Many people may get annoyed with this post, in fact it may even be considered sacrilegious by some. Sir Ken Robinson is extremely well known, liked by many and revered by some. His TED talk from 2006 has been watched almost 35 million times. Yet on finishing his most recent book I was left with an overwhelming sense of “meh.”
I have just had my largest break from blogging since I started 2 and a half years ago. Blogging is a big part of how I reflect and progress but priorities have shifted a bit lately with family circumstances. I have still reflected, tweeted, discussed with coteachers, critical friends and colleagues; but the blog has sat here much quieter than normal. That said, here is what has been happening in my classes lately:
Learning Hub
The early part of this term was focused on students’ IEMs. This is a 3-way conversation between students, their parents and me as their advisory coach. The highlight of this day is being part of genuine learning conversations. Celebrations and challenges are shared, discussed and implications considered.
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Last week Lea Vellenoweth inspired our students by talking about pursuing their passions (see her blog post for what this talk covered). We followed this up in Hubs by creating bucket lists of what each student wanted to do or achieve in their lifetimes. To extend this further, we spent Friday’s extended Hub session working on a community bucket list – what is it that we as a community could achieve in the 4-5 years we are at school together?
Day 2 of #28DaysofWriting and it was Day 1 of school for the year. That meant that today was spent with the 12 Year 9 and 10 students in my Learning Hub (our HPSS version of Learning Advisories). Part of the day focused on getting to know each other and part of the day on a challenge introducing them to one of our Hobsonville Habits.
I have 2 aims in the first few days of school every year:
Today I got to know my Hub through a range of activities involving them speaking to each other, writing answers, drawing pictures and creating sculptures out of material such as play doh, paper, straws and pipe cleaners. I also learned a lot (possibly more) by watching how each of them approached each activity. Continue reading
This post is to share a few iterations happening at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. I wrote last week about the process we were undertaking to evaluate and adjust our timetable for Term 4. We have now created the next iteration of our timetable. This sits alongside the new iteration of our Learning Design Model that occurred earlier this term and the next iteration of how my Learning Hub will operate. Continue reading
After all that time deschooling, deconstructing and designing we have finally crossed the start line this week. Monday was our official opening day as Hobsonville Point Secondary School became a real school!
Most of the first 2 days has been spent with my Learning Hub of 9 students (for a great description of Learning Hubs and how they operate see Megan’s post). These are the students for whom I will act as academic and pastoral mentor for the next 5 years and I am rapt to have such an awesome bunch.
My Learning Hub, now known as Reweti
Steve Mouldey 