Histories at Tamaki College

 It was great to catch up with Mr Russel Dunn, Deputy Principal of teaching and learning at Tamaki College, to discuss his vision for the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum (ANZHC) at Tamaki College.

Currently there is no seperate ANZHC at Tamaki College. History is taught within the social studies programme in years 9 and 10 and then becomes an option for NCEA at Years 11, 12 and 13.  However the introduction of this new curriculum does provide an opportunity for colleges such as Tamaki to engage with and critically evaluate stories of our past, particually in a local context. 

Russel was clear that the new ANZHC "Must be given the mana it deserves". This, from my perspective, was great to hear!. Russel was especially excited about the opportunity to embrace the new curriculum with the front half of the NZC. Relating to others, critical thinking and collaberating are all Key Competencies that can be explicitly taught using the contexts within the ANZHC.  

Russel cautioned that as we embark on the journey of embracing the ANZHC we must be mindful of the lense that we are using.  We have to be mindful for instance of the Treaty of Waitangi not just in a historical context but how it remains relevant to all New Zealanders today. 

Thank you Russel for your time - I am excited to see how we can incorporate the new ANZHC into both Tamaki College and the Manaiakalani cluster.

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