Rangiora High School’s charter, strategic and annual plan (2020-2024) comprises a 37 page statement that is freely available on the school’s website. In this document, our aspirational goals are clearly articulated.
Our vision statement states “Each and every learner will thrive in a centre of learning excellence.”
How will we do this?:
· Through the implementation of a dynamic curriculum using innovative teaching and learning within an enriched environment
· By empowering and supporting each learner to achieve personal excellence
· The school will also engage the community in partnerships for learning and in the life of the school to enable our learners to be actively connected, culturally aware and caring citizens.
Students are at the heart of our vision and we want the best for them. By engagement in learning and meeting with success they can effectively transition to further learning and training.
We want every student at Rangiora High School to be:
· Confident in their identity, language and culture as citizens of Aotearoa New Zealand.
· Socially and emotionally competent, resilient and optimistic about the future.
· A successful lifelong learner.
· Participating and contributing confidently in a range of contexts – cultural, local, national and global.
RHS’s values are its basic beliefs about what really matters, which guide how things should be done. These values are based on the school’s culture of being a dynamic, caring, community-based environment, inspiring lifelong learning.
Our work at RHS will be guided and informed by our beliefs and commitment to:
· Aspire (Waiwatahia): Aspiring to achieve your best.
· Respect (Whakautea): Respect yourself, others and the environment.
· Contribute (Tohaina): Actively contribute to the community.
RHS through its culture, policies and practices reflects the unique position of Māori culture. We encourage increased participation and success by Māori through the advancement of Māori education initiatives, including education in Te Reo Māori, consistent with the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Respect for the diverse ethnic and cultural heritage of the New Zealand people, with acknowledgement of the unique place of Māori, and New Zealand’s role in the Pacific and as a member of the international community of nations. The school is also committed to the Ministry of Education’s vision of ‘Māori enjoying success as Māori’. RHS is also committed to the concept of ako. This is a teaching and learning relationship in which learning is reciprocal between teachers and students. It acknowledges that high-quality teaching is the most important influence on education for Māori students and that incorporating culture and productive partnerships into learning leads to student success.
There are seven strategic goals from grow from RHS’s vision statement:
1. Learning Opportunities that are inclusive, equitable and relevant with clear pathways to future learning, training and employment.
2. Developing and implementing a dynamic, relevant and responsive curriculum that creates an engaging school for all students.
3. Teachers make a difference to student learning through effective and innovative teaching practice to improve student retention, achievement and transitions.
4. Developing enriched environments that stimulate the engagement of students.
5. Student engagement: Empowering and supporting learners through their involvement and wellbeing to achieve personal excellence.
6. Student success and achievement: students experience success, gain achievement in qualifications and effectively transition to further learning.
7. Self-review and evaluation: Building a culture of organisational renewal and transformation through rigorous reflection and self-review.
Adaptive leadership behaviours I can adopt to change Rangiora High School’s current strategic approach in order to accommodate adaptive complexity:
Adaptive Leadership Behaviours:
Behaviours I could exhibit:
Behaviours I do exhibit:
Disrupting the status quo and creating disequilibrium
· Presenting diverse points of view
· Allowing new ideas to be articulated
· Challenging the way in which finite resources are distributed
· Providing new opportunities for leadership
· Leading from the middle
· Adopting new teaching strategies that include personalised learning.
· Encouraging students to build their own course based on needs and future pathways.
Reframing the vision, using a paradoxical leadership approach
· Respect every team member’s viewpoint
· Encourage all staff to voice differentiated ideas and opinions.
· Promote team information integration.
· Provide guidance to achieve innovative goals.
· Working collegially and accepting the viewpoints of others.
· Accepting that everyone works to their preferred strengths and weaknesses.
· Working to my strengths and supporting others when they ask for assistance.
· Listening and presenting an alternative viewpoint when asked.
Distributing control through decentralised networks
· planning
· consultation
· follow-up
· Working collaboratively with others to achieve shared outcomes.
· Discussing classroom programmes with colleagues on a regular basis in order to gauge whether progress is as desired.
· Reflecting on goal-setting, both individually and within the faculty in order to develop classroom programmes further.
Creating a common organisational culture
In any school, the community needs to share an accepted set of beliefs that are supported by strategy and structure. When an organization has a strong culture, three things happen:
(a) Everyone knows how to respond to any given situation;
(b) Everyone knows that the expected response is the appropriate one;
(c) Everyone knows that they will be appreciated for demonstrating the organisation's values.
· Operating in an environment of trust.
· Caring for others (Hauora). For example, as Chair of the RHS branch of the PPTA, I am often confided in, and staff know that I will be supportive and offer solutions without breaching confidentiality.
· Embodying the three RHS values of Aspire (Waiwatahia); Respect (Whakautea) and Contribute (Tohaina) and using the school’s PB4L system to recognise students who demonstrate these values.
References:
· Fullan, M and Quinn J. (2016) Coherence: The Right Drivers in Action for Schools, Districts, and Systems.
· Kershner, B and McQuillan, P (2016). Complex adaptive schools: Educational Leadership and School Change