NetNZ continues to mature as an organisation and this is reflected in a number of highlights in 2018
The full Statement of Service Performance can be accessed at the bottom of this page. This contains all useful data related to our services
Growth and Sustainability
- Modest bottom line financial surplus.
- Growing number of member schools
- Growth in the number of members and teachers in the mix enables depth and breadth in the curriculum NetNZ provides. Certainty in curriculum creates sustainable long term membership and possible external revenue streams.
- The 2018 Needs Analysis indicated significant member support for the continued development of NetNZ as an integral part of school curriculum options.
The National Conversations were key activities conducted by the Ministry and Government over 2018. This stalled our engagement with them on the future of online learning in NZ and bringing equity into the context. The legislation enabling CoOLs was repealed, but this did allow us an opportunity to make a submission reinforcing the importance of something to replace CoOLs. This was followed up with engagement with Ministry staff and a letter sent to Chris Hipkins in June - to which he replied and indicated that future regulation and funding would be informed by the broader strategic discussion taking place at the time.
More recently the leadership of the Virtual Network Community (including NetNZ) has had ongoing engagement with members of the Tomorrow School’s Review Working Group to ensure consideration of virtual learning across schools within any future reform
The ALLIS project and in particular the provision of a full Korean language pathway has raised awareness of NetNZ across NZ schools
Curriculum
71 courses with a further 19 accessed through a reciprocal arrangement with North Island eLearning clusters. This creates a broad curriculum for all member school students and ensures their needs and interests can be met.
Ministry funding for ALLIS has ended, but we have achieved our goal of making all three funded pathways, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and Korean sustainable. This is important and means that all learners within NetNZ schools have access to pathways that are often not provided locally. NetNZ is the only provider of a full Korean language pathway at a national level.
We continue to develop programmes in niche areas that many of our schools are not able to provide internally. These include Psychology (very popular), Computer Science and Programming, Drama, Art History, Philosophy, Senior Social Studies, and various languages.
We trialed Creative Forest a new project based, connected approach to learning in partnership with Paul and Renea at Creative Forest Limited. The trial included 50 students from across NetNZ schools and reinforced the huge potential of such a programme and platform. Creative Forest now exists as a stand-alone programme available for Year 7-10 students.
Development towards a more flexible, modular curriculum took place over the year. This began with the Learning and Teaching Reference Group and continued through to the Regional Huis in Dunedin and Kaiapoi. Implementation is planned for 2020.
Learning and Teaching
Our schools continue to develop their systems of onsite support for their NetNZ students. This is reflected in table retention rates - 84% in 2018
80% of achievement standards entered were achieved by students, while 57% were achieved at Merit or Excellence level. This is consistent with results in 2017.
Near the end of the year our joint (in partnership with the VLN Primary) to form a National Network of Expertise (NEX) for online teachers was accepted. This will provide targeted funding for at least two years and will serve as the PLD environment for NetNZ teachers.
We formed a Learning and Teaching Reference Group (of NetNZ teachers) to better inform future development. This group had a face to face day workshopping future directions, from which came the idea to move to a modular, flexible curriculum and the development of the first part of a Learning and Teaching Framework
The Learning and Teaching Framework will guide teacher, student, school, and organisational reflection and will be developed through a step process. The teacher aspect has been completed.
NetNZ teachers continued to develop a ‘connected’ approach to online learning that puts a community based approach front and centre. Most teachers have adopted google+ communities as a ‘hub’ for the course, with a few others using them in conjunction with Google Classroom. The key aspect is that the teaching explores ways students can share, discuss, and collaborate as a collective, rather than work in total isolation from each other.
We have been in ongoing collaboration with a Kura Project Team who have been developing a Kura Management System. We see this being adapted to suit our context and to provide something that goes beyond simple administration.
Google Hangouts remains as our tool of choice for video conferencing. The ease of access and flexibility of the environment ensures video conferencing remains a relevant and important part of our online courses. It also means access to courses is not restricted by ownership of expensive technology.
Teacher development was facilitated through continued engagement with our online staffroom, the provision of video conference workshops and meetings, one to one support from NetNZ staff and teachers and our huis in term four. The huis were a valuable chance for teachers to connect with each other and ensure they are actively involved in future developments.