My Journey in Developing a School Curriculum: Part 4

The Journey.  Part 4

Ok, so a lot more than a month has passed since my last installment of the journey and I said that I was going to write about the impact on the students’ learning and how teachers and parents felt about the changes. Firstly, I will give a quick (haha) overview of the journey as a whole then discuss the impact of these changes.

Through a robust review cycle and processes we enhanced our organisational, instructional and evaluative capabilities to be able to self-manage our educational outcomes. Over the 3 years we had completely reviewed and redesigned our curriculum delivery documentation to align with the new curriculum framework, effective pedagogical practices and the National Standards.

Our curriculum was designed by thinking outside the box and then redesigning it. The Board Of Trustees, Principal (me :), Staff and community spent a long time working to get  the curriculum, charter, policies and procedures to complement each other, as well as to the point where they could be used as living documents. We had created highly effective and professional documentation that ensured the curriculum was delivered to meet the needs of the learner. These documents were not made in isolation of each other. If you change one you had to look closely at all the others to reflect these changes. This required us to develop a new way to self review; the old ways just wouldn’t give us the flexibility or coverage of all documents. This saw us develop a dynamic new curriculum with a self-review process that was  highly effective and highly efficient.

Documentation

To support these documents we created innovative documents for teaching and learning in Literacy, Numeracy and Inquiry Learning in an Integrated Curriculum. These documents showed clear pathways for our teachers, and in turn our students and parents, so that they are aware of the individual learning needs of each student. As such, they enable the students and teachers to develop individualised, personalised pathways in all curriculum areas.

Programmes

The programmes that were used had been ‘selected’ during our curriculum design and redevelopment phase. These programmes and the planning had been evaluated to provide the best opportunity for the child. There was a personalised and individualised learning process for each child and the individual needs guided the programme not the other way around.

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Achievement Progress booklets

Achievement Progress booklets had been developed over the two years that allowed each child to keep track of their own progress in relation to their own year level and their own next steps to learning at each year level in reading, writing, numeracy and the Key Competencies. These booklets were used in conjunction with our reporting to parents in writing and  interviews, to show where the child was, next steps and how they could help at home.

Reporting to parents

Our ‘reporting to parents’ documents were reviewed and aligned to the National Standards. This includes the Achievement Progress Booklets and the written reports that are given twice a year in conjunction with parent interviews. These documents all show the teacher, student and parent the progress of the student, where to next and how parents can help at home.  

Inquiry Learning

A comprehensive Inquiry Learning document had been developed that reflected the school’s needs and community goals.  The inquiry process focused on the student developing independent learning skills and learning how to learn. The topics that are the focus for each term are chosen by the children at the end of each year through a consultative process with the children, asking what they want to know locally, nationally and internationally as well as their concerns and interests. This gives the topic studied a real context and a student centred focus to learning.

Consultants

To ensure that the process was lead effectively and efficiently we employed a consultant to assist  Myself and the  Deputy Principal to develop our leadership capabilities. This helped to focus our leadership team on improving our teaching staff and student achievement.   

Teaching As Inquiry

The 3 years saw all staff continually inquiring into our teaching practice. Through review of our teaching programmes and the use of student data we identified focus areas for our teaching as inquiry process to improve and maintain our high standard of student achievement and improvement. This was done as a whole staff focus on identified needs. Again a consultant was involved in developing a Teaching as Inquiry model for our whole staff with the focus on ‘How can we effectively ensure that Literacy and Numeracy skills are being applied by students in our Inquiry Learning topic studies’. This saw the teachers becoming more aware of how we make these links in a real context, which in turn shows the students the reasons for reading, writing and maths and giving relevance and meaning to their learning.

Our Teacher Reflective Practice (appraisal) process was reviewed  and redesigned to reflect the teaching dimensions, effective pedagogy and the principles of the curriculum. This Reflective Practice process is robust and promotes the improvement of teaching and learning at our school. These documents show areas of strength and needs and allow the teacher to plan next steps for professional development.

