Leadership, AI and Human Connection with Jade Aim

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. It is great that you could join us here today because today I am chatting with the wonderful Jade Aim, Principal at Kelmscott Primary School, mum of two bright sparks who keep her very busy, lover of great books and good wine, and a leader who believes deeply in community connection and creating spaces where everyone feels seen and valued. Welcome to the podcast, Jade.

Jade Aim: 1:28

Thank you so much for having me, Jenny. It's an honour to be here. Pleasure is all mine.

Jenny Cole: 1:32

From Jade's early days teaching in the country and then in London to leading one of WA's oldest schools. Jade has learned, stumbled, reflected and risen. Today she's going to share a little bit about what works and what doesn't in leadership and how we can make the load a little bit lighter, especially with a little bit of help from AI. So get ready for a real warm and practical conversation about leadership, growth and lifting each other up. Jade, take us back. What drew you to teaching in the first place, and then share a little bit about your leadership journey to this point.

Jade Aim: 2:14

I'm one of those people that always wanted to be a teacher. I played teachers oh I don't know how often with imaginary students, with my teddy bears, with my poor two brothers who were made to be my students at all times because they were never allowed to be the teacher. That was only ever me. So I always wanted to be a teacher and there was nothing else that I was going to do. I went straight from school to uni and I just loved it. Just being around kids and being involved in their lives was just amazing, and it's something different every day, which is what I really like about it.

Jade Aim: 2:49

But one of the other reasons why I got into teaching is that my two brothers both have ADHD and they didn't have a really good experience at school and I remember just being like if you just formed relationships and did things a little bit better, you would have a much better outcome. So that's what got me into teaching and that's probably why I've stayed in hard to staff schools. You know the schools that are a little bit rougher in inverted commas. They're not always that way, but that's where I love to be and that's how I started in teaching. And then I got into leadership because, again, I wanted to make a difference and I got tired of making that difference just in my classroom and seeing a disconnect across the school. So I thought there's got to be a better way we can do this, and that's what got me into leadership.

Jenny Cole: 3:41

And you were relatively young to leadership, and my guess is you didn't do it all on your own. Tell me who helped you. What propelled you out of the classroom and into a more formal leadership role?

Jade Aim: 3:56

I I say that I've had three great mentors in my time being a leader, and the first one would be my very first principal, kathy Pangler, back in Woodinilling when I worked in the country, and it was just her connection was just amazing. And then when I went to Calista, it was Glenn Edwards as well, and it was just their little bits of advice and snippets that really just helped boost me up and make me believe that I could climb the next rung of the ladder just to keep believing in myself. Staying true and authentic to me and that's how I kind of got into leadership was because someone else saw something in me and also had belief, so it just empowered me to give it a go, isn't?

Jenny Cole: 4:35

that lovely and it's as simple as that is when someone else believes in you and sees in you perhaps something you don't quite see in yourself yet.

Jade Aim: 4:45

Yes, and that's what happened with being a principal as well. Jason Bush-Jones was the Principal at Kelmscott, he's my other mentor and he just said to me, you know you're ready to become a principal. And I remember being like hell, no, I'm not ready, I've got a lot to learn. And he was like no, you do. And he really propelled me to apply. And he was like no, you do. And he really propelled me to apply. And he happened to be leaving Kelmscott. He got another job at Aubin Grove and he pushed me to apply and I lived and breathed my application for, I think, about three weeks and with his help and his guidance, he helped me get there.

Jenny Cole: 5:21

Yeah, brilliant, and now you're giving back. You're an active member of the WA Primary Principles Association and involved in their Aspirant Leaders Program. What do you wish that aspirants knew about the reality of being a leader?

Jade Aim: 5:38

That it's not always what you think it's going to be. It is a lot of admin tasks that you don't imagine that it's going to take up your time. It's dealing with difficult parents, it's surveys, it's answering emails. There's a lot of other stuff that stops you from doing what you actually want to do. So sometimes it's about blocking out that noise and just going nope, this is what I need to do, and stay focused, because you can get really distracted and disheartened at times with what's going on.

Jenny Cole: 6:13

How do you stay focused on the core business, on teaching and learning. What sorts of things do you, sort of mindsets or behaviours do you have that help you keep, you know, a little bit focused on teaching and learning?

