ULearn 2015

Four staff members attended the conference in Auckland during the second week of the holidays. They returned to school invigorated and full of ideas they would like to implement in their teaching spaces and school-wide. However, what was very satisfying and reaffirming from my point of view was the fact that Hornby Primary is already embracing and implementing some of the ideas and trends that were shared at the conference.
A very brief summary of the trends and themes shared at last night's staff meeting

• collaboration
• innovation
• creativity
• open mindset
• risk taking - making mistakes is ok, it's what we do next that is important, we can learn from mistakes
• embracing failure - Karen Boyes said that 40% of today's 5 year olds will be self employed and will need to cope with great failures and great successes, therefore, the need for resilience
• feedback
• the importance of the learning process, more discussions with children about learning; what did you learn about? how do you learn best? what would you do differently next time?
• agency - the power to act and take control
• the critical role of digital technology

I believe our current school vision including our characteristics focus on communicators, participators, critical thinkers and resilience, and Learn Create Share model is preparing our children for an ever changing world and encapsulates much of what was discussed at the ULearn Conference. 

Thank you Alethea, Kate, Heather and Christine.