Middle Schooling & Negotiating the Curriculum

1. Middle Schooling & Negotiating the Curriculum ESP311

2. Why ‘Middle Schooling’? 1. recognition that students at either end of the P-12 education system are being catered for but little attention is being spent on the ‘early adolescent’  2. students whose behaviour was rarely problematic but who appeared to be ‘switched off’ have become an educational focus  3. desire to prevent some of the problems facing schools working with ‘at risk’ youth Hunter, L. (2000). Health and physical education in middle schooling: Implications & possibilities. ACHPER Healthy Lifestyles Journal, 47(3/4), 21-26.

3. School Structure Elementary GR’S ECE K - 3 Primary 4 - 6 Middle School 5 - 8 Secondary High School 7 – 10 or 7 - 12 Senior Secondary 11-12

4. National Middle Schooling Project (1996) The principles that constitute essential components of middle schooling were listed as: 1. learner-centred 2. collaboratively organised 3. outcome-based 4. flexibly constructed 5. ethically aware 6. community-oriented 7. adequately resourced 8. strategically linked to the early & late years of schooling

5. National Middle Schooling Project (1996) ctd. This needs to occur through: 1. greater curriculum relevance 2. negotiation (of the curriculum content) 3. integration (of the KLA’s)

6. The Oatland’s Experience *Based on the Beane (1991) philosophy - the curriculum should be organised around ‘rich and provocative’ themes’ from the personal world and larger world rather than abstract and artificial subjects *Redevelopment of care, welfare and behaviour management policy & practice *Extension of the negotiation/integration process K-12 *Whole school focus on pedagogy-teaching learning process *Team building

7. Focuses Central to Oatlands Middle School Philosophy • Relatively consistent methodologies & structures should be established in years 5 to 8 • Language and mathematics will be central to the curriculum • Classes will be relatively homogenous for age structures, yet flexible for those students whose progress is atypical • Quality teacher-student relationships developed over extended periods of time

8. Beliefs Agreed about Teaching & Learning in Oatlands MS • Learning should be active & purposeful, cognitively engaging, linked to previous understandings, bridging from known to unknown, exciting & stimulating • Learners should move from dependent to independent, be adaptable to change, know how to learn, explore & experiment • Learners should be capable citizens, developing personal, linguistic, rational, creative & kinaesthetic capabilities • Schools should be seen as communities of learners; teachers & parents should be seen as learners as well; all should model good learning, allowing time for reflection and celebrating learning success

9. Do you have a philosophical basis to the change? What is the appropriate level of change for your school? Does the whole staff understand the change process? What role does leadership play in the change process? What are the barriers to change beyond the educational school staff, eg. students, parents? What emphasis needs to be placed on the essential learning areas of literacy & numeracy? How will you resource the change process? What are the implications for current & future staffing? What issues surrounding ownership are relevant to the change? What PD will be needed? What are the pedagogical implications for the whole school? Issues Involved in Change

10. Groups formed – determined at discretion of teachers Individuals create personal description – share in small groups Individual>small group process – generate concerns relating to self – create group list of 5 questions Individual>small group process – generate concerns about the world – create group list of 5 questions 5. Group matches self concerns to world concerns to create units of work Student steering committee formed to develop units of work Class votes to prioritise the units Whole group development of unit – identifies possible activities & choose Unit completion – student/teacher assessment/evaluation Negotiating the Curriculum Oatlands Middle School