T.C Staff PLD #2: Presenting Pasifika student voice to support the Tapasā

As part of our Langa Ako initiative, our Pasifika initative were given the opportunity to run a PLD session with our staff during one of the newly acquired staff PLD Mondays. 

Link to PLD

Last year, we surveyed 100+ Pasifika students from across the school.  Here are the stats of who they were:

We asked them a few questions, the first one being ‘What does success look like as a Tamaki student?’.  The biggest indicator was NCEA and achieving success at 45% and over 70% believing it was academic success.

The next question was ‘What does success look like as Pasifika student’ and the results showed the opposite, that students believed that being successful related to culture values and identity.

The question was put to staff.  How can we use what we know to support successful outcomes for our Pasifika kids?

Staff discussed in their groups how they felt about the data and what it meant to them and were shared this ppt to contribute their answers.

Reflection:  

We touched on barriers to learning but ran out of time to go further into the information.  Regardless of this, I felt positive that we could share our survey results and learnings with our staff as it is relevant to us and our journey.   We also launched our website which was a good way to share our story with those who are new. Our aim is to equip all teachers of Pasifika learners with the tools and strategies to support our learners.  

I just wanted a photo on the podium (I prefer to be behind the scenes!)

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #3: Connecting learning to context.

After our initial introduction to concepts, it was time to apply those concepts to real life learning.  The migration model is a simple visual that connects all of the concepts that we have learnt together.  I explain the model and physically move like I am being pushed and pulled in different directions. Then we apply the model to a real life story.

Learn…about the context.

We discussed the need for migrants who came to New Zealand to work and I shared my parents migration story as a narrative.  I told the story verbally and students had to identify all the concepts using a blank migration model template.  This forced them to listen and essentially push their brains to work.

Create…a migration model for Ms Apelu’s migration story.

Share…their own migration stories

Students read one or two more stories using the model. Students were then encouraged to identify someone that they know, either family or friends, who have their own migration story.  This was done for homework.

Reflection

I found the students were engaged and listening when they knew what they were listening for.  I also found that they were respectful and polite because when it comes to talking about families they know that they are important.  By sharing my parents migration story, they could relate to someone who knows someone who identifies with the model we’d been learning about.  They were also free to ask more questions if they needed to.  I know that kids need to see connections to what they are learning about because it makes it less foreign and more real to them. 

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of connection to the learning by hearing a relevant real life story.

Links to the Tapasā.

(Characteristics of a good teacher pg 7:  Incorporating stories, legends, myths, events, activities and symbols that I understand and are relevant to me when teaching). 

Year 9 Sos: Working in the Goldilocks zone #2: Balancing content and skill.

For year 9’s this year, I am looking at the less is more approach: less content but with more in-depth learning on specific contexts and less ‘just writing’ and more scaffolds to support the learners to craft their writing.  The reason for this is that I’ve found that students weren’t providing enough quality writing that showed their understanding of what they’d learnt because we spent a lot of time on learning about content itself. 

Our year 9’s learn about 3 theories of Migration and have to identify and describe which one could be the most true and likely theory, based on the information provided and their own research.  We had 2 lessons for the learning of the content, one lesson for the learning of the skills of writing a paragraph and one lesson for the creating and sharing of their learning.  Students could also work on their paragraphs for homework.

Learn … about the theories

We went through a discussion of each of the 3 theories (Hawaiiki, South America and Asia) and I tried to provide the same amount of learning time for each.  I allowed for questions to be asked and for students to discuss their ideas with their peers.

Create … paragraphs that show their understanding of the theories

Students were then encouraged to use key bullet points from each of the theories to write a paragraph to share with their peers.  At this point I decided to teach about the  skill of writing a paragraph writing using our T.E.X model to help scaffold the students writing using a template that supported essay writing in Social Studies.

Share …their learning in a blogpost

Students were to create a blogpost about their learning.  Unfortunately we ran out of time so I had hoped to get them to blog when we have time.

An example of the change in writing before and after using the TEX model

Reflection

Normally I would have taught this part of the unit in two periods but because we had an extra 2 periods to craft their writing and to allow them to process and create their understanding of the learn, they were able to produce some good paragraphs.  

Linking this lesson to my inquiry:

Creating a sense of achievement by providing enough time for everyone to get the paragraphs done

T.C Sos Dept : Welcoming in the new year 2022 with our first Social Sciences Department meeting.

I always feel nervous when starting a new year with my department.  I think it’s because I want to make sure they feel encouraged and motivated and the first meeting could essentially set the tone for the year.  We have so much to cover so I have to try and make sure to get the right balance of administration, planning, feedback etc etc.

We started by reconnecting and giving everyone a chance to share their thoughts with two initial guiding questions:

It was nice to hear everyone’s feedback and goals for the school year and we were all hopeful that covid would not be such a huge impact in our year looking ahead.

Next we brainstormed some strategies to build relationships and get to know our kids.

Our first school goal is around raising Maori achievement.  For our new year 9’s, I wanted them to know our school pepeha as well as introduce themselves by writing theirs and sharing it with the class.   It tells people who you are by sharing your connections with the people and places that are important to you and for our new students, those connections should be valued and brought to the forefront.

To role model to our kids what a pepeha could look like, I invited my team to write theirs or share one they have with our department.  

We all stood individually to share our pepeha.  We have one new staff member who is joining us from another department and it was nice to hear him share his pepeha with us as well as to hear from each other.  Our team agreed that it was a nice way to share who we are and to build a sense of collegiality within our department.  To me, it is important to build trust and respect with my colleagues who will share the same goals and the same purpose in wanting the best for our kids.  It’s my hope that as the head of department, I can support my team in all areas of their teaching and learning so that we can have an exciting and successful year.

Peter is new to our team and shared his pepeha.

Janish shared her pepeha

As an aside, our Puriri house in 2021, I created a short video showing our School’s Pepeha.  This was done during lockdown for our Te reo Māori language week and we plan to show this during our first week with our year 9’s.