Jade Aim: 6:28

have that help you keep, you know, a little bit focused on teaching and learning at our school. We are on the gate every single morning so everyone is greeted as they walk into a our school. We only have three gates that you can enter through, so me and the two deputies are there and greeting families and parents every morning reminds you exactly why you're there. And also I make sure that I greet every single staff member every morning before lessons actually start, between the times of 8.45 and 9. I just go through, do a quick hello, quick check-in, and when you're at a school where you've got staff that are really passionate and you care about them, and I mean, I still pinch myself sometimes because I love going to work.

Jade Aim: 7:02

It's ridiculous. The people that I work with are amazing. We call ourselves the Kelmscott Primary School family. That's ridiculous. The people that I work with are amazing. We call ourselves the Kelmscott Primary School family. That's what we are. Sometimes families get along and they agree. Sometimes not so much and the road's a little bit more bumpy, but at the end of the day, we're all there for the same purpose and it's hard not to be happy and excited when you work with great people.

Jenny Cole: 7:24

That's fantastic. I'm really thrilled for you. It's not everyone's experience. Sometimes leadership can feel a bit lonely because you've got no one to complain to. Really, you can't complain down and your deputies are good to an extent. How do you prevent isolation in terms of your leadership? Who or what do you rely?

Jade Aim: 7:45

on my collegial group that I formed through at WAPPA, which is phenomenal. We've been together now I think so. My daughter is now nearly eight, so eight years we've been in a collegial group together through thick and thin. They support me through anything. If I have a question about absolutely anything, it's them and also WAPPA. WAPPA has been a big part of me not feeling isolated.

Jenny Cole: 8:08

You can just pick up the phone and call them if you have a question about absolutely anything and you'll get support and it's something that I've been on about all the time, and it's the value of our networks and our collegiate groups and our professional associations that's literally going to get you through. You know, sometimes day by day.

Jade Aim: 8:29

And you just have to be prepared to ask for help, because that can be for me. I find it really hard to admit that I don't know everything, or sometimes you feel like you should because you're the principal, but I don't. I couldn't know everything if I tried, and just asking for help and reaching out is really important. But I do feel isolated at times because at the end of the day, the buck stops with you and you're it. You're it for everyone the students, the parents and the staff and sometimes that can be really overwhelming. But I think for me, what I do is I use that half an hour drive in the morning to listen to podcasts and in the afternoon I ring my girlfriends and we just chat on the way home about whatever, and it just allows me to just read around and just forget about it.

Jenny Cole: 9:22

And because you're coming home to two small children, you're going to the third shift when you get home.

Jade Aim: 9:27

Yes.

Jenny Cole: 9:29

And so that decompression and, you know, chatting it out with a girlfriend is so important in terms of wellbeing, so that you're not carrying all that stress home to your own family.

Jade Aim: 9:41

Yes, yeah, and it's really important and they just become like an essential part of your drive home. Really, it's just your connections, your people. You have to reach out to them and just let them know how you're feeling.

Jenny Cole: 9:53

Relationships are so important in terms of our wellbeing. We can do all the other things, but if we let our relationships slip, yeah, they just really buoy us. They create that kind of resilience barrier that almost nothing else can fill.

Jade Aim: 10:09

And there's nothing like a good chat with a girlfriend, a good laugh, to just like replenish your soul and just make you feel good again.

Jenny Cole: 10:16

Yeah, yeah. Are they inside or outside education? Those friends are a combination of both.

Jade Aim: 10:21

Combination of both. I've been really lucky. I'm like a collector of people and I've collected some really great friends both in education and outside of education, so sometimes it just depends on the day that I've had can depend on who I call. Yeah, If I like a hard, you know, wake up to yourself, stop being ridiculous. There's certain friends I ring and then if I need someone to wrap me up in a blanket, there's other friends that I ring.

Jenny Cole: 10:45

That's so beautiful. I know culture, building a positive school culture is really important to you and you work in a really tough school in a really tough area. Talk to me about what you actively do to build culture and what culture means in your context.

Jade Aim: 11:00

We have at Kelms cott Primary School, but previously to me arriving there as a deputy principal Jason introduced a charter, so we have a Kelms cott Primary School, previously to me arriving there as a deputy principal.

