Planning Team Retreat May 2020

Just over a week ago, the Community Planning Team gathered online, in virtual synchronisation, to approve and add 16 goals to the Futures Plan for the 2020-2021 school year. We were also led to a deeper understanding, and enjoyed hearty dialogue, about the implications for planning as part of the MSA Accreditation process. Thank you Dan and the MSA Coordination Team for the opportunity. I am so happy that I was able to be there to facilitate this experience, and warmly appreciate your flexibility, interdependence, and insight.

	From this event, we now have a clear, systematic perspective on our Futures pathway goals for the coming academic year, and we are refreshed in our perspective with reference to them.
	The event report shows the layout and details of the goals that were approved during this event, and also provides the platform to consider the action plans and onward implications for these pathways.
	AISC remains flexible and dynamic, we will continue to retain direction and systematic oversight of our futures planning model, and enjoy the multi-stakeholder support and engagement from our Community Planning Team.
	The report also outlines the next steps for the 2020-2021 academic year and looks towards the sharing of action plans for the pathways early in the Fall Term, which will facilitate the publication of a full Futures Plan.

Thank you again for all that the Community Planning Team has given to AISC this year! We would not be where we are today without their support and perspective. I have deeply enjoyed working, and learning, with the Community Planning Team this academic year, and warmly look forward to doing both in the future.

Community Planning Team End of Year Event

This week marked the final meeting of the community planning Team for the Academic year 2019-2020. This event is a crucial step in the futures planning process, and has traditionally had three distinct aims;

1. To ensure clarity of our futures planning process, and the futures pathway goals within it.
2. To celebrate and provide insight into the success of the current year’s goals, to the widest stakeholder group
3. To reach consensus on the approval of futures planning goals for the year to come

These aims ensure that AISC has a wide range of community input into the inception and confirmation of the Futures Plan. The Community Planning teams draws from the widest range of any AISC team, enjoying membership by parents, alumni, board and council of advisors members, faculty, administrators, and a number of students.

This year’s aims were no different, and through virtual means, we successfully reviewed the various successful outcomes from the Pathway Goals from the current academic year. We also highlighted areas where the impact of campus restriction and global closure had slowed/paused, or accelerated, the work of these pathways.

The goals for next year were explained and clarified in a parallel process, allowing highly engaged conversations and feedback about the planning for next year, within smaller groups. The pathway leaders moved each small group towards consensus about the pathway goal, and the outline of how to achieve it. Then, in a culminating presentation and consensus step, the AISC Planning Team approved the goals outlined in the latest futures plan, that will be published in the coming months. The photo shows our consensus in action.

In the second session, the Planning Team reviewed the implications for planning, within each of our Middle States Association (MSA) Accreditation standards. These planning statements direct the conversation within our accreditation process, and the planning steps that may be taken after our self study, and site visit are completed.

With over 30 members present, the event was a remarkable success, and I offer my warmest appreciation to the members for the flexibility, dynamism, group coherence and resilience they show when working through this system wide complexity. VIrtual meetings add to this complexity, and they dealt with it admirably.

The Community planning Team will reconvene in September, for further goal review, and action plan discussions. 

Community Planning Team Mid-Year Work session

Our multi-stakeholder Community Planning Team met for the second time this academic year. The charge for this meeting was to reach clarity and understanding at the year midpoint, on all of the pathway goals being undertaken this year. In addition, the Planning Team was tasked with the refinement and exploration of our objectives for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA) accreditation and self assessment.

The goal and the work of the year was described by each pathway leader, and clarifying questions were sought to support the continued insight of the Planning Team in the work of the Futures Plan. Pathway leaders were also given feedback, that serves to inform both the pathway tasks as they continue this year, and the goals and action plans in the year to come.


In the final session of the day, under the guidance of team facilitators and our MSA coordinators, we unpacked, explored, and reconstructed the student performance objectives and organisational capacity objectives that will make up our action plan for re-accreditation. It is with warm gratitude that I express my thanks to all involved in the sessions for the day, and it was another opportunity to see multiple groups working coherently towards our goals in this area, with the team working attitude I have come to expect, and continue to vastly appreciate, within our AISC community. See the slide deck here, and feel free to ask any of our team members about the work of the Community Planning Team.

Teaching and Learning in a New Decade

On the 23rd and 30th of January 2020, Sherriden Masters and Dan Love hosted a two-part, back to back, conversation with parents and community members on the future of teaching and learning as we move into a new decade.

