Claire Amos

Imagining a brighter future in our new normal The last week or so has been an interesting one for school leaders. One week we were planning for when and if we might have to close, come Monday, it was all on - schools closing the next day for most students and closed for all students by the end of Wednesday. Schools across the country were to go “full remote mode” by Thursday morning. So how did our schools fare? It is safe to say that schools around the country sat somewhere on a long continuum ranging from “we got this” to “sh#t, we better start planning”. The reality is that, for the most part, schools and educators have rallied together and have managed to patch together an okay plan for the time being. And therein lies the problem - a) It was, for many, patched together and b) nearly universally, it is a plan that will suffice for the time being. Over the last week it feels like our understanding of what we are dealing with and going to be dealing with is becoming increas...

Click here to view the clip about HPSS on Seven Sharp Click here to read HPSS and Seven Sharp - The School Behind the Soundbite This post is an update on the original A Beginner's Guide to Hobsonville Point Secondary School . The updated version includes some changes made to our time table as a result of a Term 3 curriculum review. It is our hope that this post will need to be updated regularly as we plan for the timetable to evolve regularly to ensure we are always responsive an meeting the needs of our current cohort. So what is HPSS all about and how are we hoping to evolve existing models of secondary education? HPSS is a co-educational state school located in Hobsonville Point, Auckland. We are a MLE (modern learning environment) which means we are a large open plan school, typified by open flexible learning spaces, break out rooms and specialised learning spaces. The furniture is varied, including high bar leaners, mid-level desks, tables, low tables and bean ba...

Welcome to the last official post for Hack Your Classroom! First up, a great big thank you to everyone who participated either by blogging and sharing or by simply joining the conversation via Twitter. It has been heartening to see so many teachers willing to reflect so openly and publicly whilst sharing and inspiring lots of folk along the way. It's impossible to say exactly how many people have participated, but the number of people I have encountered on and offline up and down the country (and across the world) suggests the reach may have been greater than one might suspect.

A short but power packed session with Bruce Dixon from the Educating Modern Learners and Rowena Ulbrick from Expanding Learning Horizons. Great messages about the beef to develop 21C learning capabilities. I won't attempt to capture all of the learning from this session but keen to share the following websites! All worth an investigation if you are even vaguely interested in 21C learning. Modern Learners Website http://modernlearners.com/ Anytime, Anywhere Learning Foundation http://aalf.org/ ITL Research http://www.itlresearch.com/ ITL 21C Learning Design Program http://www.itlresearch.com/itl-leap21