The Waikato Principals’ Association Executive are excited to announce the annual Rotorua Retreat planning is well under way for 2025!!  The 3 day conference will be held at Sudima Hotel Lake Rotorua from Wednesday 19th March till Friday 21st March 2025.  This event will be featuring two outstanding guest speakers to keep you motivated and entertained throughout the event, Andy Jones and Cale Birk.

Andrew Jones – Biography

Huddle Learning System Director and Founder, Andrew Jones is an expert in learning design and educator professional development. Andrew has been working in schools in a range of school settings as a teacher, principal and leadership coach for almost 30 years. In 2009 he led the closure and regeneration of four failing schools in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and he has a Masters Research Degree in Learning Leadership. Andrew now consults regularly with practitioners, researchers and policy makers across Australia and New Zealand as well as in the Pacific Islands, Europe, United States and Canada.

Cale Birk – Biography

Cale Birk is a former teacher, school leader and District Head of Innovation from Kamloops, BC. As the Imagineer of the Observable Impact Model and author of “Navigating Leadership Drift”, “PLC 2.0 – Collaborating for Impact in Today’s Schools”, “The PLC 2.0 Toolkit” and “Changing Change Using Learner-Centered Design”, Cale helps districts, schools and industry leaders answer the question “What is our observable impact?”, the observable changes in practice that make the difference for all learners.

The cost of this Principal-only retreat includes accommodation, breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and also includes Thursday nights poolside mix ‘n’ mingle drinks and dinner.

Registrations are now open – $850.00 for your own single room.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Title: ‘Leading an Observable Learning Culture’.

Summary: Program participants will consider and map the key constructs that of a schools learning culture. Participants will be provided will the tools and knowledge to connect their leadership actions. Actions that enhance observable impact in professional practices that we can actually SEE in our classrooms that lead to improved outcomes for all of our learners.

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will explore and better understand:

• • the role and impact of wellbeing and performance factors on school performance and function

• • evidence-based approaches for identifying and responding to teacher, team and leadership professional development needs through the institution of Practice-based Interventions (aka: strategic improvement initiatives)

• • the impact of Professional Attitude, Mindset and Disposition in the enactment of learning, teaching and leadership practices;

• • tools and protocols to assist our teams in evaluating and refining our Observable Impact as a Learning Leader

• • how their observable vision and strategic actions can be used to drive their current leadership context to determine areas of strength, opportunity and potential areas of future leadership focus and;

• • specific leader and teacher ‘observables’ – actions, activities and assessments to help create a leadership plan to address leadership challenges.