swell news

This is just a quick note to draw your attention to the annual report for the past 12 months (click here).

I also wish to farewell and thank Dean Stanley who finishes with us today. Dean has helped us get off to a flying start and we wish him well in his future endeavours. Below is his parting message to us all. CB

"I am spending this week tidying up files and organising the hand over of resources to Chris before starting up at Port Nic next week. I enjoyed the process of writing the annual report as it allowed me to reflect on how far the SWELL network has come. I remember less than two years ago sitting around the table with the SWELL principals talking about things like moral purposes and networks of learning communities. Chris kept showing us videos of little old planes turning into big new planes, and planes flying in the air while engineers were attaching the wings. In those early days the potential of SWELL was very compelling but the road map ahead was not all that clear and the mental image of what it might be like to really collaborate across schools was vague to say the least.

In a very short time I have had the pleasure of watching you all turn that potential into a reality. I think the network of learning communities that you have created is a magnificent vehicle that will help raise the tide of achievement in South Wellington schools for years to come. I have spent nearly twenty years working with clusters of schools on various school development initiatives and this cluster has been by far the most innovative and professional in its approach. The key difference is that you have created a way of working together that will help you continue to make a difference well beyond the lifetime of the current contract with the Ministry of Education. I congratulate you for that and wish you the best of luck in the continuing development of the network.

I am now heading off on another tack. Over the last five years I have had a foot in both the education sector and the sport sector and I have been amazed by the similarities that exist between education and sport. It seems that wherever you are, LEARNING is the thing and it is the quality of the learning relationships that seems to make the biggest difference. Thank you all for everything you have taught me about learning over the years as I am sure I will be using many of your lessons in my new role.

And if you ever feel the urge to bunk out of the school for the afternoon and head out onto the harbour for a burst of Wellington wind in the hair give me a call and I'll see what I can arrange.

The inaugural SWELL Learning Carnival was held last Friday at Te Papa. Teachers from each of the schools in the SWELL network gathered for a day of celebrating learning. The carnival began with a welcome from Mary Chamberlain a senior manager in the Ministry of Education. She congratulated teachers on their commitment to learning and wished them well in their explorations into teacher research.

Dr Phil Ramsey from Interlead and Massey University followed with a keynote address focusing on how learning communities work. Phil explained the conditions for a successful learning community and threw light on the impact that learning together has on the success of organisations.

Following morning tea lead teachers form each of the schools presented the results of their research projects to their peers. Featured projects included ...

All and all a very successful day followed by a very successful teacher's party!

Last night we held a combined SWELL board of trustees meeting. The combined meeting was designed to introduce boards of trustees members from the swell schools to the systems and procedures used for the SWELL learning community.

Above: Alan Fleming from St Francis de Sales and Doreen O'Sullivan from St Annes explain the baseline data gathering process.

Above: Barry Schon from Houghton Valley and Jacinta Simpson from St Bernard's explain the numeracy and literacy trends.

Above: Karen Hardie from Owhiro Bay and Ryhs McKinley from Newtown explain the teacher research process.

The lead teachers workshop was a great success on 4 February. Each of the lead teachers are now planning an action research project to implement during term 1 this year. The research projects will form the basis of the presentations for the swell learning carnival on 24 April.

We are now planning for the swell Boards of Trustees meeting on Tuesday 10 March. The aim of this meeting is to share with our communities the structures and systems that we have established to raise achievement and reduce disparity within and between schools in South Wellington. Download a copy of the programme for the meeting here.

Welcome back to school everyone. We trust you have all had a great break and are all fired up for another year of swell collaboration.

The first event on the calendar for swell this year is the lead teachers workshop on Friday 13 February. Download a copy of the programme for the day here.

The events and capability team met to discuss planning for events through to the Learning Carnival in April 2009. View the meeting notes here.

Swell is shutting up shop for the summer holidays. Merry Xmas everyone and we look forward to another successful year in 2009.

The research and evaluation team met to discuss data collection and research priorities through to the swell learning carnival in April 2009.

As with 2008, each school will be asked to collect PAT maths and STAR data early in term 1 2009. Barry will contact schools before the end of this year with a timeline for data collection and will supply a spreadsheet for recording the data. Barry will contact schools with missing data for this year to make sure that it is added to the overall analysis spreadsheet. Dean is to look for changes in achievement across the cluster as well as for areas of non typical growth in achievement within schools.

