Green Bay High School

My name is Hannah Hopkins and I work at Green Bay High School, I teach junior Social Studies and NCEA History. I am Head of the Social Sciences Department and the Teacher in Charge of Junior Social Studies. This is my third year as a member of the Community of Learning and I am involved in the curriculum team. My focus this year is on the use of curriculum to track student progression in Junior Social Studies. The aim of this is to make students more engaged in their learning, ensure this learning is visible and to help bridge the gap between a students learning in intermediate and preparation for NCEA.

Researching the area of: Connecting both ends of the learning pathway - Ensuring successful transitions into and out of schooling.

I have been teaching at Green Bay High School for the past 7 years. My subject area is Mathematics and I have also been a year level Dean since 2016. My CoL inquiry sits within the Junior Assessment Team and focuses on how our Mathematics Department can present a junior programme which shows student progression through the curriculum. Integral to this is the development of a framework which can be easily communicated to, and used by, students and whanau. I am also interested in how similarities can be drawn on from the models used by other departments and intermediate schools within the CoL to ensure consistency.

I am a Science and Biology teacher at Green Bay High School, and this is my tenth year at the school. My passion is about making Science memorable and fostering a love for the subject within my students. A large part of this is making the subject feel relevant to the student's context and pathway. This is my second in-school community of learning position working in this area, but my focus has shifted slightly this time around. In 2017, my in-school community of learning position was a based on a combination of using academic counselling strategies and creating a flexible course design to meet the needs of our diverse learners. The work from this inquiry is still being used and refined in the Science department and the scope of this approach has broadened to other senior science courses. This year, however, my role will be more focused on the pathways for students who demonstrate an affinity for Maths or Science at the intermediate school level. I want to insure that these students are being nurtured and their needs catered for when making the transition to high school. One goal is to strengthen the relationships with our intermediate schools in the Kotuitui and continue the conversation around how these students are identified, encouraged and provided with ample opportunity to continue to grow their passion for Maths and Science as they move through their educational life.

Kia Ora , I have now been teaching at Green Bay High School for the last 3 years. Over the last ICOL cycle I have been focusing my work around the measurement of curriculum progressions in junior English stream. This work has seen a lot of time and effort been put into designing rubrics that will help us track and make years 9 and 10 meaningful for students, teachers and Whānau.

This year I will be focusing on English rubrics and tracking strategies towards improving student progression and achievement. There will be a natural focus on assessing our ability to accurately use , record and report on curriculum levels.

I look forward to continuing this journey and working with other departments at GBHS and across our other community schools.

I am assistant HoD of Science, providing leadership in junior curriculum inquiry and development. I am working on a CoL Inquiry into how teachers, students and whanau can navigate students’ progression through the Nature of Science strands of the NZC via the use of 4 NOS rubrics and improved visibility of learning. I am also seeking to find out how best to design rich assessment tasks that allow students to fully show their current understand of NOS through a redefined and blended e-learning lens. The aim is to find out how best to provide teachers and students with this valuable information so that in turn it may drive differentiation of practice based on the ‘next steps’ of learning of students.

For 2020 I am collaborating with Rogan James who is the other Options teacher at GBHS.

Our inquiry title is: How can we identify curriculum progress in specialist subjects at Green Bay High School and share our findings with key specialist subject teachers and leaders in intermediate school?

A bit about the inquiry: My interest in the role stems from the inquiries I have been working on since 2017. I specifically focused on the senior school for my 2017-18 inquiry which led me to focus on junior curriculum last year. The purpose of this was to better prepare juniors progressing into senior school. Initially, my data analysis was of how the Technology department used and assessed with the curriculum. This data directed me to focus on designing a resource that will be used by the entire department but also supports consistency in learning and assessment across the Technology subjects.

I have a strong belief that the use of inquiry has enabled me to explore the parts of teaching practices that I usually would not have thought about. It has allowed me to step outside my comfort zone and confront my own practice and challenge what I know and do. This year, this role has enabled me to branch outside my department and work with all Options subject areas. In collaboration with Rogan James, we want to establish the foundation for future Options subject ICOL roles to build a network of specialist subjects across schools in the ICOL.

This is my second year at Green Bay High School having taught at a range of schools across the wider Auckland area. I am currently Head of Visual Art and my CoL Inquiry this year has a two-part focus. This first being how the Junior Curriculum can be used to track progression within the Green Bay High School option subjects and how we can make the learning understood consistently across our diverse specialist areas. The second focus is to extend this learning into our Kotuitui Schools and in particular strengthen relationships with Intermediate specialist teachers. By working together, I hope to create meaningful data that can be used to help improve the transition of students into Year 9 option subjects. As well as provide our option teachers more consistent Junior proficiency information to help better prepare students for the rigors of NCEA.

For 2020, Edd is working within the 'Connecting the steps through Curriculum Levels' - Curriculum Progressions workstream. Their inquiry question is in development.