Curriculum Review - Part 2: Establishing a Direction

Establishing a direction:

In order to do our curriculum review we needed to have a clear understanding of what we wanted our students to 'be' when they got to the end of Year 6. We needed to consult with our stakeholder groups what they thought a learner should be when they left our school. 

On the NZC Online Blog, a post titled "Graduate profiles - a vision for future-oriented learners,' states: 

Viewable at: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-resources/NZC-Online-blog/Graduate-profiles-a-vision-of-future-oriented-learners

This post states that a graduate profile describes 'skills, knowledge and attitudes that students will need to develop in order to participate in a range of life contexts beyond school.' In order to progress we needed to explore just what this meant for us. To do this we needed to use our vision (to create: confident, connected learners who make a positive difference) to guide our community in developing a graduate profile that identifies the skills, knowledge and attitudes we want our leavers to possess. 

Below is a picture of my understanding of the 'flow.' The vision informs the graduate profile which will, in turn, inform the school curriculum. 

Time to consult with teachers, parents, BOT and students. Time to explore those voices. . . 

Curriculum Review - Part 1: What can I expect?

Getting started: 

Reviewing the curriculum is very challenging and I have had a number of false starts. Please refer to image below:

As you can see from the model above, "false starts" are a result of not having an action plan in place. Although I very much agree with this model, sometimes jumping into change can prove to be difficult - I know I have a tendency to over read, and think, for instance. This has the inevitable effect of me procrastinating because I want to make sure that I am doing things 'just right.'

In order to help me get things 'just right,' I spent numerous hours looking at the Curriculum Review section on TKI, trying to educate myself on how best to proceed. I found the following statement helpful.

Available at: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Reviewing-your-curriculum/Setting-the-direction

Like anything that involves taking abstract ideas and multiple view points, and making them concrete, curriculum review can be a 'messy business.' This statement gives me hope and allows me to understand that sometimes you just have to march forward! Another statement, shared with me at the NAPP Conference in 2014, was from a presentation by Richard Edmundson. He said quite simply that, "change: Sticky, messy." I take comfort from both of these statements as they are clear in what to expect: a journey where in order to get the best outcome, I need to be prepared to be uncertain and take comfort in being out of my depth.

So here I go. I'm holding my breath and about to get stuck into the madness of curriculum review! What can I expect? messiness!