Āta Whakaarohia – A story of mentoring in a special education setting Jill de Kock, Neil Jourdan, Sarah Copeland, Devs Charles, Sheryl Willis & Phyllis Jones Āta Whakaarohia is a Māori word that is used to explain thinking about your thinking. Āta means to enquire deeply. Whakaaro means to think, brainstorm or consider. Hia means to do or to want. This title reflects the on-going process that Parkside School in Auckland engages with in relation to an evolving mentoring program. This article describes the evolution of the mentoring model developed across the school that serves students with severe and profound learning disabilities, identified as eligible to receive ORS (Ongoing Resourcing Scheme) in a base and varied satellite settings. It demonstrates the organic nature of any whole school development and change. The school community accept the Mahoney and Matthews (2004) definition of mentoring as a mutually beneficial process between mentee and mentor, reflecting the practise of Tuakana-Teina: Reciprocal Learning. The school is committed to the mentoring process in order to ultimately improve outcomes for students by focussing upon the constructive support given to teachers. The Evolution of Mentoring at the School Historically, mentoring at the school was undertaken by the principal as part of on-going induction, tutoring and coaching of new teachers. At this point the terms tutoring, mentoring and coaching were used interchangeably with the main focus staying with the induction and coaching of new staff members. The school’s teacher appraisal process was kept separate from the mentoring to maintain an emphasis on constructive developmental support. In 1999, an evolution occurred when the new deputy principal assisted in the induction of new staff but then continued working with them in an on-going supportive way. Seven years later a new associate principal was appointed who brought experience as a tutor teacher and continued the support offered by the school with more in-depth coaching, for example, explicit modelling of lessons. At this time, the part time school psychologist also worked with the teachers to support the induction into the special school environment. In 2007, the school implemented an initiative around Assessment for Learning (AfL), which became the backbone of the teaching approach at the school and thus fundamental in the schools approach to mentoring. As part of the AfL initiative a lead teacher was identified, professional development was provided and an outside facilitator supported the implementation of AfL in the lead teacher’s classroom. In the spirit of a cascading model of professional development, the intention was for the lead teacher to ‘grow’ another teacher in AfL. This required the lead AfL teacher to observe, provide feedback and support a colleague through the journey of implementing AfL; in essence,
mentoring them through the AfL process. Many of the key skills required to be an effective AfL teacher (such as, open to learning conversations, Robinson, 2009) are also skills associated with an effective mentor. Hence it was through the AfL initiative that the lead teacher gained new skills that made her a perfect candidate to be a mentor teacher. In addition the school principal offered her the opportunity to do further training to upskill as a mentor teacher. In 2011, as a reflection of the Ministry of Education‘s priority on mentoring, it published the Guidelines for Induction and Mentoring and Mentor Teachers (NZTC, 2011). It was fortuitous that the school mentoring process that had evolved was completely in line with the new policy initiative and allowed the school to further formalize their mentoring approach. The Mentoring Model At the school, mentoring transcends working solely with beginning teachers. The staff team is made up of teachers from a wide range of experience. Therefore it has been necessary to provide mentoring for overseas trained teachers (OTT), beginner teachers (BT), teachers new to special education and teachers moving to different classes within the school. For teachers who have mainstream teaching experience yet are new to special education, ongoing mentoring is essential for their professional development These teachers may not be familiar with the pedagogy and application of teaching practices for students with severe, profound and complex needs. In 2012, four Dean roles were established. The lead AfL teacher became Dean of Professional Practice and Support and serves as the lead mentor teacher. There is also a Dean of Māori and Secondary Satellite, a Dean of Outreach Services and a Dean of Engagement Profile and Scale. In addition to their specific roles, each Dean was invited to be part of the school Mentoring Community of Practice (C.O.P). A member of the management team, the Director of Specialist Services, formed the fifth member of the C.O.P. The aims of this C.O.P are: Support colleagues in the Mentoring Process Contribute to learning for the participants ■■ Clarify roles and terms specific to Mentoring ■■ Support the development of skills for Mentoring ■■ Develop a shared understanding of Mentoring at the school ■■ Investigate and develop the process of Mentoring at the school ■■ ■■
In addition to weekly C.O.P meetings, on-going professional development around the process of mentoring occurs with an outside agency . The C.O.P is involved in a school based inquiry
initiative in collaboration with the University of South Florida. Dr. Phyllis Jones supports ongoing inquiry into the aspects of the mentoring program that the C.O.P chooses to focus upon. This research will be shared through the publication of an article for the Australian Journal of Special Education. With the exception of the Director of Specialist Services, each Dean was assigned a staff member to develop a mentor/mentee relationship. The role of the four Deans in the mentoring process evolved through group discussion and is illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1 also describes the model of mentoring currently in place.