The team discussed the merits of re-implementing the teacher and student questionnaires as a check on the progress that we are making within our three focus areas. The team decided that it was to early to do this in 2009. Therefore we won't be implementing the student or teacher survey during 2009.

The team confirmed the following timeline for the swell Learning Carnival on 24 April 2009 .

There will be three blocks of seven presentations during this part of the day. At any one time teachers can choose from one of seven different presentations. Each school will make their presentation three times during the day. Presentations will last for 15-20 minutes with 5-10 minutes for discussion and 5 minutes to move between presentations. It is expected that there will be around 20 people at each presentation on average.

Each teacher will attend three 15 minute sessions to be introduced to the swell research tools: one on research planning, one on research data analysis and one on research blogging

Group reconvenes firstly as schools then as a whole group to discuss what has become clearer, to answer any questions and to outline the next steps for back in their school.

Each lead teacher/school is to complete a teacher research blog post for their project before the learning carnival. The post will be available as a handout at each presentation during the Learning Carnival.

It is over to schools to decide on the focus areas for research. If a teacher is struggling to identify an area of focus then lead teachers should encourage them to choose one of the areas of greatest or strong developmental need as identified through the swell baseline survey data.

The last two days of last week the principals in the swell network had a two day tour visiting some of the school's in the network and making plans for 2009. Schools visited included:

Ridgway: Reading circuit in the junior school
Island Bay: Inquiry learning
Berhampore: Special needs and Montessori
St Anne's: Mimios in action

The focus of the visits was on getting to know each of the schools better. Also during the two days the principals confirmed broad outlines for activities that need to be put in place to ensure the swell Learning Carnival in April 2009 is very successful as a mechanism for getting all swell teachers started with their teacher research projects.

Over the last two weeks we have had two lead teacher workshops to focus on refining the swell action research procedures. Each workshop began with Chris Bryant reiterating the purpose of our EHSAS project as being about developing a sustainable learning community. He reflected back on the work of the National College of School Leadership (www.ncsl.org.uk) in the UK which outlined the key features and outcomes of a successful networked learning community (click diagram below to view larger version). Chris stated that he believed that we were getting close to having in place all the key features (the orange bits) of a networked learning community. He concluded that what was required now was to focus on achieving outcomes (the grey bits) through our learning community.

Dean Stanley then went on to summarise some of the issues that had arisen with the pilot lead teacher action research projects and the solutions that were being put in place to over come these issues. One key issue was the different ways in which lead teachers were using the learning poutama to describe success criteria.

To help move towards a consistent approach to developing success criteria a summary of the difference between industrial age and knowledge age approaches to learning and assessment was discussed.

Maria Whiting and Karen Johnstone then presented an activity that Newtown School had developed with their staff to help them moderate an assessment scale from year 1 to 8 for knowledge and competency outcomes. Chris concluded the session by facilitating a brainstorm of how moderation procedures could be developed for swell.

After morning tea we were joined by Ian Schagen who is a Chief Research Analyst at the Ministry of Education. Ian has been helping the swell cluster come to grips with the use of effect sizes as a mechanism for measuring the impact that different strategies have on student learning outcomes. Ian did a great job of turning what could have been a very dry session into an interesting, informative and entertaining presentation. More importantly he has helped raised the capability of the swell network to measure the effect of interventions that teachers make on student achievement.

Dean then provided an overview of the swell and data analysis spreadsheet that can be used to calculate effect sizes from data gathered during teacher research projects. The data sheet includes all the formulas for calculating effect sizes and standard errors that Ian had spoken of in his presentation.s

Following lunch the workshop focused on developing lead teacher capability to use the teacher research blog. A key part of the teacher research process is presenting the results of research to peers. This is done through a number of face to face mechanisms such as syndicate meetings, staff meetings, lead teacher workshops and the annual swell conference. A record of each swell teacher research project is published on the swell teacher research blog.

Welcome back to term four. Towards the end of last term the principals met to synthesise the outcomes from the SWOT analysis of year one of swell. The overwhelming consensus was that the year had been positive and that good progress had been made in the development of the learning community. The following list is a summary of the action points raised through the synthesis.

It has been a bit of the case of "head down and beavering away" in the swell network of late. Most of the schools are working away on trialing action research projects. We have set a target of having two projects per school published on the teacher research blog before the swell conference in the term one holidays next year. We are using the pilot research projects as a mechanism for refining our approach to teacher research.

