Curriculum Constructor, Academy of School Management, Materials for the NUS Hub: Cluster 3 in 2022

Testing and improvement of the Curriculum Constructor, completion of piloting the course for newly appointed school principals within the framework of the Ari Pokka Academy of Effective School Management, the online marathon for developers of educational materials for children with SEN, a course for trainers «Academy of Effective School Management» – this is by no means a full list of what Cluster 3 of the Learning Together project, which focuses on development of a modern educational environment in NUS, managed to implement.

Read more about its results in this article.

Curriculum Constructor

This year the project in cooperation with the Institute of Education Content Modernization of the MoES improved the Curriculum Constructor – a new efficient online assistant for school principals and deputies, which helped educators say goodbye to piles of papers, lost files and other problems faced by teaching teams when developing curricula, education plans and study programs.

During the 2022-2023 academic year, 115 teaching teams created education plans in accordance with the new State Standard for Basic Secondary Education using the Constructor.

The Constructor is already available in our NUS hub together with a user guide and video explainers that we have developed for it.

Pilot course of the Ari Pokka Academy of Effective School Management

The Learning Together project in collaboration with the MoES, Institute of Education Content Modernization, Ukrainian Institute for Education Development and State Service of Education Quality launched a course for newly appointed school principals in December 2021 «Ari Pokka Academy of Effective School Management», which seeks to implement systemic changes in education at the management level.

The program of the Ari Pokka Academy of Effective School Management is based on research and modern standards of education management as well as the author’s model of building a successful school. The objective of the hands-on stepwise course is to help newly appointed school principals develop the skills they need in order to become efficient leaders.

In 2022, despite the war, the project continued the course with the objective of preparing school principals for the start of the new academic year according to the new State Standard and New Ukrainian School concepts. The course was attended by 30 newly appointed school principals, 6 mentors-experienced school principals and 10 experts in education quality management and educational management.

Based on the results of piloting and feedback from newly appointed school principals, a concept of a new In-service Training Framework Program for Newly Appointed School Principals was developed. The Framework Program was approved by the MoES on 16 September 2022.

In addition, the video content of the course of the Finnish expert Ari Pokka became the basis of the module «Top Class, Finnish School Leadership and Management» at the platform «National School of Leadership» from the IECM of the MoES.

Trainers of newly appointed NUS school principals

In December, we completed the online course for trainers «Academy of Effective School Management». Despite difficulties with Internet connection and communication due to massive attacks on Ukraine, the course was attended by more than 300 participants – representatives of regional In-service Teacher Training Institutions (ITTIs) and Centres of Professional Development (CPD).

The aim of the course is to help trainers of newly appointed school principals develop competencies which are necessary for training an efficient educational leader ready to work in the times of crisis changes.

One of the course trainers was Ari Pokka, the Learning Together project expert, educational designer of school curricula, President of the Finnish Association of School Principals and the International Confederation of School Principals.

Educational activities for teachers

At the end of the year, the project together with the Institute of Education Content Modernization of the MoES completed the online marathon «Universal Learning Materials for Distance and Blended Learning of Children with SEN» with almost 3,000 participants.

The online marathon will help identify new vectors for the development of universal materials, adapt and modify the content of academic subjects (integrated courses), textbooks and learning materials, in particular for children with special educational needs, which is provided for by the current legislation, and will contribute to providing quality education for all children, including children with special educational needs.

Materials for the NUS hub

The NUS hub has created a catalog of materials for NUS teachers and principals, which is constantly updated and replenished. In particular, we have published electronic versions of more than 100 textbooks for grade 5, based on which the new State Standard for Basic Secondary Education started to be implemented during the 2022/2023 academic year, methodological recommendations for teaching subjects and cross-subject courses, forms for project assessment, checklists for organizing various types of educational activities, materials of the Mentoring Course program and other courses for teaching and academic community.

Read about the results of other Clusters of our project at the following links:

• Cluster 1: teacher professional development;
• Cluster 2: education and the NUS reform promotion;
• Language Component: Ukrainian as the state language for national minorities.