 

The impact

Using the Achievement Progress Booklets allowed teachers and students to co-construct the learning. With the students knowing exactly where they were and what their next steps were, they could work with the teacher to plan their own learning.  Teachers were commenting on how this made their teaching so much easier. They knew exactly where each child was for all subject areas on a daily basis. Planning was for individual children. In the senior classes the teacher would hold workshops that the children would book into depending on their individual needs. Children were saying, ‘I need you to teach me this or that for my next steps’. This also made report writing a breeze as the Achievement Progress Booklets held all the up-to-date (real time) information with reference to evidence and next steps to learning. The parent, teacher, student interviews were able to be held by the students as they were able to speak about their learning and the reasons why they were where they were and how they were going to achieve their learning goals.

The students were now becoming self directed in their learning, They could take responsibility for their learning and the progress that they made. As a principal, when I had parents come in to discuss their child for any particular reason, I could just slip down to the class pick up the Achievement Progress Booklet for that child and have an up-to-date record of where that child was on that day!

Why not have it digital I hear you say ?!! At the time that this was happening it was before broadband, N4L and all the other fast internet options. At school the internet and intranet were patchy and prone to breakdowns. So to get it off the ground and embedded in the culture of the school, we went with the paper option so the children could have it sitting next to them for easy access. The next steps of digitizing the process was underway.

The ‘Teacher Reflective Practice’ (we called it this to get away from the bad connotations that  ‘APPRAISAL’ held) was now owned by the teacher. It was a document that was used as a reflective tool and not just something we dragged out at the beginning and end of year.  Teaching As Inquiry was used to guide this process and had relevance to the teacher and their needs.

My own goals and inquiries were also shared with staff. Having an open and professional relationship with staff that allowed for reflective practice and teamwork, I think helped considerably in getting to where we were.

Finally 

So I guess if we think back to Part 1 and the educational puck that I was talking about, I think that we have developed a school curriculum that is responsive to the needs of the learner and will allow us to prepare the learners for the future. As I mentioned before Maharey in his foreword for the Enabling the 21st Century Learner (Ministry of Education, 2006) suggested that  “...the answer lies in reorienting the system.. away from the organisation, to the learner... to connect schools and communities and to support evidence-based decision-making and practices in schools” (p. 3). I don't think that the job is finished, not by a long shot. Things are changing rapidly and we are always reflecting and transforming our practices. But through having robust systems, reflective practices, being innovative and adaptive, I think we can stay ahead of the game and get those learners in line to receive that old puck.

My journey in developing our School Curriculum. Part 3.

Ok so we have everyone working as a team, we have a shared vision, we have a shared mental model, all we have to do is get the systems and structures in place to allow us to put it into action and develop patterns of behaviour and create events that will realise the vision.

What does life long learning look like in action?

We divided it into  two areas:

1. Learning for life: Developing strategies, knowledge, skills and understanding in Numeracy and Literacy.

2. Life of learning. Applying strategies, knowledge, skills and understandings in real life0 context to be Confident, Connected, Actively Involved Life Long Learners (see diagram in Part 2).

To achieve this we broke the curriculum document  into four areas: Literacy, Numeracy, Integrated curriculum and assessment, and made belief statements about each of these. The school day was divided into two, with the  morning sessions being ‘Learning For Life’ where the students developed their strategies, knowledge and understandings in literacy and numeracy. The afternoon sessions of ‘Life of Learning’ the students would be applying strategies, knowledge and understandings of literacy and numeracy in real life contexts.

Literacy                                                                    

We believe we had to develop in our children the ability to communicate effectively with confidence and to encourage them to use language in all its forms.

Numeracy                                                                

We believe mathematics is an integral part of the curriculum. In our rapidly changing technological world there is an increasing demand on mathematical skills and understanding. We will teach mathematics in relevant and realistic contexts offering children a broader, richer and more challenging maths programme as they master basic skills. 

