Claire Amos

HPSS has prioritised project learning from day one. Inspired by the likes of The Met School, High Tech High and Albany Senior High School we decided very early on that projects would be an important part of our curriculum design and to that end Learning Projects became one third of the HPSS curriculum story. HPSS Curriculum Learning Projects evolved over the last five years (first led by Sarah Wakeford and more recently overseen by Liz, Jayne, Rebecca and Cairan) to become a differentiated range of offerings including Big Projects (more teacher led projects aimed at Years 9-10), Impact Projects (more student led projects based on the ASHS model) and Pathways Projects (aimed at Years 12-13 with a focus on pathways beyond schools such as gateway, work experience and tertiary studies). Whilst the focus may change there is a common learning design model and framework that underpins them all, with students going through a kick off phase, planning, action, review and finally showt...

These recent months have seen a number of groups start putting their stake in the ground around the NCEA Review. It has been interesting seeing people reveal their cards, and often exposing some odd assumptions about what is actually being reviewed and who is shaping the review within the Labour/Green/NZ First camp. For the sake of "joining the conversation" I thought I might share some my personal thoughts about the NCEA Review and it's proposed "Big Opportunities". Note - the parts in italics are taken from this document:  Download the Big Opportunities discussion document  which can be found here .  For what it's worth I actually think NCEA is pretty cool as it is. I like it's flexibility and that it already let's "you do you". If anything I think it is our mindsets that needs to be reviewed first before we get to the actual framework. Here is my pondering about that perspective:  NCEA - we need to review our mindset first But t...

Larry Rosenstock speaking at Future Schools I have enjoyed stalking Larry Rosenstock for some time now. I first came across him when I heard about High Tech High a couple of years back and then last year I was lucky enough to sit on a panel with him at EduTech. He was also one of the central players in the recent documentary 'Most Likely to Succeed'. So many reasons to be a ardent fan girl. Larry began his talk by giving a background and insight into the path that led to High Tech High - a K12 charter school, now a chain of charter schools. He then talked about the first teachers and schools, such as the basket weaver who taught others to weave baskets. He also talked of the great teachers he had and talked about the importance of thanking the teachers we loved and acknowledged the importance of the passion that they shared. He talked about the importance of the Socratic Method - a technique that we see used at the beginning of Most Likely to Succeed. Rosenstock wor...

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...

Hobsonville Point Secondary School is a new Modern Learning Environment that opened in Hobsonville Point (North East Auckland) in 2014. As a new school we have a unique set of issues and opportunities presented by the specific context in which we exist - a new community, new building design and a new curriculum design. Creating a school from the ground up has meant operating in a space where we are producing the research rather than following, ensuring we avoid settling for modern learning environment “smokescreens” (such as the spaces and technology), creating a flexible structure that will continue to evolve as we move forward, navigating our way through a truly distributed leadership model, and ensuring we set up a model of innovation that can withstand staff turnover. Hobsonville Point Secondary School is a new Modern Learning Environment School that opened in 2014. We are situated within the new development of Hobsonville Point (on the former Air Force base). We are a st...