Jade Aim: 11:08

Jason introduced a charter, so we have a Kelms cott Primary School charter and that describes exactly the culture that we are setting in our school and we do every six months. We actually do an audit on the charter, so I'm included at the cleaners, the gardeners, everyone does that and it's a chance for us to reflect and make sure that we're all following the charter. The other things that I do for culture is checking in, being available for people but not too available, because if you become too available sometimes you can drown. But also just being vulnerable, being really vulnerable and honest and real with people, and sometimes that means letting them see and know that you might be struggling with something, you might be dealing with a really difficult parent and you know what it's just being not a great day or not a great week, but letting them in on that journey rather than trying to do it on your own, just helps make people see you as a human as well yeah, and so that charter sounds fascinating to me.

Jenny Cole: 12:16

I'm thinking about listeners who might be in a school where the culture's not that great or they're just a bit stuck can give us some practical examples of what might be included in a charter and how well you've talked about keeping it alive through surveys but what might be included in people's charter and how might they go about doing that?

Jade Aim: 12:35

So we created the charter with Gary Tester. He's known for creating charters and he workshopped it with everyone. But it's all like it's all well and good to create a charter and to say this is what we're doing. You actually have to live and breathe it, and that means talking about it consistently, keeping people accountable to the charter and keeping yourself accountable to the charter as well. It's essentially just how you want your school to look and operate and feel. One of the main ones that we have on there is that it's a privilege to belong to Kelms cott Primary School. It is an absolute privilege to belong to our school, and it's really important that we all remember that in there is about students, it's about communication, it's about building trust, having open and honest conversations with people. It's just all of the things that you would want to have in a school that we as a staff all agree to and we commit to, and when you come to our school, you're also on boarded with that information as well.

Jenny Cole: 13:35

And so have you got to that magical point yet where people hold each other accountable to the childhood, like would somebody, a colleague, correct another colleague who's perhaps stepped out of line in some way?

Jade Aim: 13:47

Yes, we have gotten to that point. We've gotten to the point where people are having difficult conversations with each other and putting their big girl or big boy pants on and just saying you know, that wasn't really great what you said. But also we've gotten to the point where people are thinking about what someone said and in their mind we're taking a step back before they respond and thinking, well, hang on a minute, is that what I know about that person? Could they just have been having a bad day? Because that seems really off, and then they can check in on that person, because if it's off and their behavior isn't okay, it's normally a sign that they need someone to check in on them. So we've got the two the difficult conversations, but also the people, remembering who people are essentially and taking a step back and reflecting before they respond.

Jenny Cole: 14:37

It's that lovely notion of generous assumption. You know that people are doing good things for good reasons, and if they're not, there must be some reason for that. Yes, I mean. Oh, I love that. I love that. So not only you are. Are you getting people holding each other accountable?

Jade Aim: 14:54

you're getting people looking out for each other, which is even more important yes, and I think the main thing is is that they're holding me accountable right and they will tell me if I have not followed the charter or they think that I haven't, or have difficult conversations with me. But they also check in on me as well when they're like you seem a little bit off, like you're a bit snappy in that conversation or something like that Is everything OK.

Jenny Cole: 15:18

Wow, that's phenomenal. And that's a culture of feedback too, where we're not afraid to give people feedback. That sounds absolutely fantastic. We've done a couple of successes. I'm sure there's been failures or mistakes. Lessons learned, any advice for new and aspiring leaders, some mistakes you've learned or potholes to avoid you start for the mistakes.

Jade Aim: 15:42

I think the biggest one for me is when I first became a deputy principal. I was so gung-ho about just doing everything and doing it quickly, getting it done and just pushing, pushing, pushing. I'm such a driver but I don't want to drive people off a road, and that's where it was kind of heading. And I really learned that now it's about getting it right and doing it slowly so that everyone comes along, rather than getting everything done quickly so that essentially, it's all done at once. You can't do it all at once, it's impossible, and then it overloads people, it overworks them, it causes them stress. We don't want any of that. So you've got to find that right balance, the happy medium of still being a driver but still being caring and considerate of others at the same time.

Jenny Cole: 16:34

And how did you learn that? Was it just realising that people weren't on board? You'd written a beautiful spelling policy, but nobody knew about it. What was it?

