The "Key Competencies"

It is interesting to see all the providers of educational support in New Zealand now providing courses on the key competencies of the new curriculum.

"Integrating key competencies into Mathematics" or "adapting the social studies curriculum to incorporate the new curriculum"

This is a concern as many of us feared. The key competencies are good practice around teaching and should not be seen as the outcome itself. If they are significant then these providers should have been doing this for years as many schools and teachers have been doing.

Is our new curriculum going to be determined by educational consultants jumping on the bandwagon or by teachers adapting their programmes to meet the needs of learners?

The Brain

Had an interesting email called the Brain Bulletin. This is a free email from Terry Small which gives interesting information on brain development and the importance of this with aging.

The article starts off (somewhat abridged)
As life expectancy continues to rise, people are doing more and more to ensure that their lives, if long, are going to be healthy. The American Heart Association now recommends 30 minutes of moderate exercise fi ve days a week. Not surprisingly, most large companies
offer health club memberships as a perk; many provide gyms on-site. Find yourself on the road, and you’re almost guaranteed to have a fi tness center in your hotel.

MANAGING YOURSELF Cognitive Fitness

Until recently, however, there seemed to be no guidelines for active efforts you could make to stay mentally healthy. here were no brain exercises – no mental push-ups – you could do to stave off the loss of memory and analytic acuity that comes as you grow older. In the worst-case scenario, you could end up with Alzheimer’s disease, for which there are no proven treatments. But concentrated commitment of resources ... yielded a broad front of research and training that has upended some deeply held beliefs about the brain. One such belief is that the brain necessarily diminishes with age. It turns out that neurons, the basic cells that allow information transfer to support the brain’s computing power, do not have to die off as we get older. In fact, a number of regions of the brain important to functions such as motor behavior and memory can actually expand their complement of neurons as we age. This process, called neurogenesis, used to be unthinkable in mainstream neuroscience. What does all this have to do with you? The process of neurogenesis is profoundly affected by the way you live your life."

The best thing is that the article then goes on with ways that everyone can act to improve their brain capacity. It is really good stuff.

The email is free and anyone can (and should) sign up.

What's with Year 12

Our school is a new school (in its fourth year) so it is our first year with seniors. We have Year 12 this year.

But we need to teach them how to behave and act and what that means. They have had no role models to show them what it means

But what a difference in the school with those sensible young adults around looking and acting so smart. Forgot how much I missed them with their attitude, passion and caring.

Creativity

Suggest people look at Bruce Hammonds latest blog post on creativity. He writes about how the important stuff is getting lost in the drive around numeracy and literacy. Every politician and policy maker should read it.

The concern is as we move towards only teaching what can be measured in output and input terms we will only teach those things that maximise that.

Annual reports, strategic plans, AsTTle, variations, ERO. Numbers, numbers, numbers.

What about creativity, insight, thinking, and never mind fun, happiness or laughter.

Visitors

Paul Seiler and Ian Munro from the Ministry of Education in Wellington visited us today. Great to have a chat with them about Wellington, Ministry and schooling.

I find the Ministry people always great to talk with but sometimes the inertia of their organisation sometimes stops things working. Do all educational bureaucracies around the world struggle with this aura of conservatism and inertia? The biggest barrier to making changes around the way schools operate is the bureaucracies. But not the people in them! There is a contradiction there which I think is probably the demands of the political process.

Showed them around the school and it was just great to see so many kids actively engaged and some really good learning.

Really pleased at the great interactions going on with staff and learners and how the spaces look to start to be working. Very impressed by the way the teachers work.

Budgets

I HATE working on budgets.

But getting very close and it is not too bad. Basically changes in structures and things come next. Going to be tight with the money at school this year.

Thinking & Learning

The 'New' Curriculum is started to come into place over the next few years. At Whangaparaoa College we have been wanting to make sure that it is implemented across the school and not just in a few areas.

We have started to look at what that means.

How do you get everyone to make change rather than just the enthusiasts?

So we have come up with a learning plan for the school with small targets for teachers to implement.

First target was for everyone to have learning intentions clearly written on the board every lesson. This was to be done by week 2. No discussion just do it! It is great to see it is almost universal now in classes. The quality of the intentions needs some work. But staff are now thinking on what that means.

We have also considered what a school wide approach to thinking. Everyone has to do some 'parts whole' thinking this term. We are using a universal model so that once established everyone can follow.

Looks great so far.

The new curriculum (which is not that new) fills like a challenge. By being directive the challenges for teachers can lessen at first.

Learning yet again

At the start of the year we like to make the focus about learning. What are we here for, and what does it look like when learning occurs.

The children at the school always jokingly say that Whangaparaoa College is all about learning, learning, learning.

But we always get distracted from the intention around learning.

Why is that?

So I have been thinking around why this happens. My thoughts

1. Children at risk are often 'free' and have few boundaries for seven weeks over the break. There are parents are working, and they just hang around doing little. We then force them into schedules and patterns of working which they resist.
2. While the children are two months older after the holidays, we as teachers see them as a whole year level older. They "were Year 10 now they are Year 11" approach.
3. Focussing on learning is hard. It is much easier to focus on uniforms and lateness. While I know it is important to get the 'little' things right, I sometimes feel many staff never move onto the 'big' things.
4. It is really hot and unpleasant at this time of the year.

Next year I am going to think around the whole year start stuff and getting it right.

Long time between blogs

Well it has been sometime since writing but with the holidays, getting married and now school starting it has not been a big priority.



A picture of the wedding with me, Stella my now wife, and my two lovely daughters. Had the wedding at home which meant a real hassle about getting things finished on the house.



But I am back in the job and with the year becoming more settled, I am going to be much more resilient about this blog.