Alumni Services

Continue your learning journey with Springboard Trust

When a principal works with Springboard – be it through SLPP, SLRTP or one of our bespoke projects – they gain access to a wealth of support and resources to help them continue their leadership journey.  

After all, creating the conditions for change is a long-term process. While the work school leaders do with us in a single programme is incredible development, that work also forms the bedrock upon which our Alumni Services takes place.  

From our more advanced leadership programmes to tailored skills workshops to a network of connections and resources, here is what school leaders can look forward to from Springboard Trust.  

Half- or full-day sessions to enhance your strategic thinking.

Kickstart Your Strategy Workshop

A strategic plan is a foundation document for any future-facing school. However, that plan takes the long and broad view of your school’s vision and strategic goals and does not provide the level of granularity that is required to translate strategy into action.  Kickstart Your Strategy is all about breaking down your strategic plan into scoped, measurable pieces of work that your team can use to guide action and review progress on a regular basis.   How does Kickstart Your Strategy work? This workshop will assist you and your lead team to: Initiate - Practical experience in initiating and planning your activities Communicate - Understand who your key stakeholders are and how best to engage them Implement – Gain knowledge of tools that will assist in monitoring and measuring your plan Change - Appreciate your role in leading the strategic change within your school.  Who is Kickstart Your Strategy for? The KYS workshop is open to principals who have completed the Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme in the prior year, as well as their senior leadership teams.   To find out more about our next KYS workshop, get in touch with your Programme Manager or head on over to our contact page. 

Annual Planning Workshop

Principals also need to know how to deliver their strategic plan effectively, year on year.  Which initiatives you’ll take on this year, who will be responsible versus who will be accountable, and when do actions need to be completed. With the Annual Planning Workshop, you get the clarity you need to deliver on your strategy in the upcoming year.     What happens in the Annual Planning Workshop The Annual Planning Workshop is a Term Four programme tailored for alumni principals who have completed the Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme (SLPP). A single-day session for you, your senior and/or middle leaders, it is a time to break down your strategic hierarchy (vision, mission, initiatives, actions and outputs) and set clear goals and initiatives for the following year.   Once finished, you will:  Understand your strategic hierarchy  Be able to define and tell apart the above terms in your own plan  Have a shared language for talking about the plan in your team   Use the SCOT and PEST models, and apply them in your school  Understand where you are in the delivery of your strategic plan Be able to apply RASCI frameworks to your plan  Have a leadership team who understands the ins and outs of the strategic plan.  In short, the Annual Planning Workshop breaks down the strategic plan into an annual plan.    Who is the Annual Planning Workshop for?   As above, this workshop is open to all alumni principals who have completed the Strategic Leadership for Principals (SLPP) programme.   While principals may come on their own, we recommend they bring at least their Deputy Principals or Assistant Principals, as well as other key members of their leadership team.   In Auckland, the workshops will take place at the Springboard Trust offices in Onehunga. Elsewhere in New Zealand, we will host them at venues to be advised based on demand and resource.   Please note that, as with most of our programmes, resource is limited. While all alumni principals are welcome, we may have to prioritise based on school need. What does the Annual Planning Workshop cost?   Nothing but your time! Annual Planning is a free workshop, and will run for approximately six hours on a single day. Where can I enrol in the Annual Planning workshop?   Registration will open in term three but before then you can get in touch with your Programme Manager, or head on over to our contact page to fill out an expression of interest.  

Foster your strengths and bring your team on the leadership journey.

Springboard Coaching for Leadership

Foster your strengths through a comprehensive 360-degree feedback system with coaching support. Springboard Coaching for Leadership is a service designed to support principals, senior and middle school leaders to understand their strengths and how these can be leveraged in existing or future roles.  Express your interest in Springboard Coaching for Leadership here! What school leaders gain: Through 360-degree feedback and expert coaching from our pool of experienced volunteers, school leaders will:  Foster trust, safety, creativity and exploratory thinking in themselves and their teams.   Develop strengths-based leadership with clear, practical next steps.   Get unique insight into their own leadership style.   Create positive leadership practices that impact the whole school and community.   Who it's for: The programme is open to all school principals, their senior leaders and middle leaders.  This service runs across two terms, and requires committed input from up to 15 key people, including leadership team members, direct reports and peers. Your commitment: Time - This is a two-term programme with intakes in terms 1, 2 and 3. The time commitment per participant is 12-13 contact hours plus time to apply coaching actions in the workplace. Involvement will be required from a wide cross section of other staff members who will be invited to provide feedback through the 360-degree survey. Please allow 30-40 mins for survey completion. Cost - The programme cost is $1,500 +GST per participant. Where there are three or more participants from a school, there is an additional one-off $500 +GST fee for a half-day Our Strengths workshop (see below for more information). How it works:  Springboard Coaching for Leadership is a process of reflection, introspection and then connection. Fully confidential, the programme provides a safe and supportive environment in which to receive the feedback needed to grow and thrive as a leader.   Leaders receive comprehensive 360-degree feedback from up to 15 coworkers and are supported through a series of one-to-one sessions with an expert volunteer coach to decipher their strengths, areas for development and where they should focus their efforts.  Springboard Trust’s leadership framework used as a basis for the 360-degree survey has been developed for the Aotearoa school context. Our Strengths Workshop Where three or more leaders from your school are participating in the programme at the same time, the programme includes a half-day workshop which allows the team to come together to: Share insights about their strengths gained through the 360 feedback and coaching Build a picture of strengths across the team and identify any gaps Reflect on whether strengths are being utilised to best effect strategically Reflect on how the team can embed a culture of feedback within their school and continue to support one another's ongoing development To find out more about Springboard Coaching for Leadership or to register your interest, head to our Expression of Interest form. 

