In early March, Sue McLachlan, Fong Chong, Andy Gorton and Marie Stribling attended the Future Schools Conference in Sydney.

There were two main strands to the conference: Future Leaders (attended by Andy and Marie) and Teaching Kids to Code (attended by Sue and Fong).

The Future Leaders strand offered a wide range of speakers who focused on ideas such as creating a vision for the school, learning space design, capabilities for the 21st century, learner agency (giving students control over their learning), 'high possibility' classrooms, thinking skills, as well as ‘science, technology and the future’. Such a range of speakers created a plethora of ideas to consider. It was affirming though to listen to these speakers and recognise much good practice which is already occurring at Hagley.

There were also ideas raised which have the potential to challenge us. For example, a speaker from Surf Coast High in NSW, a five year old school, shared their school’s experience in delivering an integrated curriculum across the school. They use an integrated programme (FUSE) with four core subjects blended in with skills/capabilities. Teams of three teachers work collaboratively with up to 75 students. She acknowledged that there are still things to be ironed out such as the tension between curriculum delivery and students gaining qualifications.

A speaker I found particularly interesting was Stephen Lethbridge, Principal of Taupaki School in Henderson, Auckland, who talked about “Maker Spaces”. The focus here is on developing in students a culture of ‘making’ – using existing knowledge to create new knowledge and new things - which clearly is an essential skill in the 21st century. Lethbridge commented that we don’t need actual physical ‘maker spaces’ and that the only thing needed in a 'maker space' is a thinking teacher who adapts to change.

Sue and Fong also enjoyed the variety of speakers in the Teaching Kids to Code strand. “There were two days of full-on learning and discussions which leave you feeling full and quite inspired. My mind has been racing and so many ideas come to light - now I need time to digest everything,” says Sue. A key message to come through in this strand was that coding isn’t just writing lines of instructions for the computer. Rather, it involves a process called Computational Thinking that will assist people in solving real life problems. This process can be applied to all learning areas beyond computer science and coding. Many jobs in the future will be based around coding with Computational Thinking; hence having this knowledge will hugely increase job prospects. Therefore, every student in every school should be given an opportunity to learn coding and computer science.

One of the main benefits of attending such a conference is the opportunity it gives for participants to step outside Hagley and see what is happening in education in a wider sphere and to consider things from a different angle. Watch this space!