The first Emerging Leaders' Summit was run in Wellington in March 2012, with the aim to 'Develop Change Leaders – Connect the Network'.
Watch the video above for a summary from Diane Mills, CORE's Blended e-Learning Regional Team Leader (Central North).
From the event an enthusiastic group of leaders are now connected using the Emerging Leaders Summit Facebook group.
REGISTER YOUR INTEREST for ELS 2013 and other national and regional F2F networking opportunities throughout the year.
If you attended the event what were your big takeaways?
SCRIPT
The dynamic and energizing Simon Breakspear lead New Zealand’s first Emerging Leaders’ Summit in March this year. Simon Breakspear, is a leading thinker on the future of learning based at Cambridge University, and he was joined by current NZ leaders in education: Cheryl Doig, Perry Rush, Mark Osborne, Carolyn Stuart, Juliette Hayes and Chris Jansen.
The summit provided an innovative ‘hands-on’ highly interactive and inspiring opportunity for those attending. The collaborative approach provided rich stories and diversity of thought, with plenty of ‘popcorn’ moments as Simon put it. These are ideas that continue to take hold well after they have been taken off the heat!
And this is borne out in the Emerging Leaders’ Facebook site with people commenting on the fact that as a result of the weekend they have acted on their learning and embarked on new qualifications, action research, and providing PD in new ways in their schools. Most impressive. Those attending were challenged to consider five critical questions:
- What must schooling deliver for students to prepare them for their future?
- What is the nature of effective and meaningful student learning?
- How can you design and create innovative 21st century learning environments?
- How can you lead school change that results in ongoing improvements in teachers’ instructional practice?
- How can you leverage your strengths, develop your capabilities and build a network in order to make a significant impact?
Key learning from the summit:Schooling needs to be more personalized, engaging and relevant to students. Take the time to find out about the needs and aspirations for your particular learners. Encourage innovation and creativity, recognize that through failure comes growth. As Simon Breakspear says fail forward and fail quickly.
Cheryl Doig talked about Leadership in a global world being increasingly complex and the need for it to be adaptive, networked, ethical, contextual and self regulated.
The value of rich Conversations, communication and open dialogue are hugely important in that they challenge, help grow solutions and allow for innovations This featured strongly in successful schools.
Mark Osborne spoke about the importance of providing opportunities in school through World Cafe or Ignite to allow people to step up and share their learning. Not just the leaders within school but for all.
Taking responsibility for your own ‘learning and leading’ journey and seeking out mentors to support you on the way was emphasized as key by Juliette Hayes for moving your career forward.
Participants shared their collective wisdom and experiences making for a rich and engaging summit that empowered people to see their next steps, definitely a conference not to be missed.

Diane Mills

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