop and share it?"
       This question is the foundation that supports our PLC work this year. In recent memory, my VP and I have run PLC's based on a deficit model. That is, we start by looking at what the school or staff are not doing particularly well and then we come up with a plan on how we can make it better. In the past couple of years we really wanted to create rich conversations (discourse) in our school, both with staff and students. It was forced, or at least it seemed forced. This year, after both of us read "The Innovator's Mindset", we met with our School Leadership Team and indicated that we wanted to start from an assets model. What a difference!!! The work that we are doing is invigorating, inspiring, innovative and has had impact, because our teachers are starting with what they currently do well. They've been asked to take a practice that they are comfortable and confident with and then attempt to 'innovate' it. The answer to all of our questions can be found in the room. We have first year teachers sharing their expertise with 26 year veterans and vice-versa. They are equal partners in the learning experience and I can honestly see the excitement in all of their eyes. At our staff meetings, we spend very little time talking about administrivia. Instead, we share our learning during the "App"etizer session. We deepen our thinking through the "Dis"Course and then celebrate each other and learning during "Dessert". This shift in thinking has lead to deep learning with our staff and we can now see this excitement filtering through to our students.

        "What if  everyone in our organization, not just our students, was encouraged to pursue his or her dreams?
        In this most recent educational discourse, we are seeing a strong shift towards student voice and choice. Allowing students to pursue or direct their own learning is becoming more prevalent in schools. In the SCDSB, our Innovation Team has encouraged teachers to pursue their own PD interests. There was a Numbered Memo that was sent to all educators in the fall and teachers could go through the myriad of choices so that they could choose and direct their own learning. What an amazing transformation in teacher engagement and empowerment!! I've got a steady stream of teachers heading off to sessions that they are wanting to go to. I used to have to plead and strongly encourage people to go to workshops. Today, two of my teachers were at an NPDL session and they were sending out streams of inspired 'Tweets' as they were learning. This allowed me, as the principal, to share in their learning, even though I was miles away. Other colleagues were 'looking' in on their work throughout the day, despite being in their classrooms. Enough excitement was generated through that learning, that other teachers were asking to have these two colleagues present during the "Dis"course session of next week's staff meeting. We've likened our inquiries to student "Genius Hour" projects. So much fun!!

        "What if we focused on connecting and learning , both globally and locally?
        This has been my professional pursuit this year. I have made it my PD to engage in the learning that is taking place in my building and in the province. Being a part of the OSSEMOOC and the "Innovator's Mindset" book talk, has been eye-opening. Making my learning visible to other educational leaders is scary, but powerful. People from around my own board and around the province are challenging my thinking, supporting my initiatives, offering new insights and cheerleading as I take my school to places they've never been before. The power of technology to bring educators from all over the world into my office to share their thinking with me, is incredible.

        As I said at the end of my last post...What a great time to be in education!!

