Learning to fly with uncertainty  

Impact of Kei Tua o te Pae on planning

By Barbara Allan, Director Professional Development, NZCA
Nov 2006, Issue #10

Instead of trying to pre-determine which children are going to be the focus of assessment and pre-set learning outcomes for them, teachers are finding they value the learning that is going on right now. They are allowing themselves to fly with the uncertainty that is part of responsiveness “to the students’ goals as these emerge in the course of the activity” (Wells, 1999 cited in Ministry of Education, 2004, book 1 p.14). As a result teachers have noted that they are getting to know the children better and say they feel a renewed excitement about their work.

This requires teachers to be sharing their stories, both documented and undocumented, on a daily, and throughout the day, basis. This is often what already goes on in relation to the undocumented stories; teachers have always shared anecdotes with each other and parents about children’s learning they have noticed, and sometimes they or colleagues build on these that day or the next.

While working with Kei Tua o te Pae some centres have changed their assessment processes to recognize the value of this as living planning and now document some of it is as follows:

Increasing staff communication opportunities

One centre decided to pay their staff to come to work 15 minutes earlier each day so that after the usual 30 minute preparation time for the session they now spend 15 minutes, before children start arriving, reviewing who is on the roll for that day and what they know about what was of interest to those children last time they attended, plus any other relevant information the parents / whanau had shared when picking up their child. This simple process increases the complexity of knowledge about the children and the opportunity for continuity. It also deepened the relationships within the whole centre community, and made valuable the reciprocal nature of those relationships that support learning.

Making assessment documentation public

Many centres have started a display board on which they place documented learning stories that have resulted from the day, along with blank sheets of paper inviting parents to comment: e.g. “we’d love to hear about how Sam is exploring his ideas about engines, at home” attached to a learning story about Sam’s block construction and theory of the workings of a steam train. As the days go by, parents’ written stories, records of children’s own comments made when revisiting the displayed stories in conversation with teachers, parents and peers, and more teachers’ stories are added.

One centre said they noticed parents reading stories now and lingering at the boards, they realized it was because they had started talking to parents about the stories rather than just putting them on the board. A centre manager who has no child contact said he too was now reading the stories on the wall and enjoying this development in the centre.

Deciding what to document

Deciding what to document becomes easier once staff see the purpose of documenting stories to be about “mak[ing] visible the learning that is valued so that the learning community (children, families, whanau, teachers, and others) can foster ongoing and diverse learning pathways” (Ministry of Education, 2004, book 1, p.3). Often they begin by asking themselves what surprised me, what interested me, caught my attention today, what prompted me to reflect or question? What has been the focus of children’s activity and/or informal conversation today? What’s been going on for the children I have been with today?

Making Te Whaariki more meaningful

One centre commented that “Before this professional development the centre was using learning stories as a means of assessment to support children’s learning (but) we based learning much more on the future rather than the here and now. We did programme planning around the strands and goals from Te Whaariki, the “what next” was very broad. Now we are writing the learning stories based much more on the principles and dispositions from Te Whaariki. The “what next” is much simpler and specific to the individual child’s needs and interests. We are now involving the parents much more in their child’s assessment.”

Where do we start

When reflecting on centre assessment process, ask in what ways does assessment practice here empower the child to learn and grow? Are parents and whaanau a part of the assessment process? Are children? Are they able to access and interpret information describing their achievements and competence and contribute to improving their learning opportunities?

Kei Tua o te Pae takes a sociocultural, holistic, credit-based and formative approach to assessment and provides lots of examples of how such an approach can be achieved. Taking the booklets out of the folder and sharing the reading of them in discussion together as a community will provide many ideas to support your children on their learning journey beyond the horizon.

For more information visit the section of our website on Kei tua o te Pae