Often within the professional work environment we do not know our colleagues personally. ‘Getting to know’ may be over a coffee off site or a lunch and include discussions around family, personal history (professional / cultural / historical).
The Dean of Professional Practice and Support along with the other 3 Deans and the Director of Specialist form the Mentoring Community of Practice (COP). The COP engages with professional development; is conducting mentoring research and provides collegial support
Dean of Professional Practice and Support, Dean of Māori and Secondary Satellite, Dean of Outreach Services, Dean of Engagement Profile and Scale
Setting Protocols: Discussions to build the relationship, process and expectations. This may include an outline of class visits; focus of class observations; method of capturing the observations (notes / video); details of mentoring sessions (co-constructed agendas; taking of minutes; reflective journaling).
Director of Specialist Services
Each Dean has engaged in a mentoring relationship with a colleague. The Dean of Professional Practice and Support often engages in numerous mentoring relationships as she supports those staff members who are BT’s and PRT’s
Teacher with many years of SEN experience
Fully registered teacher
Meet and Greet: Informal meeting to introduce oneself. Although you may know the staff member, this is an opportunity to discuss mentorship/your role as a mentor.
Getting to know each other:
Lead Mentor Teacher: Dean of Professional Practice and Support
Beginner teacher (Provisionally registered)
support guide for the mentor and additional documentation was developed for each step in another effort to maintain consistency. Each mentor keeps a log of the mentoring activity. This framework respects the dynamic relationships that exist by offering a structure that can be adapted according to the needs of each relationship.
Class Visit: This is an opportunity to get to know all staff and students and work with a group of the students or even take a lesson. This may occur at different times of the day and week. This is a good time to access students’ profiles, programmes and specific support required.
It’s at this point that we move into a more structured mentoring process including fortnightly meetings and/or class observations; assisting with resources; sharing relevant professional reading.
Provisionally registered overseas trained teacher
This mentoring relationship is twofold: Firstly; to support the mentee in their professional practice and secondly; to provide the Deans with the opportunity to further their skills as mentors within the school.
The Mentor/Mentee relationship and resulting support and professional development (along with reflective journals, observations and feedback notes) form the basis of the research inquiry into mentoring within the school.
Figure 1: Model of Mentoring
The school mentoring framework is outlined in Figure 2, which demonstrates the growth in structure of the programme, the continued commitment to giving all teachers developmental and constructive support and the intention to create consistency across each mentoring relationship. The process is framed as a
“What’s on top” meeting to discuss current concerns / issues. Opportunity to ‘check in’ with mentee
Teacher directed class observations: teacher requests mentor to focus on a specific area (e.g. Morning circle)
Feedback session: Share observation feedback / review video observation / discuss sticking points
The mentor will keep a log of all observation sessions and meetings as well as observation feedback and minutes of meetings. Both parties maintain reflective journals on the process and professional practice.
