Our vision for young individuals encompasses qualities that inspire growth, innovation, and cultural understanding. By participating in field trips, students embark on a journey of learning that extends beyond conventional classrooms. These excursions offer unique advantages:
Confidence and Identity: Field trips nurture self-assuredness by encouraging students to embrace their identities positively. Through interactive experiences, they develop the motivation, reliability, and resourcefulness needed to navigate diverse situations.
Entrepreneurial Spirit: These excursions cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, empowering students to seize opportunities in an ever-evolving landscape of knowledge and technology. By doing so, they contribute to a sustainable future for New Zealand.
Cultural Appreciation: Field trips contribute to the creation of an inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand where all cultures are valued. By fostering connections with Māori and Pākehā traditions, students gain a deeper appreciation for diverse contributions.
Value-Centric Development: During their school years, students continue to refine their values, knowledge, and competencies, equipping them for rich and fulfilling lives. Field trips actively engage them in experiences that align with these developmental goals.
Connectedness and Communication: Field trips instill effective communication skills, making students adept at relating to others. Their exposure to different environments connects them to the land, communities, and even the global stage as international citizens.
Engagement in Life: Through field trips, students become participants in various life contexts. They cultivate an active role in contributing to New Zealand’s well-being across social, cultural, economic, and environmental dimensions.
Lifelong Learning: Field trips foster literate and numerate abilities, nurturing critical and creative thinking. Students evolve into seekers, users, and creators of knowledge, honing their decision-making prowess.
New Zealand curriculum field trips unlock multifaceted benefits for students. They align seamlessly with our vision for young individuals who are confident, connected, actively engaged, and equipped for lifelong learning. These experiences transcend traditional classrooms, laying the foundation for holistic growth and meaningful contributions to society.
In the realm of curriculum design, fundamental principles guide decision-making at both national and local levels, anchoring educational endeavors. These principles, with students at their core, herald a curriculum that captivates and challenges learners, promoting inclusivity, forward-thinking, and the celebration of New Zealand’s distinct identity.
Distinguished by their roles, the principles and values function harmoniously. While principles inform curriculum structuring within schools, dictating planning, prioritization, and evaluation processes, values seamlessly infuse everyday learning experiences, fostering encouragement, emulation, and exploration.
The following eight statements should serve as the compass for all educational offerings:
High Expectations: The curriculum propels all students toward personal excellence, regardless of individual circumstances, nurturing empowerment and achievement.
Treaty of Waitangi: Rooted in the principles of the Treaty, the curriculum nurtures a bicultural foundation for New Zealand, ensuring that all students grasp the essence of te reo Māori and ōna tikanga.
Cultural Diversity: Embracing New Zealand’s multicultural tapestry, the curriculum honors the histories and traditions of all inhabitants, promoting unity amidst diversity.
Inclusion: The curriculum rejects sexism, racism, and discrimination, wholeheartedly acknowledging students’ multifaceted identities, languages, talents, and abilities, while catering to their diverse learning needs.
Learning to Learn: The curriculum encourages introspection, fostering in all students an understanding of their unique learning processes and equipping them with the skill of acquiring knowledge.
Community Engagement: With real-world relevance, the curriculum intertwines with students’ lives, enlisting the involvement of families, whānau, and communities, elevating its impact.
Coherence: Rooted in synergy, the curriculum provides a comprehensive education that bridges learning domains, ensuring fluid transitions and paving avenues for further exploration.
Future Focus: Forward-looking in essence, the curriculum spurs students to delve into critical future-oriented themes such as sustainability, citizenship, entrepreneurship, and global interconnectedness.
Such curriculum ideals manifest remarkably in field trips – educational expeditions that extend learning beyond classroom confines. These excursions amplify experiential learning, aligning with the principles while nurturing engaged, confident, and globally-conscious learners. By venturing beyond traditional boundaries, students gain a profound grasp of these principles, their real-world applications, and their role in shaping an informed, progressive society.
Values, intrinsic convictions of significance and desirability, find expression in both thoughts and actions, ultimately shaping decisions and interactions. Within educational realms, these values intricately weave into curriculum choices and school dynamics, influenced by individuals’ and institutions’ collective beliefs.
These cherished values, a catalyst for harmonious coexistence, reflect the essence of an enriched learning environment. They encompass:
Excellence: Fostering aspiration and resilience, encouraging students to aim high and surmount challenges.
Innovation, Inquiry, and Curiosity: Nurturing critical, creative, and reflective thinking, sparking innovation and fostering a thirst for knowledge.
Diversity: Celebrating cultural, linguistic, and heritage differences, enriching the fabric of learning with multifaceted perspectives.
Equity: Upholding fairness and social justice, cultivating an environment where all individuals have equal opportunities.
Community and Participation for the Common Good: Instilling a sense of citizenship, promoting active involvement, and nurturing the value of “manaakitanga” – caring for one another.
Ecological Sustainability: Cultivating responsibility for the environment, fostering stewardship and care for the planet.
Integrity: Encouraging honesty, accountability, and ethical conduct, ensuring a foundation of trust.
Students are also taught to respect themselves, others, and human rights. The dynamic interplay of these values in a school’s philosophy, structure, curriculum, classrooms, and relationships is a result of ongoing dialogues between the institution and its community. When these values are deeply ingrained, they seamlessly translate into everyday actions, creating a positive and nurturing educational ecosystem.
