Specialist teachers in primary Technology
Schools: Ellerslie School and Robertson Road Primary School
Teachers: Karyn Thompson and Jeeva Padayachee
The role and prominence of Technology is often inconsistent within New Zealand primary schools, with some putting a strong emphasis on Technology within their overall curriculum and others barely touching on it.
Specialist Technology teachers at primary level are still rare and have unique challenges in bringing a rapidly changing subject area to younger students with varying levels of experience and support.
Karyn Thompson from Ellerslie School and Jeeva Padayachee from Robertson Road Primary are former classroom teachers who have successfully taken on the role of specialist Technology teacher. This Teaching Snapshot looks at the challenges and successes of Karyn and Jeeva working within two very different teaching environments.
Ellerslie School
Background
Ellerslie School is a decile 7 primary school in Auckland teaching new entrants to Year 8. In 2006 the school revamped their Technology facilities by converting 1.5 classrooms into a Technology block.
Karyn Thompson is a trained classroom teacher and chef who took on the role of specialist Technology teacher in 2008, taking the school's 90 Year 7 and 8 students for the whole year for three separate 1.5-hour classes every Friday.
Karyn's role also involves taking classes for younger levels, starting with new entrants for a few one-off sessions, Years 2-4 for eight weeks, and Years 5 and 6 for ten weeks of the year. Karyn currently works at the school three days a week.
Planning
As the Year 7 and 8s are Karyn's main focus, most of her planning goes into developing their units. Karyn explains that she tends to start thinking about potential projects during the holidays then has a week at the start of each term to "solidly work and get things sorted for the term ahead".
While Karyn has her own unit plans for projects throughout the year, flexibility is crucial to creating a well integrated environment. Karyn tries to have regular conversations with the team leaders through out school to keep up with what they are doing in the class and to discuss the larger school themes and classroom projects to see opportunities for adaptation.
"Because I see them for Technology throughout the year it becomes very difficult to put Technology into something they're doing sometimes, so I tend to see if there is something we can do then try and fit it in. And sometimes schedules change and things come up but we just figure it out," Karyn says.
For example, when one school team was doing a 'cruise around the pacific' theme, Karyn adapted a planned decoupage placemat unit so that the students would incorporate tropical scenes in their design.
"I always try to do it like that, but of course that has to go for the whole year so it depends on when I have the children and what they are doing in class."
Outcomes
The Year 7 and 8s at Ellerslie School work with a remarkable range of materials and Technology areas. One of the most successful areas has been in Food Technology, where Karyn has put her training as a chef to good use, teaching fundamental kitchen skills and nutritional knowledge in a programme that takes the students through healthy variations on each daily meal, from breakfasts through to dinner and finishing with a Christmas cake at the end of the year.
"Cooking is so important and it's a skill that's been sort of lost. So the school's focus has been on students really learning how to cook in healthy and economical ways, because some of them come from a background where healthy food doesn't have a priority and takeaways and fatty foods are an easy option."
The teams have also taken on other Technology areas, creating mosaic stepping stones for the school garden, custom clocks with individual designs made from MDF, and a Wearable Art project where the students made costumes for school productions, all of which put a strong emphasis on modelling, research and elementary skills with different materials and advanced tools.
For the younger levels, Karyn tries to work within the limits of time and student ability to ensure that students leave with completed projects. These have included Chinese lanterns, candle holders and sculpted bowls made from bandages, all of which encourage rudimentary skills with tools and materials, and familiarise students with some of the basic vocabulary within Technology.
"So the younger kids are getting a taste of Technology by doing these little units. I have even taken the new entrants and just bought them in for a one-off session where they get to design and ice a biscuit. So it's about getting them involved, getting them to know what the Technology room is about, and getting them ready for next year."
Challenges of role
Karyn explains that her training as a classroom teacher gave her invaluable skills as an educator but found the transition to Technology and an unfamiliar curriculum difficult.
"I came in with nothing so getting my head around that has been a huge task, but Paul Neveldson from Team Solutions has been a huge help with his workshops."
Karyn also finds that as a part-time teacher with her own designated school area she can feel isolated at times."I work predominately on my own as there is no one else who does Technology, so I have a free reign, but it can be a wee bit lonely at times. I do talk to teachers and ask if there is anything they would like me to cover but often there's very little time at the start of classes."
