1 July 2019

Curriculum Report – Science

What is happening now?

This year, each term is to be guided by an overarching umbrella topic to be decided as children's interests emerge. See below.

Term 1: Whakawhanaungatanga - ourselves, our community

Term 2: Kaitiakitanga including Matariki, 

Term 3: Hauora including Life Education caravan visit

Term 4: Celebrations including community Christmas events

The reason for this was to align with Kaikohe East School graduate profile philosophies, allow for curriculum coverage and to ensure flexibility to encourage following children's interests and developing learning opportunities from these. We also have had programmes implemented in Syndicates depending on the needs, age and stage of our children which allows for science components to be planned for. These are named Discovery time in the junior syndicate. Continuing on from this we also have our Garden to Table classroom in Room 12 which also explores the natural world alongside cooking which again engages children in aspects of science as they discover, create and experiment with an Inquiry based teaching approach. The middle syndicate have aligned their literacy to non fiction animal reports with the children exploring animal’s appearance, habitat, diet, breeding and interesting facts. Also looked at natural land forms - Ngawha springs and Kawiti caves and limestone formation.

In Room 3 Margaret has developed a ‘Chill Room” that allows for children to discover, play, view, test ideas and  things that are “Science’y?”

Programme

This is from our school website

As with previous years, teachers have been more focused on following the children’s interests in science.This has meant more engagement by tamariki.Teachers and students are able but not limited to drawing from the umbrella topic as a starting point for learning.

More emphasis is placed on child centred learning and not teacher driven learning. Each year the learning that takes place can look completely different as children's interests change and their knowledge of the big ideas continue to deepen.

Teachers teach this subject through a cross curricular format or integration. Such investigations are delivered during literacy/Maths/Inquiry times or Discovery 

Teaching and learning strategies to address the above

Topics:  Kaitiakitanga,   Planet earth and beyond - gardening, outer space, planets, Matariki, Healthy food, cooking  and choices. living world - what makes things grow/survive. Harakeke cutting, climate change and global warming, The Living world - gardening club, growing things, life cycle of the monarch butterfly.

Gardening and cooking seem to be a constant science focus within the school all year round.  

Staff have aimed to create an awareness of Matariki -The Maori new year. As with last year we are having a Matariki celebration involving the tikanga behind it. 

Discovery time involves our new entrant - Year 1/2 classes and has begun with increased teacher awareness and knowledge of the importance of ‘play’. This play allows for inquiry, The New Zealand Curriculum and the Early Childhood Curriculum, Te Whaariki. Science is evident through the children’s experimenting and play with sand, water, dough, paints and investigations. They are predicting, analysing, reasoning, thinking, experimenting and exploring. They are gaining confidence in their own abilities and thinking. Te Whaariki is linked into our sciences with Exploration - Mana Aoturoa where “they develop working theories for making sense of the natural, social, physical and material worlds.

The Senior Syndicate purchased kits from Mr Science. Included in these kits are instructions, links and all the materials to run hands on science experiments. These kits will allow teachers to easily integrate science into our classroom programmes. We have used them as context for writing, to show fair testing in action and to relate to our wider school topics. 

At our recent Kahui Ako Huihuinga staff that attended shared with teachers within the Kahui Ako about Science learning that needs to occur in order for our children to be more successful when they get to Year 8,9, 10.  Ideas around this huihuinga included using correct vocab for instruments used during experiments, giving children opportunity to do “fair testing” and analysing their findings.

Looking Ahead

The rest of the year will be guided by the interests and ideas of the Tamariki. Term 3’s focus is Hauora and how this lends to science will be determined in each Syndicates collaborative planning and woven through the core subjects of literacy and numeracy.

What would we like to see happen?

Each year we continue to build on our ideas and the following is a continuum that is ever evolving depending on the needs, interests and curiosities of our tamariki.  Flexibility allows us to teach in the moment and not be so focussed on teaching Science facts.

As previously stated we would like to ‘Continue to make learning more child interest based with more successful provocations to inspire curiosity in science. We need to ensure the concepts taught are relevant to the students in terms of who they are, their hapu and iwi affiliation as well as their wider community. e.g Te Ao Maori lense.” The teaching focus is to be ‘hand on’ as much as possible while also ensuring we provide authentic learning contexts.

Targeted purchases of equipment, resources, experiences and time need to be made in relation to specific teaching intentions.

This year’s Science budget is linked to the Literacy/Maths/EOTC areas.