Future Pathways in School and Beyond

So, how do we develop future pathways for students that take advantage of the regional opportunities that exist and ensure they have the necessary skills to take them up. 

This question came about after a discussion with several former students about how they were progressing beyond year 13. It was a little disheartening to find out that they had not continued on with their chosen pathways for a number of reasons:

     1. Lack of knowledge about regional opportunities and how to access them

     2. Employers preferring skilled applicants

     3. Lack of contacts that could get them in the door of employers

One conversation was with a young man that had completed his Computing Diploma and was struggling to find employment because of a lack of skills in the sector. This lead to me talking too our IT provider who was struggling to find suitably trained IT technicians. The video below is the outcome of the conversations. Is it possible for our curriculum to be flexible enough to allow students the time to develop the skills needed regionally whilst completing their NCEA level 3. How would the 3;2 or 4:1 model work and would parents be ok with their kids not being at school for several days a week.

Regional skill ecosystems to assist young people making education employment linkages 

Taking Stock:

Now that the NCEA results are in, how did "Jumpstarting NCEA" for the 2016 cohort of year 10's go.

  

We had the best NCEA level one literacy and numeracy results (roll based) going back 4 years:

In terms of our Kahui Ako challenges around literacy and numeracy it was a good outcome considering most of the students entered college in year 9 at curriculum level 3 for reading, writing and maths. The outcome that is still a challenge is overall NCEA level one achievement (roll based). After working with those students who were close to 80 credits, early in term 1 2018, the final result for the 2017 academic was a 52 % pass rate. A better outcome than previous years but still a long way to go. For those that missed the challenge is now to focus on NCEA level 2. 

NEXT STEPS: Using staff and student voice/feedback,  "Jumpstart" for the year 10's at the end of 2017 was extended to 5 weeks. This resulted in 60% of the students having started the 2018 academic year with credits, fewer students on zero credits than in previous years. An added bonus is a settled start to the NCEA level 1 2018 academic year, with no students wanting to change courses. Staff have implemented firmer deadlines for assessments which are clearly spelt out on teacher learning area websites. A greater focus on literacy strategies to support learning are being implemented school wide with the support of a literacy coordinator. At the end of term one a list of priority learners "students with zero credits" will be compiled with a view to provide them with learning intensives. 

"Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of a week." -- Charles Richards

Time to Innovate

Create Innovate: In an earlier post I pointed out that merely increasing the learning time is no silver bullet on its own and as a school one of the changes was to become more data driven. The overall year 11 achievement data was shared with students during assemblies. Students were then encouraged to use our online student SMS portal to view their achievement data. Student reports were designed to present their achievement data in a manner that was easily understood by both students and their parents. Setting a school-wide goal of 20 credits per term for each student meant that this could be used as a starting point for discussions during student achievement conferences. Students and parents were then able to set academic goals based around achievement and next steps to meet the school goal of 20 credits per term.

Effective feedback is a great way for teachers to use collected data in order to improve student learning. Unfortunately, feedback opportunities are scarce in most classrooms (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999). Results from almost any assessment can be of great benefit to students, provided they are used to make instructional adjustments. And the shorter the amount of time between assessment and adjustment the more powerful its effect on learning (Using Classroom Data to Give Systematic Feedback to Students to ....http://www.apa.org/education/k12/classroom-data.aspx).

Early student successes are celebrated during whole school, year level assemblies and by “SUCCESS” postcards sent home. Ideas on how to use data more effectively were highlighted in a book I read. A detailed summary of the book may be found at https://goo.gl/WNHCt5.