Support
When possible, communication with the staff –in person or by email –does provide valuable interaction however. Like many Technology teachers, Karyn has found the Technological Knowledge strand of the 2007 curriculum difficult to implement but found this could be targeted by working with senior team leaders to integrate with classroom activities such as a recent "fashion across the decades" unit where Karyn looked at the fashion while a senior team leader handled the historical and socio-cultural aspects.
Karyn has also received excellent help from outside the school.
"Communication with other teachers is really important as they can act as a sounding board. Also the cluster meetings with Team solutions and other teachers have really helped with ideas and things we can do, especially with the Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology strands," Karyn says. "We've also come up with really quick easy things for relievers to do because I find it really hard to find relievers after they find out it's Technology. So we are coming up with some little self-contained units that we can all share."
Benefits of role
While she sometimes misses being a classroom teacher and developing a strong relationship with one group of students, Karyn has also noticed a dramatic reduction in behavioural issues from her previous years in the classroom which she puts down to student ownership and enjoyment, something she feels is a huge asset of Technology.
"I've also found that by teaching several children from each class the skills first they then show their peers. This works extremely well as they are learning and teaching with the guidance from me. Even teaching the children how to wash and dry clothes has given them important life skills for the future."
Karyn feels that the opportunities the students have now would have been impossible before the new facility.
"The Technology room has huge benefits for the whole school wide programme as it was impossible to manage Technology in the classroom before it was built. The students are now being pushed with new skills and the use of power equipment like ovens, sewing machines, vacuum formers, scroll saws and drill presses that are often not available to children until intermediate."
Responses
Karyn has had enthusiastic responses to the work she has been doing, particularly the cooking component which has had an extremely positive crossover into the students' and their families' private lives.
"I've had parents thanking me for getting scrambled eggs in bed on Sunday. So students are really taking these skills home with them," Karyn says.
Robertson Road Primary School
Background
Robertson Road School is a decile one full primary school in Mangere, South Auckland with a role of 470 students.
Previously, Year 7 and 8 students at Robertson Road travelled to a nearby college to study Technology, but in 2009, the school began work on a designated Technology facility and created the role of Technology facilitator, which was taken up by classroom teacher Jeeva Padayachee.
With the help of Deputy Principal Sandie Naylor, Jeeva started creating a Technology programme for the school from the ground up, a difficult but rewarding task for the trained classroom teacher, who has had to struggle with limited resources and experience with Technology to get the schools programme to where it is now.
Technology is still a fairly new area for Robertson Road and Jeeva initially struggled to implement Technology in standard classrooms. Fortunately, the school now has a designated Technology facility for the use of Year 7 and 8 students, having their Technology lessons with Jeeva for one hour 45 minutes per week. While she doesn't teach the younger levels, part of Jeeva's role is to assist classroom teachers to integrate Technology into their own programmes.
Planning
Jeeva's first concern when taking on the role of Technology facilitator was planning both a school-wide curriculum and unit plans for year 7 and 8 classrooms.
"Initially the unit plans were a struggle for me as I was new to the curriculum area. However, with assistance from Paul Neveldson, Sandie and I were able to get a format that is workable for me."
In all of her planning, Jeeva works within the school's inquiry model which encompasses school-wide themes.
"I plan with the school's main focus in mind, and if that doesn't work then I introduce my own focus. This means each week I have a lesson plan for the class over and above the main unit plan."
Maintaining good lines of communication with classroom teachers is a crucial aspect of planning to maintain a consistency with the school themes as well as adapting to changing schedules and unforeseen events.
With her own classes, Jeeva always tries to remain two steps ahead in terms of practical skills in areas she is unfamiliar with.
Outcomes
In keeping with the school's current theme of 'Identity', Jeeva's students have created outcomes that reflect the diverse cultures within the school. This was most obvious in a unit where students had to represent aspects of their own cultural identity by creating family plaques carved from MDF with symbols unique to each child's background.
"One student's plaque represented their new life in New Zealand with a koru, but they had also lived in the Pacific islands previously and one parent was Hindu and the other Muslim so they pulled together symbols for all of those identities into the one plaque."
To give students expert advice for this unit, Jeeva contacted a Māori carver, who visited the school each week to teach the fundamental carving skills along with some of the cultural background associated with the art.