Jade Aim: 16:44

People were not happy at work. It was really tough. It was the first school I was at as a deputy and we introduced explicit instruction and we just went too hard, too fast. That school is now really successful and I'm kicking so many goals and it's amazing. But if I was to have my time again, I'd just go a little bit softer and not be so hard. And I think I was just so young that I was just trying to prove myself as well. I don't need to prove anything to anyone. And yeah, I was just trying to prove. I was trying to prove something to someone and I just really didn't need to. No, no.

Jenny Cole: 17:23

And also on the flip side, you were probably trying to do it right. Yeah, I want to get this right so that I can prove myself, you know, a fast perfectionist. There's nothing worse.

Jade Aim: 17:35

Yes, and I guess I was worried that you know you'd be letting the principal down.

Jenny Cole: 17:39

He actually gave you the opportunity and all of those things, but going too hard, too fast lets everyone down so how do you get that balance right between holding high expectations for people yet supporting them where they're at what are? What are some of the mistakes you've made, or some advice you can give people on how to do that?

Jade Aim: 18:02

What we've done is we've developed a roadmap at our school. So what I did was we created our business plan and then we backwards mapped the business plan and it's very clearly outlined what new initiatives will be introduced each year and what we are consolidating. So there's no surprises for anyone. Everyone knows the exact journey that we're going on. We're all committed to that journey. There's no ifs or buts. We're not moving away from it.

Jade Aim: 18:29

If things have to change, it could, let's say something like there's, I don't know, a natural disaster and our school burns down or something, and then you know you need to change things. But at the end of the day, we're still sticking to that plan and that will be happening. And I think by making everyone aware of what's happening, there's no surprises. So they're not like well, hang on a minute, we're not meant to be doing this. And they've all agreed to the roadmap. So you've got to get everyone to essentially agree that things need to change and that we need to do better. But being in classrooms, being able to get in there and show people what you want I'm not asking anyone on my staff to do anything. I won't do at all. So that means going into a classroom and modelling, something that I might not be 100% familiar on. You've got to do it because that's exactly what you're asking them to do.

Jenny Cole: 19:17

Yeah and and the roadmap idea is is lovely because we can open a map that's showing my age. But we can open a map and, and you know, decide to go to broom. Well, we can walk to broom, we can take a bike to broom, we can do all sorts of things, but the roadmap also helps us understand how we're going to get there. Yes, this is where we're going, but we've decided to drive and it's going to take this long and these are our stages and people like that, because it's safe. It's not like get yourself to broom off, you go they. They know the the what and the how and the signposts along the way, which makes it easier, I would, would imagine, for you, as the leader, to then, you know, have a chat to people if they've got a little bit off course, yes, definitely.

Jade Aim: 20:06

But it also shows people that we're not trying to rush anything either, like just because we're introducing something new, we're not expecting you to like to be, you know, fully implemented for another six months.

Jade Aim: 21:13

You've got time to work out how you're going to fit that in, readjust your timetable and learn from it. And I think the biggest thing that we do at Kelms cott I think we do it well is we do a gradual release model for our staff. So when we're introducing a new program or a new initiative, we create all of the resources as an admin team ourselves. So we create absolutely everything, so the staff can focus on how they're teaching, not what they're teaching. So just take that a little bit off then. And then we slowly upskill them to be able to create those resources themselves. And we have teams of people that are now putting their hands up to say, well, I'd like to help create that resource. I'm feeling confident enough now I'll create that resource for the year two team and the year three team. So it works really well because we gradually release to kids. Why wouldn't we do it with adults?

Jenny Cole: 22:08

Two things go through my mind as you were talking about that. The very best high schools do that in their departments, so they upload shared resources and it will often come from the head of department and then, over time, other people add to it using the same format or the same strategies, and and it means that people can go to a central place and find all the resources. They're not spending many hours creating them, but the many hours are being spent by you. Where do you find time to do that? What do you and your leadership team not do to create time to create resources? We use AI. Oh, you use AI. Okay, all right, let's get on to artificial intelligence. Tell us how you do that. Talk to us about AI, and then we'll talk about some of the ways that we can use it. How are you using it in your school? And then we'll talk about some alternatives.

