Recently Hagley held an Innovations Evening to share information with new entrant Year 9 students and their parents about two exciting new collaborative programmes for 2018’s Year 9 students. The evening was well attended by approximately 180 students and parents.

In outlining the main rationale for bringing the aspect of collaboration and blended learning to the programmes, Deputy Principal (Student Learning), Marie Stribling, discussed the need for 21st century learning to mirror what happens in real life. Life simply doesn’t happen in subject silos!

Art teacher, Brenda Nightingale, and Hard Materials Technology teacher, Colin Powick, shared an outline of the programme they had worked on together called “Light it Up”. Brenda and Colin showed how students would learn about key aspects of Art such as light and colour, which could then be applied in a Technology context through students collaborating on projects to make or craft objects using hard or soft materials. Colin showed how he would help students develop their technology skills also to “light up” their projects. Colin and Brenda also shared some models that they had created which could help inspire students with their own projects. All Year 9 students will have the opportunity to complete this programme as part of the modules rotation.

Te Reo Māori teacher, Regan Stokes, and English teacher, Jasmine Lambert, also shared their exciting new collaboratively developed programme, Ngā Miro e Toru. This programme, which is deeply rooted in the land and culture of Aotearoa, will provide an integrated learning experience for ākonga. The programme’s title translates literally as “the three threads” and this refers to the idea that the course has three threads: English, Te Reo Māori and the integration of these two languages. 2018 new entrant Year 9 students have been given the opportunity to opt into Ngā Miro e Toru, and 25 students have chosen to be a part of this ground breaking innovative programme.