The lead teachers completed a SWOT analysis of the swell project as at the end of year one. The analysis focused on five areas - swell structure, the action research process, the evaluation processes, the capability building opportunities and the communication systems. Outcomes of the SWOT analysis have been synthesised and will be reviewed by the principals before recommendations for fine tuning the swell network are implemented. A copy of the SWOT analysis feedback is available here.

The principals in the swell network had three days out at the Extending High Standards Across Schools (EHSAS) conference in Wellington. The conference involved over 350 schools from around the country who are involved in the overall EHSAS project. The conference was run by the Ministry of Education and was a great opportunity to get everybody together for three days to reflect on progress and identify next steps for the swell network.

Principals came away with a great deal of pride in what had been achieved to date within the swell network. Many of the other clusters in the EHSAS project seemed to be focusing on a context and were not paying attention to developing a sustainable learning community. The swell network was different in this regard in that the primary focus is to build a sustainable learning community for the ongoing development of new knowledge and sharing of expertise. As well as this we are focusing on the three contexts of Authentic Learning, Managing Self and Participating & Contributing.

Chris Bryant (R) catches up with John McKenzie who was part of the establishment team for swell before shifting to Dunedin

As a result of the lead teacher workshops over the first year of the project we have now developed a resource that describes the types of relationships lead teachers will have as they lead learning across the swell network. You can download a copy of this resource here.

Yesterday we had the final lead teacher workshop in the development phase of the swell network. The workshop focused on developing an understanding of on the job training and how this differs from coaching. Phil Ramsey once again took the introductory session for the workshop. He spoke about on the job training as a means of embedding procedures into the swell network. On the job training focuses on learning a task and features a hierarchical relationship where the trainer is an expert who helps someone else to learn how to implement a task.

Lead teachers will use on the job training to assist teachers to learn how ...

to develop action research plans;
to analyse growth in student knowledge, engagement and competency;
and, to write up their project results on the teacher research blog.

TRAINER was introduced as a key on the job training mechanism for lead teachers to embed procedures for the swell network.

Following on from the input from Phil Ramsey lead teachers reviewed the baseline data for the project and were introduced to the procedures for the teacher research blog.

The swell network has now reached a milestone point. The developmental work is now complete and the network is now at a point where it is ready to become operational.

Last week we held the first of the annual swell conferences. Dr Peter Bray began the day with an enlightening session on building learning communities. Peter outlined how there was great room for misunderstandings in organisations and that how organisation deal with this is crucial to longevity. In order for organisations to be able to deal with the potential for misunderstanding he felt it was important that they had a unifying assumption or a deep vision. In the case of swell this is ...

Peter pointed out that the challenge is to make the moral purpose relevant, real and alive for all. In order to achieve this there is a need for a deep culture that works daily on purposeful continuous learning. A key requirement is to have agreed systems and structures for learning together. Peter challenged the swell network to engage in deliberate and appreciative reflection and stated that "to not do so is irresponsible."

Following on from Peter's introduction, Barry Schon provided a brief history of swell to date including the transition from a community of practice, involving just principals, to a learning community involving all teachers in the network (view swell history here). Dean Stanley then outlined the agreed systems and structures that have subsequently been put in place for learning together as the swell learning community (view the community structure document here).

After the lunch the focus changed to describing how the swell network was going to collaborate. The action research process was presented including the following resources ...

The action research process (here)
The action research planning template (here)
Instructions on how to prepare an action research plan (PowerPoint version here : website version here)

Lead teachers have been working on action research pilot projects. The conference heard from Liz Rhodes at Brooklyn school and Kerry Matheson and Rod Scott at Ridgway school regarding progress they were making with their action research pilot projects.

Brooklyn pilot project (here)
Ridgway pilot project (here)

Following the pilot project presentations Dean Stanley presented feedback on the baseline data gathering process. A general picture of how students are achieving in Numeracy and Literacy as measured by STAR and PAT Mathematics was discussed. Each of the schools will be receiving their own data and will be able to compare this with others in the network. They will be able to drill down on the data from the perspective of gender, ethnicity, and achievement level.

The second part of the data presentation focused on the outcomes of the baseline survey process (see student baseline survey here and teacher baseline survey here). The results of the surveys were presented in two graphs. The first graph was entitled CUP MORE THAN HALF FULL. Each of the survey questions were listed along the x axis. On the y axis was a scale where students were rated from "never" to "always" in terms of the attributes that the lead teachers believed students would be demonstrating all the time if authentic learning, managing self and participating & contributing were well established in swell schools. The clear message from the data is that many of these attributes are already reasonably well established in swell schools.