High Performing Leadership Teams

Express your interest here! Springboard Trust believes that high performing leadership teams transform schools for tamariki in Aotearoa. Change in schools requires a commitment from not only the principal but also the entire leadership team. Springboard Trust’s High Performing Leadership Teams programme helps school leadership teams to understand their role as leaders of change, work effectively together and focus on achieving demonstrable results. What your team will gain: Over three workshops, participants will build a cohesive team who understand one another, and will learn to operate and communicate effectively to improve learner success. By the end of the programme, a leadership team will have:   A shared knowledge of what constitutes a high performing leadership team and a shared team purpose, behaviours, and goals to achieve this.  Increased skills and abilities to work effectively together as a high performing leadership team and lead change.    A shared commitment to change and a focus on operating strategically to achieve results.  Who it's for:   The programme is open to the leadership teams of principals who have completed our Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme or our Strategic Leadership for Rural Teaching Principals Programme). While all leadership team members are welcome, it is ultimately the principal’s decision who to bring to the programme. In particular, leadership team members who play an important role in the implementation of the strategic plan should be invited. Your commitment:  To get the maximum impact from the programme, teams should be committed to positive change and prepared to challenge current team performance. Allow time for the three four-hour workshops across the term, and time to reflect on learning individually and collectively between workshops. The programme cost is $4,500 +GST. How it works:  The High Performing Leadership Teams programme is designed to enhance the effectiveness of school leadership teams and distribute leadership capability throughout the school. Through the programme teams will reflect on and challenge their current performance. The programme addresses 3 key aspects of high performing teams:Principals and their leadership teams (both senior and middle leaders welcome) work with expert facilitators through three four-hour workshops, delivered across one school term.  A pre-programme self-assessment completed by participants helps the facilitators understand each leadership team, and tailor the programme to the team’s needs. Self-assessment results and analysis on how the team works together will be shared in the first workshop. To enquire about our next High Performing Leadership Teams intake, please head to our Expression of Interest form.  

Broaden the horizons of your professional learning and development

Professional Learning and Development

Professional learning and development (PLD) is at the heart of any good school. Building tomorrow’s leaders and helping them adopt the same lessons you have learned through our programmes is a key part a future-focused education.   But for so many New Zealand schools, needs are varied. Needs are unique. And those needs must be met to improve the lives of young New Zealanders. Springboard Trust’s can offer it's unique cross-sector learning to school leaders and Communities of Learning/Kāhui Ako where it fits the Ministry of Education's priorities and criteria. Our PLD model   Through funded PLD, Springboard Trust delivers similar learning to our philanthropically subsidised programmes and workshops. This has included custom versions of our Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme, or running programmes in regions where we do not have existing resources to deliver. It has also meant strategic design and / or evaluation, as well as helping leadership teams prepare for cultural capability work. In action, this will look different for every school. We are an accredited PLD provider with the Ministry of Education, and have worked in multi-agency and multi-school environments, right down to helping leaders with single-issue projects.   The theme is collaboration – consulting with every available party, from school to government to community, and finding unique solutions for your challenges.  We scope the work alongside you, find the right cross-sector experts to support with your needs and help to create positive change. To find out more about how we might be able to support you, please complete our expression of interest form and we'll get in touch.History of Springboard Trust PLD This offering has stemmed directly from our work with Kāhui Ako across Aotearoa. We had previously participated in the Communities of Learning Change Management panel with the Ministry of Education, and worked closely with many Kāhui Ako as a consultant to help them streamline, evolve and work together to achieve their common goals.   Through this work, we developed a keen understanding of schools’ ongoing needs that complement our original suite of programmes.   In 2019, we began a pilot series of "School Innovation Services" programmes, which expanded in 2020 to include a huge variety of bespoke leadership development for tumuaki across Aotearoa. This work complements (rather than takes the place of) our philanthropically-subsidised programmes, allowing us to expand our reach and transform schools together in places and ways we otherwise could not.

Learning Events

Springboard Trust’s Learning Events are a unique opportunity to listen, learn and collaborate with some of New Zealand’s leading educational minds. Held at least once per year, we use our cross-sector connections to bring speakers from a wide array of cultures, backgrounds and sectors with the express goal of enriching the lives and minds of New Zealand principals.   Disruptive, engaging, challenging and rewarding – these are often the highlights of our alumni’s year.   What is a Learning Event? Prior to 2019, Learning Events were three to four hour sessions with a few speakers, built around areas of need that our alumni principals identified.  In 2019, we held our first full-day event at Eden Park, with keynote speakers and attendees’ choice of breakout sessions throughout the day.   With more than 250 people in attendance and nine wholly engrossing speakers, feedback suggests more of the same in the future.   What is covered at a Learning Event? Topics from previous years include:   Colouring in the white spaces: Challenging white supremacy in education. (Dr Ann Milne, Education Researcher)  The snakes and ladders of leadership. (Ian Narev, Board Chair at Springboard Trust).   Leading culture change in education.   Whanau engagement and empowerment.   Leading for Equity We have also had speakers approaching education from the perspectives of corporate leadership, early childhood neuroscience, public health and trauma recovery.   Who can attend a Learning Event? All alumni principals, as well as their leadership teams, are invited to attend each of our Learning Events. We also welcome partners, volunteers and principals currently taking part in the Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme.   Please note that unlike most of the Springboard Trust programmes and services, the Learning Event is not always free – full pricing and ticketing information will be provided well in advance of each announcement.   Where can I sign up for the next Learning Event? You can contact your Relationship & Programme Manager, or head on over to our contact page to fill out an expression of interest! We will also notify all invitees of upcoming events via email and our social channels.  

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