He aroha whakatō, he aroha ka puta mai.

If kindness is sown, then kindness is what you shall receive.

Kia ora e te whānau

The big news this week has been the findings of the latest ERO research which looked at the new Digital Technologies Curriculum, and how ready we are, as a profession, to implement it.

Before I talk about that, I want to first acknowledge the heightened interest in this year’s NZPF Executive elections: Two years ago, we had a record number of nominations for the National Executive and this year, you have broken that record again!  It is great to see so many of you eager to serve your colleagues on the Executive and bring fresh ideas to keep our Federation relevant, vital and up to date. Congratulations to all the candidates who have generously put their names forward to ensure the voice for principals is constantly invigorated.

The names of all nominees for the 2019 NZPF Executive elections has been posted to the NZPF website, and you can access them here.

The elections are administered by Electionz.com. If you are a financial member of NZPF as at 24 August 2019, you will be emailed voting instructions together with profile statements of all candidates, prior to the start of voting. If you are not currently an NZPF financial member but want to participate in the elections, then please contact our national office ASAP.  

Voting will open on Friday 30 August and close at noon on Thursday 19 September. 

Digital Technologies Curriculum

The ERO report released late last week, has uncovered findings that would indicate most schools will not be ready to implement the Digital Technologies Curriculum in 2020 as expected.  Over one third of schools surveyed indicated they have no understanding of how to implement this new curriculum. Other issues uncovered include that principals are finding relevant PLD difficult to access and resources are lacking.

I am also concerned about whether we have the teacher capability across all of our schools to grasp the content of this new curriculum subject. It is not about using technology, which schools do now, it is about designing technological solutions and computational thinking. Many teachers will be starting from the lowest level of knowledge in this area and will need to slowly progress through to where they can teach students to:

‘’independently decompose a computational problem into an algorithm that they use to create a program incorporating inputs, outputs, sequence, selection and iteration.’’

Given the limitations on PLD and resources, it is unlikely that many will be ready to competently teach the design of technological solutions by the start of next year. I am, however, confident that all schools will have plans in place to get this important area of learning underway. 

I have written a column on this topic for the Term Three NZ Principal magazine. That is due in your schools next week.

I hope you are all surviving the volatile weather patterns we’ve had lately and are looking forward to the milder Spring which is just around the corner.

Ngā manaakitanga

Whetu Cormick
whetu@nzpf.ac.nz