Curriculum Development
Realising the Vision: Project Refresh
This year, curriculum leaders at the school are reviewing the ways we deliver programs at Northcote, and the manner in which we prepare our students to meet the future. We are preparing a Master Plan for curriculum provision in response to changes occurring around us.
Change is occurring in the world of work. The World Economic Forum this year presented the idea of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, a future where routine skilled and unskilled work will be automated, and previously highly paid work such as legal research, can now be done by intelligent machines. There is an increasing need to prepare our students for complex and non-routine skilled work. We want them to be high level collaborative problem solvers, who think creatively and critically.
Change needs to occur in (and out) of our classrooms if we want our young people to be prepared for this future. We need our students to learn more deeply, to be self-aware in their learning, and to apply their skills to the real world. We are investigating Inquiry Learning and Problem-based Learning approaches to see what they may have to offer to us. We will be visiting other schools that have made changes to learn how we can adapt their ideas to our particular context. We have already joined a group of schools and the Mitchell Institute to learn from Professor Yong Zhao about changes in education internationally.
Change is occurring in our school. We are increasingly a neighbourhood school, responsible for educating to the best of our ability every student who chooses to come here. We need to consider the pathways we offer in the senior part of the school. Already we have students studying off campus and combining programs. Increasingly, we need to become a school that personalises learning to meet the diverse needs of our community. At the same time, we need to make sure all our students are working from a secure foundation of skills and that they know how to learn.
There will be changes to what we teach and how we teach it. Impacts may occur in Languages and Visual and Performing Arts. Changes may occur in the programs we offer at the senior level, for example we may introduce more VCAL options. Change may also occur in the Middle Years, with greater focus on Problem Based and Inquiry Learning.
Tom Bentley will be presenting many of the big ideas in relation to contemporary learning at the Northcote High School Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 22nd March. Please see the flyer attached to this newsletter.
Ms Prue Morris (Project Refresh Leader)