Karamu High uses the HNHS resources
In 2006, the Havelock North High School Beacon Practice team invited a large group of Hawke's Bay teachers to an afternoon workshop on the work they had been doing with their Year 9 and 10 classes. The team generously shared the resource material they had developed by way of a CD-ROM given to all attendees.
Among the participants was Karamu High School, and HOD Dale Prebble and two others from the Technology department liked what they saw: "We had been looking to make changes to our Year 9 programme so this workshop came along just at the right time," said Dale.
The Year 9 programme at Karamu High School was made up of four units of work – in Hard materials, Soft materials, Food and Electronics – each for three hours a week. However, in the past, timetabling constraints had meant that some students couldn't do a unit in one particular term, and had to make it up by doing two units in another.
Timetable changes for 2007 resulted in each Year 9 class having one unit per term – so the department had an opportunity to re-organise the programme to ensure better continuity between the four units.
"We had been operating as four separate areas and although we now had the chance to make better links between the areas we weren't sure how it could be done. Seeing the way Havelock had developed their technology cycle and were adding to it each term was of real interest to us. We had a similar cycle but we were just reinforcing it again and again in each of the units."
Dale and his staff were impressed with the way the structure of the Havelock North Year 9 programme promoted student progression, and how this progression was assessed and reported on. It convinced them that it would be possible to re-structure their own programme along similar lines.
"Having access to the CD resources really cut down on the work we had to do – particularly with the assessment schedules. It gave us a very clear idea of the overall assessment picture and how we could set it up and report on it."
Enthused, Dale drafted possible structures for the Year 9 Technology programme at Karamu and presented them to the others in the department for discussion.
"It was great to be able to take the CD material and quickly adapt it to meet our needs – there was no need to go back and re-invent any wheels. We worked through it over a series of meetings during term 4 and ended up getting buy-in to the agreed structural changes from the whole department."
With some fine-tuning in the week before the start of the new school year, the programme was ready for implementation from term 1 2007. Half way through the year, Dale was happy with the success achieved. "Staff have been very pleased with it and the resources we designed have been well used by all teachers. Different teachers have used them in slightly different ways, but its meant that all students have been getting the same background information, which is then taken through and developed by their next teacher."
"This consistency in approach has given students an understanding that technology is one broad subject rather than a collection of different areas. And it's really helped in our reporting of student progression – we're now reporting less, but giving more meaningful information."
One year on, Dale reflects back on the importance of that initial presentation by the Havelock North staff. "It was good to have teachers standing up and showing what they had achieved, and to have a range of teachers presenting. They all gave a slightly different slant on the process, which was useful, but there was a real team involvement and it was obvious that their whole department had been involved in the development process. That presentation clearly showed how different technological areas were all following the same process, and convinced us that we could do something similar."