Figure 2: Mentoring Framework
Mentoring in New Zealand is unique in that it reflects the acceptance and promotion of Māori pedagogy across the education sector. This validates the positive imprint of indigenous learning concepts that celebrates the cultural aspect of its people. This is also reflected in the mentoring approach of the school. All cultures (Pākeha/ Non-Māori and Māori) share similar aspects and skills of mentoring with the major difference being the purpose of the
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mentoring relationship. Winitana (2012) explains that the Māori view is to uphold the mana (status) of all the people involved, whereby the Pākeha view is generally to enhance the mana of one individual or to achieve an outcome. Māori cultural views embrace the importance of relationships and ensure that there are opportunities for reciprocal interactions between the parties. The acceptance of Māori pedagogical concepts exist today from the promotion and use in government funded mainstream documents. Resources such as Ki te Aotūroa: Improving Inservice Teacher Educator Learning and Practice (MOE, 2008) incorporate how Māori cultural concepts can be used to enhance and educate mainstream practises as well. The inclusion of Māori vocabulary to explain some principles of mentoring is further validated by the research and findings of Te Kōtahitanga programme (Bishop et al, 2003). The inclusion of words such as Ako (being a learner), Tuakana-Teina (reciprocal learning) and Āwhinatanga (guidance and support) continues to portray mentoring as a constructive and reciprocal relationship between mentor and mentee; something the school is particularly committed to. With respect to mentoring, the school continues to be engaged in an ongoing process of reflection, inquiry and development. The structure and organization afforded to mentoring is explicitly valued and supports a coherent whole school approach to vision, mission and pedagogy. The mentoring framework transcends the traditional BT model of mentoring to encompass all teachers at their different stages of professional lives. Relationships between mentor and mentee are central to enable both parties to coconstruct developments in understandings and practices about pedagogy for students with severe and profound disabilities. The mentoring is distributed across four Deans in the C.O.P
who are committed to the continued evolution of the mentoring approach to ensure an effective and useable framework that can be sustained across the busy school; a true reflection of Āta Whakaarohia. References Bishop, R., Berryman, M., Tiakiwai,S., & Richardson,C., (2003). Te Kotahitanga: The experiences of Year 9 and 10 students in mainstream classrooms. Wellington: Ministry of Education. Hobson, A.J., Ashlby, P., Maldarez, A., & Tomlinson, P. (2009). Mentoring Beginning Teachers. What we know and what we don’t. Teaching and Teacher Education 25, 207–2016 mentoringtesol.pbworks.com/f/MentoringBeginningTeachers. pdf. Retrieved May 2013. New Zealand Teacher’s Council, (2011). Guidelines for Induction and Mentoring And Mentor Teachers. Professional Learning Journeys: Wellington: NZ. Ministry of Education, (2008). Ki te Aotūroa. Improving In-service Teacher Educator Learning and Practice. Te Whakapakari I te Ratonga Whakangungu Kaiwhakaako. Learning Media Publication. Wellington: Ministry of Education. Robinson, V. (2009). Open-to-learning Conversations: Background Paper. Module 3: Building Trust in Schools Through Open-tolearning Conversations. First-time Principals Programme. The University of Auckland: NZ. Winitana, M., (2012). Remembering the deeds of Maui– what messages are in the tuakana-teina pedagogy for tertiary educators?, Mai Journal, Volume 1, issue 1.
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School Lines Tomorrow’s Schools: Yesterday – Today – Tomorrow Lester Flockton
feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz
Tomorrow’s Schools was yesterday’s schools, not today’s schools, and certainly not tomorrow’s schools! Yet, somehow, we constantly hear the baying, “We’ve had Tomorrow’s Schools for 25 years. Surely it’s time for change.” A known Auckland school leadership academic pronounces, “The self-managing school model should not be treated like a sacred cow – it needs to evolve to meet current needs”. Well, it has been evolving and evolving to meet needs, although not necessarily the needs of schools, but the wants of the system! A known Auckland literacy academic told Radio New Zealand last year that “more central control over schools was needed for standards to improve.” Well, those controls were enforced on schools in 2010 with the pronouncement and regulation of National Standards, prescriptive target setting and checking, but improvement has so far proved negligible. A known Wellington schools’ researcher opined in our national daily that a national network of around 20 education authorities should be established and responsible to a national director who would be part of the senior leadership team of the Ministry of Education. “Each authority would have ultimate responsibility for the quality of the schools in their area . . . ”. So, twice the number of the former Education Boards – not to mention that ultimate responsibility usually leads to ultimate control!
Clearly, Tomorrow’s Schools has changed, and changed, and changed throughout the past 25 years, and is set to change again and again over the next 25 years, to the point that David Lange would probably marvel that today’s schools are still referred to as Tomorrow’s Schools. If anything, it has proved a very successful branding for change, yet ironically it’s not so much schools that have changed, but the system that prevails upon them. Equally ironically, Tomorrow’s Schools has become the whipping boy for all who would have things their way. Let’s take one example that clearly shows Tomorrow’s Schools is no longer Tomorrow’s Schools: the Ministry of Education. One of Lange’s central points of reform was a vast slimming down of education’s bureaucracy and major decentralisation of the schooling sector. A “hands off ” Ministry was to replace the Department of Education, with the main functions of providing policy advice to its Minister and dispersing cash to schools. In ridding the country of its 10 Education Boards and whittling down the bureaucracy to around 800 staff, it was trumpeted that much of vote education could be redistributed to individual boards of trustees. Schools were to be self-managing institutions able to exercise much greater discretion and autonomy, while being obliged to respect broad policy guidelines set by the Government.
