A reader asks,

“Fundamental 5? Unfortunately I missed that workshop and am out of the loop. Sounds great and I hope to get caught up.”

SC Response
The Fundamental Five are the five practices of effective instruction that set up every other effective practice that teachers know to do. Just like in sports (blocking and tackling; boxing out and making free throws; hitting the cut-off man and laying down the bunt), if teachers and schools are not experts in the fundamentals, their chance to be truly great is diminished.

Besides the on-going training that Lead Your School does in districts, Dr. Mike Laird and I will be presenting the Fundamental Five at the National Association of Secondary School Principals conference in March.

Those of you that have been trained know the power of the Fundamental Five, those who haven’t will have to wait another week because right now there is a Poster Contest that is in full swing.

A number of schools have already submitted their Fundamental Five poster, if you or your school has yet to do so, you still have time. Here are the contest rules once again:

Send me a copy of your Fundamental 5 poster by September 18th, 2009. The winning school will have their poster displayed on the blog and have pizzas delivered for the staff.

1. E-mail an electronic version of your Fundamental Five poster to the blog (if you don’t have a poster yet, make one).

2. Deadline for entries, September 18, 2009.

3. Submissions become the property of Lead Your School.

4. Prize – Pizza lunch for staff

5. Winner announced by September 25, 2009

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…