Jade Aim: 23:04

So we use it in two different ways. We use it as a leadership team and we also use it for our teaching staff. So one of the things that we've introduced this year is an initiative called Read with a Pencil. So essentially what that is is we are creating texts with tier two vocabulary words in them, and then we go through the definitions, we do comprehension questions based around Bloom's taxonomy, and then we also do comprehension stems so that the kids are beginning to create their own questions around Bloom's taxonomy, because we know that if they can create the questions and they understand what they're actually doing, well, we just put that all into AI, so AI creates the text for us, then we shoot off to Canva and then we have a template that we use and with our double screens, chaz, which is ChatGBT it's what we all call it CHAZ now will create a whole text for us, give us all of the definitions, give us the questions and the sentence stems, and we just put one thing in and then it gives us all of that information.

Jade Aim: 24:06

So we can create a two-week read with a pencil per year group in about 15 to 20 minutes. Now, wow, wow.

Jenny Cole: 24:15

Because you've trained the AI what it is that you want. Yep, and that's phenomenal. Quality control. How do you know if it's good? Is it getting better over time? How do you know what that's pumping out is worthwhile?

Jade Aim: 24:28

We always read it to make sure that it's right. You have to fact check the information, so we always do that. But also the staff are giving us the feedback as well, and I think when you've got students that are actively talking about some of the stories and telling you like I can't wait for next week's to find out what happens in the story, you know you're onto something good.

Jenny Cole: 24:52

Yeah, fantastic, brilliant. So what you alluded to there was putting in a really good prompt so that the AI knew what to give you. And so what kinds of information would you I call him Chatty or Chaz what kind of information do you give Chaz so that he can then give you back what you need? Give us some of the things that a good prompt might have.

Jade Aim: 25:19

It needs to be short, really explicit and just straight to the point, no flapping around as what you want. I do find it very hard not to type pleased in there, though. I find it very hard, but you've just got to be really clear about what you want in your head and type that directly in, and if you don't get the response that you want, it's because you haven't given the right prompt. So then you have to look back at what. Well, hang on a minute, why didn't that work?

Jenny Cole: 25:47

And you just keep typing in until you get what you want and so, for those people who haven't used it a great deal, I love, I'm not sure I could survive anymore without AI. No, I use it for all sorts of things, but I get that it's a little bit scary. So we're training this as you go. So you do use please, because we're training AI. Therefore, to be polite, which I think is a good thing, so I always use please and thank you and, if you don't mind, in mind but anyway, that prompt is the question that you want it to answer in the way that you want it to be answered. And so, for example, I might say let's imagine that I'm the principal and I write a newsletter every week. I might say I'm the principal of a primary school, I live in a low socioeconomic area and I write a newsletter every week. These are the five behaviours that are in our student charter and we focus on one of these a fortnight.

Jenny Cole: 26:48

Please generate some, say I use please. Please generate some examples of what I could use in my newsletter. But we're telling them who we are, so we're the principal, where we are, the sort of context, what we want it to do and also the output, and I will often say things like use a friendly but professional tone, so it knows what to write in and will generate. If you ask for 10 examples, it'll give you 10, but ask for 15, it'll give you 15. So that was the first time. You know that that's one example. It's pretty transactional. What you explained was excellent because it saves teacher time. Tell me how you guys use it as a leadership team to save you time. So.

Jade Aim: 27:33

I think the first point about AI that I really want to make is that if you are not paying for the product, you are the product, so it's really important for people to be paying, especially if you are using it for replying to emails or anything that could be confidential in our educational space. Please be paying for AI. What do we use it for? So we actually pay for a subscription for myself. We have the two deputies have their own subscription and we also have a school subscription and within our subscriptions we have uploaded our business plan, our charter, curriculum documents. Absolutely all of our documents are already uploaded into CHAZ so that if I wanted to write about something about in the charter which I do in my weekly whirlwind newsletter that we send out just to staff it automatically will tell me what parts of the charter I've already covered and what parts I need to work on and all of those things. I mean the real question is what aren't we using it for? I mean the real question is what aren't we using it for? Because it can do anything for you. For example, when I was looking at new furniture for my office, I asked it to put the furniture in my office for me so that I could see what it would look like with photos. We do not reply to an email now without it being in Chas, especially to parents, because it keeps our tone consistent, it keeps the language and everything you use with parents the same, but also it keeps a record for you of everything that you've done. So in the little tabs on the side I have one for parents and so forth, and so if you ever need to provide a summary to someone or anything like that, you can just type please provide me a summary of the last six months worth of communications with so forth, and it'll do it for you. It also takes away, uh, your emotions from it, because when we're dealing with someone that heightens us, it can be really difficult to remain professional. But also I find it really difficult when I'm heightened to just leave it and sit on it, whereas now I can type it in, get it off my chest and then I'm okay, you can just sit there. Now that's all right, because I've said what I wanted to say and it reminds you that you know that's not a great tone, or you need to word it this way. It just keeps you in line.