The student's interest in carving prompted Jeeva to organise a school trip to Te Wananga o Aotearoa, the Māori University based in Mangere.
"Jeeva took all the students up there," Sandie says. "They saw the Visual Arts Department, saw the carving, and talked to the carvers. It was also a very good careers motivation, as a lot of the students thought they would like to go to University in the future. So it showed them a possibility that they may never have thought about."
Integration with the other school subjects has also produced some interesting and positive outcomes.
"One of the classroom teachers integrated Social Sciences with Technology," says Jeeva, "and we worked together on the topic 'Māori discoveries'. Students made a Taonga as a gift – they researched its significance, choose a symbol giving reasons why they chose it, and explained whom they were giving it to."Jeeva explains. "So that linked with Social Science (how early Māori made their treasures), procedural writing (as they documented each step), and Maths (because they had to construct a box for the gift with the accurate dimensions)."
Other outcomes produced by Jeeva's students include energy bars and dehydrated fruit for a school hiking trip, and costumes for the school production using recycled plastics with a fusing technique, which earned the students a finalist placing in the Auckland City Council's "Trash 2 Fashion" event.
Challenges of role
As the Technology unit at Robertson Road is still developing, Jeeva has had a number of obstacles in her way in establishing the department.
"The biggest challenge at first was working in the small space with limited resources. We started off with just one scroll saw and now our resources for fabricating different material are steadily growing and easily accessible to students."
As the Technology facilitator for the whole school, Jeeva also has a responsibility to not only keep up-to-date with a dynamic and changing curriculum, but to pass on that knowledge.
"Working with the other syndicates to make the Technology link to the classroom programmes can be challenging. Attending workshops has helped me achieve a better understanding of the Technology curriculum and I am becoming confident with implementing the different strands in Technology"
Support received
Setting up a new department hasn't been easy, but Jeeva has found that with time and support from other Technology teachers, experts in the community and organisations such as Futureintech and Team solutions, her confidence has grown.
"The success of the programme is due to the fantastic support from the school, the caretaker, the cleaners, the librarian, the IT person, the entire management team and teachers who often come up with resources for my lessons."
Benefits of role
Having a dedicated Technology facility and specialist teacher has had wide-reaching advantages for the entire school programme that would have been impossible with the previous arrangement.
"When the students had their Technology lesson at a nearby college, the curriculum delivered was not usually aligned with our school programme. Now I can work closely with the classroom teachers to design an inquiry-based programme," Jeeva says.
With greater control of the Technology environment, students also have a chance to experience more of what the subject has to offer.
"They are now trying to solve authentic challenges – looking at problems or issues and how they can respond as Technology students. Students are also given opportunities to liaise with experts to help achieve a deeper understanding of the subject. For instance, a group of students worked collaboratively with an engineer, Matt Lee from Fisher and Paykel, to design a litter picking tool that could be used at school."
By pushing the limits of her students' skills using a variety of tools and techniques available in the new facility, Jeeva has also seen a notable increase in student confidence and ownership.
Jeeva also feels that changing from classroom teacher to Technology facilitator has had advantages to her personally and professionally.
"At this stage of my career I wanted something more challenging, so heading the Technology programme is providing me with those challenges which I thrive on."
Responses
The new Technology facility has had widespread approval from students, parents, and the wider community. This includes local experts who are often keen to support student learning by volunteering to share their expertise in various fields. This interaction with experts from the community has established a positive relationship which is vital for enhancing student achievement and confidence.
Summary
While both Karyn and Jeeva have had their own difficulties establishing their Technology curriculums within the primary environment, they are both positive about the direction and progress that has been taken in this area and the benefits of specialist Technology teaching to the students, their overall learning environment, other teachers, and the school.
The Principal of Robertson Road, John Nicholls, believes that an increased presence of Technology in the primary environment is extremely beneficial.
"To focus on the Year 7and 8 level of school has been a component of New Zealand education for half a century, as there is a recognition of the developmental path that a person goes through, and this age group particularly are at a point of developing independence and exploring new horizons. If we seek to have our students develop the attitude of life-long learning and to be reflective learners in all aspects of their lives, having a specialist Technology Teacher is a critical aspect of helping our students be future focused and to develop skills, competencies and interests beyond the core curriculum areas."
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