Building a Thriving School Community Through Strategic Focus

I tend to think in threes, because coherence is strengthened when strategy is clear, concentrated, and connected. This year, our strategic focus is focused around three interconnected areas: Inquiry, Belonging, and Assessment. Together, they clarify the kind of learning community we are working toward and the practices that will bring it to life.

Over the past two years, I have been leading a purposeful effort to create a more coherent and connected whole school learning experience at Nishimachi. This has included aligning curriculum school-wide, establishing a shared inquiry-based pedagogical approach, and implementing Toddle – Your Teaching Partner as our whole-school learning platform to unify planning, documentation, and communication. These moves have been designed to strengthen the conditions in which curiosity, critical thinking, creativity, and agency can thrive in every classroom.

One of our focuses has been on intentionally building our capacity as an inquiry-driven learning community by strengthening continuity in our planning systems and nurturing the characteristics of inquiry-based classrooms. Our work with both Trevor MacKenzie and Kath Murdoch has helped us deepen our shared understanding of what it means to learn through curiosity, connection, and student agency.

This year, we are taking the next step.

Our Learning Leaders will be working closely with Trevor through a new professional learning initiative, Building Sustainable Inquiry Pedagogy at Nishimachi International School. Across a series of learning sessions throughout the year, our Learning Leaders will have personalized opportunities to strengthen their own practice, and then extend this learning to our faculty through the workshops and collaborative structures they facilitate. It’s a purposeful capacity-building, train-the-trainer model that supports sustainable, school-wide growth.

Also this year Mark Paxton will continue the great work he has been leading on DEIB and specifically belonging. After creating the foundation for the work with his team over the last year, they will be launching a scaffolded progression of our Learner Expectations that capture the essence of our character expectations with a purposeful intention to further build an inclusive community.

Our third major focus will be our assessment practices. Through his work as an experienced school leader and IB workshop consultant, Damian Rentoule has begun to review and rethink how we ensure our assessments empower our students to understand themselves as learners, identify their areas of strength and development and that as a school our assessments connect to the learning we value and that our practices are consistent across the grades.

These three areas are not separate initiatives. They form a unified learning architecture, one designed to deepen student learning, strengthen community, build capacity and create clarity in our instructional identity.

When Inquiry guides our learning, Belonging shapes our relationships, and Assessment makes growth visible, we become a community where students are empowered to know themselves, engage with others, and take meaningful action. This is the identity we are cultivating. This is what learning should look like in 2026 and beyond.