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See also...
1. Would the Planner be useful in your school?
As you will see from this website, incorporating the Planner into you school has numerous implications for many aspects of the life and work of the school and its people. And there are many levels at which the Planner can be used.
Please keep in mind that deciding whether you take on the Planner, or not, is potentially
- a very valuable professional and school development exercise in its own right.
As you explore whether the Planner is a useful tool for use in your school you will gain valuable insights into your current
- situation
- knowledge
- practices. and
- arrangements.
To check out whether the Planner, itself, is right for your school consider the following possibiilities
- Identify a partner school (already using the Planner) who will support your efforts
- Learn about the Support Planner and browse the Planner website (some content will be out of date because it applies to the original version)
- With your colleagues work through 'achieving lift off !!'
- Consider its place and possible use in your school at this time, in particular
- and also the Governance requirements - the Principal must be involved for several reasons
- Identify the project leader(s) who will be promote and support the implementation
- Arrange a discussion contact Ivan on 0408 465 305 or ivan.webb@bigpond.com
- Real time professional development is available through Skype (ilwebb)
- Read the User Agreement!! Only proceed with making arrangements if you accept its conditions
- Consider the costs (fees, time effort...) and value (insight, knowledge, improvements....) involved
2. Make arrangements to acquire the Planner
- Make arrangements for creating your Planner (see 3. and 4. below)
- The current fee for a copy of the Planner with basic student data uploaded is $165 (inc. GST)
- (If required by your school) send a school order to
- Ivan Webb Pty Ltd, 8 Juliana St, West Launceston TAS 7250
3. Required data
Please prepare the following data as two Excel spreadsheets.
Spreadsheet 1. Student data
- Student ID
- Given Name
- Surname
- Date of birth
- Year or Grade
- Roll Class
- Gender
Spreadsheet 2. Class data
- Class (names of classes)
- Class Teacher (names of class teachers)
Please email these spreadsheets to Ivan.Webb@bigpond.com
4. Installing your new Planner
When you receive your new Planner by email:
- Save the attached file to your desktop
- Extract the folder (right click > Extract All) to the school's teacher drive (where teachers can access it but students can't)
- This should now be your fully working Planner
- Open the Planner and check the data
- Create shortcuts to Access (rather than the Planner itself) for the users, e.g., on the teacher laptops
- See Managing Documents to better understand the set of files that you have received
- Establish permissions to suit at the folder level
- Consider the need for passwords
- To let Ivan know of any difficulties click here
5. Setting up your practices
Acquiring and installing you Planner database represents the first 10% of your project.
The other 90% is about developing, designing and setting up your own school practices involved in planning support for teachers, students and their families, including,
- Add the website Index page to your favourites in your web browser
- Review the introductory PowerPoint and work through it as your explore your new Planner
- Print and work through using the Planner
- Making proper governance arrangements
- Organising existing documents into your folder arrangements
- Establishing roles, responsibilities and authority and permissions to match
- Agreeing codes (eg, types, who...) that match and extend current practices
- Agreeing location and time codes
- (Re-) designing processes to match and extend existing processes
- Organising for data entry
- Capturing student performance Ratings and Needs
- Beginning ISPs for your high needs students
- Adding new students
- Providing training for users
- Understanding knowledge work
- Building the use of the Planner into the life and work of the school and its people
- When implemented, the Planner will be part of everyday
conversations
- between staff,
- between staff & students,
- and with students' families
- Developing 'clever codes' to match your interests (recommended for more advanced users)
6. Provide coaching for staff
Provide training for those who will use the Planner, eg,
- Introductory Workshop
- Staff reflection: How Solution Focused is your school?
- Conference with Class teachers regularly (twice a term at least)
by working though their class data in the Planner (it takes time but will be
more that worth the time and effort involved):
- From the Main Menu click the Review Class (enter the class name)
- Consider every student (not just those presenting problematic behaviour)
- Update achievements, concerns, contacts, queries....correct errors... tick off completed items...
The database is a tool to be used by people to make life better for themselves and for each other.
Have fun and do well (and make it easier for others to do the same) - that is what support is all about !!
