Over the last two weeks our teachers have had a range of opportunities for you to come in and catch up about your child's learning process, progress and achievement - as evidenced through Seesaw. This journaling of your child's learning journey, the discussion that supports this with you, and the teaching and learning structure that are school is developing, are all reflective of what the purpose of primary education is all about in the 21st Century world that our children are growing up in.
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Learning cannot, and should not, look like it did when we were at school. Learning in small, isolated groups, within isolated curriculum areas does not promote the curiosity, creativity and problem solving thinking ability that our children need to be successful - not just for today but for the changing world they are growing up in.

Our preschoolers come from a 'modern learning environment' - most early childhood settings have never known any other way. Everyday they will have had significant periods of uninterrupted time with other children and with teachers. This time will have allowed opportunities to develop short and long-term, personal and group projects and inquiries that will have emerged in response to both spontaneous and planned experiences. building on children’s known modes of learning, and on what children find interesting, will go some of the way to supporting continuity for children and engagement. Below are two articles that example some of the thinking and research that supports the need for learning environments across the school setting to change.

The underlying concept of play based and discovery based learning are not just something we are delivering in the junior end of our school. The challenge for all our teaching teams is to develop what those concepts look like across the different ages and stages of learning. This is not just because its a fad but because the national curriculum framework sets the scene and the expectation for this.

Education last century was a factory. Children went in one end to be made into employees of various sorts on a conveyor belt to the other end. Henry Ford would have recognised it. It worked as well as his assembly lines. The 20th century has gone. Now cars are customised, stuffed with electronics. The image below examples the progression through the four knowledge waves that have occurred in the last 100 years of so! We are now firmly past the transition phase from the third to the fourth! 

Over this week and next week our teachers have a range of times available for you to come and talk about what is happening with your child's learning journey and how we connect you with their progress and achievement (across the curriculum) through the use of their Seesaw Learning Journal. While these are two designated weeks for this to happen this dialogue with you is an ongoing process and something that we take seriously. Seesaw is one example of how we are attempting to give you a real look into the learning that happens everyday for your child.

You may have noticed that (besides the use of Seesaw) that how our school talks about learning, and the structure of how we support that with our teachers, has changed somewhat from how we used to do it. This can seem confusing for parents as a lot of what we hear about school in the media, and politically, is centred around the key words of reading, writing, maths and national standards. Well, the national curriculum framework is actually a whole lot more than that. There is no set curriculum for a school to follow. Every school in the country has to take the national framework and define what that looks like at the school and classroom level, reflective of our local community and culture. National Standards are not a checklist de facto curriculum in themselves and there is no national test that any school child has to take in New Zealand while at primary school. Below is an excerpt from the national framework that indicates what learning in Years 1 - 6 must consider:

Learning in Years 1–6 (from the NZ Curriculum p. 41)
The transition from early childhood education to school is supported when the school:

• fosters a child’s relationships with teachers and other children and affirms their identity
• builds on the learning experiences that the child brings with them
• considers the child’s whole experience of school
• is welcoming of family and whānau.

This new stage in children’s learning builds upon and makes connections with early childhood learning and experiences. Teaching and learning programmes are developed through a wide range of experiences across all learning areas, with a focus on literacy and numeracy along with the development of values and key competencies.

The National Curriculum Framework then has a whole section that outlines the requirements for the Board of Trustees around the development of a school curriculum. Again, nothing is given as a prescription, except that each board of trustees must ensure that the school (through the principal and the staff) must provide all students with "effectively taught programmes of learning... in all learning areas... in response to the identified interests and learning needs of their students." This must also:

• be underpinned and consistent with the principles of the national curriculum (p. 9)
• encourage, model and explore the values of the national curriculum (p. 10)
• support all students to develop the key competencies (p. 12-13)

Reference: NZ National Curriculum Framework - pdf linked here

Online bookings open for Mid Year Seesaw based learning conferences TODAY.  The mid year Learning Conferences run over the next two weeks - from Monday 8 August to Friday 19 August. Follow the link below to book your session on a day and time that suits you.

Thank you to all our parents who came to the two sessions that gave the context behind the Seesaw reporting development. Below is one of the images from the presentation that I gave that gives a good summary of how the Seesaw journal tool fits with our developing collaborative teaching and learning practice that gives an appropriate level of responsibility and ownership to the learner for their learning.