Cowichan Valley teachers are being urged to try the new provincial curriculum before it becomes mandatory next year.
School superintendent Rod Allen, during a quick update for the board of education, still managed to touch on a lot of the aspects of the much-discussed changeover.
“The subject is everywhere right now,” he said Sept. 1.
Many aspects of the K-9 curriculum are ready to roll after receiving a lot of input from the BC Teachers’ Federation and other education partners, he said. “It was written by teachers from across the province,” Allen said.
The pre-high school curriculum is ready to try and “right now we are really encouraging our teachers to do that. It is quite different. We’re urging them to try it out, find out what kinds of supports that the district and also the province has to bring that curriculum alive.”
There’s more talking still to be done as there are plans to implement the kindergarten to Grade 9 curriculum in September 2016.
“For Grades 10-12, the first drafts are starting to dribble out now. Then they will go out for comment, go through a revision process and come out a little more fully fledged in September 2016 for full implementation 2017. Me, personally, I think that’s optimistic. But it’s good to have goals,” Allen said.
The effects of the new style will not be seen until about 15 years have passed, “because it is a cultural shift, not just a new curriculum,” he added.
The byword in the new curriculum is flexibility, fitting what’s taught to how a student learns. But that still leaves many observers asking about tests and marks.
The controversial Foundation Skills Assessment (FSA) tests may be gone under the new regime but something must be done to assess how students are doing, Allen said.
A committee is suggesting that the province will still want to check each child around Grades 4 and 7, much as has been done with the FSA but with a new attitude.
“Children will find they are more successful at it,” he said. “We’re going to see what that looks like.”
The next question is: what will graduation assessment look like?
“And that’s not presupposing we’re going to have any yet,” Allen told trustees, pointing out that questions are coming from everywhere on this one.
“What kind of evidence should we have to look at to determine if students are ready to move on to the next stage? Should it be exams? In what areas? Is it portfolios? Is it this? Is it that? There’s a pretty wide open mandate,” he said.
But, at the same time, the ministry is creating some new secondary provincial assessments.
“The first one is Science 10. Hallelujah! It’s striving to move a Trivial Pursuit exam for a Trivial Pursuit course into something deeper and more meaningful for kids,” Allen said.
The objective, he said, is not just to focus on content but to include collaboration and thinking like a scientist.
When talk moves to exams, the subject of report cards comes up.
Allen described report cards as “iconic” but said that now, in K-9, “60 per cent of school districts, at least, are not following the current reporting orders and are well outside it. They’re doing it with the consent of teachers and parents because it’s better for communication and better for kids.”
Allen said that a new style of reporting should be introduced in a couple of years and “there is a great desire that it should not be a new provincial report card,” he said. “A provincial report card would be the death knell of having a really meaningful conversation with parents and at least 60 districts would hate it if they mandated a single report card.”
Allen said there has already been teacher feedback, with concerns raised about resources and timelines.
“If I could summarize the feedback so far I’d say: ‘Love it, well overdue’ combined with concerns that ‘We can’t just go cold turkey to a radically different model.’”
Trustee Rob Hutchins got to the heart of another aspect, asking what was coming in the way of funding for new resources and training.
Allen wasn’t optimistic, opining that the district might be on its own.
“That’s a big question. I think that the forest fires this summer didn’t help money being available. There isn’t an option to do nothing and we have to do it together: teachers, communities, parents.”
It’s a fundamental shift in structure, Allen said, pointing out it’s not a case of rolling out new textbooks.
“Fewer and fewer teachers are relying on a single textbook to support the content of their courses. Those days are done. Content is moving too fast. There are other types of resources. As there is more flexibility around content, the chances of a single book meeting the needs of every child are slim and none,” he said.
