We were fortunate enough to listen to Tiziana Fillipini who spoke passionately on the Reggio method of teaching. She introduced the metaphor that children come to school with 100 languages and how it important it was for teachers to also be in possession of 100+ languages in order to elicit and build on our students’ knowledge, skills and understandings. She emphasized the power of documentation and really looking at what understandings students bring to their learning.

The other keynote speaker was Edward Clapp, an American world-renowned leader and Harvard Project Zero researcher, who focused on participatory creativity. He explored the idea that creativity is always socially and culturally situated.  He urged us to see the collaborative process of creativity.  When we look at historical or even current leaders who are adding significantly to our world/social knowledge, we should actually look at all of those who worked with that person. We all know about Albert Einstein but are we aware that his wife was a leading physicist and that he spent much time with 6 other key scientists who worked closely with him? Creativity is the product of team effort!

Staff were also given the opportunity to explore Design Thinking processes, Makerspace learning environments, Garden & Kitchens, and building this into the curriculum, collective creativity in Art, thinking routines to encourage student voice and other creativity centred learning approaches. I would like to thank staff for giving up a Sunday to attend a weekend conference and I look forward to seeing some of these ideas evolve at our school.