Pūtātara: Incorporating Sustainability and Global Citizenship across the Curriculum
This webinar was hosted by NZAEE in March 2022. It features education consultant Sarah Hopkinson from Cognition Education, who wrote the content for the Pūtātara website, for the Ministry of Education. She is joined by Fergusson Intermediate teachers Sarah Griffiths and Robyn Stent who share how their school has used Pūtātara to provide the structure for their two-year local curriculum, using examples of student inquiry projects and actions.
Sarah Hopkinson talks through the process used to create this amazing online resource, including working with Professor Wally Penetito, alongside principals and teachers. She explores the overarching concepts of Tūrangawaewae, Kaitiakitanga and Whakapuāwai, and how these align with place-based, inquiry-led learning, with a focus on positive action. She ends with this reflective question for the audience:
"What are some of the urgent social and environmental issues of the community and land that surround your school?" - Sarah Hopkinson
Teachers Sarah and Robyn share their journey using Pūtātara, including the strengths of the resource and how it aligns with other focuses at Fergusson Intermediate, such as the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning framework, designing their local curriculum and being part of the Enviroschools programme.
"Pūtātara enabled all students to connect and follow an area of interest that they were passionate about, and made it really doable for teachers to integrate areas of the curriculum. We love that there is a strong focus on Te Ao Māori, and that there is a 'take action' component." - Robyn Stent
They share a range of rich and inspiring examples of student inquiry projects and actions, and explain how they used aspects of Pūtātara to support these. Sarah and Robyn have generously made their slides available (see link below), and these include examples of planning templates, along with photos and videos of students taking action.
"We no longer work within the confines of the school terms, but instead work through each of the three big ideas from Pūtātara: Tūrangawaewae, Kaitiakitanga and Whakapuāwai. It's an inquiry unit - it can go past the holidays and we can go into next term and continue it on, because that action could go on for the year." - Sarah Griffiths
Click here to access slides from Fergusson Intermediate