The second graph was aimed at checking the degree to which teachers and students thought the same about their competency in the current swell focus areas. The graph was entitled TEACHERS AND STUDENTS THINK ALIKE. The pattern of how students rated themselves in each of the categories relative to the other categories was very similar to the way in which their teachers rated them. For around a third of the categories teachers and students had very similar ratings. For the remainder of the categories teachers were less generous with their rating than were students with their own self assessment ... BUT ... the pattern remained consistent.

From there the areas of greatest development need for the swell network were identified (see baseline data presentation here).

All and all a full and thought provoking day. Attention now turns to finalising procedures and systems for the teacher research blog so that lead teachers can start the process of coaching their staff to action research in their schools.

Last week we held another lead teacher workshop. The workshop began with Chris Bryant discussing the work of John Edwards and Peter Senge on the characteristics of successful learning organisations. Chris outlined the importance of focusing on vision, mental models and systemic structures as these have been shown to be the strongest levers of change. Chris used an adaptation of a John Edwards PowerPoint to help outline what the vision, mental model and systemic structures looked like for swell. The key lesson from this is to try and keep the focus on the creative tension associated with working towards a vision while all the time managing the reactive tension of dealing with current realities.

Levers of change PowerPoint (here)

From there Phil Ramsey joined the workshop to discuss the specifics of coaching teachers. Phil had many key messages such as "No Buts", "Understand the lifes of Tops, Middles and Bottoms", and "Don't tell how - ask questions that promote self discovery". Lead teachers were provided with a resource that explained further many of the concepts Phil introduced. This resource will become a coaching manual for swell. GROW was introduced as a key coaching tool for lead teachers to facilitate coaching conversations with teachers during the swell research projects.

After lunch the focus shifted to a group of implementation topics. Firstly Chris Bryant presented an overview of the mind sets, knowledge and skills that lead teachers would acquire or further develop as a result of being part of swell (here). Lead teachers and principals then reviewed progress that was being made with the pilot action research projects and made suggestions about how the model could be improved. Dean Stanley presented a resource for guiding lead teachers through the process of developing teacher research plans (PowerPoint version here : website version here). Interim results from the baseline data collection process were also presented.

The workshop concluded with a discussion of the "Learning Poutama" that is evolving as the common language teachers will use to describe the changes in achievement in knowledge and competency domains resulting from the research projects that they implement. A copy of the latest iteration of the "Learning Poutama was distributed along with a resource that showed how the "Learning Poutama" is based upon a synthesis of the work of Costa, Dreyfus, Edwards, Bloom etal, Anderson and Marzano.

Learning Poutama PDF (here)
An explanation of how the Learning Poutama is used and the theories about learning that are synthesised within it (here)

18 March 2008
The team at St Francis de Sales have come up with a good idea for recording the data required for the teacher baseline surveys. We have taken their idea and built a spreadsheet which should simplify the collection of baseline data significantly.

1 March 2008
The xmas holidays came and went and now we are well and truly back into the business of swell. While the schools settled into the new year the various teams were working quietly behind the scenes on setting up the first workshop for the year and on designing the data gathering instruments. The following instruments have now been put in place:

Evaluation instruments
Baseline teacher questionnaire (here)
Baseline student questionnaire (here)

Action research instruments
Action research planning template - Word Document (here)
Student engagement teacher observation recording sheet - pre & post intervention (here)
Student engagement self assessment recording sheet - pre & post intervention (here)
Knowledge and capability recording form - pre & post intervention (here)

These tools were presented, discussed and refined at the first lead teacher workshop for the year. During the workshop Phil Ramsey from Interlead and Massey University lead a session on coaching for organisational change. Phil had four key messages for lead teachers regarding what is required to make their coaching conversations successful.

1. Make sure you look for what you are after. (for swell this means looking for ways to reduce disparity, raise achievement and improve engagement)
2. Explore with an Appreciative Orientation. (for swell appreciative inquiry is a key component of the teacher action research process)
3. Share control and build relationships as you complete tasks. (for swell shared ownership and control is a key foundation of the learning community structure, while building relationships to complete tasks is a key component of the action research process)
4. Be careful in the design of your research so that you observe with rigour.

