Creating a school. Awesome in every sense of the word.

Looking back on the first week...okay, I admit it...the first three days at Hobsonville Point Secondary School, I can honestly say that being part of an establishment Senior Leadership Team is awesome. In every sense of the word.

Day one was about de-schooling and the school vision. Nice.

Day two was about thinking and discussing (and getting our head around the fact that we do actually have time to think and discuss). Nice, but actually more challenging than you might think.

Day three was a day for planning our time, creating to do lists and diving head-long into unpacking and refining the vision, principles and values that will define Hobsonville Secondary School for our staff, students and community.  This is AWESOME.

It was only as we wrestled with the taxonomy, pulling apart every word, word variation and statement, that it hit home how powerful and important these pithy phrases really are, especially as they will literally "define us" and everything we stand for. No pressure or anything. Interestingly, this is made even more difficult because the New Zealand Curriculum is so darn good at doing this already. Whilst we need to (and want to) align to the NZC, we can't just simply adopt it verbatim, because it needs to define "us". If that wasn't tricky enough, it not only has to define us, but it also has to be all a bit deep and meaningful, and on top of this it also needs to be rather poetic...or at the very least memorable. Sheesh.

But joking aside, this is actually what makes this so exciting, as well as a genuinely once in (a school) lifetime opportunity. I do feel very lucky. Not only am I part of a great team (see last post), but I am being given the time to de-school, think and discuss (unheard of in normal school life), as well as being part of a team that actually builds (quite literally) a school and school philosophy from the ground up. One word at a time.

Awesome.

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