Information for Parents

Introduction

Extensive research has proven that students learn best when they are: 

• actively involved in decision making 
• initiating learning 
• collaborating together 
• making connections within and across learning areas.

New teaching approaches have evolved from this knowledge. Traditional approaches to teaching and learning are no longer enough on their own to give children the best education to prepare them for life. Along with strong foundations in reading, writing, mathematics and other learning areas, young people need other skills such as digital fluency, complex problem-solving and the ability to work with others both in person and virtually.

Innovative learning approaches have not replaced familiar teaching approaches. Rather, they have expanded teaching and learning practices to suit today’s learners.

(Source: Ministry of Education - ILE Website)

Future Focused Learning is Personalised

A future focused, personalised approach in the classroom allows akonga/students to take control of their own learning. Each akonga is unique and learns in different ways.

• Personalising learning means students:
• understand how they learn
• own and drive their learning
• are co-designers of the curriculum and their learning environment
• Student learning needs, interests, and capability determine the pace of learning. In a personalised learning environment the learning objectives, content, method, and pace may all vary (so personalisation encompasses differentiation and individualisation). 
• In this environment, the advantage of technology is that students can use the content and be the experts with their teacher. They can become experts on specific content areas and technology, and create content.
• All the resources available for learning, including teachers, parents/whānau, peers, technology, time, and learning spaces, must be used flexibly to meet individual student learning needs.
• Personalising learning challenges us to think about what new resources may be needed to support learning, and how learners can access these - including resources that have not traditionally been thought of as part of the schooling system.

(Source: Ministry of Education - Enabling e-Learning Website)

The Key Competencies

Key competencies are the capabilities people have, and need to develop, to live and learn today and in the future.

The New Zealand Curriculum identifies five key competencies:

• Thinking
• Relating to others
• Using language, symbols, and texts
• Managing self
• Participating and contributing

Key competencies matter because things have changed. Since our education systems were first established there has been enormous change in the nature of societies, change in the nature of work, change in how knowledge is viewed, and change in technologies, to name just a few. Those changes, and the certainty of ongoing change, have implications for the kind of education our young people require, and the focus of the teaching and learning they experience. The key competencies take account of those changes – they put today’s students at the centre, and bring a future-focused perspective to teaching and learning.

Key competencies matter because they support dispositions that will enable young people to learn well now, and to go on learning throughout their lives.

It is no longer sufficient for students to merely acquire knowledge and master skills. Students need opportunities to develop their capability as users of knowledge and skills in wide-ranging contexts now and in the future. This requires attention not only to their recall of knowledge, or ability to perform particular skills, young people need to be capable at thinking, using language, symbols and texts, managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing.

They also need to be capable of using those competencies in diverse contexts – at school, in the community, at home, with friends, with peers, in mathematics and statistics, in the arts, and other learning areas. They need to be both able, and inclined, to draw on knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values simultaneously as they interact with others in their learning and in all aspects of their lives.

(Source: Ministry of Education - New Zealand Curriculum Website)