Growth Culture Summit

Keynote speaker 1 - Marshall Diggs

Trust is your currency.

Culture is:

- everything you say

- everything you do, and (walking the walk)

- everything you allow 

Culture is established through process and reinforced through events. How do we do this through change and diversity? It's not about being on the waka, it's about preserving and maintaining a positive culture throughout the kura. 

How do you roll out change, and how do you do this?

Every single person has a different appetite for change. Most people aren't afraid of change; it's the pace at which you roll out the change. As a leader, we can't be comfortable; we need to be ok with being uncomfortable. 

It's always the right time to do the right thing, when it pertains to health and safety, sexualised or racist things. 

What is the season of Education currently in? It's a season. There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun. 

As leaders, we need to get the timing right because timing is everything. 

There is a heartbeat in every community, and what is the rhythm of your community and school?

Got to capture the heartbeat of the community, the school.

"Change. But start slowly because direction is more important than speed," Paulo Coelho

It's about the mantra, repeat this meeting after meeting, time after time, and lead by the mantra, what are our big rocks? How do we lead this change? 

We all have a lens, and we should use it wisely. Leaders are custodians of culture 

Trust matters:

Not everything counts, but everything matters. Trust is established through small incremental acts that occur sporadically. 

Humility matters:

Humble yourself to build relationships - "We can go fast by ourselves, but we can go much further with others," African proverb

Work Ethic matters:

It involved a work ethic, it is key

EQ matters: Well-Being and self care is important

Emtional Intelligence

- Be aware of you! 

- Self awareness

- Self regulation 

- Motivation 

- Emplath

- Social skills (others awarenes)

Communication matters:

Encouraged to sit and have lunch with the people. Capture the heart beat of you people. 

Priorities matter:

What are out big rocks for the school/community? 

We only entered the sector for outcomes, not the income. Know our priioties - what are the key ones becasue there are two mant at the moment. 

Authenticity matters:

Turning up to work as me, not as anyone else. 

Keynote 2: Culturally responsive leadership - Barbara Alaalatoa

Step up, step out! Why dance?

What does culturally responsive look like and mean in our school?

What is essential to our community and children, and how can we foster ownership among children to help them become more engaged and take ownership of their learning? How does this link to that deep learning? 

How do you make it last? How can we keep it going with the new staff and leadership? What is the most important thing, and how can we keep it going? 

Induct

Research and evidence in its widest sense

-mantras - Respect and honesty

- Going public - sharing the data far and wide

- Take ownership - being optimistic - we got this! We have a plan and we are sticking to it. 

- Make it a clear priority

- know thy teacher - 

- Leadership

Knowing the why and sticking to the why. 

Apply - it's how we roll.

What adults do matters - every day and all day (ask the staff what this means to them? How can we make this change? What is expected from the adults? How can the adults create the culture for the school?)

Start small and get it right - if you get it right, then we can make it grander, what can we do collectively that we can't do individually? How can we create ownership? 

Key not 3 -The hidden lives of schools - Kyle Brewerton

In recent times, there have been a lot of top-down. 

Cultivating a thriving ecosystem - Where do you start, and it's all so interconnected. There are four boulders: culture, strategy, leadership, and change.

How do you intentionally grow, nurture, and protect culture?

Change in envidtable.

You have to lead

Strategy is the way we go about it. How am I going to lead this change? How am I going to protect the culture and the community?

People remember how you made them feel! 

The weaver - 

You are constantly holding multi aspects of school and school lives, our job is to weave them together into the good. 

Culture is a reflection of leadership

What do they see, think, hear, and feel when they walk into the office? 

Trust - What is it?

Honesty

Benevolence - do they make you feel safe and look out for your best interest? 

Authenticity

Competence - can they actually lead?

Openness - we are all human, being open to vulnerability 

Communication - We think about it as talking, but that is superficial - it's around leaning into the more challenging conversations. Get back to the facts before you try to solve the problem. 

When things go wrong, they need you, and you need them. 

...is a Reflection of Leadership

Trust

Communication

Walk the talk - you have to create the space so that I can figure out what's not working for people. Create a space by saying what's getting in the way? It has a positive focus. Invite and create a space for asking what's getting in the way. Invite this by 1-to-1s 

Growing self and others - middle leaders, they are the engine house. Collectively create the vision - the team is the engine room; they will help drive the change. Ensure that we develop our middle leadership. 

