The Havelock North High School/Heinz Wattie's Link
The teachers' perspective
A student's experimental jam
Teachers in Havelock North High School's Technology department had previously established a range of community links, both formally and informally. "I'm very good at leaping on people and saying: 'I think we could use you,'” says Co-HOD Carol Rimmer. When a student teacher brought her food technologist sister along to the school Open Day, Carol discussed the possibility of having a food technologist work with the school. This led to a meeting with NZIFST and subsequently talking to a group of 18 food technologists about how they could be used in schools.
This relationship extended to making a formal link with Futureintech, which trains young technologists to work as Futureintech Ambassadors in schools. When these two organisations started looking for food technologists to work with Havelock North High School, their planning came together with that of the Wattie's team. Carol has been encouraged by the appointment of Futureintech Facilitator , Jenny Dee, for the Hawke's Bay region and notes that, "the industry/school links have now become much easier to manage."
Kate found the experience of working with the Wattie's food technologists invaluable for both herself and her students. She found that her class took their work more seriously because they were working for a client outside school. Having their jam produced at Wattie's pilot plant was a great end to the project.
Carol says the gains to the students of such a connection are immense: "They pick up a lot of knowledge and build up more confidence in their own work. A good example is the student who, having experienced with an industry link, then had the knowledge and self-assurance to approach people she'd never met to get code of practice information she required for her work.”
"The department wants to bring technologists' expertise into the classroom because people teaching any of the technologies in schools are teachers, not necessarily technologists, and there is a difference. Bringing technologists in and showing them what the department is doing, and getting students out into industry enriches the whole programme and makes it more authentic for everyone. It also raises both teacher and student awareness of future careers in a particular technology area.
"The fact that we are working with industry links in the classroom also helps make the community more aware about the depth of work going on in schools, and how far education has moved since they were last in the classroom themselves."
"When requesting a link, it is important to make personal contact to arrange a meeting rather than write a letter, and, when meeting, to make the most expedient use of that time. We are very aware of the fact that time is money in industry, particularly when we are working with very small businesses, and try not to put pressure on an industry contact for time they are not happy to give. When making arrangements for a visit, our teachers try to be as efficient as possible: organising and collating class questions, sharing information and photos on the intranet rather than having each student do their own thing."
"However, if the industry is acting as a client, individual feedback is usually required, and that can be time-consuming. Students may send a fax or email where they need the response by the next lesson but often don't get it. The student's logical process then gets out of order, because they need that answer to go down a particular pathway. They may have to try another direction until they can go back to that original one.”
"We have our time constraints that limit the number of links the school can sustain. Because of this we have kept industry relationships to our Year 12 and 13 classes. There are so many technology classes (five at Level 1) that if industry links were brought in at each level, a teacher with Level 1-3 classes would have a tremendous amount of management on top of their daily routine.”
