One of our focuses in supporting students’ future pathways is in increasing the number of students opting into STEM subjects in our Senior school, particularly all the way through into Year 13 – and hopefully beyond! We have been looking at ways to identify students who need extra support to access these courses.

With our incoming Year 9 cohort we designed and sent out a survey to all parents seeking information about their children’s prior experiences with Maths and Science, looking for information about both the students and about the parents’ beliefs about the importance of STEM subjects. We found near universal agreement among our parents that STEM subjects will be important to their children’s futures but found a real mix of prior experiences. We found frequently that students had a strong preference for or against mathematics, but that many students had little, if any, explicit exposure to Science.

We have also dug into our student’s entry surveys, and data from e-asttle testing to gain more detailed information about student’s emotional background with mathematics. We have identified a key group of Year 9 students, including a group of Maori and Pasifika students who we are keenly interested in, where we have reason to be concerned about the likelihood of their continuing in maths learning beyond the required Level 1 NCEA. With collaboration between the teachers and tutors of those students, and programs built to try to engage their interest and allow them to build resiliency, we hope to support some of those students to a more successful future in maths learning.

Given the Science results from the Year 9 parent survey, it has been decided to engage the current Year 10 cohort in a similar survey to gain their perspectives and attitudes towards science, thos students now having a greater awareness and exposure to a specific science curriculum. The Year 10 class data will be analysed and from there a focus group of students hopefully identified who still appear to have limited engagement or negative feelings towards Science.

We have also begun to look deeper into data from previous cohorts to try to determine where students are leaving our Senior Science track. Using information about subject choices and credits achieved, we are looking at how to improve access and success in our Year 11 and 12 Science subjects to increase the number of students who are eligible to attempt Science in Year 13, and gain UE. The new Year 11, 2021 program is offering students an open pathway to select from both internal and external standards. At every decision point staff are having conversations about future pathways and how the academic choice influences further program options. Results at the end of the year will be compared against the current Year 13 cohort.