We were blown away with the enthusiasm in the applications submitted by Principals wanting to participate in our Pioneer School programme. Given that the timeframes for submitting applications was short and so close to the start of the programme, we were expecting only a handful of applications. To our surprise we had over 45 schools apply.
Principals were happily gushing about the amazing work their staff did and the collaborative qualities they could bring to the Pond party but in the end we had to choose. 16 schools were chosen for their diversity in roll size, age group, geographic location, socio-demographic and the variety of technologically confident staff they have on board.
The following schools have been selected to participate in the Pioneer School programme:
- Upper Harbour Primary School
- Elm Park School
- St Paul’s College (Ponsonby)
- Waitakere College
- Kuranui College
- Otaki College
- Solway School
- Tawa Intermediate
- Marlborough Boys’ College
- Governors Bay School
- Burnside Primary School
- Cheviot Area School
- Papanui High School
- Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Kura Kokiri
- Waikite Valley School
- St Mary’s Catholic School Rotorua
These schools will work closely with N4L to provide a whole school perspective on how Pond can influence and affect planning, resourcing and teaching before we roll Pond out for general access later in the year. They will also work with N4L to develop and refine a PD programme which may be used later for the Pioneer Schools programme when it is rolled out to a general audience.
Those schools who applied and missed out on the guided programme, have been offered the opportunity to access Pond as a whole school and run a professional development programme themselves with all of their staff should they choose to.
We are looking forward to meeting with the Principals and lead teachers from each of the Pioneer Schools in week 2 and 3 of Term 3. Pond is about to expand in a very exciting way.