The primary years

The Primary school cirriculum.

While the vast majority of New Zealand primary schools follow the New Zealand Curriculum, a small number favour the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme or the Cambridge International Primary Programme. Here, proponents of each system discuss the relative merits and weaknesses.

New Zealand Curriculum, Cambridge or International Baccalaureate?

While the vast majority of New Zealand primary schools follow the New Zealand Curriculum, a small number favour the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme or the Cambridge International Primary Programme. Here, proponents of each system discuss the relative merits and weaknesses.

The New Zealand Curriculum

MIKE MALCOLM, principal of Leamington School in Cambridge, says the open-ended nature of the curriculum is both its greatest strength and biggest limitation.

The New Zealand Curriculum, considered innovative at its inception, is often forgotten in the political maelstrom of government and union policy and public opinion. The reality is it is far more relevant for today's students and educators than it has ever been. Te Kete is a perfect metaphor of both the simplicity and complexity of a curriculum that should be the envy of the world, but is yet to realise its fullest potential for the New Zealand student.

The interwoven nature of the curriculum where principles, values, vision, language, competencies and learning areas weave together as one reflects the holistic nature of learning and serves as a reminder that learning does not happen in isolation; that developing the whole child academically, socially, emotionally and spiritually is vital.

It recognises that children will have strengths and interests in some areas more than others. It reflects the continual nature of learning, showing an understanding that children all develop at their own rate regardless of any expectations that they should be at a certain level of attainment dependent on their year level.

The real strength of the New Zealand Curriculum in my opinion is the clear push to simultaneously develop skills, knowledge and attitudes to transcend the context and content of the learning students may currently be engaged in, to then be able to use these learned traits in future learning. The cumulative effect of this, as children move into their secondary and tertiary years, has the potential to be extremely powerful. However, if this cumulative effect is neglected for any length of time there is the very real potential that all previous growth will be lost or seriously stunted.

It is the open-ended nature of the curriculum that is both its greatest strength, and also its biggest limitation. Some teachers, through years of experience, have the ability to to use their expertise to develop stimulating learning contexts that motivate and stretch their children. However, for inexperienced teachers, a lack of content knowledge (whether that be around literacy acquisition or key scientific principles ) can be daunting as large arrays of published books are scattered across the table in an attempt to determine what needs to be included in planning.

It should be the dream of every person in our education system to see the New Zealand Curriculum develop to its fullest potential. We have a long way to go to realise this dream, yet ironically, our children seem to get it instinctively!

Cambridge International Primary Programme

SIAN COXON, Headmistress of Pinehurst Primary, says the Cambridge programme is specific and less open to interpretation and provides a foundation to secondary years.

The Cambridge International Primary Programme provides a specific curriculum in the core subjects of English, Maths and Science. Pinehurst School has followed the Cambridge programme since the late 1990s and was one of the first schools in New Zealand to introduce the programme at Primary level.

Students from Year 1 to Year 13 engage in an exciting and challenging programme at Pinehurst and graduate with an excellent set of internationally recognised qualifications.

At Primary level children need a good grounding in literacy and numeracy. A key benefit of Cambridge is that it provides a curriculum with a large number of learning outcomes that enables a teacher to 'micro-teach' each step.

One of the key factors for progress that emerged from a meta-analysis study conducted by John Hattie, which ultimately defined what works and doesn't in the classroom based on the learning of more than 240 million students, rated the ability of teachers to micro-teach as a success factor.

In comparison to the New Zealand Curriculum, which has a much lower number of objectives, the ability to micro-teach, which Cambridge provides, ensures the curriculum is specific and less open to interpretation. With access to professionally researched and published resources used to deliver the curriculum, Cambridge assists us to develop a programme that has depth and challenge and is the foundation to secondary years.

Cambridge provides Pinehurst with the ability to assess students via standardised progression tests. A school can choose to use these tests or not, culminating in a Checkpoint at Year 6 where students can sit formal assessments which are externally marked. Results are entered on the Cambridge website and teachers are able to adapt their programmes to the individual needs of each learner.

Students experience a test situation and learn valuable lessons around reading questions properly, time management and becoming assessment-capable learners before taking examinations later. Parents are given information on their child's progress, compared to other students internationally. This data is not conclusive, but rather taken in conjunction with day-to-day assessment in the classroom.

A criticism of Cambridge is that it is narrow. However, Cambridge can be used within the context of a theme for learning and is not meant to be taught in subject-by-subject isolation. One of my pet phrases is that Cambridge is just a curriculum, albeit an excellent one, but that each teacher creates a context for delivery which is exciting and challenging. We must provide opportunities to make connections to the world for our students, they need to learn how to collaborate, think critically, take responsibility for their learning, to ask big questions and seek the answers for themselves, with guidance. Cambridge works and is a huge factor for the families who entrust us with their child's education.

International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (PYP)

"How can a rational inquiry curriculum reconcile itself with the fact that the world is full of magic things?" asks BEN EGERTON, who teaches the PYP to Year 7 at an International Baccalaureate World School in Wellington.

Advocates of the International Baccalaureate's Primary Years Programme (PYP) may liken children's learning experiences to the voyages of the great explorers, drawing parallels with new knowledge gained during those risky yet essential expeditions. No longer flat or mysterious, the world was mapped and new people, places, flora and fauna were discovered. Supernatural wonder was suppressed by explanation and enlightened thought.

Mary McCarney wrote last year that the PYP allows children and teachers creative control over the direction of the curriculum. She goes on to explain the PYP process, in which "pupils formulate their own questions, research the answers, reflect on their findings and take action".

The PYP is a curriculum built around six interdisciplinary themes that incorporate and transcend traditional subject areas. The vast majority of learning takes place through inquiry.

The PYP assumes the world is there to be discovered and be reported back on. It's a rational curriculum. With the PYP, schools take ownership of the curriculum and tailor coverage for each year group. Each PYP co-ordinator must ensure balance, not only of curriculum focus, but also of the creative opportunities children will be given. Defensive or controlling teaching and planning will blinker children, forcing them to stay within teachers' (and parents') own comfort zones.

Teachers can be suspicious of creative thinkers -- they don't abide by normal teaching and learning templates, and their work is difficult to assess. Therefore, teachers and children must be partners in the assessment process, with the caveat that creativity cannot be measured through a tick sheet. Just because creativity cannot be objectively explained, it must not be omitted or discouraged within the PYP classroom.

Teachers have a responsibility to model creativity, to be creative. And teachers must embed opportunities to expose children to subjectivity, to relativity and absolutes, to musicians, poets and storytellers -- to things that can't be found in the library or reached via the internet.

In our eagerness to embrace inquiry learning, let us not lose sight of the magic things.

--POSTGRAD & RESEARCH