Kids Congress 2010

I had the pleasure of spending two days with 300 stunning children and 30 dedicated teachers at Kids Congress 2010.

Kids Congress is a conference for kids by kids! That's right kids organise the conference. They

• Market the conference
• Find and book the venue
• Build the website
• Organise catering
• Mange the $30 000 budget down to the last cent
• Organise bookings
• Manage the media
• Liaise with schools, presenters, management, fellow students

They were an amazing success. See their report and read for yourself.

What I have no doubt about is that this event (The brain child of Mike Anderson and Faye LeCren) does so much to develop the key competencies of our children. It is the reason for reading, writing and maths.

Know this - a narrow focus on National Standards will not enhance the outcomes for our children.

Amazing authentic learning opportunities like Kids Congress will. They need reasons to write (letters, invites, websites, invoices) do maths (managing a $30 000 budget) and read (for meaning for clarification and for sorting, organising and placing students in their breakouts) rather than tests and standards!

Go Kids Congress- thanks Kids, thanks presenters and thanks Mike and Faye!

Creativity

I encourage you to watch this short clip as you ponder the future for our children. As we come to grips with National Standards.

I believe that the New Zealand Curriculum is in the spirit of this talk.

Key Competencies

So what is the difference between the old and new curriculum?

The new curriculum acknowledges that the "3 r's" are not enough to prepare our children for the future let alone sustain them in an every changing world.

The learning areas or mathematics, literacy, the arts, Health and PE, science, technology, social sciences are still essential- the key point of difference is that they assist in the development of the key competencies- Thinking, Relating to others, Using language symbols and texts, Managing Self, Participating and contributing.

Notice Using language symbols and texts (the 3 r's), is one of the competencies, it is not the end in itself.

So what?

So our education system has a mandate to move beyond numeracy and literacy and to create community based curriculum's that develop the key competencies- exciting times!

Our (Windsor) curriculum is a response to this innovative change.

I hope to have it online for you soon.

Neill