Integrated Curriculum                                                                  

We believe the integrated approach to the curriculum accelerates and motivates children to learn. We believe that we need to teach the children how to learn through an inquiry process. We believe this approach creates a culture of co-operation and enjoyment. Literacy and Numeracy will underpin the integrated curriculum.

The Integrated Curriculum was designed to encourage the students to develop/apply the Key Competencies, Values, Habits of Mind and Six Thinking Hats into the skills and strategies for lifelong learning. Programmes of work are based in topics of substance and significance and help students make connections and see real purposes for their learning. Key questions addressed in the design of the curriculum are:

What is powerful learning?

What is it powerful to learn?

The main purpose of the curriculum integration is to improve children's learning by applying strategies, knowledge, skills and understandings of literacy and numeracy in real life context through quality teaching and an inspiring curriculum to be Confident, Connected, Actively Involved Life Long Learners.

Learning through a programme of Integrated Curriculum Units of Work, enables students to perceive the natural relationships between the disciplines that make up our comprehensive curriculum. It helps students to take responsibility for their learning by providing them with an opportunity to directly or indirectly contribute to the scope of the Unit of Work at the planning and development stages. An Integrated Curriculum provides teachers with an opportunity of utilising real life contemporary issues as a focus for their teaching programmes. It allows the children to develop deeper meaning and knowledge of a topic through an inquiry process that develops skills and strategies for Life Long Learning.

                                                                                                                                   

The Integrated Curriculum programme is planned and implemented through School Wide Themes which usually run for a terms duration. Generally four School Wide Themes are covered in any one year. However this may vary according to topic needs. The overall school-wide theme concepts, context and learning intentions are decided upon prior to each year in consultation with students. I remember we used to think ‘We haven't done dinosaurs for a while” and then do that thinking that kids love dinosaurs. Student agency is key in developing the topics. These are based upon student wonderings and worries, our curriculum, curriculum review and recommendations made as part of our school wide review process.  The students at the end of each year are asked 5 questions:

1.    What do you want to know locally?

2.    What do you want to know nationally?

3.    What do you want to know globally?

4.    What are your biggest concerns?

5.    What are your interests?

The children are also asked 5 questions about the ways that they learn:

1.     What activities they enjoyed the most?

2.     What activities did they learn the most from?

3.     What made your learning fun?

4.     What would they most like to be able to do again?

5.     How can the teachers improve the way they teach?

A staff meeting is held to analyse the answers that the children have given and to categorise them into topics. These then become the Topics for the following year. We will then take the overall theme and plan specific units based around these and incorporate the ways of learning activities that the children had suggested where appropriate. The first 4-6 weeks of each term are what we termed information saturation. This is where we give the students as many learning experiences as we can on the topic. There are field trips, experts visits from within and outside the community, hands on activities etc, all aimed at giving the students knowledge and understanding of the topic area. The final 4-5 weeks of the term are then where the students can inquire into the topic further.  The information saturation phase is a key factor in the inquiry process. We had found that the children didn't have the prior knowledge or understandings of topics to ask deep questions for their inquiries if we just started the term with their inquiry questions. By providing this information beforehand the students then had knowledge of the topic and they could then ask deep questions to develop a greater understanding.

As part of the children's total growth and learning experiences at school, significant school, local community, national, and global events and activities would also be celebrated. For example the Olympic Games, Calf and Pet day, Book Fair, Maths Week, Life Education, Whole school productions, Police Education Officer visits, Environmental themes, Second Language learning through the VLN Primary and Health themes eg. Pubertal Change, Kia Kaha and Keeping Ourselves Safe.