Literacy and Numeracy Initiatives: vast amounts of taxpayer money spent on creating literacy and numeracy approaches and programmes that have largely failed to show a commensurate impact on New Zealand’s placing in the international horse race (OECD league tables, etc.). ■■ School Advisory Services: effectively eliminated with remaining whittled down services and professional learning opportunities controlled by Ministry of Education contracts awarded to “big players” and confined to Government and Ministry agendas. ■■ Boards of Trustees: changes to constitutional arrangements “to allow more flexible, alternative governance arrangements for new and merging schools, and allow boards to combine where Tomorrow’s Schools, 1988, p.1 this would increase capacity and capability (MOE Annual And so it goes on. Empowerment of localised decision-making Report 2013)”. was at the hub of Tomorrow’s Schools, a point pushed home on ■■ A School Trustees Association that compromises its the first page of the Tomorrow’s School booklet with a quote from independence by opting for Ministry funded contracts that Thomas Jefferson: promote and support the implementation of Governments’ ideas. I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of the ■■ A Regulatory Framework (NEGs): society but the people themselves subjected to successive Ministers of and if we think them not Tomorrow’s Schools Education changing compliance demands enlightened enough to exercise on schools (no sausages, fitness for was yesterday’s their control with a wholesome primary but not secondary kids, annual discretion, the remedy is not to plans, charters, targets, reporting, schools, not today’s take it from them, but to inform national standards, etc.) their discretion. schools, and certainly not ■■ Collective Employment Agreements that have invoked Government But things have changed dramatically. tomorrow’s schools’ professional standards, appraisals, and According to its 2013 Annual Report, changed working conditions. as of 30 June 2013 the Ministry had a
The institution (the school) will be the basic “building block” of education administration, with control over their resources – to use as they determine, within overall guidelines set by the state. The running of the institution (the school) will be a partnership between the professionals and the particular community in which it is located. Each institution (school) will set its own objectives, within the overall national guidelines set by the state. These objectives will reflect the particular needs of the community . . .
whopping staff of 3,329 (2,569.8 full-time equivalents) based in 41 locations around New Zealand, and 49 new managers joining a heaped chain of command. Lange’s eyes would surely pop! The catalogue of ongoing changes, reforms and re-reforms, both backward and forward, is growing by the volume. A few examples give sufficient evidence: Big changes from 1988 to 2014 The Education Act 1989: Amendments after amendments giving Ministers and Government agencies more control and schools more responsibilities. ■■ The entrenchment of politicisation in all things education with a concomitant devaluing of community and professional voice and values. ■■ A Ministry of Education that has stepped up to become the “building block” of the school system, with a host of new statutory discretionary powers (e.g. school interventions) ■■ Fully blown target setting and data driven systems for monitoring, checking, comparing and publicising school performance on a narrow scope of curricular goals (PAI). ■■ An Education Review Office that has repeatedly changed its review and reporting methods and focus to suit Governments’ shifting agendas, including a dark period of “name and shame”. ■■ Unenlightened followed by enlightened curriculum change: first, Lockwood Smith’s failed “Achievement Initiative” with its parade of new learning area statements and levelled achievement objectives developed by little committees, then The New Zealand Curriculum, developed in full collaboration, internationally acclaimed, but shunted into the background by National Standards. ■■
■■
And so the list might go on. These and other changes are clearly a reflection of a dynamic (i.e. changing), re-reforming, centrally controlled, and highly politicalised schooling system. Tomorrow’s Schools effectively opened the gates for these things to happen. We are seeing much improved school buildings and the infectious spread of computer-based technologies. We are witnessing some weird but not wonderful ideas about the job of teaching and the function of schools. We have a complex entanglement of the good and the bad, the sensible and the nonsensical, the wise and the witless. But whether we still have Tomorrow’s Schools is a moot point. Perhaps it’s time to replace the banner with a more appropriate one that reflects the reality of both today and tomorrow, like “Government Schools” (staffed, of course, by Government Teachers).