Introducing City Senior School at The Launching Pad

In November last year I was lucky enough to attend the SingularityU Summit in Christchurch. It was an awesome three days. It reignited my love of futures thinking and served as a swift kick in the pants.

I wrote this blogpost. 

I went back to school.

I felt unsettled.

I needed someone to help me process my thinking.

So a week or so later I called up my friend and now business partner and co-founder Brett O'Riley. I knew Brett had attended the SingularityU Executive Training in the US and I also knew he shared my frustration at the seemingly glacial pace of change in education. I shared my thinking and a vision for a school that was part school and part innovation co-working space. I wanted to know why we weren't leveraging digital technology to support more self-directed study in a social learning environment. I wanted to know why schools weren't more like GridAKL? Why are young people still in uniforms "PAC-MANing" their way through disconnected and fragmented timetables of learning? Why? Why? Why?

It was over an afternoon of discussion that we landed at an idea - why don't we open a school? It was a throw away comment at the time. But it also planted a seed.

So this is how it all started.

Then, suddenly it seemed to make a whole lot of sense. We (Brett and I) share a passion for digital technology and innovation. Brett has massive amounts of experience and expertise in the business innovation sphere, I had a whole lot of passion for leading educational change and fair amount of experience in setting up a school - thanks to what I thought was a once in a lifetime experience with Maurie Abraham and the team at HPSS. And with that, and a dash of "Screw it, let's do it!" - City Senior School at The Launching Pad was born. Okay, there might also have been about six months of massive amounts of planning and application forms and generally burning the midnight oil with Brett and others to get this thing across the line. 

So, what is City Senior School?

City Senior School will be an urban inner city STEAM school with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths. It was also have “green” sustainability philosophy which will focused on through Green Innovation Projects. City Senior School will be a school that is characterised by its student’s partnership with business and industry, and the employment pathways it creates.

Our Vision

Innovate. Connect. Contribute.

The mission of our school is to nurture and support our young people with a particular focus on becoming agentic, innovative and creative global citizens who can confidently contribute in our rapidly changing world.

Our Values and Principles

WE Innovate

• Online learning 
• Self-directed learning
• Experiential learning

WE Connect

• Social learning environment 
• Building partnerships
• Connected learning

We Contribute

• Community connection
• Sustainability focus
• Service learning

Our Curriculum

Students will experience three curriculum foci:

• STEAM curriculum - delivered through a mixture of online modules and face to face teaching,
• Green Innovation Projects and workplace engagements with local technology businesses both onsite and in Wynyard Quarter and the CBD,
• Whanau Mentoring (which will focus on Te Reo, tikanga, communication skills, self-management, well-being, ethics and futures thinking)

Our (draft) Year 11 Timetable 

NB. Students will move to an increasingly fluid and flexible timetable as they develop their ability to engage in self-directed learning. 

City Senior School at The Launching Pad

City Senior School will be located within The Launching Pad which will also be a co-working space for startup companies in the tech and innovation sector. By co-locating students and industry we will be able to support to students to work alongside and with their business partners and mentors.  

There are hundreds of companies, organisations and NGOs within walking distance, requiring workers with STEAM skills that will be engaged by the school to provide project and career pathway opportunities for students. Our foundation partners, include Auckland Theatre Company, Datacom, Microsoft, Media Design School and IBM who are all in close proximity. 

City Senior School as an Innovation Hub

The City Senior School Innovation Hub will be a multi-purpose space that will be dedicated to bringing together educators and students to explore innovative practice. 

This may include:

• Pop-up workshops designed and facilitated by City Senior School staff and students.
• Industry and School Educator connection events.
• A space available for teachers and students to come work alongside City Senior School staff and students. 
• A space for educator meet-ups and TeachMeets.
• A space for third-party professional development providers.

