Is school just preparation for life?

I kind of understand what people mean when they say that school is preparation for life, that primary school is preparation for secondary school (and therefore secondary school must be preparation for university and so it's university that is preparation for real life). And I guess that means that kindy is prep for school.

My problem with this chain of thinking is that it belittles the significance of the "now" in each instance. What is happening now is important for each learner and is real life to them.

I tend to agree more with Dewey's quote above. The power of this way of thinking is that rather than viewing our work as preparation for the next stage we must consider what will make learners successful now. By guaranteeing their success now, we are probably guaranteeing their success later too. And by success I don't necessarily mean achieving NCEA or going to university.

When I consider what I would deem as being successful in life, I tend to think that someone is doing something they are passionate about, that they have chosen to do (not forced into or fallen into by default), that they treat themselves and others well, that they can contribute in positive ways to their community, they're happy (content) and they have a positive view of themselves.

We must consider if what we are doing is ensuring that learners of all ages are being successful in their life now, not just later.

My belief is that they Key Competencies of the NZ Curriculum are the essential ingredient in the recipe of ensuring our learners experience success both now and in the future. Are our classrooms based on teaching these competencies and allowing authentic opportunities for learners to practice and demonstrate these?

In order for schools to fulfil the vision of actively involved, confident, connected and life long learners then Key Competencies need to be at the fore of our thinking in curriculum design and school culture. It would be pointless to have learners who can only relate to others sometime in the future and who can manage themselves at some later point in their life. Surely, to be successful at school then learners need to be competent at these skills as soon as possible.
Think about your "ultimate learner" or what your top 3 outcomes are for learners in your class or school and then ensure that your class/kura is enabling learners to become capable in this now, not just in the future.

Measuring what we do.

A question I asked as part of my sabbatical was how schools are measuring the impact of the actions they are taking in personalising learning.
For me, taking a personalised approach supports the development of the KCs - so we needed to establish a starting point on how we might monitor learner progress in relation to becoming more skilled in the KCs.
Our school has a strong and relevant model that brings KCs and values from the NZC together.


We needed to add clarity for our learners so they could see what each of the "flags" really meant and then how to improve in each of these key areas. We've introduced the terms; dependent, assisted, independent and self-guiding to categorise the stages that learners might move between as they become more competent.

Teams have developed rubrics that allow learners to see where they are on the Bridge to Life and learners have used this rubric to self-assess and place themselves in their 'best fit' stage.
It's an exciting development for our school - we have some common language that extends across the school and clearly shows a progression for our learners. It's a great starting point and I know that these will be refined and further developed over time as we use them more. Each class has these displayed and classes have adopted different ways of having learners "show" where they fit best, and therefore what their goal is in becoming "the best me I can be".




The rubrics will be a tool we can use to monitor learner progress and hopefully as evidence that our approach is further developing learner capability in the KCs. By gathering in sheets that learners have assessed themselves on and tracking them over time, we will be able to see if they are progressing or not and also establish if the rubric is learner friendly.

The power of the school trip.

Since becoming a Principal I haven't been on too many trips - something I really miss. I always found it a liberating experience getting out and about. When I worked at a school in town, we were able to walk places - I always found that so exciting and I'd often charge off at the front of the line (I never had patience for the dawdlers at the back) keen to get to where we were going, and explore with my class. I think I had just as much fun looking around at "real people" doing "real stuff" in the "real world" as being on the trip itself.
Sure, they're a tonne of work - paper work, RAMs, parent permission, organising transport groups - the list goes on. Plus it can be stressful. Being responsible for all those children and then making sure the objectives of the trip were met, making sure they got maximum learning opportunities - it was exhausting. Funny how those days were double tiring. But it was always worth it. We know that these days are highlights for our students - why wouldn't they be - they get to learn in a real context. I remember the chatter of excited kids in the car on the way to the place, and again on the way back. It was real. It meant something. It stuck. It was learning.

I was reminded of this when I visited Te Manawa today (our local version of Te Papa) and going through the various sections of local history, NZ history and science part. It was quiet - no school trips today - but it wasn't difficult to imagine excited kids roaming this place, exploring and learning.
I hope that you and your class get "out there" soon. Make it real. The power of the school trip is that it is another place where learning can occur. It may very well present itself as an opportunity to observe your students in regards to key competencies in a real/different context.
Is school just practice for the real world?