Jade Aim: 30:03

We use Microsoft Suites for projects as well, to just assign tasks to everyone on the team. It allows us to track projects, to see where people are at and what they're working on, so that nothing's a surprise. We use it for timetabling. We use it for policy writing. The wellbeing policy that I created at our school was done in 15 minutes and that was done because I put into it what I wanted, what we wanted to buy, and it searched the web for me and gave me a budget and everything and then I just put it into Canva and I have a professional-looking document. It doesn't have to be difficult and you know even my school annual report. That was done in 45 minutes because I just put the information into Chas and because it knows the tone of our school and how we like to speak. It just generated all of the information for us Data analysis. It can do anything you want. You just have to think of it.

Jenny Cole: 31:04

Yes, and you've got to read it and look at it critically and say, does this make my needs? Because every now and again it doesn't. It gets it wrong Because it's predictive, so it's only predicting, and so the more we use it, the better it gets at predicting what we want. And also sometimes there's just not that information for it to draw from, and so as we add more it's got more information. But it's phenomenal what you can use it for. And for those people who think I can't afford to pay for chat gtp, if you've got a microsoft subscription through school, as most education department employees do and I think most of sewa as well, copilot comes free with that. So there's copilot, there's claw, there's a whole lot of others, but pick one, for whatever reason, and use it and and train it up and then learn how to use custom gtps so that you can put the same project in there and do it over and over and over again complete time saver.

Jenny Cole: 32:03

I had a colleague who moved from a new south wales school into a wa school. She'd been using Australian curriculum, now using WA curriculum, and she said here's both of them. Tell me what the similarities and differences are, tell me where the overlaps are, and here are my programs from last term. Convert those into WA curriculum. So the days have spent flipping backwards and forwards and cutting and pasting out of out of curriculum documents completely gone.

Jade Aim: 32:30

So yeah, and same for data analysis. I don't need to spend hours anymore. It does it for me. I still need to check it, but it lets me know. I'm able to quickly identify gaps. I can quickly work out things that we need to do with staff, Like even our charter results. We can put those in and it will quickly give us even generates ideas of how to fix those to make them stronger. It can do anything and it's just a matter of committing to it and giving it a red hot go, Because once you start, you'll never look back and you'll wonder how you survived without it.

Jenny Cole: 33:07

I honestly don't know how I'd survive without it. So full transparency. When people like Jade send me some information for the podcast, I upload their information and ask ChatGDP to generate a podcast outline including a certain amount of questions. Now, I sometimes use the questions, I sometimes do my own, but if I got really stuck, I just look down and I think, oh yeah, that will work that one, and so you can use it for just about anything. Recently, I just put all the transcripts of my podcast, in which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages of text, and asked it to come up with themes and quotes about a particular topic. Voila there it was so good.

Jade Aim: 33:51

I also use it for recording of meetings. Now we don't have a secretary at any of our meetings needing to retake information. I put it into otter ai it identifies all of the speakers for me, tells me what we spoke about, gives me a summary and gives me actionable items. I don't have to have someone there doing it and not being involved in the conversation anymore. It allows everyone to participate, just amazingly. I also use it as well to translate things for families, which I think is really important. We have, you know, multicultural families coming over and a lot of them don't speak English, so you've got to be able. You want them to connect with your school and feel part of the community, and a way to do that is to provide them with documents that are translated.

Jenny Cole: 34:36

Fantastic Sensational. How could a classroom teacher use it? What have you seen, apart from the obvious around planning? Have you seen teachers use it in interesting ways?

