2019 is upon us, and the world is facing unprecedented social, economic and environmental challenges driven by exponential technological growth, which is transforming the type of work people do.
Technological developments are providing us with myriad opportunities for human advancement. We cannot predict what the future will bring, yet we need to be open and ready for it. The children that entered education in 2018 will be young adults in 2030. According to the Deloitte and the Global Business Coalition for Education, many of today’s 1.8 billion youth worldwide could be left behind it terms of technological advances.
As educators, this means we need to prepare our students for jobs not yet created, for technologies not yet invented, and to solve problems that have not yet been anticipated. It will be a shared responsibility to seize opportunities and find solutions.
To navigate through such uncertainty, students need to develop curiosity, imagination, resilience and self-regulation; they will need to respect and appreciate the ideas, perspectives and values of others and they will need to cope with failure and rejection, and to move forward in the face of adversity.
According to the OECE learning Framework 2030, the Future of Education and Skills, knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are seen as interconnected and interacting to produce competencies (or capabilities) in action. The report, Preparing tomorrow’s Workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. For business: A framework for Action, calls on the business community to take a more proactive role in preparing today’s youth to ensure they are ready to become the workforce of tomorrow.
We are STEAMing ahead at Westlake Girls, promoting these partnerships through our community projects and our Innovation Expo which was held on 30 November. As part of the STEAM programme at WGHS, students were challenged to use Design Thinking to identify an issue within their community and develop a solution. Encouraging student agency and community engagement, the STEAM projects promoted effective teamwork, leadership, problem-solving and innovation. STEAM students displayed their innovative prototype solutions and five groups were then selected to face a Dragons' Den.
We had some amazing industry female role models as our judges including Victoria Mahan (Director of HP NZ), Vanessa Sorenson (Enterprise Director at Microsoft) and Megan Darby (Founder and CEO of ESTEAM Builder). GirlBoss CEO, Alexia Hilbertidou, ran a coaching session with our students to show them how to set up their display area, engage with the audience and deliver an effective Dragons' Den pitch. Shaun Gear, Principal Adviser Secondary Tertiary Employment Pathways with the Ministry of Education, also visited for the Expo.
By Suzana Tomaz
TIC STEAM Programme (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Maths)
Aneka captains team to history-making bronze
The Young Football Ferns made headlines last year with their historic bronze medal win at the Fifa Under-17 Women's World Cup in Uruguay.
Captain of the team was Westlake's very own Aneka Mittendorff. Aneka is a Year 13 student this year who won a Blues Award for her contribution to football at Westlake in 2018. She was also a finalist for the College Sport Auckland Young Sportsperson of the Year Award.
This talented footballer was part of our 1st XI Football team which finished third in the Auckland Secondary Schools Girls Premier Knockout Cup competition, and won the Trevor Osten Memorial Cup for coming first nationally in the Second Grade.
Aneka started playing soccer when she was five years old – because her brothers played. “So I decided to join the bandwagon and just have a go,” she says. “I kept playing for about 10 years at Hibiscus Coast and then decided I should move to develop as a player, so I went to Forrest Hill Milford.”
The talented centre-back was first asked to join the U17 team but at the age of 14 started playing in the Women’s Reserves Team instead. “Halfway through the season I was asked by the Premier Team’s coach to play for them,” she says. “I played in the knock-out Women’s League Cup Final for the Prems and we won the NZ Premier Women’s Cup for our club.”
It was while she was in Samoa as part of the U17 team vying for qualification to the World Cup, that she first had the opportunity to captain two games.
As captain of the Young Football Ferns, Aneka led the team to a bronze medal after beating Canada 2-1 in the third-place playoff. Earlier the team beat Finland 1-0, with Aneka earning match honours. This was followed by a 2-1 win over hosts Uruguay, 2-0 loss to Ghana, 1-1 draw with Japan (won 4-3 on penalties), and 0-2 loss to Spain.
Speaking of the experience of captaining the team to the bronze win, Aneka says: “It was surreal really and I could not be more proud of us. The team’s mentality throughout the campaign was ‘dare to dream’ and that’s exactly what we did. I definitely think one of the top highlights of the experience was when we beat Japan on penalties because we had made it into the final stages of the World Cup; the feeling was indescribable.”
Credited with not only exceptional talent on the field, but also strong leadership qualities, Aneka Mittendorff is a player with big potential. Her dream at this stage is to make it to the next U20s World Cup in 2020.
Days of Wonder wows students
We wrapped up 2018 with our first-ever Days of Wonder – three days of activities designed to build interpersonal relationships, engage with the community, enhance student well-being self-efficacy, pursue excellence, break gender boundaries and empower future leaders!
All Year 9 students were involved and chose from myriad activities with titles such as Dance Around the World, Being Me, Outdoor Education Adventure, Social Enterprise, Rotorua Wonderland, Manga Magic, Harry Potter Extravaganza, Meet the Romans, Art Inspired Poetry and Wind, Water Light.
Student feedback indicated Days of Wonder was a huge success and plans are already underway for 2019.
Litter Bug and Plastic Jellies delight and inform
One of the Dragons’ Den winning projects was presented by a pair of Year 10 students, Lily Winchester and Tara Vaughan. The issue needed to be one that was meaningful to them and they were then tasked with creating a prototype to minimise or fix it.
The pair decided to write and illustrate books for children in their first few years at primary school. The books explore issues from our local area - the North Shore - and have augmented reality embedded in them which enhances the reader’s interaction with the story. One of the books – Litter Bug – is about worm farm and composting, and the other – Plastic Jellies – is about the effect of plastic bags in our oceans.
Late last year Tara and Lily visited a Year 1 class at Takapuna Primary School (part of our the Pupuke Kāhui Ako Community of Learning to share their picture books).
