I travelled to this conference with five other colleagues from our Project Koru team and acknowledge the considerable financial support from the Project towards this trip.

The conference was significant in the abundance of world class presenters: Fullan, Hargreaves, Senge, Hayes-Jacobs, Caldwell, Hattie*, Robinson* (New Zealand). The facilities and workshop opportunities were outstanding.

This was a great conference and very significant. The big picture items or themes coming out of it were:
1. Schools as an institution are finite and perhaps within 50 years, won’t exist. We need to be thinking about or imaging new forms, ideas and curriculum for schools.
2. That children, teachers and schools learn better when they work together (in groups).
3. The importance being placed on the Arts and in Music particularly.
4. Of equal importance was the great bonding of our team and the better knowledge of each other and the willingness to work closer together.
5. That we can learn from business, sport etc in terms of systems and organization.

The most important message was the need for schools to change. We need to prepare children for a world that hasn’t yet been invented and for jobs that don’t yet exist. Again, the need to change the school from a place of teaching to a place of learning, the importance of digital technology etc. Our school is well down this path:
• Adaptive curriculum
• Inquiry Learning
• Thinking skills
• ICT
• Performing Arts
• New facilities to match changing curriculum
• Emphasis on pedagogy

The new New Zealand school curriculum gives the opportunity and mandate to change the nature and content of the school. Our school is now four years in to changing the school from a place of teaching to a place of learning and of trying to become a school preparing children for a 21st century life with action learning, learning together in groups, exploring digital worlds and having access to a strong arts programme.

Conferences are a time to think and reflect and a couple of areas of personal learning crystallized.
• The need to visit rooms more often.
• The need to give more feedback to staff.
• The need to recognize and reward ability.
• More opportunities for student voice.

All the speakers touched on leadership and management strategies and talked about various criteria of importance in effective schools which are summarized.

Peter Senge M.I.T was the most powerful speaker and strongest advocate for schools to change. We need to get away from the production line approach to schools and re-imagine our structures and curriculum to prepare children for a world which hasn’t been invented yet and for a job that doesn’t yet exist. Schools may not exist in 50 years. They began in order, to save the 19th century industrial revolution and will become outdated by geo political internalization of the world and changes in technology and employment. For Senge, learning is about thinking leading to acting. It needs to have an authentic context so that it has real meaning to the learner.

Brian Caldwell of Melbourne, was a substantive author of Tomorrows Schools in New Zealand. He gave a very well grounded presentation entitled 8 challenges for school leaders and politicians.
1. Trust the profession.
2. Intellectual autonomy (self management).
3. Re-build schools physically, pedagogically and in curriculum to match the 21st century.
4. Seek sponsorship opportunities in public education.
5. Students must be the centre.
6. Support the leaders with more management and support structures to enable them to be the educational leaders.
7. Alignment of capital (put all together).
- Intellectual capital – the professional capital of staff.
- Social capital – networks, partnerships, grants.
- Spiritual capital – values and attitudes.
- Financial capital – monitory resources.
8. Real governance is the process by which schools build and align their capital to reach their goals.

Michael Fullan ex university of Toronto is now education advisor to the Ontario Premier. He believes in central direction and mandated targets. He is a major world figure in education. He spoke of ‘six secrets’
1. Love your employees, parents, network partners etc, (respect and trust and build partnerships).
2. Connect peers with purpose – peer interaction within schools and clusters.
3. Bullying backfires (as a management tool).
4. Learning is the real work – doing, implementing, trialing etc.
5. Transparency works – sharing practice and resources, observation of each other, comparing results.
6. Systems learning – plugging in all parts of the system to work for the same end.

Andy Hargreaves from Boston is probably the leading world educational thinker. He believes in a bottom up approach. He talked about seven principals of sustainable leadership.
1. Depth and focus on learning – it works.
2. Endurance and change over time – it lasts.
3. Breadth – it spreads.
4. Justice – helping other teachers or schools.
5. Diversity – networking with others for new ideas.
6. Resourcefulness – you can’t run a school with dead leaders.
7. Conservation –honouring and valuing the past as building blocks for the future.
He reiterated Senge’s idea that we can learn from other sectors (business and sport) and from other countries as well as by networking with other schools and partners. His recipe for good schools is:
- Strong vision.
- Focus on learning areas.
- High quality teachers.
- Build strong professional learning communities.
- Networks and partnerships.
- Accountability

What was the personal learning I gained from this conference?
- Visit rooms more often.
- Provide more feedback especially about assessment reporting.
- Advocate for teachers to observe each other and in other schools.
- Recognize reward ability.
- Promote and defend the philosophy and direction of the school.