Updates from Jude

24 March 2023

All those moons ago when I started out teaching as a 20 year old (hard to believe - not only am I pleased I had juniors as they provided a much wider age gap....) things seemed a whole lot less complex. We didn't know so much. We didn't understand how the brain works as well - we didn't have the technology, we didn't have access to anywhere near as much knowledge as we have at our fingertips - for better and, sometimes, not for the better. 

I wrapped my head around a bit of a curriculum in those first 2 years (I suppose!) before I jet-setted off on the cheapest flight we could find to the big city of London. These were the last months of the 80s....with all that brought! 

For the first few years teaching in London was a breeze. Teachers were in short supply and Australian and New Zealand trained teachers were in high demand. These were very exciting years full of creativity and what seemed a plentiful supply of art resources (and any classroom supplies, in fact) at my fingertips. Let freedom reign - and it did - as long as the children's behaviour was well under control!

When I returned from a year teaching in Eastern Turkiye, I came back to the same school for the next few years. These were very different times. A new curriculum was upon us. This time the prescriptive lessons were to be delivered in a particular way - a one size fits all out of a beautifully delivered large box of resources "Do it like this" to my classroom door. Many of you know me well enough that the suggestion of "having to do something like this" when there is another, maybe what I perceive is a better, way of doing it, provides me with internal conflict!

The delivered boxes containing reams of folders on how to teach the life of the Tudors, and the like, were indeed at least opened and perused and built upon, shall we say!

A while later.... homeward bound. 

I arrived back to New Zealand and to a brand new curriculum. This time around, I was a bit bamboozled, even if the question was asked "You have been away for quite some years...... how will you be able to teach a curriculum you don't know" - "I've done it before", I said.

This time, there was a whole tome for each learning area. I recall that English was blue and Maths was a purplish brown..... piles and piles of paper. Piles and piles of learning objectives, and piles and piles ......

Fast forward and I'm in the Ministry of Education at the time of the Refreshed New Zealand Curriculum. The piles and piles weren't that effective or had had their time. Now it was the time for a slimmed down modernised version with a twist. Enter the introduction of the Key Competencies, the desired attributes or dispositions that support the academics hand in hand. Enter, also, more of a nod to the Tiriti o Waitangi and a more global perspective. This curriculum also had received a very welcome haircut of the previous pages and pages of objectives. This has served us pretty well, if not a little vague in parts for many years. At the time of conception, it was highly regarded globally and held up as a forward thinking and progressive document. It, too, has had it's time.

Enter another Curriculum Refresh. We are just starting to get our heads around this new direction for New Zealand Schools. Knowing what I do at this stage, I would think this is a whole makeover, not simply a refresh. A very exciting makeover too. Things have not simply been rearranged....., we will have a curriculum that truly sits in our country and prepares our children as citizens of the world. AND all schools in New Zealand now have a whole lot of learning to do as to what this means to teaching and learning from here on in! What we do know is some things won't change and that's the way we put 100% into giving our best.

So, what will we be doing on one of the extra the Teacher Only Days provided to us by the Ministry of Education? 

The Eastern Suburbs Kāhui Ako will all be having our first one on Monday 24 April this year and we will be diving head first into this more than Refreshed Curriculum which will be being introduced in parts over the next couple of years. You will hear more as we learn, know understand and do more!  

Jude's Reflections 2023

Jude's Reflections 2022

Jude's Reflections 2021