Exciting times in New Zealand Education

In the last week of the term I had the pleasure of attending the New Zealand Principals Federation Conference in beautiful Queenstown with over 600 leaders from NZ and overseas. What I saw and heard confirmed some things for me:

- New Zealand is a stunning place- such beauty

- We have one of the most exciting education systems in the World

- Research confirms it- things have changed for our children, their world is so different to that of 20 years ago and schools need to be responsive to their needs

- Our children are resilient, innovative, creative, and intuitive learners all we need to do is open up the right learning pathways for them and they will fly!

- Our children want to lead their learning, they want to communicate their achievements and their mistakes (Facebook can attest to this!)

I head back to Windsor to put the finishing touches on our "Windsor Curriculum". It is so exciting to be involved in Education when we have the mandate from the Government to create a community based curriculum. The electronic document we produce will be the culmination of 4 years work with staff, children, the Board of Trustees, the PTA and our community. It will be a organic electronic document (if there is such a thing) in so much as it will be able to be updated in response to new developments , new research, new resources and our growing understanding of learning in the 21st Century.

I look forward to sharing the "Windsor Curriculum" very shortly.