16 September 2015

Curriculum Report – Social Sciences

Focus

• • Essence Statement

The Social Sciences is about how people in a society work and contribute to the world.  It considers the roles and responsibilities of members of a society.  Study in this area gives students an understanding of their role in society and how their actions can affect and impact on the world.  Students engage with societal issues through active reflection and evaluation as they explore social, economic, political and environmental practices.  In order to understand themselves, students need to understand their place in society and how society impacts on their own lives.

• • Social Sciences at Kaikohe East School

The study of the Social Sciences at our school involves an understanding of yourself, your place in your community and your culture.  It provides opportunities to study topics related to the local community and encourages students to respectfully utilise traditional and contemporary Maori contexts. Students will be encouraged to draw on their own cultural experiences to make connections with the context being studied. Our unique school environment should provide for rich authentic contexts for learning in social sciences.  The social science programme gives the students rich, meaningful and relevant experiences to develop and enhance their view of the world.

• • Key Competencies in Social Sciences

Thinking

• • Thinking about how places have changed over time.

  • Use appropriate thinking strategies to enhance learning.

  • Consider how different people view the world.

  • Use creative, critical and caring thinking to explore a range of issues.

Relating To Others

• • Explore the impact have different cultural groups have had.

  • Explore how have different cultures have interacted over time.

  • Recognise and understand how different people view the world.

  • Explore points of view that different cultures have towards various issues.

  • Show empathy and understanding towards people with differing views to themselves.

  • Learn and apply interviewing skills.

Using Language, Symbols and Texts

• • Explore how people use symbols to represent their cultures and their understandings of the world.

  • Use technology to explore and record various issues.

  • Use technology to carry out and analyse surveys, carry out interviews and collect data.

Managing Self

• • Having respect for differing points of view – tolerance. respect, empathy.

Participating and Contributing

• • Explore what responsibilities we have towards each other and the environment..

  • Make connections with people around New Zealand and around the world who relate to the issues being studied.

Programme

• • Term 1 2015: Whanaungatanga- Identity/ Pepeha

  • Term 2 2015: Manaakitanga/ Kaitiakitanga

  • Term 3 2015: Hauora

  • Term 4 2015: Enterprise

Above are the overarching themes our teachers have been guided by. Teachers provide experiences to provoke curiosity within but not limited to these themes. Learning is based on student interest and questions that they have.

Some of the areas covered in classes have been:

Pepeha, whanaungatanga, Kindness to others, managing self, whanau, all about me. Places that are special to us, Who we are- Pepeha, Our community - what we like about it and people who help us/look after it. Matariki - old vs new, what it meant for people a long time ago and what it means to us now.

Students will understand how cultural practices reflect and express people’s customs, traditions and values. This was an integral part of our Manaakitanga, Kaitiakitanga focus in term 2. Zero waste, Kaitiakitangi and looking after our surrounding environments e.g classroom, school, town etc

Marae protocol, kapa haka and waiata, patterning and design, then moving into carving in term 3. Using traditional patterning in our art work culminating in designing and carving our class tokotoko. Class participation and group participation in the school kapa haka group for the cultural festival.

Selected reading texts and follow up activities that relate to social justice or different cultures and times.

Assessment Procedures

• • Currently we do not have a standardized assessment of this curriculum area. In terms of assessment, we use more informal assessments such as observations, conversations and classroom documentation to gauge the students learning. This is so that teachers can be guided by what the students interests are. This works in well with the Reggio approach we are beginning to implement.

Looking Ahead

• • Since Kaikohe East School is becoming a Reggio inspired learning environment our vision for the future is to integrate this curriculum area into our Literacy and Numeracy programmes better and make the contexts for learning more child centred . Teachers are also endeavouring to improve on their documentation, observations and conversations with children as strategies to improve on our informal assessment of this curriculum area. Another goal for the future is to have more discussions about and back planning for curriculum coverage.