Hello
Thanks for subscribing to The SMATA Bulletin. Here is this week’s Q-T-A.
A Quote
On Thursday Education Minister Chris Hipkins released the new NCEA subject lists
…
A controversial merging of painting, printmaking and sculpture into a single subject left painting in the clear, but saw the latter merge into one “visual arts” subject.
Photography has been expanded to “photography and moving image”; and music is shifting into two subjects: “making music” and “music studies”, separating theory from practice
…
The ministry would develop the new subjects alongside experts from the education sectors and industry. (link to article)
A Thought
NCEA is New Zealand’s national qualifications framework for secondary schools, and thus the means through which students are assessed in order to get accredited.
But how can a means of assessment be a subject?
This is a real mess we’ve got ourselves into here, isn’t it? It seems to me like we’ve conflated learning and assessment, with the result being that from Years 11-13
Secondary schools think they can’t offer a subject if it doesn’t exist in the NCEA framework.
The only thing seen as being worth learning about (if that’s what we can call it when it’s all about assessment) is what gets NCEA credits.
Everything is high stakes, so you can forget about well-being.
We might as well make NCEA the curriculum.
Secondary schools might as well be called accreditation institutes.
At least that would be honest.
Because at the moment we do the exact opposite of what the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) says we should be doing when it comes to assessment.
An Action
Go and read the NZC’s section on assessment.
Think deeply about how your assessment practices and processes align with it.
What you will change?
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Have fun out there on the education frontier.
Bevan.
(PS: I’m taking a break next week, so there will be no Bulletin posts.)