Connections in the Secondary School space

 It was fantastic to be invited to and participate in the Social Science Manaiakalani Departmental discussion. This initative connects secondary school teachers in the same subject area in order to collaberate.

Kerry Boyde Preece from Manaiakalani led the round table discussion and we were fortunate to have Maria Perreau from the Aotearoa Social Science Educators' Network join the korero.

Kerry introduced the Manaiakalani Kaupapa of Learn Create Share and spoke about the out reach that Manaiakalani has around Aotearoa.

The discussion centred around the development of new resources, Workshop videos/PD available for teachers, scaffolding of assessments, using digital technologies such as pod casting, digital strategies for NCEA assessment.

I really enjoyed the korero about how we can make learning in Social Science more engaging for students - something they want to do for more than just credits.

I am really looking forward to be continual participation in these deparment discussions later in 2022

Introducing Myself

Kia Ora, Malo e Lelei, Talofa Lava, Fakaalofa Lahi Atu, Bula Vinaka and Hello

My name is Scott Mansell and I am a new across - CoL teacher in the Manaiakalani Cluster for 2022. 

First a little about myself. I am married to a wonderful woman (Wendy) and am the father to Liam, who is 12 going on 18. I have been blessed to be the Teacher in Charge of History for Tamaki College since 2012. I love my job and my students

The focus of my new CoL role will be to support teachers and schools with the implementation of the new Histories curriculum. After a student led petition, which was started by Otorohanga College gained 13,000 signatures, was presented to parliament, it was evident that there was a desire to place more emphasis on New Zealand History    In September 2019 it was announced that the teaching of Aotearoa History would be compulsory in all schools from 2022, to be taught from years 1-10. It is expected that schools make a start on the implementation of this curriculum should begin in 2022 with full implementation by 2025. Covid-19 has delayed this by one year.

I believe that this shift towards a prescriptive curriculum is a positive step. Currently, in social science, we have some rather broad Achievement Objectives. For example, at Level 5 of the curriculum, Students need to learn that people move between places and how this has consequences for the people and the places. There is no requirement for this to have any focus on Aotearoa New Zealand. The context could be, for example, Irish migration to the United States. In other words, under the current curriculum framework it is entirely possible that students can graduate secondary school without knowing history that is relevant to them. To quote the draft curriculum document, this is “Learning that can not be left to chance”. It is possible for learners to graduate from secondary school with no real insight into the history of their own country. The stories that are important to modern New Zealand, be it the loss of land following the Treaty and subsequent settlement process, the Spanish Flu epidemic or the Dawn Raids.  

Thus the pivot towards a focus on Aotearoa histories is exciting. I feel that the more educated the population is with regards to their own country, the better they are able to contribute to and participate in society. 

I look forward to working with teachers and learners as we embark on this new and exciting journey. 

DFI Day 2

Back to Papakura Central School for Day 2 of DFI.

Today was about a few things, but mainly the overall theme was working smarter not harder. Technology is great but  efficient use of it will save time. And teachers all need more time!

We are all familiar with the google suite and have used their most common apps often. Gmail, Calendar and meet became our go to tools especially when distance learning is needed. But I discovered today that there is far more than meets the eye with many of these tools. For example the ability to colour different calendars can make navigating the site (or app) a lot easier.

Tab rationalisation is also a useful concept for those of us who are guilty of having far too many tabs open at any one time. I did not know that this can impact the performance of my Macbook and will need to ensure I am better at closing them. My homework is to try some of the tools that were shown to help me with this.

I am looking forward to continuing DFI in term 2!