In recent times teachers across NZ have been examining how schools and teaching and learning might need to adapt to ensure that students are being adequately prepared to take their place in the world after they leave school.

Here at Hagley for the last year and a half we have had a strong focus, through our professional development programme for teachers, on exploring how 21st century learning might be different from what has gone before. Research tells us that one of the most important differences is that, while it is still important to learn bodies of knowledge, it is even more important to learn the transferable skills which students will need to be able to contribute successfully to society. These are skills such as contributing; communicating; collaborating; critical, creative and metacognitive thinking; self-regulation and innovating or creating.

We invited a thought leader, Mary Anne Mills, a senior consultant at Core Education in Wellington, to come to talk to teachers about this and to lead our thinking as we look to design a future-focused curriculum. Mary Anne alerted us to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs study which predicts that 5 million jobs will be lost before 2020 as artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and other socio-economic factors replace the need for human workers. Mary Anne encouraged us to consider to what extent we are currently addressing the OECD’s seven principles of learning which include, among other principles, the social nature of learning, the part that emotions play in learning and the need to build horizontal connections in learning.

There is no thought that this will be a ‘quick fix’. We need to take time to ensure that we get it right for all of our students, now and in the foreseeable future.