‘Challenges’ as way of accessing KC’s
Posted by: greg.carroll in Learning and Teaching, Pedagogy, School Vision, professional learningWe have re-worked the Values we used to focus on and now call them CHALLENGES. This reflects the fact that they are a challenge to do well, to achieve, and to keep achieving. They were originally looking at the Habits of Mind and the name Values because they were ‘valuable’ in learning.
We focus on a different Challenge every 5 weeks and they are also reported in reports:
Original and Independent Thinker:
* Will generally look beyond the obvious
* Responds in a way that appropriately challenges their own and others thinking
* Create new ideas and thoughts and can justify their opinion
Accepting risks and taking challenges:
* Manages physical risks and takes appropriate actions
* Is willing to try something new
* Be able to recognise what is personally challenging and persevere to achieve
* Knows their limits but pushes beyond them towards personal excellence
Perseverance and Dedication:
* Is able to persevere on a task through to completion.
* Is able to keep on task when an activity is challenging.
* Takes pride in the presentation and quality of their work.
Cooperation and Team work:
* Works actively with confidence in group situations
* Co-operates with others and respects varying opinions
* Accepts different roles within a group
Respecting and appreciating ourselves and Others:
* Encourages and supports the efforts of others.
* Is able to win and lose graciously.
* Listens and speaks with courtesy.
* Displays empathy towards others.
Original and Independent Thinker:
* Will generally look beyond the obvious
* Responds in a way that appropriately challenges their own and others thinking
* Create new ideas and thoughts and can justify their opinion
Curiosity and Wonderment:
* Asks questions and actively seeks the answers
* Shows awe and gets excited about new things and learning
* Eager to share discoveries and amazing things
Accepting risks and taking challenges:
* Managing physical risks and takes appropriate actions
* Is willing to try something new
* Be able to recognise what is personally challenging and persevere to achieve
* Knows their limits but pushes beyond them towards personal excellence**
Accuracy and excellence
* Identifies, set and monitor appropriate personal goals.
* Gives their personal best in all areas of the curriculum.
* Achieves a high standard when presenting work.
* Extends their own areas of strength.
Contributing to the Life of the School:
* Takes on (seeks?) responsibility and leadership within the school willingly
* Takes the ‘challenges’ and puts them into practice
* Looks after the school and its property, people and systems
* Is a good ambassador for our school
So each bold heading is the Challenge and the list below are the things we are looking for to exemplify each one.
What do you think? Feedback?
Entries (RSS)
not sure if these need to be explicitly taught, rostering them in seems a little plastic. I know it will get you coverage and the idea behind having these things listed and open is great, but the reality might be that kids and teachers have to live these values and therefore rolling them through a teaching thing could be a bit american. only a thought. lots of good work has gone into it
I appreciat the bredth and grouping. Reflecting on Luke’s comments about the proof is in the living, what evidence do you use/how do you monitor the growth of them?
Luke and Paul – they are not taught as such. Like all values/morals etc they are caught not taught. The purpose of the focus is to bring them to the front of peoples minds and overtly focus on them. I certainly have NO intention of ever setting them up as graded assessed thing in the school. A level 3 contributer is demonstrably a stupid thing to even attempt to assess.
The intention is also to integrate and immerse the children in them by making them a part of the culture for the adults as well. We need to model these things as much as the children, probably more. It is about making our thinking transparent for the children and our decision making etc too.
The only ‘assessment’ as such is that these things will be on the back page of the report and teachers will make a judgment as to the degree to which they see these things in and around the school and school programmes. Many of the descriptors are behavioural for this reason – they are what someone else will see rather than some attempt to make guesses as to what the internal/cognitive motivations etc are for individual children. That too would be a bit simplistic and ultimately probably very inaccurate.
As the level changes for any of these things the expectations will obviously change too. What they will look like for a 5yr old will be vastly different than for a 12yr old. The ‘next step’ for us is to continue the discussions around the criteria so we are making as valid and consistent judgments across the school as we can. It will never be robust or perfect in the sense of assessing through things like a running record is, but that is the nature of the beast. We are trying to catch smoke. All we can do is find ways of capturing something of what it is like, not be conclusive or definitive.