Background
The approximately 2,200 students at Westlake Girls' High School (WGHS) in Auckland can choose from five Technology subjects – Food, Soft Materials, 'Hard Materials' (Resistant Materials), ICT and Design and Visual Communication (DVC). Technology is compulsory at Year 9, when all students take a 13-week trimester (three hours per week) Information Management course and two other options. In Year 10 students can select up to two Technology options which they will take for the whole year (about 2.5 hours a week).
There are no pre-requisites for Year 11 Technology so students can opt for any course, although they can't take both Soft and Hard Materials in the same year. As a consequence, the mixed-ability classes contain students with a range of knowledge and skills. DVC teachers find that most of their students have at least one year's experience in their subject, but some will be taking it for the first time, including the international students.
Westlake Girls' students have achieved well in Graphics in past years and continue to do so with the incorporation of DVC into the learning area of Technology. Implementing the curriculum changes was made easier due to the close relationship between subjects with TIC Graphics and Hard Materials Jez Scull teaching in both subject areas. The introduction of the aligned Achievement Standards in 2011, however, meant that the Technology team had to consider the various courses they teach and modify them to fit the new matrix. Jez and Hi sung Ko, who each teach a Year 11 DVC class, saw this as an opportunity to review what they had been doing and develop a new course. Jez has always taught both DVC and Hard Materials. He completed a Technology education degree in the UK and taught there for 14 years before coming to New Zealand in 2002, spending two and a half years at Epsom Girls' Grammar School before staring at WGHS in 2005.
Hi sung completed a Graduate Diploma in Teaching at the University of Auckland in 2008 and has taught DVC full-time since then. She has also worked as an NCEA external assessor since 2009.
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