EPD

Just spent the day at the Experienced Principals Development run by Auckland University. What a day!

• Vivianne Robinson on Promoting Educationally Powerful Connections
• Graeme Aitken on Helping Students Make Connections
• Educational Connections for Maori with Russell Bishop
• Simon Denny on The Health and Well-Being of New Zealand's youth

Four excellent presenters with great stuff.

Some ideas for me to consider

From Vivianne first

• Relational trust must come first
• We need to 'train' our parents if we want them to be involved in the learning.
• There is no research that there is any crossover between involvement in one area of school life and increase in student achievement
• Why do parents of older children not want to be involved in learning?

From Graeme

• Evidence does not need to be perfect
• 3-5 aligned experiences 2-3 days apart is important
• We do not need a child-centred learning or curriculum-centred learning we need connectedness between the two

From Russell

• Relationships, relationships, relationships
• Everyone's achievement improves when connectedness but Maori improve quicker.
• Are our resources culturally (and gender) acceptable? Need to check!

From Simon

• Connectedness is important in resiliency. Connected adolescents survive!

A great day for huge additions to my knowledge.