And yes, City Senior School is a Partnership School

City Senior School is a Partnership School (sometimes also referred to as a charter school), which I know will be a point of contention for some. As one who steadfastly refuses to be binary about these kind of things, I have come to believe that Partnership Schools are an opportunity for innovation that simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Yes, of course we should be investing in evolving existing schools, and innovation is happening all over the place. However, I strongly believe there is also space within the education landscape for small prototype schools which are free from the constraints of existing structures - small schools that can be agile and can share their learning with everyone. I believe that education should be free, it should be taught by highly skilled registered teachers and that we should, as New Zealand schools, be using the New Zealand Curriculum and National Certificate of Educational Achievement. So that is what will happen at City Senior School. Yes we are a Partnership School, we are a Partnership School that will have 100% skilled registered teachers teaching the NZC to work towards NCEA....plus a wide range of other carefully curated international microcredentials. 

And while we are on the topic, we don't get 2-5 times the amount of funding of a state school. We are funded at the same rate as a Decile 5 school, just simply bulk funded. 

So now what?

Lots of excitement, planning and preparation! I will start full-time as Principal from Term Two 2018 along with a fellow senior leader with a view to appointing our first contingent of teachers who will begin in Term Four. City Senior School will open with up to 100 Year 11 students in 2019, building up to a roll of 300 Year 11-13s by 2021. Enrolments will open in mid 2018. 

If you are interested in joining our mailing list, feel free to sign up here!

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Communities of Status Quo: Is there enough disruption in your Community of Learning??

Over the last year or so I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the establishment of what looks to be a particularly fabulous West Auckland COL - Te Whiria te Tangata. It is great to see school communities of schools coming together to collaborate to improve student outcomes. It is great to see school communities of schools collaborating, full stop.

However I do have a concern. I am not concerned that communities of learning won't see schools coming together to improve learner outcomes, what I am concerned about is that they may not, because of their very structure and achievement challenges, actually change much else. When scanning the endorsed achievement challenges and in the conversations I have had with many colleagues from a range of communities, I keep thinking, is there much within COL plans and achievement challenges that move beyond the paradigm of business as usual? Or are we simply going to see communities of schools holding hands, singing kumbaya and patting their respective inquiries on the back?

Is there much within COL plans and achievement challenges that move beyond the paradigm of business as usual? 

At this point I need to make an admission. During the period of COL policy development, or what was then referred to as IES or Investing in Educational Success I was lucky enough to be serving on the then Deputy Minister of Education Nikki Kaye's 21st Century Learning Reference Group. We were in the throes of developing a set of recommendations that came together as the report Future Focused Learning for Connected Communities. I remember very clearly the day we were briefed on the plans for IES and getting my knickers in a complete twist. Why the freakin' heck weren't they weaving the need for innovation into the very DNA of the COL policy? Having long been an amateur futurist and early adopter of technology I was confident that critical thinking, technology, personalisation and greater learner agency was something we needed to support all schools and educators to tackle.

Amos the Amateur Futurist 😂

This was compounded by the fact that I had recently had the pleasure of leading a large scale ICTPD contract at Epsom Girls Grammar School, and whilst I won't make any spurious claims about leading massive change, I did see, first hand, the potential of a school wide teaching as inquiry initiative infused with an expectation to explore e-learning interventions within every inquiry. Inquiries were still firmly focused on raising student outcomes, and also had a focus on developing thinking skills and introducing differentiation to develop greater engagement and interest. Yes, it caused unease and a certain level of discomfort as each and every teacher was expected to explore technological interventions, whether that was personally appealing or not, but it also got teachers to see the potential for employing new and different ways of engaging and supporting learning.

In this case, the demand for technological pedagogical interventions was a disruption, albeit a fairly palatable and minor one. It stopped teachers simply resorting to interventions that sat within their comfort zone. In my mind teaching as inquiry or spirals as inquiry without discomfort and an element of disruption is simply teaching.

