Extended Schools Provision & Invitational Education A Symbiotic Relationship

Extended Schools A greater role in the community The government wants all schools to offer an extended range of services by 2010 that will benefit the everyone in the school community, especially the vulnerable. Professor Alan Dyson has said, “This is a wonderful opportunity to rethink what schools are about and how they work and how they link in with everything else we want to happen for children, families and communities.” Researchers from the Manchester and NEWCAStLE Universities carried out a three yearstudy of these first full service extended schools and the results were very promising. thinks the programme is in the middle of a “very tricky phase” and we need to help school leaders sort out what kind of services they need to provide

Extended Schools schools, families, communities -working together “My vision is to establish a network of Extended Schools across Northern Ireland supporting the raising of school standards, fostering the health, well being and social inclusion of children and young people and the regeneration and transformation of local communities…..” Maria Eagle MP Minister for Education

Benefits of an Extended School for all pupils improved learning and achievement increased motivation and self-esteem improved access to specialist support increased positive attitude towards learning enhanced opportunities to learn new skills and talents improved health and well-being for school. families and communities.

Good Teaching Good teaching is not just a matter of being efficient, developing competence, mastering technique and possessing the right kind of knowledge. Good teaching, also involves emotional work. It is infused with desire, pleasure, mission, creativity, challenge and joy. Good teaching is a profoundly emotional activity. Andy Hargreaves, Changing Teachers, Changing Times,1995

Reflection The challenge in Invitational Education is to consider how ‘invitational’ we are as individuals both personally and professionally. We can extend this challenge to consider as pupils leave our schools, do all leave as confident learners?

Let me introduce you to Invitational Education It is a theory of practice for communicating caring and appropriate messages intended to summon forth the realisation of human potential as well as identifying and challenging those forces in schools which would defeat and destroy potential.

Four Basic Elements underpin Invitational Education Respect Trust Optimism Intentionality By centering itself on four basic elements Invitational Education offers a guiding model and a language of transformation.

Levels of Intentionality (in behaviour, language, signs & places ) Intentionally Disinviting Unintentionally Disinviting Unintentionally Inviting Intentionally Inviting Refer to the notes on personal behaviours,printed signs, physical environment and the craft of inviting

5 Basic Assumptions 1. People are able, valuable, and responsible and should be treated accordingly. 2. Education should be a co-operative, collaborative activity. 3. People possess untapped potential in all areas of worthwhile human endeavour. 4. Process is as important as product. 5. Human potential can best be realised by creating and maintaining places, policies, processes and programmes specifically designed to invite development, and by people who are intentionally inviting of themselves and others, personally and professionally.

Why do we need an Invitational Approach? There is a growing awareness that education is not about normal distributions, standardised test scores , labelling and grouping of students, relentless and ruthless competition and certainly not about being “number 1”. The revolution is underway because growing numbers of people realise that education is about inviting every single person who enters a school to realise his or her relatively boundless potential in all areas of human endeavour. It is concerned with more than grades, attendance and academic achievement. It is concerned with the process of becoming a decent and productive human being. William Watson Purkey

Symbiotic Relationship For those of you already involved in creating community within an ‘Extended Schools framework,’ the ‘Invitational Approach’ I have briefly outlined, may provide an interesting leadership model for you to consider.

An Example of Being Invitational (To the Melbourne street community, the homeless and those with drug and alcohol dependencies) Choir of Hard Knocks

Choir of Hard Knocks This group of around 50 homeless and disadvantaged men and women, have come together under the leadership of Founding Choir Director Jonathon Welch, former Opera Australia Principal. 

First Rehearsal In this first clip we will hear the story of how the choir was developed and gain a sense of its impact on the lives of participating members. In the first rehearsal the ground rules are posted on the flip chart. Turn up on time Turn up clean or sober Respect Zero Agro HAVE FUN Individual responses, triads, then groups of 5-6 (Based on observations)

Activity Consider your response to this first clip individually, In threes, And finally in groups of 5-6 What are the significant issues emerging for you in relation to being ‘invitational?’

Implications of Invitational Education Ideally, the factors of people, places, policies, programmes and processes should be so intentionally inviting as to create an environment in which every person is cordially summoned to develop intellectually, socially, physically and spiritually.

Starfish Activity The starfish is able to apply steady and continuous pressure from a number of points to overwhelm the oyster and is a suitable analogy for a strategy for school improvement.

Second Clip Individual Stories

Invitational Contract (Reflection Activity) Being personally inviting with oneself Being personally inviting with others Being professionally inviting with oneself Being professionally inviting with others Starting with your self Before we go off intent with changing the behaviour of others it is important to consider how inviting we are ourselves. A basic tenet of IE suggests where any of the dimensions is missing, the school will begin to misfire like an auto with a bad spark-plug

Melbourne Town Hall Final Clip For a few minutes, please consider your response to this third and closing sequence. Allan Crabbe describes the experience of being a choir member, to be, “Just like a family.” To be Invitational in school or community is as simple and as complex as that.