The School Wide Themes provided a meaningful framework on which to build the development of a broad range of understandings, skills, concepts, values and thinking and learning styles or abilities. The Local Goals, Our Learning Community, Key Competencies, School Values, Habits of Mind and Six Thinking Hats are our core focus for a balanced Curriculum.                                              

                                               

Assessment

We believe that assessment should have purpose and meaning and be used to improve teaching and learning, and the quality of learning programmes. We believe that students should know where they are and their next steps in learning. We believe that assessment should be used in real life contexts and we planned for most of our assessments to be in the integrated curriculum. One of the first things we did was to look at what we were doing and what we were doing it for. What are we assessing and why, what does it tell us? If we were keeping records - why?  What for? If we are never going to look at it again why are we doing or keeping it?

Then we looked at what was important to do, to keep and what was not. How do we analyse the results from each of the assessment tools, are we using the tools to tell us what we want to know? Or are we just using them because they are there!

Everyone has a say from Year 0 - 8. Every teacher knows what is involved in educating the whole child from the time they begin with us until they leave. We spent a lot of time moderating childrens work in reading, writing and maths to all come to a shared understanding of the standard for each level. Teachers are fully aware with what the child is bringing to their class and what they need to take to transition to the next. From all of this we developed an annual assessment schedule that represented the important assessment tasks needed for students achievement.

Students taking responsibility for their own learning

We also developed achievement progress booklets that each child was given when they started at school. These booklets had their achievement tasks for reading, writing and maths from year 1-8. These were based on the literacy progressions, numeracy project, national standards, and a range of other documents, tools, experience and knowledge and understandings from the moderation process.

The children were then able to say where they were in any given area and what they had to learn next. When the children achieved a goal they had to provide evidence of this.  In the junior classes it was usually referenced to a particular workbook and in the senior classes they usually linked it to a QR code that would show a video or link to a document showing their achievement of that particular assessment task. These booklets were also used by the students at 3 way conferences to show their parents where they were with their learning and why; what they had to do to achieve their goals and where to next.

Planning

With the students becoming responsible for their own learning and having their achievement progress booklets to say ‘I am here and go here next’, we had to seriously change the way we planned. We can't just plan to teach, we must plan to learn. This is my planning for the students to learn, not, this is my planning for my teaching. Again changing the mindset. Planning for personalised, individualised, differentiated learning,  with the students knowing where they were and what they had to do next the planning had to reflect this. It had to reflect the needs of the individual students. No longer could we just say Im teaching reading or writing or maths. We had to think about teaching a particular student their particular needs in reading, writing or maths.  Its not about how well am I teaching, it is about how well are the students learning. Teaching As Inquiry was used as a key tool for teachers in assessing  ‘how effective is my practice, what impact is my teaching having on student learning’ 

Planning and assessment was also considered in all of the Learning environments.

We saw there were five distinct learning environments that we had to address:

The School Environment.We  called it the school rather than the classroom because we needed to see the whole school as a learning environment and not just our classroom. We needed to identify all factors that can assist our learners within the school. That is the learning spaces, the playgrounds and surrounds, the teaching resources, the teachers and the students.

The Online Environment.Google, WWW, YouTube, Virtual Reality etc.  What are the children already doing here that we can utilise in our teaching and learning? What is the most effective way we can use this environment to enhance learning? What do we have, what do we use, how does it enhance student learning, don’t just use DEB!!! (Digitally Enhance Babysitter).

The Virtual Environment.Virtual classrooms where learners are being taught by teachers in other locations (off site) and learning is done both synchronously and asynchronously. We used the VLN Primary School for our students who  wanted to learn in subjects or languages that were not readily available in our school.

The Home Environment.  What are the students already doing at home? How do we communicate with parents and caregivers to assist them in helping their children? How can we utilise the resources that our parents had to enhance learning?

Community. Using community , local, national and global connections to enhance the learning experiences.

Now that we had changed the way teaching and learning was happening in the school we also had to reflect this in all of our policy and procedural documents. With the strong links across all areas, when you changed something in one you had to consider all of the other areas as well.  No longer could we just review one subject area, it was a holistic approach to learning, all factors had to be in play for effective learning to take place. So now that everything was in place next month I will discuss how it impacted on the students learning and how teachers and parents felt about the changes.

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/