Sunday, May 13, 2007
Welcome to the DECS conference blog!
If you haven't visited a blog before, you will soon realise that the newest items are on the top, so read from the bottom up..... this week I will post a public value management article, and the entries from your competition......if anyone has photos of the event, email them to me and I will put them up(depending on size)....I will also put up a short discussion of the links between all the plans as craftily negotiated with me by Geof...I loved last week - hope it was of value to you - Denise
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3 comments:
The conference was a gem and we have already shared material with other leaders in the school. We are planning to spend more time reviewing some of the readings next week.
Visioning rather than halucinating resonated with my colleagues and they are keen to translate our Site Learning Plan into three dot points that the whole school community can embrace.
I look forward to seeing some more of Denise's readings.
Also Businessballs is a great website! Well worth everyone having a look.
It seems like blogging isn't real "big" in our district, but I'm going to have a go, despite a reticence towards having my comments open to public criticism. I need to say that the challenge for any conference facilitator to maintain engagement and interest with people from a range of backgrounds has to be HUGE. Our conference participants included personnel from the district office, both with school & non-school roles, preschool directors, leaders from Primary and High Schools. Denise proved that she was up to the challenge and while different people were engaged to varying degrees, feedback at the conference indicated that most people had their needs catered for! I guess the challenge we now have is to build onto the “one off conference” experience and use our learning in our sites to help us do a more effective job.
I came away with lots of questions, rather than answers. For instance, did other people come away with an increased knowledge and appreciation of what the state government is trying to do to improve the connections between what we do in individual sites and what happens across the whole state? Did you feel that we should do more to work with the government, rather than criticise, complain and get angry with their "changing priorities" and work against the government?
I was thinking about the aquatics and instrumental music reviews, and the consideration of removing these programs from schools. Should we expect parents/caregivers to pay for these programs and have them conducted by professional aquatics' and music instructors outside of school time? Should we ask Life Education to run Drug Education programs for students in the school holidays, at a cost to parents/caregivers? Should SAPSASA sports that happen in some schools during the school day be transferred to after school and be run by "someone else"?
Should we simply concentrate on teaching the 8 learning areas a defined in SACSA? Should we forgo any future excursions, camps and/or incursions so teachers do not have to organise them? Should we ask the DECS’ decision makers not to take on board the dog biting program, gambling program, finance teaching program, healthy eating program etc. etc. etc. – those list of extras that seems to be ever burgeoning!
Is this something we should do in order to cut back on the extra curricular jobs that we have to do because of the demands on schools and preschools?
I recognise that many of the "extra curricular" programs are important teaching tools/ strategies and if in primary schools, for instance, we simply concentrated on the basic teaching of concepts and skills as documented in SACSA, teaching and learning may get a little boring. Teaching could also become very academic, less constructive, more separated from real life experience, methinks!
Another concern that I’m sure many of us have, is the current actions being taken by government in relation to cutting the budget. Doug Moyle’s recent summation of what the cuts can mean to education across our education spectrum is quite worrisome. And, in terms of working with the government, it is quite off-putting and doesn’t give one a lot of encouragement to develop a supportive environment between the decision makers, in a sense, and us who work directly with children, parents/caregivers and workers in schools.
These are some of the questions that I have and I would be interested in reading your thoughts.
I am also looking forward to reading Denise’s take on the connections between state planning and site planning so I’ll keep the blog address in the favourites and come back to this site over time.
Great to read comments regarding recent conference. I'm a first time blogger so am keen to get on board. Yes Denise was excellent value. As such, some personal reflection in my approach to work, play, life is in the process. Looking forward referring back to this site with interest and further comment.
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