Dr. Helen Bochar, accompanied by a phalanx of principals and other Board people, visited our school on the 18th of March. Dr. Bochar is an educational diagnostician; she evaluates schools and systems and offers suggestions for improvement. What she wants schools to be reflects the Ministry view: Schools should be learning organizations that focus on developing higher order thinking skills in students. She advocates high expectations for all students.
Although she had suggestions for improvement, Dr. Bochar was pleased with what she observed at Holy Rosary. She saw us as being on the right road and well along it. She liked the environment of innovation and the obvious willingness of teachers to adjust on the spot to ideas that might improve their practise. We want to get better. We saw her visit as an opportunity to get better faster.
I write this under some duress as I have been told I have a second reader who, like the first, expects greater output that I have generated recently. I too will try to do better.
I appreciate the update on your blog as I have now become an avid RSS feeder! I am very interested in your comments about Dr Bochar's visit as I have not always been in agreement with some of her messages...but I am really thrilled for your school that she was happy with what she saw. I agree that in some of our schools there may not be as much innovation and enthusiasm towards change but I worry that her approach in some schools has negatively impacted morale - especially of the administrators who are doing their best. Having teachers who are willing to improve practice is a gift - having someone who knows how to encourage that change is a talent that not everyone has but you have obviously found a way to nurture that hunger in others...kudos to the administrators who achieve that without the "interventions" of an outside diagnostician.
Posted by: CheBren | April 02, 2008 at 07:05 PM
Yes, please keep posting! I refer others to you as an example of principal blogging!
Posted by: Scott McLeod | April 13, 2008 at 01:05 PM
Its a valuable contribution from your side.I appreciate it.
Posted by: College Papers | April 30, 2011 at 01:29 AM