9.00 - 9.30 Keynote Address
Tinkering around the edges never really satisfies a quest for ‘wise practice’. In a leaderful community 'Leadership belongs to all' (Sergiovanni, 1992). Perhaps this is what Te Whāriki has in mind in its
principle 'Empowerment'. Yet figuring out what this means in the context of our own settings takes very thoughtful, often intuitive responses. Some of these we can prepare for and some require
engaged listening because the opportunities might just be whispered. Both are powerful indicators of our approach to learning and teaching. This keynote explores ways teachers constrain or enhance learning
through their willingness to share their power with each other, with children and with families as we ask ourselves:
Do we always view leadership as a way to offer opportunities to each other, to be challenged, to take risks, to stretch our imaginations and to build our community’s social competence?
9.30 - 10.30 First Workshop Session
participants choose between Workshop 1 and Workshop 2:
Growing strong social competence inside a community of learners
Building a collaborative community within a socio-cultural framework is not a prescribed policy. It is a dynamic, interactive enterprise that relies on the interconnectivity of setting, relationships and
context.
- It’s about individual interest and passion and shared endeavour in a social setting.
- It’s about sharing the power so that everyone’s interests are supported.
- It’s about approaching every situation from a credit-based model.
- It’s about helping each other to recognise and respond in ways that build our identities as confident, capable learners who are curious explorers of our world.
- It’s about helping children to take responsibility for learning with and alongside others in ways that build empathy, fair-mindedness and positive attitudes towards diversity.
Wise leadership enables these things to become part of the cultural fabric.
Growing leaders from infancy up!
When teachers plan rich, vibrant settings and build a culture of responsive power sharing, they enable infants and toddlers to be curious explorers of their learning setting. This workshop will explore
strategies that enable children to grow their abilities inside communities that are actively listening to their interests, as they build relationships moment by moment that support them to be lifelong,
dispositional learners.
11.00 - 12.00 Second Workshop Session
participants choose between Workshop 3 and Workshop 4:
Transitions: Shifting from what we comfortably know to new possibilities
Communities identified by a willingness to engage in life-long learning will do their utmost to thoughtfully support children through transition processes. This enables us to stretch from what we know to
the edges of possibility. This workshop explores the question:
Do we always consider just what really listening to each other's voices means and does this reflection flow through to engaged practice that makes space for our entire community to be resilient, resor
rceful, reflective and to respond with reciprocity as we engage in the multitude of transition moments in ece settings? (Guy Claxton, Building Learning Power, 2002)
Exploring literacy and numeracy possibilities: How wide and deep can we go?
Building complex social relationships around meaningful activities requires genuine practices in which taking charge of learning becomes the enterprise of a community. (Wenger, 1998)
Leadership that focuses on language, culture and identity strengthens children’s view of themselves as powerful life-long learners. This workshop explores ways to enable children’s literacy and numeracy
interests to flourish inside vibrant communities that keep learning complex and connected.
1.00 - 3.00 Afternoon Session
The afternoon programme will provide an opportunity to develop an understanding and use of enquiry/action research methods and to formulate a research question. Participants will be encouraged to also
focus their professional learning on language, culture and identity - this work is intended to strengthen the pathway to stronger bicultural practice.
The final element will include IT support systems, enabling up to 8 centres per Inspiration Day to access an allocated ELP Project Facilitator. Centres will opt for this option on the day. For the settings who
take up this option, ELP will utilise telephone support, email, Skype, podcasts and blogs to support teachers’ practice and self review as they engage in their own self-directed professional learning
project.
(ELP has the resources to support up to 8 centres per Inspiration Day via this model. If more centres apply we will give priority to those centres with the highest percentage
of staff members attending the Inspiration Day.)
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