SOLO... ised with Pam Hook

Brett Sloan's capture of SOLO learning

When I first joined Westmount, I was told that the school was a SOLO school, meaning that everyone followed the ideal of the SOLO framework in all areas of the school. 

However, this may have been the intent but in fact there seemed to be a little inconsistency as to how it was being embedded across the year levels and within each of the learning areas and logistically from campus to campus. While the best of intent had originally been there it was time to bring us all back to the same point of shared understanding and then build from there. 

Pam Hook- Leading the Learning at SELT

On the 27th and 28th of June the SELT team including the campus principals and curriculum leaders met for a two-day extravaganza on SOLO with the inspirational and knowledgeable 'Pam Hook'. In my estimation she is pretty much a certified Guru of all things SOLO in a learning context. 

However, this is not a sales advert from me but a case study of learning through the eyes of one of our own. Anindidta Goswami - Curriculum lead for science at Westmount, New Zealand.

"It is not a new concept for Westmount but it takes it to a whole new level when the presenter is Pam Hook herself. It was one of the best PD sessions. We as a department have used quite a few SOLO strategies like using the various levels, hexagons etc. Our Science Fair rubric is also based on SOLO levels.

I have found it most useful in aligning the learning intentions and success criteria with the levels to demonstrate the depth of the learning. Especially for Year 9 and 10 it really does get students to see what is needed to reach the higher grades and make learning less superficial. 

When embedded in the structured tasks, it supports students in making connections and help them to reach multi-structural, relational and abstract levels. I have found that the students enjoy this way of learning and that it provides them with motivation as it actually does make the learning ‘visible’ – students can see what is needed to move on and improve."

The SELT teams collaborating on SOLO

As and when I get further updates from curriculum leaders I will update this blog accordingly.

All resources provided by Pam on our training day are available through the SOLO tile under staff@westmount on Moodle.

So where to from here? Next steps require the Heads of school and the curriculum leaders discussing the agreed vision moving forward. This will be followed by campus based inquiries into current practice and how we collectively can make SOLO our framework for learning from year 3 through to year 13.