Havelock North
Havelock North High School
Professional Support Facilitator Cliff Harwood (second from left) with, from left, John Foster, Doug Sutherland, Kate McLennan, Carol Rimmer and Jeff Arnold, of Havelock North High School
At the time of joining the Beacon Practice initiative in 2005, Havelock North High School had enjoyed strong support from the senior management team, Board of Trustees and the local community in its technology education for a number of years. The technology department under the energetic and enthusiastic leadership of Carol Rimmer and Doug Sutherland had a strong team focus and there was a culture of high student achievement.
The initial volunteers for the initiative were Carol Rimmer (coordinator), Doug Sutherland, Kate McLennan, Jeff Arnold and John Foster, who were joined in 2006 by Andrew Hughes from Wellington High School. The six teachers have a wide variety of academic qualifications including trade training.
"The Beacon Practice initiative offered the opportunity to build on our existing team ethos by engaging in professional discussions to reflect current best practice and undertake quality planning that will ultimately benefit our students," says Coordinator Carol Rimmer.
"Each year our technology programme is modified to suit the needs of the students. The main focus of the Beacon Practice programme was to identify the requirements for success in the senior school and to see how this was influenced in terms of the structure of the junior programme," says Doug Sutherland.
"2005 was a crucial planning year," says Carol. "At the time I felt that our progress was slow as it took a great deal of time to bring the original five members involved to a common understanding of technology in New Zealand and then to develop a shared vision for the future direction.
The Beacon teachers examined exactly what they wanted students to learn. "We looked at the requirements of the curriculum document, the structure of the draft essence statement and components of practice and from this, developed our mission statement, and our strategic plan. This enabled us to scaffold the key competencies from Years 9-10, and build learning intentions into our programmes."
Once a strategic plan for Year 9-13 was established, a Code of Practice for implementing the strategic plan was determined for 2006-2010.
In 2006 the focus was to continue implementation of the strategic plan,to embed the key competencies into the programme and to implement the strategies learned this year through the school PD programme. The Year 9 programme developed in 2005 was fully implemented with Beacon teachers taking responsibility for the development of resources and for providing PD for all department staff. Department meetings shared teaching strategies particularly for the generic competencies. Generic and Domain knowledge and skill achievement criteria were developed and used in assessment schedules and ultimately for reporting. Reporting was improved by accumulating grades so that the final report of the year shows the summative result for that student.
In 2006, intra-department moderation and benchmarking for Year 9 was also developed. Beacon teachers confirmed key competencies at Year 10 and unit outlines for two term courses were developed along with student resource booklets. An audit of key competencies was completed along with assessment schedules and reporting procedures established for Year 10. With the scaffolding of knowledge established at Years 9 and 10, the teachers then worked to do the same across the year levels.
At the end of 2006 Havelock North Beacon teachers delivered a course entitled Developing Junior Technology Programmes to other Hawke's Bay teachers. Over 40 teachers attended and the feedback from the afternoon was overwhelmingly positive.
In 2007, the senior school key competencies were developed across Years 11-13. Teaching programmes and student outcomes were reviewed to identify student progression in learning across the year levels and matched with the key competencies in the strategic plan to determine any discrepancies. Teaching programmes and unit outlines were then refined to progress students through the key competencies – starting at Year 11 and progressing to Year 13.
In October 2007 the Havelock North Beacon teachers delivered an updated version of our course at the TENZ Conference in Auckland. Once again there was very positive feedback and about 50 resource CDs were sent out to participating schools (this resource material was also published with the Havelock North case study BP608 Developing Junior Technology Programmes).
Reflective comments
In her final report on Havelock North's Beacon Practice experience, Caorl Rimmer reflects on some successes.
"On reflection the group have appreciated the quality and amount of professional development delivered by the Beacon Practice facilitator Cliff Harwood. Dr Vicki Compton took the time to explain and rationalise the changes to us. Carol Rimmer, John Foster and Jeff Arnold conducted a research exercise into two of the achievement objectives with their classes. Carol Pound had a specific brief of developing the knowledge and skills of Food Technology teachers and Kate McLennan found this professional development invaluable.
"One of the most valuable successes of being part of the Beacon practice initiative was being part of a network of Beacon teachers. The Beacon Practice huis allowed us to interact with other teachers who were facing similar challenges yet perhaps approaching the challenges in a different way which would in turn provide us with a new idea. We have had visits from BP teachers from St Margarets in Christchurch, Queen Margarets in Wellington, Tauranga Boys, St John Hamilton, Hamilton Girls, Wellington College Tararua College and have visited Tauranga Boys, St John College, Queen Margarets College, St Margarets, Mt Roskill Grammar and Tararua College. Visiting and observing other teachers in their working environment has now established networks throughout New Zealand and will be maintained via email and of course future conferences.
"The team ethos of the school's technology department is its greatest strength," says Carol. "Formal and informal sharing occurs on a daily basis. Our students openly express confidence in the programmes developed, are kept fully informed about their progress, enjoy the challenge, and can identify the relevance of their new learning in technology education. Our initial emphasis was placed on Year 9 but as we worked through the strategic plan then is now occurring at all year levels."
"By the beginning of 2008, Years 9 and 10 have been successfully implemented. Comments from the students include "Technology is fun", "The process makes sense" and "I like the way we move from area to area so that we develop a wide range of knowledge and skills". These comments are consistent across the classes I have visited and are the result of teachers having the time to plan properly and have blocks of time when key issues have been discussed, argued, debated until all staff are happy with the direction. All teaching staff have been involved in the planning and decision-making so therefore have ownership of the programmes.
"However, it is not just the planning that has been the focus. Although the strategic plan allows the knowledge and skills taught to be scaffolded from Years 9-13 it only becomes meaningful when delivered effectively by the classroom teacher. The work we have done in sharing our strategies is on going and has been enhanced by school based professional development on such topics as 'teaching multi-level classes', 'literacy', 'teaching Māori students' and many more. Staff have reported on better student engagement and that they (the teachers) are more confident in delivering technology based programmes. The 'pooling' of ideas has also helped to develop the team of beacon teachers and the department as a whole.
"As a Head of Department I can see many benefits of being part of the Beacon Practice initiative," says Carol. "The main point is that teachers now have ownership of the whole programme and its delivery. Introducing new ideas is now well received. There has been more interactions between teachers of different areas and teachers are willingly sharing resources. Many of the beacon teachers now have the skills to lead their own departments and are often approached to move to other schools."
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