Ann, my principal, sent out an SOS email tonight in preparation for a presentation she has to give at a regional meeting. The questions she sent were good reflective ones so what better place to actually answer them than here. Any feedback always appreciated:

1. In what ways are you gaining as a professional by the way you work with others at LNPS ?

2. What are the skills and qualities you have appreciated in those who have supported you? You may give examples if that helps.

The co-planning teams that we work in to design our inquiry units have really helped me to improve the quality of the lessons I present to my class, become much better at effective assessment and really honed my focus in sticking to curriculum and lesson design that refers back to the skills and understandings identified as part of the required outcomes. In my role, I get to work with nearly everyone in the school and every conversation sheds light on how others tackle similar objectives. Every time we add another piece to the professional puzzle at LNPS, it opens up an opportunity to work closely with experts in various aspects of learning. In the last few years, I've got to work with Toni Glasson, Kath Murdoch and Mark Treadwell. I've had the opportunity to workshop with Jay McTighe in Melbourne to really come to grips with UbD. Like many of the staff, I've been fortunate to be trained in PLOT as well.

I also gain when my fellow professionals are prepared to take on my own initiatives and ideas enabling new ways of working to become commonplace at our school. Where else could I plan collaboratively using a wiki and a chatroom, have social bookmarking site delicious as the "glue" to save and group digital resources and have others lobbying for access to normally blocked sites like Wikispaces, Ning and YouTube so they can be embraced as effective tools. But I think that what helps our school to work well is that we really do have a form of distributed leadership where everyone can bring different strengths and expertises to the table, take in turns to lead at the front and basically, share.