COL thoughts for next year 2023

What achievement challenge am I considering as an area of focus in 2023 and why? Include in my WHY both evidence and my own passion/expertise

Achievement Challenge 1: 

1. Raise Māori student achievement through the development of cultural visibility and responsive practices across the pathway as measured against National Standards and agreed targets for reading Years 1-10 and NCEA years 11-13.

Since the start of term 3, I have been helping to lead Staff PLD at our school and one our key focuses has been on our supporting staff to unpack, understand and implement teaching and learning strategies related to our school goals..

And our first school goal is around raising Maori achievement and cultural visibility and I’ve become really CHALLENGED in a good way,  in how to better support our teachers which will filter down to our students because of the opportunities that we have now with refresh and new curriculum allows us to learn build our local curriculum and knowing and hearing mana whenua voices.  

The biggest student body in terms of ethnicity at T.C are our Maori students 32%, then our Tongans at 28%, then Samoan at 12% etc.  As an advocate for Pasifika education and our initiative running at our school, we have building the foundations for strong teacher capabilities in supporting our Pasifika learners.  I’m not too worried for now about them. 

It’s our Maori learners and slowly we are seeing a shift in cultural visibility around our school and this is gaining momentum.  

How does this understanding relate to me and my teaching?

As part of our inquiry this year, we had to identify any biases that we held and it was clear that my expectations of my Māori students was sadly different to my Pasifika students and want to challenge and change my mindset on expectations of my Māori students.  I had to get educated.

To do this, I needed to learn about how to approach Mana whenua, how to humble myself and work alongside staff who are the experts to run PLD, I need to understand the importance of our local curriculum and Mana Whenua and what it means to be Māori at Tamaki.  As a Pasifika teacher, I was hesitant cause I thought it’s not my place but I stepped out of my comfort and got know Matua and ask the tough questions.  Then support him to come to the forefront.  It’s a slow process.

Here are two examples of evidence where I see the need to support my kids in the classroom:

Cultural Responsiveness aspect:.  

I want to take on the challenge of supporting our Maori kids specifically as they struggle to tell me where they belong.  This year in my year 9 class, I have 7 students who identified as Maori and at the start of the year, I made them all do their pepeha.  Some were confident but most did not want to say theres.  When I asked them why, the ones who were confident did well and were well supported at home, the ones who weren’t confident were often our kids who shared more than one culture.  I wrote a unit on belonging and starting where their feet are to try and draw them in and I could see interest and some motivation.  Engaging them in reading and writing was still a struggle.

Problem of student learning that I am thinking about it reading:  

A lot of reading current events about our local area and newspaper articles important but rushed.  When I provide them with an article, they won’t read it or read it properly and when we deep dive into the article, I see that they are struggling with understanding things like inferencing and seeing the deeper meaning of the story.  A barrier that I know is in the way is whether kids care about they are reading and can see themselves in it.  And also how kids can be empathetic and think about perspectives.

And then I want to lead to kids being critical thinkers.  Our refresh will help with that, it’s not the literacy aspect.   

A key is also perspective taking is a key capability which I will talk more about later.

2022 Bursts and Bubbles Presentation

This week our COL teachers presented at our annual Burst and Bubbles event where we shared a snapshot and summary of our inquiries. 

Here is my speech (note: my students are still completing part of their project and will update my blog and reflections when it is done).

At the start of the year, the aspect of student learning my inquiry was focused on was how do I get my year 9 kids to engage and care about their local community so they would feel like they belonged and would want to look after it. 

I identified this as my focus when I noticed that kids didn’t know much about this place, the place where their feet stood on nor why it was important or who it was important to.  For example when I asked them what places were important to them they said school, church and Pak n Save.  When it came to writing about these places, the tasks my boys were supposed to complete was usually rushed or messy and they would say that they didn’t really think it was important to focus on. 

My boys told me they preferred pictures and images and wanted to verbalise their learning around these sources but when it came to writing they didn’t want to do it or started but didn’t finish.

So I decided to pause and pivot from the unit I was teaching and redesign a new one based on the concepts of identity and belonging.  I aimed to have more visuals and images and less of the other stuff.  I tried to link it more explicitly to places around our school in prep for our local curriculum Hikoi that we went on with Matua Harley.  On the trip the boys were so engaged and respectful it was a game changer.  My next challenge was to figure out how do I take that learning experience and support it from within inside the classroom.

I worked alongside Matua Harley in the classroom space which reinforced the learning and it worked for a time.  Kids were engaged and talking about their experiences and felt connected because they saw who it was important to, they could hear and take on Matua’s perspective and cared.  He was authentic and real for them.

One of the key pieces of literature that I drew on that helped me understand and make changes to my inquiry was Rose Hipkins report on weaving a coherent curriculum and how the capability of perspective taking is a key component to help our young people become actively engaged members of society’.  That coupled with the new histories curriculum and it’s resources helped guide my inquiry better.

Another turning point came from an opportunity to meet with a local artist in our area Gary Silipa who really wanted to connect with our kids.  He took us on a walking art tour of G.I where kids got to learn about the art pieces and the stories of how they got there.   From this trip kids got to say what they saw and what they didn’t see.  They didn’t see enough Maori or Pasifika art pieces or ones that they could relate to.  Through lots of discussion and planning Gary has agreed to help our kids design a huge visual piece outside our school cafe that will show what’s important to them with a planned future assignment out in G.I.  In class now, kids are focused on something real that they see themselves in.  

Student feedback has been mostly positive but now the expectation is that we need at least one or two trips for every unit and we need experts to take us.  

The most important learning that I’ve made about my inquiry is that authentic connections makes perspective-taking real and essentially helps our kids to care about what matters.  The most important learning I made about inquiry was that it’s ok to take opportunities as they come and that the profile of student learning that I thought was important at the start can and will change and that’s a good ok.

Faafetai lava and Go Toa Samoa!