We began by highlighting and signposting the drivers that we are recognising in a global context, in society in general, and then specifically in education. This was followed by a deeper dive into the signals that we are now seeing as a result of these drivers, again in education in general, and then more specifically in our work at AISC. Finally, we organised a dialogue around our Futures Plan (linked in the sidebar to the left) and how our work in the Vision for an AISC Learner Pathway, and our emergent work in Competency-Based Education.

Both sessions were recorded as a tool for future use, and are available to watch by anyone who would like to know more about our perspectives on the future of learning.

Teaching and Learning in a New Decade (Session 1 & 2)

The sessions were also informed by a wealth of recent research from Knowledgeworks, OECD, Mckinsey, and the World Economic Forum. The source reports from these organisations can be found collected in a zipped file linked below.

Teaching and Learning in a New Decade - Source Reports

Futures Planning Mid-Year update

The Futures Plan continues to be the focal point for the strategic efforts of the school, and it is at this time of year when we can reflect on the many opportunities, successes and challenges it presents.

One of the key qualities of the plan is that it is constantly able to reflect our current thinking and knowledge that relates to our pathways. The plan encourages us to continue to learn and explore, to understand and know more, and to reflect on our progress. From new ideas, to identify our biases, the perennial attention that goes into the plan encourages us to be thoughtful about the future.

As shown in previous posts below, we value the feedback and ideation of our community, and one form this has taken is the Faculty Futures summit. Others include our MSA surveys, Feedback questionnaires, and many Leadership Team coffee sessions.

The Faculty Futures Summit produced a wealth of narrative about new ideas in the near and far future, and how our faculty see the Futures Pathways evolving. Hundreds of comments over seven areas of innovation were captured.

These comments were recently processed and streamlined by members of our Teaching and Learning Leadership Team, who identified salient, persuasive throughlines within this bank of feedback. This will be digested further by Leadership Team, Community Planning Team, and fed into the processes that develop and innovate the Futures Pathways.

I would like to thank all of our faculty who so meaningfully participated in the session, and for the time and energy of all those who have worked on this process.

Planning Events in September 2019

Community Planning Team 0n 6/9/19

Our multi-stakeholder Community Planning Team met for the first time this academic year. The charge for this meeting was to align ourselves as a team, embrace new and continuing members, and explore our role in the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools (MSA) accreditation and self assessment. An insightful and empowered collection of parents, faculty, leadership, and students gathered ideas and evidence to support the particular MSA indicators, that let AISC know how we are performing in the areas of Strategic Planning and Foundational Documents. It was a pleasure to see multiple groups working coherently towards our goals in this area, with the team working attitude I have come to expect, and still vastly appreciate, within our AISC community. See the slide deck here, and feel free to ask any of our team members about the work of the Community Planning Team.

Faculty Futures Summit on 11/9/19

Last week the AISC faculty discussed and developed ideas related to a selection of Strategic Pathways, during a wednesday early release professional learning session. The event challenged us to escalate our thinking and innovation to the strategic level, and align ourselves with the work from our Futures Plan. Using the Futures Plan document (now on recycled paper) we identified specific pathways in which many areas of the school are involved, and in which many faculty hands do the work.

The event culminated in a further stimulus to extend and elevate our ideas to the extent that we are considering new futures planning pathways, and embracing emergent ideas about what the future of our school, and education, may look like.

Find the presentation here, and look forward to seeing the resulting data as it feeds back into our strategic pathways in the coming weeks and months of review.

2019-2020 Goals for Community Planning Team

Welcome to the Futures Planning Blog for the 2019-2020 academic year. The details below outline the purpose of the Futures Planning at AISC, the members of the Community Planning Team, and the working document for this year, The AISC Futures plan.

Purpose of Futures planning at AISC

The purpose of our futures planning process is captured in the image below, and acknowledges that no single, predictable, future exists when it comes to long term organisational change. We realise that we are authors, and actors, in the possible futures of the school, and keen observers of the futures of the society we inhabit. 

We use the Futures Planning process to 

1. To align mission with school goals
2. To engage a framework for decision-making
3. To connect present to future
4. To integrate systems parts into whole

Within this frame, we can make informed, yet flexible, planning decisions, simultaneously working towards explicit deliverables in the short term, while paying a good deal of attention to how the world is changing around us and our community.

On May 9, 2019, the Community Planning Team came together to hear the final update on the goals that the school had been working on throughout the year. They then came to consensus on the essence of the goals for the 2019-2020 school year. At the end of the session the team learned about and discussed a range of topics, from competencies to environmental responsibility.

These goals have now been reformatted into the Futures plan for 2019-2020, which it is my distinct pleasure to share with you today.

The Community Planning Team for 2019-2020 is also convened, and the list of members can be found here

To learn more about the 2018-2019 Community Planning Meeting event, please find the slide deck here.