In the beginning Te Tai Raki Kāhui Ako is located in Kamo, a small township, approximately five minutes’ drive from the Whangarei CBD. The Kāhui Ako name means ‘eyelash’, but has also been said to mean ‘to bubble up’, referring to hot springs in the area. We could also use the phrase ‘to bubble up’ to describe the quiet raising of key indicators of improvement and the successes we can report in terms of cultural capability in the area. This is Te Tai Raki Kāhui Ako’s story. Since 2018, the Kāhui Ako have had a goal to address inequitable experiences for Māori learners. As hard as it can be to acknowledge, often the cause of these inequitable experiences are people and systems. When we continue to approach the topic of Māori student learning from our individual biases and assumptions (whether we are Māori or non-Māori ourselves), rather than from activating the lived experiences of those learners
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and their whānau, we continue to reproduce the inequities, however unintentionally. In an endeavour to dig deeper into what was going on for their learners, Excellere College, Hurupaki School, and Totara Grove School embarked on a journey of culturally responsive Professional Learning and Development (PLD). This PLD began by collecting, listening to and activating the voices of their key stakeholder groups. Cognition Education’s Relationships First programme facilitated the gathering of these voices. What the schools discovered was surprising, even to them. Confronted with evidence and supported with professional development, teachers can recognise that to make a difference they need to change their beliefs and practices rather than expect family circumstances to adjust. (Ministry of Education, KA HIKITIA A Demonstration Report Effectiveness of Te Kotahitanga Phase 5 2010-2012). This is what Te Tai Raki Kāhui Ako did. The exciting thing about the Te Tai Raki Kāhui Ako story is how the schools’ narratives changed over time – with the support of expert facilitation and a willingness to shift the culture in these schools for the better. In 2018, initial focus group interviews surfaced two quite different perspectives of the learning experiences of students in these schools. On the one hand, students were reporting their mixture of feelings about what it was like to be a learner at their school. Some comments from students identified what Russell Bishop refers to as North-East teaching (2019); ‘Good teachers are organised and always ready for us, they want us to go up to a higher level, and we know what to do’; others described a less positive perspective; ‘Not all teachers are kind and caring – sometimes there are different rules for different students, that’s not fair’. On the other hand, the teachers’ discourse also clearly pointed to a need for changing beliefs and assumptions that were nodoubt impacting on classroom practice and teacher-student interactions. Some examples of the types of sentiments being expressed by staff included; ‘It is the luck of the draw – sometimes you get better results because you have got better students’; and, ‘Maybe teachers feel like they are not supported from management’. Over the next year Te Tai Raki Kāhui Ako worked with Cognition Education to unpack these voices, coach and mentor their teachers, build relationships with whānau, and listen carefully to students to change their perceptions and their practice. Changing Voices The following is an excerpt from a comparative Voices report, prepared for one of these three schools just one year later, in 2019:
ficit to agentic discourse
Students appreciated the wide range of opportunities available to them (subjects and experiences) and when teachers include challenge in the learning, they are more engaged. ■■ Students spoke about how the teachers were friendly, supportive of them and able to explain learning in detail – the result being students like school and feel safe. ■■ Students enjoy working in groups and being able to ask other students for help. ■■ Students shared how they know their teachers know them as learners and know how to motivate them through feedforward, success criteria, planning sheets and topic workshops. ■■ Students requested to have more one-on-one time or teacher time and more quiet spaces. ■■
Similarly, the teachers had shifted their discourse to an agentic position, and this had a flow-on effect to their classroom relationships and their pedagogical practices. Leaders and teachers acknowledged; ‘Deficit can come through but when you do that, you stop looking for the solution’. New institutions supported staff to constructively and reflectively discuss their practice, leading to measurable improvements in their use of interactive and relational teaching approaches; ‘Impact coaching allows teachers to connect when they might be struggling’. A Principal described the deep impact of this Professional Learning on their staff; ‘We are valuing student voice more and providing more opportunities in learning for students to contribute to and influence the direction and focus of the learning’. Isn’t that what we would love to see happening in every school in the country? Compared to 2018, there were far more statements from student and parents’ voices that emphasised positive beliefs and experiences and many fewer that expressed negative beliefs or experiences.
Percentage of October 2019 comments coded as either ‘Enablers’ (+ve) or ‘Barriers’ (-ve) to student success – Hurupaki School
Achievement data also saw marked increases, for example Totara Grove saw raises across reading, writing and Maths.
Totara Grove School Comparison of 2016-2019 OTJ Achievement Data – Years 1 to 6 Sustainable Impact In 2020, the greatest impact of the learning journey for these three schools is that change is embedded in the culture and ongoing rhetoric of their place. One school is now entirely self-sustaining, continuously monitoring the impact of their institutions and practices on students Attendance, Retention,
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Engagement, and Achievement (A.R.E.A.) data. The other two schools now have teachers and leaders who have the internal capability to lead the learning of others in their organisations and across the Kāhui Ako. For Hurupaki School, ‘Relationships First’ turned out to be ‘something quite different and much more transformational than what we expected’. Principal, Rob Posthumus, described ‘Relationships First’ as a whole pedagogical and coaching model that is strongly focused on developing teachers’ skills and knowledge of effective teaching practices for all learners. In addition to this, the PLD was responsible for ‘growth in the leadership skills of our Middle Leaders’. For Lana, the Principal of Totara Grove, the biggest gains are that: 1. Teachers look for solutions and reasons why a learner might not be succeeding 2. Teacher expectations for learners have changed. You hear a lot more agentic talk happening now.
Continuing initiatives include training sessions and PLD for Teacher Aides and Support Staff to ensure consistent practices and a shared language amongst all staff; ongoing training and induction of new staff into their roles as Impact Coaches; cycles of observations and coaching conversations focused on lifting Māori and target student engagement, progress and achievement. All of this is underpinned by leaders who are monitoring and evaluating so that they can constantly tweak what they are doing to make sure it is working for those students who were previously marginalised, according to their own voices and narratives.
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