This final point throws up three really critical cautions for data collection during swell action research projects. There is an old saying in research - crap in = crap out! If we don't accurately gather good data then we leave our selves open for our conclusions to be worthless. Therefore, it is an absolute imperative that we get this right. The three major areas of potential error in our data gathering processes that we need to pay attention to are:

1. Ensuring we record accurately in the baseline surveys the number of students who are working at the various levels for the various components we are measuring. This will be a reasonably time consuming task and as such an extension on the time to complete the task has been given.

2. Ensuring each action research project has research questions that relate to what we are looking for. To help ensure this happens it has been decided to have four research questions in each action research project with the following foci:

3. Ensuring we have a common moderated scale and process for measuring changes in student engagement, competency and knowledge is the third area that we need to pay attention to in order to reduce the possibility of research error. The research planning template has built into it a scale for recording the levels of knowledge and competency outcomes resulting from the passage of learning. We need to make sure we have sound moderation procedures for the development of these descriptors and the implementation of them in classrooms. There is also a common instrument for measuring student engagement. As with the baseline surveys it is important that teachers record accurately the numbers of students who are demonstrating each engagement characteristic.

Over the next five weeks the aim is to pilot the action research process in each school. To help lead teachers with the planning process an example of a completed plan can be viewed here.

At the end of the term we will gather again to reflect on how successful the instruments are for their intended purpose and refine them if necessary.

15 December 2007
Swell is closing up shop for the Xmas holidays. Ten days ago we had the final workshop for the year. This workshop focused on developing the tools for review and evaluation of the network. The group was split into smaller groups to look at what it meant to participate and contribute, to self manage learning and to learn authentically. This synthesis was used to develop a set of draft questions that could be asked of students and teachers to evaluate the degree to which students were participating and contributing, self managing their learning and learning authentically. A similar process was used to create a set of questions for evaluating student engagement. In the new year this information will be used to build a set of instruments for research and evaluation for the swell network of learning communities. In the meantime merry xmas!!

22 November 2007
We've now had two sessions with the lead teachers to start building the network further. The first session was entitled "getting on the bus". Karen Hardie (Owhiro Bay), Doreen O'Sullivan (St Anne's) and Danae Heinz (Ridgway) led this session. It began with lead teachers gathering at the Central Regional Health School where they were reacquainted with the aims and objectives of the swell network. They then literally got on a bus and drove to Worser Bay Boating Club where they explored further what the lead teacher's role in the network was going to be. A big part of this first day was getting to know one another and making connections so that future interactions would be based upon a shared understanding of each other's backgrounds.

The second session took place yesterday and was entitled "developing the bus map - part one". This session involved all the lead teachers as well as the principals. The focus of the day was on beginning to develop a shared understanding of the three contexts through which we will develop the operating systems and procedures for the swell network - Authentic Learning, Managing Self and Participating & Contributing. Another focus for the day was to explore how the lead teachers learning community would work in terms of operating parameters.

Principals and Lead Teachers discussing Authentic Learning
Managing Self, and Participating & Contributing

The final session for the year will be held on 5 December. The aim of this session is to develop some of the tools we will use to review and evaluate the network structure and to sharpen our focus on the areas that each school will be working upon.

8 November 2007
The principals had a meeting yesterday to feedback on the various tasks that each team had completed. Good progress has been made in many directions.

Evaluation and Review team meeting notes
Leadership Capacity Building team notes
Research Overview team notes

The next major event for the cluster is a series of 3 workshops before Christmas to get lead teachers involved with the network. The first of these sessions will focus on the overall structure of swell and will be an opportunity for lead teachers across the network to get to know one another. The next two sessions will enable us to become more specific about some of the tasks for 2008.

30 October 2007
Yesterday the swell network principals attended the Extending High Standards Across Schools regional seminar at the Ministry of Education. The day began with an opportunity to explore the various projects that clusters were undertaking. This was followed by presentations from two facilitators who had been working with clusters for the last 12 months.

We then had an opportunity to focus on aspects of our own preparation. We chose of use the time to further refine our protocols for sharing data between schools. We also worked on the operating principles for swell participants including expectations of behaviour related to the principles, and examples of these behaviours.

The final session of the day was a presentation on the theory that underpins learning communities. All and all a worthwhile day.

15 October 2007
School holidays over, fourth term begins, ... and each of the four teams have been working on their respective tasks.

The Research 0verview Team has started working on the broad aims and specific aims for research over the next three years. In addition it has been looking at a common methodology to be used by the swell community as it undertakes research in any given area.

