The Draft Curriculum was discussed this morning at our cluster meeting with Beth Dungey. Just sad that some were not able to attend as they really missed out. I found it a very interesting session. Beth walked the talk, listened and discussed the document, sharing her insights having been involved in the trial project with a Putaruru cluster.

This session was very timely as our next milestone requires each of our cluster schools to have had in depth discussions on identifying Powerful Learning and the needs of the 21st century learner. This morning's discussions tie in beautifully as we look at effective pedagogy.

Beth also shared some of the work by Jay McTighe in "Understanding By Design". (He is coming to NZ next year). His work has strong links to planning for Inquiry, where we usually start with the end on mind, working backward as we plan. "What is the key understanding that we want children to gain? How will we know that they have succeeded in this understanding?" You might like to take a look at his work on the net. Looked up the site www.sdttl.com/2002/ubd.htm which provides indicators of Teaching for Understanding and the various roles. See also the rubric on the 6 facets of understanding http://faculty.fullerton.edu/npelaez/BIOL102/UBDrubric.htm

At this stage I feel really excited by the new draft and can see how the three booklets: the Draft curriculum, The E-Learning Action Plan and the Schooling Strategy all seem to come together well.

Each school's vision for learning will play a major part and will come alive, as will the partnerships in learning and the development of each school community's individually owned School Curriculum.

Questions were raised re social engineering, the impact on the Negs & Nags, the place of the Treaty etc. We talked about the Yr 7 & 8 teaching of a second language. All led to very interesting discussions.

Hmm, I am still a little unclear re the difference between Values and Principles. Are Principles the outward attitudes while the values are the inwardly held beliefs that promulgate these principles???

Thanks Bruce, Craig and Michele for attending and to Beth for a stimulating morning's work. :-) It was a buzz!

PS - Do our cluster schools know that they can get a free audioconferencing code from the MoE's ICT Help Desk? They can then conference with no cost. Great eh!

- Cheers, Lorraine