Nigel Latta - New Zealand Stories

Just watched episode two.

Found myself nodding along last week to my colleagues discussion on episode 1 last week even though I didn't watch it. I didn't want to miss out tonight.

Great korero and totally tautoko his presentation of the issues we face in education. It would have been good to see him go to a wider range of schools - but for what he did go to, he achieved all possible learning intentions I was thinking he might hit along the way.

One of the biggest issues currently is equity of technology. The social and economic divide will become the technological divide - purely because technology is so costly. It's a never ending cycle. Frustrating because we should be able to give our NZ kids fair and equal chances and opportunities to success. Unfortunately this is not the case. At present - we are still so far behind - but we're getting there. The work that the Manaiakalani trust has done has been instrumental in showing communities that working together can actually achieve greatness.

The Future Focussed Learning report - yes that again - is an incredibly important document. It states that every school will implement a programme to integrate technology into their classrooms.

I'm lucky because I've taught myself a lot of stuff over the years - I'm a natural tutu. A truly kinesthetic learner - however still I can sit while listening to a discussion... I'm usually staring at something or touching something to keep my mind free to process and understand.

Our students should have the chance to succeed - despite the Decile rarings forced onto their communities and our schools.

I like what Richard Hattie said about the fact that NCEA gives chances for anyone to be excellent at a certain subject or range of subjects. Particularly liked that Latta focussed on lit and numeracy - in regards to group work, strategies, passion, professional teachers who are caring, compassionate and supportive.

I also liked that the primary school were using Google Drive effectively.

I look forward to the steps our school will make in future focussed learning and thinking about the many possibilities that could occur as a result of not knowing what could happen in the future. We have so many options and we need to make the most of them :)

Thanks Nigel :)