Outcome Based Education / WA vs the rest vs VIC?

[hDt]

so what is the situation/status of Outcome Based Education in Aus? we're in melbourne, and the council kindergarten was fully outcomebased, even though they won't admit it - no skills per se are taught, but kids are largely left to educate themselves, and teachers are really just facilitators "setting the program" and argument breaker-uppers.

it irks me a bit, so I'm just doing some reading on the subject. if that's the agenda for kindergartens then I guess it's the same at schools too? is WA different from the rest in this matter, as I read parents forming lobby groups to remove OBE.

[Sunnyskies]

I did some googling as we have never had OBE mentioned to us. The articles in relation to OBE and Victoria all were 2007 or earlier - but I couldn't find anything to say it was scrapped.

I must admit that some of the techniques used on my son's class when we initially arrived were a bit weird, but after mass parent protest (mainly about the fact that the parents were doing all the teaching and the school was daycare) the school seems to have gotten with the program. So in sum, 2 weird years and 2 non-weird years. My son is now a private school and it is very definitely not OBE.

My daughter is in the same primary school as my son was and it is very different to how it was when he was in the same grades.

I'm going to ask some of my Aussie friends as I think it was scrapped.

[Sibella]

Definitely not the case for schools, my daughter completed Prep last year and although it is still 'play based' there is a lot more teaching and learning going on.

I used to go and assist in class and normally there would be a few groups - one would be individual reading to an adult (usually me) and two to three other activities in small groups. This could be word bingo games, doing Reading Eggs on the computers, writing a story, testing of sight words with the teacher, etc.

By the end of Prep they are expected to know all their letter sounds and names and to read a bit - depending on ability. In my daughters class some were reading chapter books already while some were still on basic starter books - but that is due to individual development.

They were also expected to be able to write a short story / something they experienced, for example they had to write about their outing to the farm or footy day.

They way they learnt was still fun but more structured with a definite focus. Other things they did throughout the year was:

Create a Mandala poem about the family / groups they belong to.

Measure the area of their own feet.

Create a word document including adding a picture and some typing.

Create a bar chart about the popularity of certain fairy tales after doing a survey on their fellow class mates!

Planting herbs and documenting the changes.

Create a stop motion animation using their drawings, self made puppets and the ipad and working in a team (I know right!)

So not to worry - if your child goes to a good public school there will be a lot of learning going on! But I don't really have experience with OBE so maybe what I'm describing is OBE?

[Erik]

Where do you think RSA got the idea for OBE from?

[Sibella]

Oh and yes I also found the same thing with kindy here - lots of play and not a lot of learning. Personally I didn't mind as my daughter went to school when she was four in the UK so she went back to kindy and had lots of fun!

But school is very different from kindy. Also they get homework - a reading book every day and sight words to learn.

[Asker]

Our SA perception of OBE is not necessarily right, i think that OBE has a lot of merit if implemented correctly.

[AndreaL]

I think that kindergarten learning is based on the Early Years Learning Framework, which promotes belonging, being and becoming. It is mostly play based, which is a good thing as I doubt most 4 year olds would have the attention span to sit in a typical classroom framework. They do learn, but the emphasis is on play, imagination, cooperation, building social skills etc. It is supposed to promote a love of learning.

Once at prep they do start with home readers, sight words, homework etc, but there is still a fun/play element within the day.

I notice that the kids seem to do lots of projects and the range of skills of the child is considered, i.e children with learning development issues may be asked to design a poster of a volcano, other children will create a structural model of a volcano and others will do a written, research based project on volcanoes.

I have always helped with reading at my childrens school and the range in ability is astounding, some kids are reading at level 1 whilst others in the same class are at level 28 or chapter books, so I really feel that the old fashioned rote or parrot learning as I call it, is not very effective. Yes children can mimic and regurgitate certain facts, but what have they learned?

I think there are gaps in the education system here and that teachers have added responsibility in educating a class of children with varied learning ability and have to adjust the content of every lesson to match each childs ability.

My son is now in year 3 and the pressure seems to have upped slightly compared to his earlier years. I also notice that again the range in reading ability is huge and unfortunately those children who struggle with reading in year 3 will most likely continue to struggle through the following years.

[Gizmo]

It was scrapped in WA (Perth) a few years ago.