The Literal and Figurative Renovation of Tay Shores PS

         I've been writing and speaking a lot lately about "Innovation" and the amazing things that are happening at Tay Shores PS. As with most learning, our work is creating more questions than answers.
        One of the frequent questions that I get asked about is centered on the term "innovation". What is innovation? Is innovation the creation of something brand new? Or, is it just the iteration of something already in place? Whether you read the work of George Couros, the author of "The Innovator's Mindset" or the work of Garfield Gini-Newman, the author of "Creating Thinking Classrooms", or if you follow the numerous "Twitter" conversations on this topic, you will find that the definition is hard to nail down and that innovation can really be what you want to make it.
          Having said that, here at Tay Shores, we are trying to be very clear with each other about what "innovation" means to this school, both as teacher innovation and student innovation. In all that we do at this school, we remind each other that whatever we are 'innovating' must be in alignment with the foundations and pillars that our school is built on.
          While we are literally renovating our school in Victoria Harbour, it is the perfect time to extend the renovation metaphor to our school motto of inquiry, innovation and impact. I came across this metaphor while reading "Creating Thinking Classrooms" and it really captures what we are talking about here at Tay Shores.
           The construction workers who are renovating our school are creating some new, innovative spaces in the building. Most of our new rooms will truly be 'state-of-the-art' and they will lead to amazing learning opportunities for our students. What we need to keep in mind is that most of the work is being done on the original foundation - the basic floor plan that exists already. Some of the internal walls have been taken down and re-arranged into new spaces, but the load-bearing walls and the main sections will remain, because they hold the structure together. The extension or addition, has to be aligned with the original building. There are parts of the new building that are simple extensions of what already existed or are completely new rooms that 'fit' with the original design. These new rooms are seamlessly created so that one will hardly be able to tell where the new part began and the original had stopped.
           I bring this up, because in a figurative way, that is what is happening at Tay Shores this year, with our PLC work around inquiry, innovation and impact. Our staff is trying to 'renovate' our teaching practices. Now, when we try to come up with an innovative practice, we have to keep in mind that it needs to align with our 'foundation'al beliefs. Some of these beliefs are that all students can succeed or students are inherently curious or learning requires active participation. We constantly need to remind ourselves that our innovations need to be built upon these foundations.
           Secondly, we need to make sure that our innovations are 'built' using the 'pillars' or 'support beams' that hold our school together. Some of these principles are we build upon student voice and choice or our work needs to engage and/or empower students or we use authentic assessment tools to measure student achievement of curricular expectations or our assessment and instruction is differentiated for all students. If we aren't using these principles to 'frame' our work, then the whole structure collapses.
            Finally, we need to make sure that all of our innovations are pushing student thinking, student achievement and student well-being to its highest point, so that we reach our school goals. When we look to the 'roof' or 'ceiling' of our innovations, we are asking ourselves if we've achieved our educational goals. These goals include students' ability with regards to the 6 Cs (collaboration, creation, communication, critical thinking, citizenship and character) or students' mindfulness or students' digital literacy. If what we are 'innovating' does not lead us towards these goals then we need to rethink our work.
           As the principal at Tay Shores PS, I'm so excited to see the literal renovation taking place in Victoria Harbour. When I drive by the building, it's thrilling to think that we'll be working and learning there next September. I'm also thrilled to see the amazing figurative renovations that are taking place in our teaching practices this year. Just this week, two of our teachers will be presenting their 'innovative' practices at the first annual PUSH Conference.
           What a great time to be in education!!!!

Innovation PLCs

       The Tay Shores Teaching Staff have been in meetings over the last two days. During those meetings we have been sharing our classroom inquiries and innovations and asking questions of each other.
       Our meetings were designed to be run in 3 layers. On one layer we were face to face having a fairly traditional conversation. A teacher would present their work to their colleagues and we would engage in some rich discourse at the end. The second layer that was happening simultaneously, was that all of the teachers in the session were digitally working on a shared document, providing comments and feedback for the presenter (as they were presenting). Finally, all of the staff that currently have Twitter accounts were 'tweeting' their thoughts/ideas/inspirations as the session was going on, using the hashtag #tayshoresPLC. If you have a Twitter account, look up that hashtag and you'll be able to see a record of our learning.
       We have teachers using video and audio apps to capture student voice and allow for creativity. There are classrooms that are engaged in collaborations with children in other schools in, and outside, of Simcoe County. There are a few classrooms in our building that are innovating what the physical environment will be. Stop by sometime and see some of these new rooms - they are really interesting and are designed to inspire group work and creative learning. In fact, one of our teachers is calling their new room "The 'Co'laboratory". We have Kindergarten students who are using QR Codes and iPads to collaborate with each other and to communicate with other classes. How about our Grade One students who are asking their teacher to make their learning visible to others by being 'Tweeted'? We have innovated ways in which students interact and teach other students, including a new way of doing 'pen-pals'. How about reading your letter, en francais, to a student in Quebec and having them hear your voice and see your face?
        Really exciting things are happening at Tay Shores PS each day. Please come and visit us...online via Twitter @tayshoresps or come in for a tour. We'd love to show you what we are up to!!