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Sunday 29 May 2016

Changes - the COLS are Coming.

It is a time of change in education.  Big changes.  In New Zealand, we are adopting a new approach for schools.  Instead of being relatively independent entities, schools are being encouraged to join a community of learners (COL) - that is,  a community of schools.  When I say encouraged, I mean that it is not compulsory, but as the Ministry of Education will prioritise any free professional learning for the schools inside a Communities of Learners, it seems pretty imperative to try to join up if you want access to that, for a start.
The idea is that together, the learners (teachers and students) will be able to draw on the strengths of all contributing schools.  Which is admirable - I like this image that was shared with me at a conference last week.  There is a lot of potential for schools to draw on the strengths of others.

The average number of schools in a COL is around 10 and they include primary and secondary schools, so there should be a reasonably wide range of expertise across the schools.  Together the schools are expected to look at their data and formulate achievement challenges which reflect how they will, as a group, improve outcomes for their learners.  The Ministry of Education will then aim to provide the professional development that the community needs, if the expertise is not available in those schools.
The disadvantages that I see coming are firstly that small schools, particularly those which are isolated, will miss out.  These schools have very limited budgets.  Often their clientele migrate to far off boarding schools and so they are not feeder schools for any secondary schools and so they are unlikely to be able to form a COL easily.
In addition, when communities of schools are in close proximity to each other,  they will likely adopt the "flavour" of that community.  I believe this means that in a low socio-economic region, the school will likely adopt a low socioeconomic outlook and likewise for high socioeconomic areas.  Personally, I would like to see a lot more cross pollination of ideas and resources that can help raise achievement for the learners.  The way that the COLs "form, storm, norm and perform" and develop their collaborative identity will be crucial to avoid glitches caused by competition and ego clashes.
These are my initial thoughts around the COLs and I do realise that the landscape is changing by the day.  I welcome any feedback and discussion on this subject.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Leigh, I like this post and the potential misgivings you indicate. I think that is a very real issue and may further exacerbate the tyranny of distance for some schools. It would be great if both of us are proved wrong. How schools actually communicate is another issue - who will have the energy to sustain this? How will schools undertake this community? If the focus is on student achievement data, is that a bit narrow? Could, for instance, there be better synergies around literacy practices, digital foci (eg types of devices, systems and providers)? This might streamline things for parents and kids so there is commonality across schools. And then there's uniform. How amazing would it be if schools that insisted on uniforms in the COL agreed on colours and types of clothing so that parents might not have to pay for too many changes as their offspring moved from sector to sector?

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