The National Curriculum & Schooling Improvement

For the Canterbury Principals’ Association

Brian AnnanMarch, 2008

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

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)

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 things to get the road map right for your schools

1. Sense making2. Theorising3. Inquiry-based curriculum design4. Critically challenging talk5. Seeking expert support

The first thing you have to do to get it right?

Make sense of the national curriculum for your student population

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

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

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!

Theory competition (Robinson and Lai, 2007)

People have different theories about how to solve practical problems

Rival theories need to be resolved

Explicit and implicit theories (Argyris & Schon, 1974)

Explicit ones are those that can be seen or heard

Implicit ones are hidden

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

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

A competing theory

Finland

CanadaNew Zealand AustraliaKoreaJapan

SwedenBelgiumIceland

Norway Denmark

SwitzerlandSpainCzech Rep

Germany Greece

LuxembourgMexico

420

440

460

480

500

520

540

560

5075100125150Variation expressed as percentage of average variation across the OECD

Mea

n pe

rform

ance

in re

adin

g lit

erac

y .

r = 0.04

Low qualityHigh equity

Low qualityLow equity

High qualityHigh equity

High qualityLow equity

We have a serious underachievement problem

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

Third thing to get it right

Developing inquiry-based curriculum design methods

– Inquiry practices

–Problem analysis methodology for complex problems

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

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

Fourth thing to get it right

Use “Learning talk” to make sure your inquiry-based curriculum design is robust

Talk that helps change your practice

Much talk is over rated

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

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)

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

Challenging Talk 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

Average = stanine 4 (mean = 3.99, std dev = 1.88). Tail at stanine one About 40% at stanine 5 or higher

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Stanine

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Analytical talk at a community levelReading comprehension 2004 data – Year 3

(NEAT TEAM Mangere, 2004)

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

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Stanine

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Senior teachers and principalsagreed they needed to:

learn how to analyse and use achievement information to support teachers; and

negotiate targeted supportservices

Challenging talk – at a community level

0

5

10

15

20

25

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Stanine

Perc

enta

ge o

f stu

dent

s

Analytical talk – at a classroom level (Timperley, 2003)

Year One Reading Graph

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Number of Weeks at School

Text

Leve

ls

3 class syndicate - 19 students below stanine 432 students above stanine 6

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

Year One Reading Graph

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Number of Weeks at School

Text

Leve

ls

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

Year One Reading Graph

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101112131415161718

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031323334353637383940

Number of Weeks at School

Text

Leve

ls

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)

Fifth thing to get it right

Seek support from centres of expertise to solve complex problems

Centres of expertise can form in different places Vertical learning

dimension

Classroom

National policy

School

Horizontal learning

dimension

School improvement

initiative

The English model

School

Classroom

L.E.A’s

National policy mandates

International research team

National centres of expertise

The United States modelNational

policy

School

Classroom

Independent scientific research

School

Classroom

Local research

team

DI/SFA centres of expertise NY

district #2 office

Co-ordinators

New Zealand model National policy

guidelines

Schools

Classrooms

National policy

developrs linked to

local officials

Horizontal learning dimension

EHSAS, ICT, Schooling Improvement clusters

NDP

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