Claire Amos

Apologies in advance. This appears to be my annual end of summer "what needs to be changed in schools" rant . All this "not blogging" over summer has resulted in pent up edu-righteousness that must be unloaded. So, what happens when you take 15 years of teaching and leading at four different fairly traditional, fairly engaging, high performing secondary schools, add three years of innovation incubation as part of the establishment Senior Leadership Team at Hobsonville Point Secondary School (HPSS) and throw in a bit of Most Likely to Succeed (documentary and book)? For me it's resulted in the creation of Blue Sky High. Check out the book here! Actually, to be honest, Blue Sky High has been with me for a while now. Some people have imaginary friends, not me, I'm all about the imaginary high school. Blue Sky High isn't a new school, because to me that's not where the potential necessarily lies. Blue Sky High is all of the schools I...

This term I have decided to set myself a new blogging project - highlighting the innovative, creative and best practice of others. Today's post looks at two of our 'small modules' which are modules made up of two learning areas, taught by two teachers over two 90 minute blocks on one day. The teachers see the students once a week. In these modules the learning areas of Maths (specifically Statistics) and Physical Education are integrated. Just Do It! Then Analyse with Jill and Sally

This term I have decided to set myself a new blogging project - highlighting the innovative, creative and best practice of others. Luckily, in working at HPSS I don't have to look far to find teachers shaking up the secondary curriculum in all kinds of ways.

So this is my attempt to capture some of the chaotic magic that was my first foray into team teaching and integrated teaching with the fabulous Danielle Myburgh . Game Over was what we refer to at HPSS as a small module. This is a module that runs for one term and integrates two learning areas under the umbrella of a term long concept.  The concept of Space and Place had guided the planning of all modules in Term Two across the school. Danielle and I worked to together to develop a module built around our learning areas of specialisation - my area English and Danielle's area of Science with a little Maths thrown in for good measure. Our aim was to develop a module that we thought might capture the interest of our particular clientele - Year 9s with an approximate 60/40 ration of boys to girls. We knew we had a whole lot of keen gamers and we loved Sci-Fi and the novel 'Enders Game', after a bit of thrashing about - Game Over was born.