Education Policy Thoughts Part 1:

Luxon says the National Party will rewrite the curriculum to detail the “non-negotiable knowledge and skills primary and intermediate schools must cover each year in reading, writing, maths, and science”.

“At the moment, one curriculum level can span several school years, which makes it difficult to identify and help children who are falling behind."

At Western Heights, we take a child-responsive approach to teaching and learning. Child Responsive Practice requires of us the understanding that each child is a story - that incorporates their culture, language, and name but is also so much more than that. 

CRP is understood to be a “culturally supported, learner-centred context, whereby the strengths students bring to school are identified, nurtured, and utilised to promote student achievement” Richards, Brown, & Forde, 2006.

On that basis, we are intimately aware of the progress, needs and achievements of each individual child in our care. We are constantly revising, adapting and modifying programmes to best meet each child’s plethora of needs - far and well beyond just the needs of reading, writing and numeracy.

We receive children at many different starting points. Our goal is always to take them from where they are at a pace that is right for them. We expect the best of and for each child in our care. We encourage and support them to learn in a loving, nurturing and challenging environment. We do all we can to limit stress and undue pressure while encouraging each child to be their best self and achieve their personal best.

Just as babies progress at different rates, so do all children in their learning. We are all different. Sometimes we leap ahead, only to plateau for a while. Sometimes we take time to grasp and master new learning and suddenly power away. 

Reducing stress and pressure while keeping expectations high is our ultimate goal. We want children to love learning and never lose that love. 

In 2018 the South Korean Ministry of Education paid for me to travel there and meet with them. We discussed our big-picture goals for children and their learning. They were concerned with data they had gathered that showed their students were second in the world for achievement but second to bottom for student happiness and well-being.

Their data showed most students hated the massive pressure they experienced with learning expectations. As soon as they could put tests behind them, they also wanted to put learning behind them. There were many implications - lack of desire to continue learning beyond school or university and high levels of youth suicide were just two factors they shared with me.

Our world is changing at an exponential rate. To keep up, we need to be able to learn, unlearn and relearn. As Alvin Toffler explained, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."

In “What got you here won’t get you there”, Marshall Goldsmith speaks to the deep need to continually upgrade the assumptions underpinning the mental maps in our heads.

Jim Collins, the author of "Good to Great", wrote, “The most important lessons lay not in what I needed to learn, but in what I first needed to unlearn.”

The point is we need to teach children to be independent thinkers, skilled at asking questions, and with a mind constantly open to new learning. This is not easy either. Humans are creatures of comfort. New learning that challenges our assumptions or beliefs is uncomfortable. Confirmation bias is built into us all - we tend to look for things that confirm what we already believe and dismiss that which does not.

Children come into the world brimming with curiosity and openness to learning. Yet, for many, rigid educational systems that reward test scores over creativity suck the joy out of learning. 

In today’s world, learning isn’t an exercise we finish in school. It’s imperative for flourishing in life. It’s how we improve ourselves, expand future possibilities and improve our current situation.

Our learning is capped by the extent of our questions. Most of us live with answers to questions we’ve never thought of or bothered to ask. As we consider the problems around us, we should ask more questions, for example, how do we know this is the best approach? 

Because we’re all wired with confirmation bias, we must proactively seek out information to contradict our assumptions.

Unlearning and relearning are not a means to an end. They are an end in themselves. 

Change is not stopping, not slowing down. We understand this, and so we are focused on growing learners and producing graduates who will embrace change, ask awesome questions, work collaboratively to solve problems, challenge assumptions, love learning, and seek to make the world a better place. We want our children to experience joy in learning, joy in life, and to find happiness through supporting others to be happy - bucket fillers, in other words. We want them to become curious, creative, contributing, collaborative, connected, caring, confident, and critical-thinking citizens.