The National Curriculum & Schooling Improvement

1. The National Curriculum & Schooling Improvement For the Canterbury Principals’ Association Brian Annan March, 2008

2. A little about BA • A westie JAFA with a slash of Italian and African • An ex-teacher and ex-principal • A heretic in the Ministry • A learnaholic • Always looking for AFD

3. What is a curriculum • A statement of official policy relating to teaching and learning in English-medium New Zealand schools (NZ government, 2007) • A set of discrete objectives and standards/levels (Bob Slavin,2008)

4. Why have a curriculum? • To set the direction for student learning and to provide guidance for schools to design and review their curriculum (NZ Government,2007) • To create a road map for next steps (Margaret Heritage, 2008)

5. 5 things to get the road map right for your schools • Sense making • Theorising • Inquiry-based curriculum design • Critically challenging talk • Seeking expert support

6. The first thing you have to do to get it right? • Make sense of the national curriculum for your student population

8. Second thing to get it right • Theorise to get the right curriculum design for your student population • A set of linked ideas that explain why you have prioritised some parts of the curriculum over others for your student population

9. Lots of influences on next steps • The law – curriculum, self management • National policies • Assessment tools • School-level policies • Syndicate/Department policies • Teachers’ units and workbooks • Teachers’ snap judgements • Students’ reactions to learning opportunities provided Big theories for action Little theories for action

10. Espoused theories & theories in use (Argyris & Schon, 1974) • Often a difference between the two • E.g. I’m going to give up drinking wine during the week but friends come over on Wednesday. I can’t help but be sociable!

11. Theory competition(Robinson and Lai, 2007) • People have different theories about how to solve practical problems • Rival theories need to be resolved

12. Explicit and implicit theories (Argyris & Schon, 1974) • Explicit ones are those that can be seen or heard • Implicit ones are hidden

13. New Zealand experience • Implicit theories with little conflict resolution, because • Locals are experts (self-management) • No.8 Wire cultural norm - heavy investment into development & little into programme evaluation • Friendly and polite culture of schooling

14. An espoused theory underpinning the national curriculum • Schools know best how to make links across the curriculum to suit their students. They know, • how to connect various parts of the curriculum • how to evaluate the success of their curriculum design • how to make appropriate adjustments • It is best to provide some general direction and lots of guidance from the centre • It is ok for students to progress fast or slow

15. 560 High quality Low equity High quality High equity Finland 540 New Zealand Canada Australia Korea Japan 520 Sweden Belgium Iceland 500 Norway Denmark Spain • Czech Rep Switzerland Mean performance in reading literacy . 480 Germany Greece r = 0.04 460 Luxembourg 440 Low quality Low equity Low quality High equity Mexico 420 150 125 100 75 50 • Variation expressed as percentage of average variation across the OECD A competing theory We have a serious underachievement problem

16. Therefore, • Schools do not know best (for the students in the tail). They need, • To develop inquiry-based teaching • Seek direction from centres of expertise to solve complex problems • To develop strong evidence of effectiveness • It is not ok for students to go slower than they are capable of going

17. Third thing to get it right • Developing inquiry-based curriculum design methods • Inquiry practices • Problem analysis methodology for complex problems

18. Adaptation of schooling improvement inquiry practices • Collaborate to • Agree on common assessment tools • Analyse achievement information to identify the priority problem/opportunties • Alter your curriculum mix & teaching practices based on analysis • Check for success

19. Analysing problems • Identification of a priority problem • A set of practices to solve the priority problem • Reasons for selecting those particular practices • Expected outcomes from those practices

20. Use “Learning talk” to make sure your inquiry-based curriculum design is robust Talk that helps change your practice Much talk is over rated Fourth thing to get it right

21. Model of Learning Talk Learning talk • analytical talk • critical talk • challenging talk Teaching practices talk non-learning talk School talk non-teaching practices talk All talk Non-school talk

22. Analytical Talk Definition: Checking things out - examines the impact on student achievement (teaching, management, governance) To do so participants have to: • examine data that counts, i.e. non-inflated student achievement information • link achievement information to their practices • seek support to make sense of the links (Spillane, Reiser & Reimer, 2002)

23. Critical talk Definition: Looking in the mirror - evaluates the impact on student achievement (teaching, management, governance) To do so participants have to: • evaluate honestly the impact of their own practices on student achievement • check their causal reasoning with each other to see if there are any other explanations • seek support to - • check their explanations • check if others have found the same issues and how they dealt with them

24. Definition: Doing it! Challenges participants to retain effective practices and replace ineffective practices (teaching, management, governance) To do so participants have to: avoid fads, power and control issues, Smeagol-Gollum scenario check on one another seek support to: check problem analysis select the right practices to solve the problem acquire the necessary pedagogical knowledge Challenging Talk

25. Analytical talk at a community level Reading comprehension 2004 data – Year 3 (NEAT TEAM Mangere, 2004) • Average = stanine 4 (mean = 3.99, std dev = 1.88). • Tail at stanine one • About 40% at stanine 5 or higher

26. Critique talk - at a community level Senior managers realised: • they had a high tolerance towards the use of non-evidence informed interventions that got minimal results • support services were too generalised - advisors and national literacy strategies focusing on developing teacher’s content knowledge

27. Challenging talk – at a community level Senior teachers and principals agreed they needed to: • learn how to analyse and use achievement information to support teachers; and • negotiate targeted support services

28. Analytical talk – at a classroom level(Timperley, 2003) 3 class syndicate - 19 students below stanine 4 32 students above stanine 6

29. Critique talk - at a classroom level Teachers realised: • they had been teaching without checking for evidence of effectiveness • they lacked problem analysis skills and specific knowledge • teachers missing critical teaching points in reading comprehension

30. Challenge talk – at the classroom level • Agreed to check each other’s • understandings of the problem and the best solution • pedagogical content knowledge relevant to the achievement problems • achievement results regularly

31. A barrier to learning talk • Traditional school culture • polite acceptance of diversity regardless of effectiveness (Ball & Cohen, 1999) • talk about issues peripheral to teaching and learning (Timperley, Robinson & Bullard, 1999)

32. Fifth thing to get it right Seek support from centres of expertise to solve complex problems

33. Centres of expertise can form in different places Vertical learning dimension National policy School improvement initiative School Classroom Horizontal learning dimension

34. The English model National policy mandates National centres of expertise L.E.A’s International research team School Classroom

35. The United States model National policy DI/SFA centres of expertise Local research team NY district #2 office Co-ordinators School School Classroom Classroom Independent scientific research

36. New Zealand model National policy guidelines NDP Schools National policy developrs linked to local officials Classrooms Horizontal learning dimension EHSAS, ICT, Schooling Improvement clusters

37. Advantages of NZ’s approach • Schools and teachers are liberated to contextualise the national curriculum • Curriculum design occurs within and around classrooms • We avoided national testing (very little teaching to the test, shame and blame) • Schools can group into learning networks to develop appropriate curriculum • to solve common achievement problems • to address transition problems