Week 5 Term 1 - Teacher Practice: Local Curriculum: Choosing a topic + linking it to the ANZ Histories Curriculum (February 27 - March 3)

 In Week 5 of Term 4 2022, I posted a reflection about our Hikoi experience for our Local Curriculum PLD (see Alby's Blog Entry - 14/11/22) The Hikoi experience was a highlight for myself and the English Department. We learnt so much about the story, journey and life of Ngati Paoa and their history in our local area. After the Hikoi, we reflected on what we learnt and how we can apply this to our learning area that supports the kaupapa of local curriculum - "A local curriculum is intended to encompass all of the priorities, needs and interests of a whole school community, which may or may not entirely relate directly to the local area where the school is positioned" (Future Learn). A shift towards redesigning our school curriculum to one that is connected and relevant to our akonga and their community, is a shift that we are open to. We understand the importance of why having a local curriculum is important as it should reflect, reinforce and empower our akonga and kaiako because it connects back to them. TKI states "A local curriculum can enrich learning opportunities for ākonga and prepare them for lifelong learning by ensuring coherence and continuity of progress, both over the years and across settings." Since November, we have spent a few of our PLD sessions this year exploring what we covered in local curriculum and we are now looking at our next steps. I will reflect on what the PLD Groups and Department groups (English Department in particular) have covered so far in 2023. 

PLD Group Feedback Week 4 Term 1 (20/02/23)

Last week our PLuGS groups met and discussed what the local curriculum (and the learnings that we took from the Hikoi) could look like in our learning area. It was interesting to see the other learning area's take on the local curriculum. The English Department's take on local curriculum and how we can apply it to our learning area is to take the key themes such as preservation, land ownership and leadership and explore them within the context of the Ngati Paoa stories. A barrier to this is that we need the stories - written or oral - to refer to. But we hope to use our Te Reo Maori experts in our school to help us source these texts. 

Today we had look at the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories (ANZH) big ideas for local curriculum. There are four areas and we looked at big idea no.1. The purpose of this was to see how we can take this idea and concept and use it in a meaningful way in our specific learning area. 

Big Idea 1 - ANZH

The key words from this idea are Maori, history, foundational, continuous, story, shaping, lands, waters, linking, contemporary, past, hapu, iwi, cultural similarities. In an English context, as we discussed in our department group, there are so many threads that we can weave in relation to Maori History and English literature. Some of the examples that we came up with today included: 

• Exploring the stories significant to the sites we visited during our Hikoi. Using these stories as a text and exploring the themes/symbolism and motifs that are important in the story. 
• We particularly liked the story of Mokoia Pa and the taniwha and thought this could be a great text for our Junior English program. We discussed that our Year 9 and Year 10 students could write a recount of Mokoia Pa and the taniwha - from the perspective of one of the people from Ngati Paoa. This links to our CAT - Creative Writing. 
• We also discussed how our Year 9 and Year 10 akonga could create a media/visual text on the taniwha - which links to our other CAT - Create a visual text/media. 

Our hope that is we explore that stories, understand the history of the people of Ngati Paoa - who they are, what this lands means to them - in the hope that it will inspire our akonga to think about their whakapapa, their connection to where they come from in appreciation of those who are connected to the land in which they live in. 

English Department discussing and unpacking the ANZH document

A beautiful take away from our whole staff discussion was when our Te Reo Maori department discussed how they would start with migration and what it means for Ngati Paoa. It made me think that our cue - especially with local curriculum - needs to start with our locals. In that we take our cue from them and see how they see it. Our interpretation of local curriculum can be really powerful and meaningful if we look to our local iwi, people and community for direction. I believe that if we do this, it will give us the right foundation to springboard off into our learning areas and explore - truly explore - local curriculum.