Teachers and students at Roslyn School designed and produced a set of five posters, for use across the school, to highlight what each key competency meant to them.
Roslyn School in Palmerston North has developed a school curriculum based on three kete:
- Knowledge – mātauranga
- Personal and social development – hauora
- Skills for learning – ngā tautōhito
The staff have explored the key competencies within the design of the Roslyn school curriculum. During this process they decided to change the name of each key competency to make them more ‘active’ and personal to their students. As a result:
- thinking became 'The Thinker'
- using language, symbols and texts became 'The Communicator'
- managing self became 'The Self Manager'
- relating to others became 'The Effective Interactor'
- participating and contributing became 'The Active Participator'.
Together, teachers and students have designed ways to show the development of these competencies as personal and unique to each class or team.
Key competencies and learning to learn
Teachers and students at Roslyn School have made the key competencies their own by unpacking the meaning of each one. They use their own words and symbols to describe the key competencies, and students are encouraged to articulate the specific capabilities that they developing and explain why they are important. This supports the learning to learn principle as learners reflect on their own learning processes.
School posters
The school has recently developed a set of posters, each related to one of the key competencies, and featuring students from the school describing what the key competencies mean at Roslyn School. The posters are displayed throughout the school to build a shared understanding of what they mean for staff, students, their wider whānau, and community.
A set of symbols, relating to each key competency, supports students to integrate the competencies into all aspects of their learning.
These are available as stickers for use in a variety of situations to reinforce the effective development of the key competencies.
Book look
The school also makes connections with families and whānau through the ‘Book Look’. Each term the children take books home so families can see examples of the key competencies in action. These include self and peer reflections as well as evidence of everyday development. The school also reflects the development of the key competencies through their reporting system, which is related to the three kete.
Community engagement principle
Roslyn School brings the community engagement principle alive by producing booklets to help parents and whānau understand the key competencies. This strengthens home-school partnerships and enables whānau to be more deeply involved in students' learning.
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Key competencies
This section of NZC Online supports school leaders and teachers as they introduce and deepen their understanding of key competencies for learners.
- Tags:
- community engagement
- key competencies
- parents
- primary
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