I'm so close to making it make sense that I can almost taste it. It's right there and it's becming clearer and clearer how to bring the parts if my school's curriculum together.
Context is that I've had 3 terms leading at my current school and I'm slowly getting my head around it.
It happens in phases. It has to. It goes like this. Phase 1: observe and ask questions. Get to know people. Build trust. Build relationships. Be real. Give it time.
Phase 2: systems.
Phase 3: curriculum. Learning.
I'm almost out of the systems phase and have now got the head space for phase 3 and it's about time!
We have a pretty good curriculum. It almost makes sense to me. I've inherited it and some aspects are taking me a while to fully understand but I'm respecting the fact that some good decisions have been made before my time and that it makes sense to others. By observing and listening there are so e loose ends that need bringing together.
And that's the work we're about to embark on. It'll involve everyone. It'll be messy for a while. It'll be challenging for some. It'll be rewarding.
We need to sort our learner profile. Note learner not graduate profile. It needs to be about now not 6 years from now.
We need to know what we want our learners to be like and why. Is the ability to move quietly in single file from point a to b still important? Is neat handwriting valued or a thing of the past? Is critical thinking something we value? If we really want our learners to be creative, how might qe really give effect to this?
Once we have our core skills named then we can match the contexts from our rich curriculum to those. E.g. traditions, culture or entrepreneurship might fit under a "confident " type banner.
I've found viewing "Most likely to Succeed" again an inspiration and this clip here very thought provoking too.
https://youtu.be/1ZbGlDMF7HQ
I am looking forward to getting back to my desk and planning ahead for term 2. Talking with learners about what they want the school to be like and what they want to learn about is going to be interesting.
Asking the same of parents and staff will be too. My job is to bring it all together and identify if we have any gaps.