As part of their learning journey, students are exposed to a spectrum of values, including their own, those of their peers, diverse cultural, social, aesthetic, and economic values, and the foundational values of New Zealand’s cultural heritage. Through these experiences, they cultivate:
Expressive Abilities: Empowering students to articulate their beliefs effectively.
Empathetic Exploration: Encouraging students to understand and appreciate others’ values.
Critical Analysis: Equipping students to scrutinize values and ensuing actions, fostering discernment.
Conflict Resolution: Preparing students to manage disagreements stemming from diverse values, facilitating harmonious solutions.
Ethical Decision-making: Guiding students in making principled choices and translating them into actions.
These values aren’t isolated; they intertwine into clusters that encapsulate deeper meanings. For instance, “community and participation for the common good” resonates with ideals like peace, citizenship, and “manaakitanga” – a uniquely Maori concept of hospitality and respect.
As students venture on field trips beyond classroom confines, they breathe life into these values. These expeditions cultivate understanding, empathy, and real-world applications of the values, transforming learners into compassionate, empowered, and ethical contributors to a better society.
The New Zealand Curriculum introduces five key competencies that serve as cornerstones for living purposefully and learning continuously:
Thinking: Unleashes creative, critical, and metacognitive processes, allowing one to decipher information, experiences, and ideas. Intellectual curiosity drives this competency. Proficient thinkers actively seek, create, and utilize knowledge, questioning assumptions and drawing on personal insights.
Using Language, Symbols, and Texts: Involves decoding and weaving meaning from diverse forms of knowledge expression. Language and symbols become conduits for communication across written, oral, visual, and technological mediums. Competent users adeptly interpret and manipulate these forms, recognizing their influence on comprehension and response.
Managing Self: Anchored in self-motivation, this competency embraces an enterprising spirit and self-assuredness in learning capabilities. It fuels setting personal goals, planning, resourcefulness, resilience, and the ability to lead or follow as needed.
Relating to Others: Thrives in effective interactions across diverse contexts. Active listening, acknowledging differing perspectives, negotiation, and idea sharing are at its core. Skilled practitioners adapt to roles, understand the impact of their words, and navigate cooperation and competition judiciously.
Participating and Contributing: Centers on active engagement within various communities, be it family, school, or shared interests. Contributing meaningfully and responsibly as a group member, connecting with others, and creating opportunities within communities are integral aspects.
These competencies empower individuals to navigate life’s intricacies, integrating knowledge, attitudes, and values into action. They aren’t isolated skills; they meld with personal objectives, communal wisdom, cultural tools, and subject-specific knowledge. Successful learners merge these competencies harmoniously, recognizing the contexts in which they thrive.
The journey of competency development is both a goal and a means to achieve broader aspirations. As learners grow, the competencies evolve, sculpted by interactions with people, places, ideas, and experiences. Challenges and support catalyze their expansion, embracing intricate scenarios as they mature.
Thinking drives exploration, understanding, decision-making, and knowledge construction, fueling intellectual curiosity and reflection. Using Language, Symbols, and Texts nurtures a comprehensive grasp of communication forms, enabling confident navigation across various contexts. Managing Self cultivates agency, resilience, and resourcefulness in pursuing goals.
Relating to Others fosters adaptable, empathetic interactions, navigating varying viewpoints to shape innovative approaches. Participating and Contributing solidifies a sense of belonging, empowering individuals to balance roles and responsibilities within communities and enriching social, cultural, and physical environments.
Field trips transcend classrooms, infusing these competencies with life. Engaging with real-world scenarios and diverse environments deepens understanding, empathetic relationships, and critical thinking. Such experiences prepare learners for multifaceted, interconnected challenges, aligning seamlessly with the New Zealand Curriculum’s ethos of holistic, lifelong learning.
SNM work alongside teachers and students to know how best to achieve their outcomes. The eight NZ Curriculum learning areas can be enhanced by SNM Curricular field trips:
English: Beyond textbooks, students immerse in language and literature through oral, visual, and written means, fostering a holistic language experience that resonates in real-world contexts.
Arts: Field trips stimulate artistic exploration, refining skills while connecting imagination, senses, and emotions to create and appreciate diverse artworks.
Health and Physical Education: Field trips integrate health and movement learning, enabling students to comprehend personal and societal well-being beyond theoretical understanding.
Learning Languages: Written and verbal tasks in the outdoors. Students venture into language acquisition on a deeper level, communicating in additional languages and exploring diverse worldviews.
Mathematics and Statistics: Field trips translate mathematical concepts into practical understanding, unraveling relationships within quantities, space, and data in ways that align with the surrounding world.
Science: Activities accentuating places and the learning about them. Real-world engagement amplifies scientific exploration, allowing students to comprehend the physical world and the role of science in an informed and responsible manner.
Social Sciences: Exploring human history such as travel and colonization. Field trips foster hands-on exploration of societal dynamics, inspiring active participation and critical citizenship by contextualizing classroom theories.
Technology: Making stuff and applying primitive technologies. Through field trips, students grasp the essence of innovation, honing product development skills, and cultivating discernment as consumers poised to create impactful change.
These experiences bridge theory with reality, nurturing holistic understanding and critical thinking. By stepping outside the classroom, students align with the principles of the curriculum, embodying traits of confident, connected, involved, and lifelong learners.