Jade Aim: 34:47

So we use another tool at our school called Teachers AI, which is a program that allows you to generate assessment pieces that will provide you instant feedback and grade the students against scars up. But you can also put your own rubrics in. If you're writing report comments, you should definitely be using some form of AI and you don't even have to write the comments you can. I tested something the other week for a presentation I was doing. I just got one of the Scars of rubrics and I just highlighted it, took photos of it and then said generate me a comment for this student based on this information. And it generated the comment. And I know people that's a really controversial thing, but we use comment banks. We've had some version of. You can buy comments that people are using. So as long as people are reading it and checking it, I don't see an issue with it.

Jenny Cole: 35:43

Personally, I would like to see teachers spend more time doing what they love the reason why they got into the business and likewise with leaders. I want them to spend less time doing what they love the reason why they got into the business, and likewise with leaders. I want them to spend less time doing administrative tasks and more time and less time on compliance and more time on on the the fun stuff of teaching and learning and whatever that might be. And the one thing that you said there that I'm just going to alert those two things you can it. It can be a photo or a diagram or a picture. You don't.

Jenny Cole: 36:13

What you put into AI doesn't have to be words. So I will quite often take a screenshot of something and say can you put this into words for me? Can you make this table a document? And it will do that. But I will put in the show notes the link to Otter AI. I've been using that probably for about 12 years and it is my favorite app ever it. It is paid for, but it's worth every penny because, as you said, it will take meeting notes from up to what is it? 10 or 20 people and it will say jade said, jenny said, james said, and for those people who really want verbatim minutes, it's brilliant. Do you use it in parent meetings?

Jade Aim: 36:57

You can do. I have done before using parent meetings. I've also used it in staff one-on-one meetings as well. You just need to let people know that they're being recorded, but then it also provides you with an accurate recount of what occurred. So I have my version, they have their version, but this is what actually occurred, correct, and no one, not even you know.

Jenny Cole: 37:16

Unless you've got a stenographer in the background taking hand side minutes, no one's version of the of the meeting is ever going to be the same, but if it's yeah, it is yeah.

Jade Aim: 37:28

I can just I'm just to say sorry was differentiation. It's amazing for differentiation for your groups. It's amazing for creating tasks for you, for students with additional needs, and making that workload easier, because we know that we're having more and more students that require more needs in our classroom every single day, so you can put your lesson in and you can ask it to make it easier for the students and extend it at the same time, and it will create the resources for you. And I think the other thing that it does that's amazing is image generation, like if you want to text and you're writing a story, it'll create the image for you.

Jenny Cole: 38:10

For you, yes and I love now that it has a suggestion at the bottom. It will often say do you want me to create a picture or a chart or a pdf or a slideshow or any of those things? Some of that's still a little bit clunky, but it certainly is there now, which it wasn't even sort of six months ago. So, yes, it's not. You don't have to come and go out of thousands of different programs that will do a lot of that for you, because we don't. I don't want anyone to waste time on administrivia. And they talk about replacing people. Ai will replace teachers. No, they won't, because what teachers have is relationships, because what teachers have is relationships, and AI can't build that yet. So it allows teachers to get on with relationships and spend less time on the stuff. Are you worried about AI in any way?

Jade Aim: 39:02

No, because you control it. You control the AI, you control how much you let it in, you control what it does. If you don't like what it's typed, you tell it or you don't use it. It's that simple. But the power of connection with people, connection is never, ever going to go away. It's like when people said, you know, having Skype and all of those things was going to make people disconnected. There's always something, but at the end of the day, we all need connection and connection requires people yeah, yeah, it's all about relationships.

Jenny Cole: 39:37

I'm super curious to know how the front office of a school could be improved with ai. Are your folk in the front office using it for anything at the moment?

Jade Aim: 39:47

yes, so obviously we have generic responses to emails so that they can just copy and paste it, which is in Chas. We have also used it when the handwriting is difficult to read on enrollment notes and things. We just take photos and ask it to convert it to text for us, which it automatically does. I'm trying to think of what mainly emails for us monitoring tasks, and because we have lots of our front office staff work part-time, so being able to put it into the system to check where they're at on a project so someone else can just pick it up is really beneficial because it will you just upload the project with where you're at. It can kind of provide you with a step-by-step guide as to what needs to happen next.

