My journey in developing our School Curriculum Part 2

In part 2 we explore how we developed a shared vision for the curriculum, how we went about building a shared mental model of what our vision meant to us.  To help build our school curriculum we used the principles of Daniel Kim’s levels of perspective: Vision, Mental Model, Systems and Structures, Patterns of Behaviour and Events.  

 

Looking at the model we can see we start with the vision and work our way down through the other stages. If we start with a sound foundation then building on top of that will give it greater relevance and meaning.  Often times things start with events, going and doing something that quite often has no relevance or meaning to what it is we are trying to achieve. How many times have we been to professional development conferences or workshops that were cool to go to but we never used once we got back to school.

As I have mentioned before change needs the support and involvement of all stakeholders.  Using Kim’s model to establish a Vision and Mental Model is all well and good, however, it is not simply having a vision and mental model, but having a shared vision and shared mental model that is is critical.   The stakeholders in this were the: parents, students, the school and the community.  It is sometimes (quite often in my experience) the case that one person will develop the charter and vision for the school. This is in most cases the principal and then this is shown to the rest of the stakeholders.  In these cases the vision is owned only by the person that has developed it.  It means nothing to anyone else apart from the fact that is the school vision.

What we needed to do was to make it  our vision, we all needed to develop it and own it.  For us to make any progress or for the change to have meaning and relevance we had to all develop and believe in our vision. The quote from the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland is appropriate here “ If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there” We had to all know what it looked like (Mental Model) and how to get there. Only then could we make it a reality. The vision had to be based on and reflect our values and beliefs about our students education and where we wanted them to be to receive the educational puck.

I felt that for the parents to make informed decisions about their childrens’ future and education they had to have knowledge and understanding in three critical areas:

1. The New Zealand Curriculum,
2. policy driving education in New Zealand,
3. priority students.

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I had some people saying that parents don't want to know that stuff, they are just interested if their kids can read, write, do maths and make friends. That it was up to us as the professionals to inform them of what we and they should be doing. As I mentioned in part one we had to change the mindset of a lot of people. We are all responsible for educating our children and to do this we must all be involved. To do this we must be well informed.  So the curriculum meetings that were now taking place with great parent support were about informing the parents about the big picture in  education in New Zealand, the New Zealand Curriculum, policy that drives education and the future focus of education and who our priority learners were. They were to give the parents knowledge and understanding of why we do what we do. They were to give the parents knowledge and understanding of how they can be a part of their children's education, how they can contribute in meaningful ways and make informed decisions and have their input into the development of the  school curriculum. Seeing the big picture and taking it from ‘my child to our children’.

This is a process that I went through with the students as well. The children when asked what we can do better or what should we do more of, generally I had found, would want more PE and Art! So to introduce the children to the New Zealand Curriculum and the policy documents etc let them into the world of why we do what we do and why they are here. Again people have said that doesn't interest the children or they wont understand that stuff. I have always said about parents and children: Underestimate them at your own risk, if people are informed and have been a part of the process you will have less resistance and dissent within the group. They will actively be involved in making it a reality as they have invested in the process and have ownership of the product and outcomes.

Priority learners was a big thing for parents to get there head around. Getting the thinking again  from ‘my child to our children’. Seeing the big picture, what do we need to do to include all of our students. Making a level playing field and looking for equity not equality. It is not about treating all the same, it is about getting all of us into position to receive the puck. Some of us need more support in some areas than others. This is the part that was the hardest to get people  to understand and I think was the most critical.

Now that the parents had had the chance to explore the documents and what they meant,  we then moved onto the development/understanding  of our vision and mental model. As with all schools we had a vision as part of our charter, but no one was really sure what it meant or what it looked like.  So thats where we started.

The vision that had been developed was: LIFE LONG LEARNING. This was  a catchphrase at the time and I think a lot of schools had a similar or the same vision. It sounded great, but what did it mean? What did that look like?  We worked on the mental model that was made into a statement and also in visual form that described what life long learning looked like.

It was divided into two areas. 1. Learning for life and 2. Life of learning.

 The students had also been given the chance to discuss what life long learning meant to them some of the suggestions made by them were:

• Believe in yourself • Respect other people • Everyone has a go and joins in all activities • Making the most of all opportunities • Look out for others • Always do your best schoolwork • Be determined in what you’re doing and never give up • Learn to question • Helping out new people • Take care of your work • Be responsible • Working together to do tasks • Having fun while learning • Always be a team • Be focused on what you’re doing • Learn to combine your ideas • Trying your best • Being helpful • Always trying your hardest • Play fair • Make good choices • Don’t interrupt • Use humour to cheer people up • Always have teams for sports to play in.

 Taking into account what the staff, parents and students had said based on their understandings,  the statement that was developed from the conversations was:

 ‘In our learning community we will provide inclusive education, using Modern learning technologies and a range of teaching strategies to develop life long learning.’

The time took to establish understanding about our priority learners came through with the first part being providing an inclusive education which showed me that this had been taken on board and was well developed.

 From this we also developed a set of local goals that would drive our curriculum to realise our vision.

 LOCAL GOALS

At our school we aim to :

1. Provide high quality teaching and learning programmes with emphasis on literacy, numeracy and physical activity. (NAG 1, 2,)
2. To develop the children’s skills in the use of Information and Communication Technology. (NAG 1, 2, 4)
3. To help children acquire life skills. (NAG 1, 2, 3 )
4. To create partnerships between the school, student, parents/caregivers and the community recognising our local characteristics. (NAG 2, 5 )
5. To value New Zealand’s cultural heritage and individual differences within the school. (NAG 1, 6)
6. To provide a safe, caring, healthy, attractive learning environment. (NAG 1,3,4,5 )

At ________ School we believe that children need to be PRESENT in the classroom, ENGAGED in meaningful activities, to be ACHIEVE to their full potential to be confident, connected, actively involved life long learners.

Now we had a vision and knew what it looked like we could then start to put together what this would look like at our school in all of its settings. Getting down to the nitty gritty of what will we see in the schools environments.  These are measurable statements that we can use to track, review or measure ourselves against to ensure we are delivering our vision. These are things that we can use as guides for our teaching and learning. We can ask ourselves: does this exercise/lesson/task achieve our vision? If we say no, then we have to ask some hard questions to why we are doing it! This gives us our direct, our justification to do what it is we are doing and to say that this is who we are. We then establish a matrix of what learning looks like:

What does learning look like at ___________ School?
To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our students doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values,What is it that we will see our teaching staff doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What will we see in our  classrooms and school environment?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our principal  doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What is it that we will see our BOT doing?	To accomplish our vision, beliefs and values, What will we see our parents and community doing?
Learners will..	Staff will...	Environment will ...	Principal will...	BOT will...	Community will...

We had a shared vision, we knew what it should look like, we had a direction, we had the blueprint for developing the systems and policies needed to achieve our goals in what we believed would be the best possible school curriculum for our children to be in line to receive the ol’ puck. Next month I will discuss developing the school curriculum and the systems and policies we needed to change and or develop to allow that to happen.

Kim, D. (2001). Organizing For Learning. USA, Pegasus Communications Inc

Cheshire Cat  Quote retrieved from:  http://quoteeveryday.com/alice-in-wonderland-quotes-tumblr/