Transformative Educational Leadership Journal | ISSUE: Fall 2021
Woven with images, research excerpts, quotes, and the voices of the educators and young learners in her school, Barb Hamblett shares a beautiful portrait of the Spiral of Inquiry at work in her school. Flip through this case study about well-being and transformation and you’ll see the bold heart and head work in action.
By Barb Hamblett
The Impact of a Pandemic
In March of 2020, the world hit pause as the coronavirus, COVID -19, swept across the planet. For our school this meant a move to online learning for 3 and a half months followed by a full return of students to classroom s the following September. Students cam e back telling us they felt frightened, stressed and unsure about being back at school. It was clear to all of us that we needed to respond with a plan to look after their well-being. So… we scanned them one week into school to make sure we understood what was going on for our students.
Here are a few student responses we heard:
“I would feel safer at home.”
“Because of the whole COVID thing, school is really hard to get used to.”
“I don’t have anyone to hang out with.”
Read the rest of Valleyview Secondary’s School Spiral of Inquiry in Action
Barb Hamblett
Barb has been in education as a teacher and a school leader for over 33 years in the provinces of BC and Alberta. Currently, she is the principal of a large high school in the Kamloops-Thompson school district. A graduate of the TEL program at UBC, Barb has taken her culminating inquiry project from TELP and continued to work through her plan over the last 5 years.
Barb cares deeply about amplifying student voice and has been involved with the Indigenous Transitions project as part of the Network of Inquiry and Indigenous Education (NOIIE) for the past 2 years. She has also shared her work with school districts across BC, the UK, Australia, New Zealand as well as at the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) in 2021.