Reflection from Coley Street presentation

Today we visited Coley Street School and were taken on their journey into Inquiry. We looked at their model and were given a tour through classrooms as they were involved in Inquiry. 

The question we had to answer was, "What can you take away with you from what you have seen and heard today?" 

The need to have whole staff 'buy-in' is extremely important. This has to be directed from the top so staff can see the connection between the language used and the thinking tools required.

There is the need to start with thinking tools and to build them into our literacy and topic areas so that children and staff become familiar with them before launching into inquiry. A good starting point would be to incorporate and use thinking tools when discussing a class situation of current events.

All staff need to visit schools so they become familiar with possible outcomes of teaching with thinking tools. THe sharing and discussing not only successes  but also shat didn't work and how this can be improved or modified. The fact is that it doesn't have to be perfect in the first year. Setting a definite trial period (no less than a year) with the expectation that all staff will discover inquiry together.

Update on Inquiry Process

In Term 3 we are planning to have Jan Thomas meet with our staff to begin discussions around 'What is Inquiry?' and 'How can we use inquiry within our school?' In the meantime both the junior and senior teams will be discussing professional readings focussing on inquiry, during meetings. The reasoning behind this for staff to become aware of the language used within the different inquiry processes. It was beneficial to attend the cluster day with Jan-Marie, focusing specifically on inquiry learning. This enabled us to look at successful inquiry practices within a school and the planning that supports it. This created possibilities for a starting point within our school.