Town Hall Recap - Part 1

Over the last month, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with many parents through a series of Town Halls both in person and online. I’d like to thank everyone who attended and engaged in these conversations - as your new Head of School, they were a valuable way for me to learn more about what is top of mind for our families and to establish early relationships for ongoing dialogue.
A few themes bubbled to the surface across the sessions and while I am sure I will dive into some of these in more depth in upcoming blog posts, here’s a brief summary:

Things I’m excited about and top priorities: Since being at Mulgrave last in 2017, I’m so impressed with the level of teaching and learning, the leadership development and responsibilities of our faculty, and the incredible improvements to the campus. Everywhere that I have been over the last few years - for international work, conferences, and other informal gatherings of educators - there have been comments about Mulgrave and the best practices we have in place. This school’s reputation has grown internationally and in particular, whilst talking with head teachers from around the IB world at our global meeting in October, it is clear Mulgrave is highly valued for offering inclusive, academic challenge for all students reflected in our commitment to personal best focused on achievement rather than attainment (more about this in a future blog).  However, what was also commented on is how we balance this alongside the development of a broader culture of success in outdoor education, the arts, athletics, social-emotional literacy, and the characteristics required to contribute positively to something bigger than yourselves. The dominant theme of ‘purpose driven education’ reflected in the research of leading practitioners is building in schools around the world, as the need for student agency, action, and engagement addressing the most pressing global issues affecting mental health becomes a moral imperative for educators. Our service learning commitments and opportunities are part of this but building in more connections to the taught curriculum is also needed to enhance every student’s sense of contributing to solutions and change.

All of these things set us up for continued growth and the priorities that are already outlined in our strategic plan. We'll continue along that path for an additional year, into 2025, as the themes of personalisation, wellbeing, and skills development are still very relevant and evolving. That will also give us time to continue our community consultation to capture all stakeholder views as the foundation for our next strategy. 

Inclusion: Over the last few years, Mulgrave’s commitment to topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice has become even more visible. It’s imperative for us, as a school, to equip our children to understand the world around them, to appreciate the value of difference, and to empower them to be a voice for those who do not enjoy the same privileges. All of this is very much in alignment with the IB approach, our school values, and what is known by educators as ‘culturally responsible pedagogy’...more on that in an upcoming blog post. Much of the conversation related to inclusion at our Town Halls, particularly in the EY and JS, was related to SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity). This is a topic, related to education, that has been in the news and infiltrating social media. Quite frankly, there is a lot of misinformation circulating in communities across North America. The bottom line at our school is that we collectively ensure the safety, sense of belonging, and respect for each and every member of our community. This requires empathy, understanding, and an open mind towards those who may have different practices and identities than our own. Our FAQ document provides further context for our community members.

One of the areas I will flesh out in a future post is the evidence emerging that this form of inclusive education enhances the learning capacity for all students and provides everyone with stronger psychological protective factors in the face of growing mental health challenges. Returning to the theme of fully appreciating the advantages of Mulgrave and IB’s holistic educational philosophy and approach relates to the growing awareness of the interconnected nature of learning and character development. Teaching cultural sensitivity enhances social emotional literacy which in turn improves academic learning. This simple but central principle has been the core practice of our Indigenous neighbours, who have always understood learning as holistic, reciprocal, and relational. So it is vital that we do not make the mistake of framing education or learning in separate, quantitative categories or in terms of time spent in academics versus outdoors or DEIJ or lifeskills. This is the central foundation for the transdisciplinary approach of the PYP and the interdisciplinary structure of the MYP. An IB approach in pedagogy, philosophy, values, and character education has never been more relevant or impactful as the rest of the world catches up noticing the research that both IB and Mulgrave’s educational approach was founded on. 

More on IB research is available here.

Of course, it’s impossible to distill more than four hours of discussion into a short blog post. There were many other topics, so I’ll cover two more - AI and the notion of Personal Best - next week. Please watch for the link in Connexions on November 16th.