St Margaret's College
St Margaret's College's Beacon Practice work aimed to build on the existing strengths within their Year 9-13 technology programme - textile and fashion design and construction. Project co-ordinator Claire Woods, HoD Technology, worked with three other staff, all experienced technology educators with a range of attributes. "Although the teachers at St Margaret's College were already demonstrating good practice there was an expectation that we could all do what we were doing better. This is what the Beacon Practice project enabled us to do," says Claire.
In 2005 the focus was to develop a strategic plan for Technogy Education from Years 7 to 13. Teamwork and mentoring were two areas of development, featured in Case Study BP606 Teaching as a Team and Case Study BP607 Peer Mentoring. Regular weekly Beacon Practice meetings were formally timetabled in to the school day, with a focus on quality teaching and learning and the visionary department planning.
In 2006 the initiative was widened to include Years 1 to 6, with the aim of developing a seamless technology education programme from Years 1 to 13. Several key pieces of information influenced the strategic plan development: the school's vision, the essence statement, key competencies and senior qualifications (NCEA and International Baccalaureate).The Primary school coordinator (Nicky Dunlop) and the Year 4 classroom teacher (Deborah Lean) joined the four Beacon teachers to develop a school-wide strategic plan for Technology Education. Claire worked with teachers from the primary, middle and secondary schools to achieve this goal. The Principal (Claudia Wysocki), along with the entire school, were very supportive of the project. "The whole school was enthusiastic about it with the students themselves very much on board," said Claire.
At the school, two specialist teachers teach Year 11 and 12 Technology courses, each covering parts of the course. This has proved to be extremely successful. In the first third of the Year 11 course, students do a fashion design unit with Claire Wood, designing a garment for an occasion which they identify themselves. This unit covers basic aspects of the fashion design industry including techniques such as patternmaking, embellishments, industrial garment construction techniques and fashion sketching. Part way through term two the class begin an ICT unit using Illustrator, and then move on to a unit with the theme of 'Shelter', which, in the past, has produced projects ranging from a wind/waterproof vest to a horse cover.
A feature of both the Year 11 and 12 courses is that the teachers structure time to discuss the student evidence, and also the next learning steps required in the following unit of work. Achievement standards are used for the assessment of all units. Formative assessment comments are formally recorded in a book after conferencing with the students. These comments provide a reference for the teacher and students on the advice given to students in order to give them feedback and feed forward information.
In Year 12, the two specialist teachers cover a variety of units, which have included the design of garments for the streetwear market and bag design for an identified market.
Techlink case studies:
Classroom Practice: BP606 Team Teaching | BP607 Peer Mentoring | BP637 Market Day
Student Showcase: Toilet bag | Middle School Prize Giving Movie | Toilet bag