Jenny Cole: 40:34

That's something that we're using AI a lot for in the business world is standard operating procedures, things that are repeatable, and if you do it enough, if you put it into AI enough, and then you ask for so what's the process I've been using, it'll tell you, and that means you can hand it on to someone, particularly if you're a part-timer or you know you're learning your job, or just a reminder of how you did it so brilliant. Well, I could go get on that for ever and ever and ever. But let's get back to the teaching and learning side and the leadership side. To the teaching and learning side and the leadership side. What if you were talking to um 21 year old jade, giving her some advice about what she needs to do or be in order to be a great leader? What sorts of things would you be telling her?

Jade Aim: 41:24

to stay true to yourself, you don't need to change who you are to be a good leader and you will be enough. You don't need to have bells and whistles and be shiny and all those types of things, because when people know who you really are and they trust you, you can just be yourself. You don't need to be who you think you need to be.

Jenny Cole: 41:57

Yeah, sometimes I think we get a bit performative and we think we should be something, particularly when we're aspiring. I'm supposed to be a particular way, supposed to be clever or louder or better dressed, or whatever it is supposed to be clever or louder or better dressed, or whatever it is. How did you find out who you were? I know that sounds a bit ridiculous, but you know, just being yourself feels a bit glib. There's a lot of work that sits behind that. What professional learning helped you understand who you were, or what sorts of things have you done to help you be more assured in your own style?

Jade Aim: 42:40

I think, a lot of experience and trialing different things. But also when I became more like myself, the job became easier because I wasn't trying to live up to something that I thought I needed to be or anything, and I think it comes down to me for being vulnerable as well. So I am a shocking speller. I'm terrible. I'm also not great at grammar and I don't have good vocab. I always say to people I'm street smart, like teach smart, not book smart. I can tell you what good teaching is, but I don't necessarily know the theory behind it or the theorists or whatever. And it's the same with spelling and that. And I think in the beginning I was so worried that people would find out that I didn't know how to do that and then question me that it just drove you to do just not essentially be yourself. And then when people found out about it, it wasn't that bad.

Jade Aim: 43:39

Going along to PLs, about doing things like having difficult conversations, the seven habits. I also did the ISIL certificate in leadership that they had at WAPPA. That went on for I think it was a year and a half, two years. That was amazing to find out who you are. Also doing 360 feedback. That was amazing To find out who you are. Also doing 360 feedback, working out that I'm a driver and just being aware of different personality types and then how you're perceived by others is really important.

Jenny Cole: 44:03

Yeah, yeah, because you can have the best of intentions to be collaborative and relational, but if everyone else is saying you, as you know, know difficult and pushy, then you can be putting in your own way. Okay, if there was a busy leader listening and you could give them one piece of advice you said quickly before ai, but is, if they're, if someone's really busy and feels a little bit overwhelmed in the whole business of leadership, what advice would you give them?

Jade Aim: 44:34

reach out for help. If you reach out for help, find yourself a collegial group. There's no point in reinventing a wheel. If you need to create a pbs policy or sorry, not guidelines we don't have policies in schools now. If you any any kind of the department, make the policies. We make guidelines, any of those types of things. Someone else has created it. So ask someone. If you're running a panel for an MCS and you need MCS questions, ask people because someone else will have done it. You don't need to create everything yourself. It doesn't make you a good leader just because you've generated everything yourself, because it will just run you into the ground and blocking out times of the day where you're like I'm just going to do those boring administrative tasks in this time and just knock them out and make yourself a list, yep.

Jenny Cole: 45:29

Beautiful, beautiful and I love the flip side to ask for help. Is that, when people ask you for help, be generous and share?

Jade Aim: 45:37

yes, we're all in the same system. We're all here to make the lives and change the lives of students, and when you help someone else out, you just make the system stronger absolutely.

Jenny Cole: 45:51

What a great way to finish. Jade, thank you so much for giving your generous time. We're going to make sure that people can connect with you, but I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of you when I say, if AI is something that you've not dabbled with, just play. Have a play. Put some stuff in it. Start with writing a list of what's in your fridge and asking it to generate you some menu options, anything. Have a go at it, because it's just gonna revolutionize your working life. So thank you for geeking out on AI with me. I look forward to catching up with you real soon. Thank you.

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