The Leadership Capacity Building Team has begun work on structuring the first round of workshops for lead teachers in the network. The focus of these workshops will be on developing lead teacher awareness of the theory of learning communities and on evolving a collective understanding of their role in the swell network.

The Evaluation and Review team has been working on the strategies that will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the interventions that teachers implement. this process is well advanced for numeracy and literacy measures and some exciting ideas are emerging for tracking impacts on self management, authentic learning and student capability to participate and contribute.

The Network Activities team has been building up the calendar of events through to the end of term one 2008. A key task for this group is beginning planning for the first annual swell network conference, to be held during the term one holidays 2008.

20 September 2007
Yesterday we had the last principal's meeting for term three. We reviewed a possible structure for the swell network of learning communities. After some discussion we arrived at an initial model for the network. This structure may change as the project evolves but we have agreed that is a good starting point. (View our meeting notes and proposed structure here)

Another outcome of the meeting is that we have identified and allocated principals to teams to start working on a set of tasks to bring the network to life. The teams are:

Leadership Capacity Building Team
Dorren O'Sullivan, Karen Hardie, Chris Bryant

Network Activities Team
Danae Heinz, Mark Potter, Jacinta Simpson, Chris Bryant

Each of the teams have an initial set of tasks to begin working on before our next full meeting in early November.

11 September 2007
We had a meeting of principals last week during which we focused on collecting common data across the network to help with our evaluation processes. We didn't really reach any conclusions as to how we would do this and what we would collect, but did get a better understanding of the parameters for this aspect of the network. A team will begin work on developing the evaluation strategies shortly with the aim of having the first phase of data collection underway in the new year.

At our next meeting we intend to start defining the specific structure and operational relationships of the various learning communities that make up swell. Dean Stanley has been synthesising our discussions to date and has developed a possible structure and set of operational relationships for the swell network of learning communities (see pre meeting reading). He has also made an animation entitled 'Developing schooling through collaborative action research' which can be viewed in the resources section of the site. Both these resources will form the basis of discussion at our next meeting.

30 August 2007
The swell principals return to school today after two days away together working on further establishing the operating principles and parameters for the swell network. We visited two schools in the Manawatu and used these as a context to reflect upon what was involved in leading the development of the network and to refine our shared understanding of how to move the network from a theoretical construct to an operating entity.

We chose to visit schools which had already begun to evolve school based curriculums which reflect the intent of the "New" New Zealand Curriculum. The first school we visited was Coley St in Foxton where we looked at leadership of change to a school wide child centred inquiry model supported by thinking strategies. The second school we visited was College Street Normal in Palmerston North where we focused on the management of change to an integrated curriculum where key competencies are developed through Art Costa's "Habits of Mind" supported a set of thinking strategies.

Both schools are also involved in school development cluster projects through contracts with the Ministry of Education. Coley Street is the lead school of an ICT professional development cluster while College Street is the initiating school for an Extending High Standards Across Schools project.

Their experiences in these initiatives provided us with contexts to spark our discussions. After each visit we used a P.M. I. to reflect upon what we saw. The outcomes of this process are stored in the resources section of the site. (here)

21 August 2007
If you haven't done so already I recommend that you check out the lessons from drums in the resources section of the site. It provides a great analogy of where we are at with the swell network in these early days as well as an insight into the 'music' we will make together soon. (here)

Welcome to Jacinta Simpson at St Bernards School. Jacinta has just taken up the reigns as principal. We look forward to her input into the network.

Perry Rush has been doing some great work organising a two day tour for principals. We will be visiting Coley Street School in Foxton and College Street school in Palmerton North. We will use these two schools as contexts through which we can get a shared understanding of effective change management practices.

Our meeting later this week will look at action research and appreciative enquiry. We intend to use the meeting to develop the broad aim for each of the four action research projects.

30 July 2007
The launch day was held during the holidays and was well attended by all schools in the network. A summary of the information collected during the launch is being published and will appear in the resources section of the site shortly.

We are now well and truly back into the school term. Principals are now focusing on three tasks.

19 June 2007
Welcome to the first edition of swell news. This is an occasional bulletin of events and happenings in the swell network.

The current focus of work is on loading information about the swell project onto the web site.

The principals have also begun work on unpacking the theory behind networked learning communities in order to set the parameters for the swell network. Check out the swell resources section of the site to see the progress that is being made in this regard.

The other key activity is planning for the swell network launch. Only two weeks to go now!