Background ...
Mt Roskill Grammar School is a multi-cultural decile 4 school in Auckland with approximately 2, 300 students. All Year 9 students take one Technology subject each term (Materials, Graphics, ICT and Food), which they can then select as options in Years 10-13 (Although the Food department concentrates on Food and Hospitality in the senior school, instead of Technology).
Although the school features highly in academic rankings in New Zealand, English is not a first language for 70% of the students, and for some is not even a second language, so English literacy is often quite limited. Many of these students come from more conservative backgrounds where boys are directed into Technology and girls into catering/hospitality courses, so few girls take Technology after Year 9.
In previous years, the Technology department had run alternative workshop courses for students unable to cope with the more academic course, which also catered for students who were poor performers and those with very limited English. These courses tended to focus on woodwork and students made small items such as boxes and mirrors. As it was mostly boys who were steered into the Alternative programme, the projects were designed to appeal to them.
These students didn't usually question the value of the skills they were being taught, and were likely to be discouraged from doing so. They had limited opportunity to gain NCEA credits, and the skills credits they did attain tended to be focussed on achieving perfection, rather than valuing testing and 'trying a different way'.
HOD Technology Michele Heywood was concerned that these students were missing out on the technological literacy that they would need to function at their most effective level in society, and were instead being taught skills for the workplace which involved them in working on repetitive projects. She points out that technological literacy within the New Zealand curriculum is intended for all students to access regardless of background or previous learning.
Michele believed that these students were capable of doing Technology and decided it was "time to step up and prove this" in term 1 2007. The Year 11 Multi-materials class was particularly big that year and some students were already struggling by Week 2, so she started planning an alternative course to cater for their needs.
Michele Heywood: "If, when their literacy skills are quite limited, we can give students some Technology skills and build up enough credits to get them to the next level, we can benefit their chances of future employment. Many of our students stay in this area working in manual jobs where employers tell us they want skills or thinkers - if we can give them thinkers with skills then hopefully we'll give them what they need and make the students a little bit more employable".