Humour - This job isn't easy, but humour is one of the greatest outlets. It makes you human, it's disarming. 

Calm - in those times where it's really hard, if I can stay calm, then its such an important piece. 

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - Daniel Goleman - It's your personality, it's who you are. 

- Self-awareness

- Self-regulation - did you erupt or did you lean in? If you are not in the right place, then you can't have the conversation. 

- Motivation - What drives me? The optimism is from within. Coaching is important; make sure that you have someone whom you can talk to. If you make someone feel good, then it comes back. 

- Empathy - 

- Social Skills - 

Feeling the air

Culture is in the air, how do you feel the air? If you are not in the space, how can you feel the air? What is the vibe? Find ways to be in the space. If you don't know your people and feel the air, then none of the MOE stuff matters. 

In the eye of the beholder

Discuss improvement, not change; it's the negative continuation. Talk about how we can improve things? Building that collective vision - do this with the kids, teacher, and community, what is it going to look like when we arrive? 

It has to be a human process and challenge - 6 months to create a vision. 

Probable, Possible, Preferred futures - 

Vision/mission

Values & Beliefs

Strategic goals/priorities 

Planning 

Success for every single kid is what is most important? 

Let's work together for the wellbeing of everyone - Me mahi tahi tatou, mō te oranga, o te katoa

Keynote 4 - AI in educational leadership - Bex Rose

Seseme.ai - good to ask advice 

googgle vivo - crictial thinking

The manual part of AI is learning how to prompt - if you can prmpt you can rock it. 

Genertive AI

Chatgpt/Gemini - These are like local pantries (large language model) no privacy issues

School Gemini - Staffroom pantry (can go into the large lanugage model but doesnt' go out)

Popular Generatvie AI

- Chatgpt

- Perplexity - get the same responses but tells you where the information came from.

- Claude

- Gemini (google version)

- Co-pilot (microsoft version)

Help us in our leadership

- Instant stragetig planning support

- Effortless BOT report

- Smarter email drafting

- AI assistant for tough conversations

- Fast policy & procudral dragting

- AI-enhanced Data insights

- Personalised Professional learning pathways

- Meeting magic - Agendas, notes and actions

- Community Communication clarity

- On-demand AI coach or thought partner

It's all about the prompt - 

Persona: IF your role. This gives context to your request.

AIM: Stage your objective so LLM can focus on your desired outcome.

RECIPIENTS: Specify the audience. These steps give GENAI the information it needs to tailor the language, tone, and content to resonate with the recipients. 

THEME: Describe the style, tone and any related parameters.

STRUCTURE: Note the desired format of the output, bullet points, code and even emojis/

Notebook.LM - creating your own pantry

SUNO - Music

Keynote 5 - Truth and Lies - Aaron Ironside

Powerful Emotions that cause reactivity are trauma responses - whether... capital T trauma or Little t trauma

Stories that might not seem to be very important, but need to pay attention to, these are ones that shape us. 

The two days I have spent interacting with other teachers and leaders have been truly fabulous. From hearing about the story that Dan shared at Dilworth, his journey to unpacking the day of Keynote speakers, it has all been such a learning journey and has really fostered my ideas and thoughts if and when I get the chance to take my next step. I think that I am ready to lead change and create a culture where everyone feels safe, heard and positive. Where I can create an environment where the children are at the centre of their learning, holding respect and honesty, leadership and mana at the heart. We truely have the chance to be change makers, both in the current space and in any future space, not just with our school but with our students. Turning those little traumas into moments when people can learn from each other and make the change that we need. 

My next steps from this summit as a DP/leadership team - 

- take on the communication aspect if agreed to. 

- Lead up

- Remind the team of our why, including unpacking it again with the principal and making clear pathways that we can share with the community. Making sure we are all on the same page. 

- Rebuild trust in our Kura 

- Listen to my own inner voice

- Get all of us to lift our eyes to the horizon, the whole team, to see where we are going and the direction we are on. 

- Remind our community of the big rocks, and get their feedback on it. Structure the learning around the community that we have now, not the one we had in the past. 

- Does our mantra "Light the mind, Fire the heart and Engage the whanau" fit with the current community that we have? How can we do this? 

- Get the children involved in having a voice around their learning - what do they want more of (not literacy and math) what do they want to learn?