For schools to effectively respond to the press for accountability and provide quality learning for all students, they must simultaneously address two perennial goals. One goal is the professional development of individual educators. The second is the development of the organisation’s capacity to learn and be adaptive. Both build the capacity for school improvement, without which reform efforts will fail.

In this seminar, learn how to build strong collaborative and caring work cultures, where results-oriented teams work together for continuous school improvement. Explore the latest practical findings in organisational development, team learning and navigating the currents of change.

Participants will learn practical frameworks and tools for developing collaborative groups that bring collective responsibility in student learning. Leaders and group members will learn ways to influence and attain more productive and satisfying meetings in which members develop new norms and skills for collegial interaction, goal clarification, problem-solving and decision-making. Working in a variety of settings, skilled and confident facilitators will increase their ability to accelerate group development.

Designed to support administrators, teachers, department and regional personnel and staff developers who convene and manage professional learning teams and leadership teams.

Participants will develop:

• An increased capacity to initiate, develop and sustain high-functioning groups
• New lenses for diagnosing the stages and phases of group development
• An expanded reportoire of practical facilitation tools
• Understandings of when and how to engage groups in dialogue and discussion
• Skills to move groups beyond consensus to common focus
• Ways to value and use dissension, argument and conflict
• Strategies for keeping group members on track, on topic, energised and resourceful

The introduction of the National Curriculum provides educators with the challenge and opportunity for ensuring high levels of learning for all students. The HBPLS Inclusive Classrooms Conference supports educators to build their knowledge, skills and dispositions to address critical questions:

• What strategies can we use to maximise student engagement?
• How can we get better at the questions we ask?
• What are the critical learning considerations needed for successful planning, teaching and learning?
• In what ways can we ensure we build effective ‘learning’ relationships with all students regardless of their background?

These essential questions will be addressed by presenters Michael Pohl, Marie McLeod, Mike Scaddan and Clare Sicuro in this one-day HBPLS Conference. With each presenter bringing different knowledge and experiences to the conference you can decide on the workshops that best suit your educational needs.

Topics will include:

• Self-regulated learning
• Strategies for student engagement
• Classroom culture building
• Teacher-student questioning
• Teachers as architects of learning
• Understanding students and families from economically disadvantaged backgrounds
• Building relationships with under-resourced students

What is a PLC?

A Professional Learning Community (PLC) is educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. PLCs operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. —adapted from Learning by Doing

This two day institute will give educators the opportunity to delve deeper into the three big ideas of PLCs – a focus on learning, the building of collaborative culture, and focus on results. You will gain specific, practical, and inspiring strategies for transforming your school or region into a place where student learning is central.

For two days, you will have the opportunity to hear the architects of the PLC at Work process, Richard DuFour and Rebecca DuFour. For those just beginning to explore PLCs, this is an excellent way to build yourknowledge base. For those who are already involved in deep implementation, this institute is the perfect opportunity to revisit your mission, introduce new team members to the process, and get answers to new questions. As you delve deep into the three big ideas of a PLC—focus on learning, build a collaborative culture, and results orientation—you will gain specific, practical, and inspiring strategies for transforming your school or region into a place where all students learn at high levels.

With the massive changes that the Web is bringing to the ways we can learn and become educated, our students need us to be "bold" right now. Among other things, they need us to help them learn how to learn effectively in a connected world where they have access to so much information and knowledge and teachers from around the globe. They need us to help them create a unique, positive presence online and navigate interactions with strangers that they will inevitably connect, create and learn with. And they need us to model for them the many ways that we can now get answers to our questions, solve problems, and change the world through our interactions on the Web.

"Bold schools" are doing that. They are moving away from traditional structures and pedagogy, reshaping traditional expectations of school, and finding ways to begin the difficult yet important transition to a "new culture of learning" in classrooms. They are places of inquiry, of transparency and connection and innovation. And they are places where the line between school and real life are becoming less distinct every day. In short, Bold Schools are navigating the transition between an old system that was built for a time long past and the new one that we are beginning to create together.

Join author, educator and instigator Will Richardson for a day of deep discussion and thinking about moving from old to bold, in our schools, in our classrooms, and in our own practice. Bring your technology, your questions and your voice as you participate in a highly interactive day dedicated to understanding and embracing the challenges and opportunities that this new, networked learning world is creating. You'll walk away:

• with a clear sense of what the "new culture of learning" looks like and the five new realities for schools and educators.
• having seen bold schools in action.
• knowing the nine characteristics of "bold schools" and how they differ from "old schools."
• clear starting points for transitioning your practice, your classrooms, and your schools toward a more bold approach.
• with a set of tools you can use to build your own learning networks and communities.

Join us as we begin the important journey from "old" to "bold" together!

Cognitive CoachingSM is a research-based model that capitalises upon and enhances teachers’ cognitive processes.

In the eight-day Foundation Seminar, participants learn how to:

• Build trust by developing physical and verbal rapport.
• Develop an identity as a mediator of people’s thinking.
• Utilise three mediative maps for planning, reflecting and problem resolving.
• Facilitate self-directed learning through reflective questioning.
• Develop teachers’ autonomy and sense of community.
• Develop higher levels of efficacy, consciousness, craftsmanship, flexibility and interdependence.
• Distinguish four support functions: coaching, evaluating, consulting, collaborating.
• Practice coaching interactions to differentiate for individual needs.
• Utilise the coaching toolkit of pause, paraphrase, and pose a question.
• Apply coaching skills that enhance the intellectual processes of instruction.
• Distinguish between the five categories of feedback.

About the Program
Advanced Seminars provide refinement and depth of learning for those desiring to achieve expert proficiency in Cognitive CoachingSM and are highly supportive of those who wish to begin the pathway to becoming an agency trainer. By participating in this training, learners will:
• redefine and extend core coaching capabilities and skills
• develop skills with advanced forms of paraphrasing, probing for specificity and inquiring to mediate the thinking of others
• expand the possibilities of and applications for our identities as mediators
• frame personal coaching mastery as a journey, not a destination

Pre-Requisite
Any person who has successfully completed the Cognitive CoachingSM Foundation Training Seminar is eligible to register for this event.

Advanced Training Seminars are only run very second year and places are limited so please register early!