Leading for Inquiry Learning – Breakfast with Kath Murdoch for School Leaders

Description

Designed for junior school leaders (Pre-K to Year 6), this breakfast PL with Kath Murdoch will explore the key elements and indicators of quality inquiry practice, including building a culture of inquiry across your primary school, and empowering your teachers to employ inquiry-based pedagogies.

Inquiry as an approach to learning has long been recognised not only for its power to engage students but, importantly, to nurture a strong sense of agency. It is now commonplace for schools to identify 21C learning skills and dispositions as essential for their students.  In contemporary inquiry classrooms, teachers design learning experiences and adopt pedagogies that intentionally strengthen students’ skills as thinkers, researchers, collaborators and self-managers.  For inquiry to be successfully implemented in schools, we need teachers who themselves are passionate and informed inquirers. They, in turn, need to be working alongside inquiring leaders! 

In this session, designed for early childhood and middle primary leaders as well as Heads of Junior School, we will explore some key questions related to leadership for inquiry, including:

·      What are some of the indicators of quality inquiry practice in the primary school? How has this shifted over the last decade?
·      What are some of the key elements that need to be in place to maximize the effectiveness of an inquiry approach?
·      What strategies and techniques can we use to empower teachers to use a more inquiry-based pedagogy in their classrooms?
·      How can we grow a culture of inquiry across the school – where inquiry is a ‘way of being’ for the school community as a whole?