NIS Key Competencies

Key Competencies Lake Rotoiti Friday, 6 November

By the end of this session we will: 1. Know the requirements and challenges of the key kompetencies. 2. Clarify the meaning of the key competencies. The “Big Picture” - What are they about? 3. List the opportunities for students in our school to develop the key competencies. 4. Brainstorm what it will look like in our school. 5. Link the key competencies to our vision.

Key Competencies • Thinking • Using Language, Symbols and Text • Participating and Contributing • Relating to Others • Managing Self

The Requirement The requirement is very simple: The school supports students to develop the key competencies set out on pages 12-13. NZCp.44

Where does it come from? •It is based on work that has been done by the European Commission. The group came up with what they consider to be a set of key competencies.

Its list included the following: • Communication in the mother tongue • Communication in a foreign language • Mathematical literacy and basic competencies in science and technology • ICT skills • Learning to learn • Interpersonal and civic competencies • Entrepreneurship • Cultural awareness. European Commission, 2002. Working Group on Basic Skills, Foreign Language Teaching and Entrepreneurship. It can be seen that these competencies are quite different from those in the NZC. The competencies in the NZC were developed within New Zealand through processes of extensive professional discussion.

What do they mean? • If we have a good understanding of what they actually mean in an educational context, it will help us with our teaching practice. Competencies are integrated, holistic and complex. They include the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed to meet the demands of a task.

•Key competencies are the capabilities people need in order to live, learn and contribute as active members of their communities. Education Gazette, 18 September 2006

Some important considerations. •When we get a bigger picture of what the key competencies are about, it helps us to lift it out of the micro-climate of the school. We will then have a bigger view of what it is that we are intending in our role in supporting students to develop the key competencies.

Task 1 (15min) In your group clarify the meaning of your key competency. The Big Picture - What is it about, what it might involve in our school? Be creative and come up with a model that will be typical of the key competencies in our school.

Example: Thinking in our school might look like this.

Context • The key competencies (all of them) are relevant to all learning areas and activities. They know no subject boundaries. They are developed simultaneously with all content areas of the curriculum. Example: We cannot do thinking key competency at 9:00 on a Monday morning and honesty at a whole school assembly on a Friday morning. • They need to be infused into the curriculum areas.

• The New Zealand Curriculum is non- prescriptive about the key competencies. It doesn’t set out what a school has to cover in relation to those competencies. It does provide very good ideas, in terms of what each competency might involve.

Claxton describes it best: • “Translating curriculum ideals like the key competencies into effective teacher practice is an issue grappled with in many countries ... Get the process wrong and it can end up on the scrap-heap of good ideas that didn’t stick.” • “... if New Zealand is to succeed, the key competencies must be embedded in each school’s culture and most importantly in the “microclimate” of the classroom.” Claxton, Education Gazette, 15 December 2008

Task 2 (10 min) List the opportunities (authentic contexts) for students in our school to develop the key competencies.

Possible Authentic Contexts • lunch ordering / lunchtime procedures • lunchtime sport & activities • PE / Sports Shed • visitors / relievers • library • culture, music, art groups • assemblies • corridors • transitioning

Traps and Problems 1.Package solutions. (Costa’s Habits of Mind, De Bono’s Thinking Hats) 2.Competencies not a stand-alone or a separate part of the NZ Curriculum. 3.Multiplier effect, more documents.

Assessing & Reporting • Our obligation is to demonstrate, with conﬁdence, that we are supporting the students to develop the key competencies. • Some key questions might be: 1. How will we see, in our school and in our classrooms, the intention of these key competencies 2. What evidence will we see in our school and classrooms that show that we are supporting our students in developing these competencies?

Task 3 (10min) In groups brainstorm and discuss what the key competencies will look, sound and feel like in our school (Y-Chart).

Our Vision

Task 4 (10min) Find the connection between our vision and the Key Competencies you identiﬁed in your Y-Chart.

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NIS Key Competencies

by mungo13 on Nov 08, 2009

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