It seems every educational problem requires more resources. The “Facing the Facts” report led by Dr Carmen Lawrence had 46 recommendations that required more. More money. More resources. More time. Always more.
But more is always the hardest pathway to improving culture. It is expensive. It is time sucking. It takes massive change.
What if we had a cheap, effective method that is embraced and celebrated?
A method that is overlooked because we have always done it this way.
I am talking about LESS.
Doing less. Auditing the programs and processes that are no longer effective. That no longer serve our purpose. That return very little learning.
At Honeywood Primary School I was curious to ask questions about the planning conversation for less, not more. The administration team looked at 2023 not in the sense of what more educators could do, but what could they do less of. They were very concerned about staff workload and impact on learning.
Now that 2023 is coming to a close, was their ‘less’ strategies successful?
Danielle Howton, Deputy Principal was very pleased with the community embracement of just 4 assemblies a year – ANZAC, two Musicals and Graduation.
The school do less assemblies. No classroom assembly items. No stress from educators and students to perform. No guilt by parents for not attending. More time for learning. It has been a huge success.
This was just one example of doing less.
Congratulations to Honeywood Primary School for being Courageous and investing time into doing less.
If educators are going to tackle the workload issues, maybe try planning for less rather than more in 2024. Start with an audit of processes and programs by asking the questions:
‘Why do we do this?”
“How does it improve student learning?”
“What is the feedback from the participants?”
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