The great thing about the policy as exists it doesn't preclude disruption, it simply doesn't demand it. And I am certainly not suggesting there isn't brilliant and innovative work taking place, I am just concerned that COLs, particularly if schools and/or educators are risk averse, can avoid any real change. So what can we do? Well the first thing I would suggest is that any educators involved in leading or supporting a COL develop an understanding of exponential change and what this really might mean for the very near future of schooling in New Zealand. See Kaila Corbin's fabulous introduction to exponentials below:

Source: YouTube

And if you are in any doubt that this isn't really applicable to education, listen to what Sue Suckling Chairperson of NZQA has to say about the Future of Education. If the chair of NZQA questions the future of NZQA, NCEA and the whole current concept of schooling, you need to wake up and smell the curriculum! (Who just today announced NZ's first micro-credential on Twitter.)

Source : YouTube

What is your COL doing to prepare for the potential disruption of COOLs? What are they doing to prepare for self-taught teenagers who can accrue international micro-credentials that render NCEA and the current concept of school redundant? If we are going to come together to collaborate, let's come together to tackle some very real threats and opportunities that are closer than we think. 

If nothing else, design some elements of disruption that at the very least prevent your Community of Learning being little more than a synergetic version of the status quo.

Connect with and follow the less amateur futurists:

Frances Valentine

Cheryl Doig

Derek Handley

Kaila Corbin

Melissa Clark-Reynolds

Other posts that might be of interest:

#SUNZSUMMIT - What I learnt from attending SingularityU and what I reckon it means for education in NZ

It's not about our students not being school ready, it's about our schools not being 21st Century child ready

Keeping our cool about COOLs (without drinking the COOL aid)

Blue Sky High - five things every secondary school should implement...now 

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#SUNZSummit - Why I am looking forward to SingularityU

Claire Amos: Realising the Future of New Zealand Education 

from Festival of Education on Vimeo.

On the eve of the inaugural SingularityU NZ Summit I am continuing to build some very genuine levels excitement about what I might learn and how it might reframe my thinking about the future of education. It has been awesome to be part of what feels like a groundswell of educators who share a passion for futures thinking and educational change and it has been equally exciting to see this become a theme of large scale conferences such as Ulearn and EduTech and the many smaller corporate organised edu-conferences that have popped up in recent years.

However alongside this excitement this excitement there has also been a sense of frustration. Whilst there is absolutely a growing demand for educational change, there is also sense that these "edu-changemakers" still, in a sense live within a bit of a bubble. Head to any conference and you see the same lovely group of educators, speaking for the most part about variations of the same stuff - me included (see above). You can't help feeling that those wanting to make real change exist in what can feel like an echo-chamber, who for the most part are simply preaching to the converted.

So I guess I am looking forward to SingularityU for two key reasons.

The first reason - I want to hear fresh stuff.

I am really looking forward to hearing stuff that blows the top of my freakin' head off. Whilst I am passionate about and a passionate advocate for the concepts and thinking that sit behind "design thinking", "makerspaces", "e-learning", "BYOD", "learner agency", "coding" and all the other educational jargon that I and everyone else seems to be waffling on about at educational conferences, I  fear I am suffering from "jargon jaundice", and worry this may lead to "futurist fatigue". So SingularityU I am looking to you! I want new learning, like hurt-your-brain learning. I want to be shaken out of my "modern learning malaise" and come away thoroughly coated in some "exponential ectoplasm".

The second reason - I want everyone to hear fresh stuff...and want them to want change.

I really hope this event is a catalyst for a widespread call for change, particularly in our schools. One of my frustrations is the sense that whilst people love educators writing and talking about change, they still seem to hesitate appointing "change leaders" to lead their (secondary) schools. Until each and every school leader is a leader of change, education in NZ will stumble and ultimately stall. Schools in NZ are governed by Boards of Trustees, who for the most part are interested parents and community members. I am hoping an event like SingularityU reaches them, the communities and families who will then demand schools (particularly secondary schools) evolve to meet the exponential change we are are experiencing in our workplaces and society at large. NZ already has one of the most open and future-focused curriculum, we also have a pretty flexible and forward thinking qualification framework, yet many secondary school timetables look the same as they did 50 years ago. I really hope this event can rattle the "college cages" and help our schools and communities to understand that it is going to take more than BYOD and Makerspaces to properly prepare our young people.

And of course I am looking forward to visiting Christchurch and meeting many like-minded people! Bring it on SingularityU!

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