Reviewing programme planning in years 7–13

Claire Wood: We looked at the indicators of progression and then we worked out what we were actually covering in our units of work, and so we looked at the different levels, the different contexts and the components. And so then we had a matrix that showed the coverage that we were doing, and then we could see what we weren’t doing. And so what we could concentrate on.

And we also looked at what we could track, because we do a semester system, we could actually look at, say for example, we were looking at brief development at year seven, when they did a semester of food, we could actually pick it up again when they did the second semester of product design, we could look at their learning and what had happened between when they had first looked at brief development to when they did it again. And so we can track, we can track one component with each level.

Each year I have to write an annual report and the annual report has all of the results from all of the assessment criteria from year seven through to year 10 and I have to analyse those and it’s also got the NCEA results from year 11 to 13 so I analyse those as well but with the junior high area we can look at a particular component. So for example, brief development.

So we can have a look and just sort of see how each teacher is going and so we can get our common, the common thinking around the grades more sort of ironed out and so I need, I might see a real need to work on a particular component because we haven’t quite got the grades in our heads yet. And so that gives me something to work on and we can also see the component that is tracked, we can see how that’s going as well.

So I use that data when I’ve analysed it to actually bring it into a faculty meeting to discuss. When we looked at the components of our matrix we did realise that tech systems was one that we were really not covering at all and so that is something that I need to do a little bit of research on with the faculty so that we can include it in our matrix. And it may not be in all three contexts, it might just be in one context, but that is something that we are going to look at next.

Well we’ve started developing a matrix for year 11, 12, and 13 because I think it’s really important that across those three levels that the students cover all the components to great depth, so that when they come to do scholarship, they’ve actually got knowledge in all three strands and so they can produce that evidence for their scholarship report.

Abby Dingle: My scholarship classes at the moment, when I’m getting them in at year 13, right at the beginning the second that I’m giving them a context I’m making sure that my context is broad enough to give them enough scope to be able to have a scholarship project. I think that the two things that I’ve been focusing on this year is making sure that the complexity is authentic. Scholarship projects have to be real, have to be relatable, so their stakeholders absolutely must have a definite issue that they’re looking to resolve. I am trying to get them to relate that issue to a wider world as well. To a wider concept, so even current problems in society that they can then balance with each other.