Curious Minds Project: Review.

Having gone past the mid point review in terms of time for the Curious Minds Project I feel compelled to review.   This is my personal thoughts at the moment and these need to be tempered as they are my own personal opinion rather than the official policy of the school.

Science Milestones:

•  Identifying of suitable sights along the Kaupokonui (March 2019)
• Water Sampling and Testing Phase One (March/April 2019)
• Awa Observations One (March/April 2019)
• Fish Survey Phase One (April 2019)

[These have been completed to some degree at this point with the first Awa Trip that took place and went to Yorke Road at Midhirst.  Two additional visits to the Kaupokonui River had to be delayed or cancelled due to the weather conditions in Term Two, this was re-scheduled to the end of Term Two and took place then].

• Restoration Initatives - Phase One Testing (predator control measures, cleaning up) [May/June 2019] - has not been compelted [July 2019]

• Awa Observations Two - (June/July 2019)
• Predator Observations Two (June/July 2019)

This trip took place to the Kaupokonui Phase two - unsure about part two of it, while it could have been included as part of the second trip. 

Community Milestones

• Hui to explore Ngaruahine its history and connection to Kaupokonui (not completed as of July was scheduled to take place in March 2019)
• Restoration and Working Bee (May/June 2019) has not been completed by July.

Update: I have had a subsequent meeting with representatives from Nga Ruahine about moving the project forward.    This has involved looking at ways to restructure the project to ensure that it is completed by the expected timeframe.   I have also looked into Taranaki Venture Curious Minds Project Funding - this has not yet been established but will be done so shortly.

NZ 2019 Principals Conference

Notes from Principal Conference:

3/7/2019

Challenge: 

What do we do for Maori? Iwi at Auroa Primary School? How do we deliver Te Reo at Auroa Primary School.    Do we meet the needs of our students, what else could we do to address the Well Being of our students? Yes we have Kapa Haka now but what else could we provide to students.   What else could we do? Thinking outside the square for Maori students?

Minister of Education:

Appraisal: This is a Low Trust tick box of requirements.   Ministry is providing the flexibility to manage ourselves; accord and agenda.   Decile system - equity process system. Support staff lack of specialists. Donations to School for Schools Decile 1-8 have been replaced by a $150 grant to schools, Auroa currently does not receive this grant but the Ministry is looking at pushing this out to all schools.   Camps and Camp related activities are exempt from this however the school cannot charge for additional activities (we currently do not charge).

Educational Members of Importance: Clarence Beeby - education no matter who and no matter what.   Education being broad and empowering for students.

Renaissance and Reinvention: Importance of ‘AND’ the link.   PLP should embrace achievements in education and classical arts, literature and science.   VUCA - Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.     Cecila Lashlie - Education Campaigner.

Yong Zhao - Keynote Speaker

‘What works may hurt”.    Warning labels education, focus on one object.  This has consequences for the other areas of the curriculum.   Education to medicine - all medicines are a version of poison, is all education doing good for all students? Subjects vs Subjects? Cognitive vs Non Cognitive, instructional vs. educational, short vs long term.   What a great idea by Chris Thompson. Frequency/Age/Retirement. Children are less likely to discover unexpected outcomes Can teaching cause damage to learning? Choice of outcomes for students are very important.    In Easter Island the civilizations focus was on the statues at Easter Island to the detriment of the community.   International Mathematical Studies: What do test scores matter? Why are test scores the most important, as scores increase what do we lose? 

Entrepreneurship Confidence: Low in countries with high test scores.   Test scores go up and then as a result then creativity suffers.    Life satisfaction VS. Pisa scores. Homogeneous. Education is a sausage maker, bacon is an innovation.    Traditional Virtues of US Education (Golden and Katz 2018). Local decisions are made not by a national mandate.    Test scores don’t measure important things; Extreme Genius - Extreme Deficit. Unproductive success and productive failure; always think about the task/ask questions if it cures and it hurt does this method work? For whom? Details? Information? Quality of Education system cannot exceed the quality of the teachers - PISA study.    One size that fits all - the effect of the teacher cognition and non cognitive abilities of students achievements. Almost all research of test scores are slanted in favour of certain groups of students. We should revive the humanity in education.