Albany Senior High School – Auckland, New Zealand


Albany Senior High School (ASHS) was opened in 2009. It was the first senior high school in New Zealand and the first modern learning environment at senior secondary level. In the innovative curriculum, students take 5 Specialist Subjects where they become the experts they need to be, they are involved in Tutorials where they build their learning power and they are given a full day to develop their own Impact Projects where they take their learning to the world. The aim is for every student to find success as a learner in all three strands. The quality of the student learning is dependant on the quality of the teaching in each strand. In this workshop you will hear how ASHS has developed a professional inquiry model that is rigorous and ongoing. The model demands that teachers learn from each other, from research and above all from the students in front of them. ASHS also encourages (and funds) teachers to undertake University study – Masters study that has a direct application to the strategic direction of the school. It is the quality of the teaching that makes the difference. You will be challenged to consider how, as leaders, through the quality of the conversations we have with our staff, we can strongly influence the quality of the teaching at our schools.

It’s not IF you are bright, it’s HOW you are bright.

Albany Senior High School is a senior college in New Zealand based on the North Shore of Auckland. The school focusses on developing the strengths and talents of every student and ensuring that every student has experiences at school that set them up well for succeeding in the world when they leave.

There are currently 750 students in Years 11, 12 and 13.

There are 3 strands to the curriculum.

  • Tutorials – where students meet twice a week for 100 minutes to work with their tutors to develop their learning power.
  • Specialist Subjects – students choose 5 subjects to become the experts they need to be in the specialist area.
  • Impact Projects – where the students have one day per week to develop their own projects following their own passions and take their learning to the world.

The school has modern, shared learning spaces where teachers work side by side with students. The teachers work on the belief that ‘if you have taught something and the students haven’t learnt it, then you haven’t taught it’. They are involved in personal professional inquiries which then supports their own learning about why some students fail to understand what they have taught.

Relationships with teachers are the key to the success for every student and the school works hard to develop positive learning relationships with every students so that every student leaves confidently knowing ‘how they ARE bright’.