Two years ago, Matt O’Dowda’s career took a radical lurch residents brimming with spare cash to titivate their gardens or in direction. From the comfort of his medium sized decile eight fill their homes with the latest electronic gadgetry. For many it’s a country school he packed up his not inconsiderable leadership struggle to buy a book for the house because Maraenui has one of experience and headed off to Napier to face the challenges of a the highest unemployment rates of any suburb in New Zealand. very different school environment. Matt became principal of Like the community surrounding it, the local Richmond Richmond School in one of the poorest suburbs of the Hawke’s school was struggling too. It had received seven reports from Bay region. Matt talks to NZ Principal editor Liz Hawes about the Education Review Office (ERO) in the previous eight years how he has adapted to his new school community and discusses when Matt O’Dowda turned up to take over its leadership. The the challenges of lifting children’s achievement through changing school was experiencing persistent student underachievement the school’s culture. and ERO reports indicated that it needed a complete change of In January this year, The Dominion Post published a story culture to address all of the concerns. about New Zealand’s Children’s Commissioner, Dr Russell ‘When I first came here, the culture of the school very much Wills. In contextualising the story the reporter wrote the reflected the culture of the streets,’ said Matt. ‘Violence was following: normalised and there was a lack of respect, dignity and most ‘Children’s Commissioner importantly, hope. Kids were Russell Wills recalls delivering I was flabbergasted that the not happy. They were angry, prescriptions for his pharmacist spoiling for a fight and didn’t dad in impoverished Napier children in my new school had been have any idea how to actually suburbs as a young lad. He drove play together, share or do through the same area with his left to flounder for so long and anything co-operatively,’ he said. own children recently and said it that despite statutory intervention There had been a history of had become poorer – and worse high staff turnover at Richmond than that, people had lost hope.’ the Ministry had made no positive and there was no supportive Wills was quoted as saying, staff culture embedded in the ‘There’s car wrecks and beer progress for the kids of Richmond school. Staff spent much of their bottles and the houses had School time in ‘survival mode’. At one deteriorated … you just wouldn’t time the school had boasted a send a kid to deliver scripts around those streets now, which I roll of around 300, but gradually, as the playground both on and think is really sad.’ off the school grounds became tougher , the parents took their Richmond School is in the Napier suburb of Maraenui which girls away. By the time Matt arrived the roll was 70% boys. Two is at the heart of the very area that Dr Wills is talking about. It thirds of the children are Māori and one third Samoan. There is not a suburb awash with top of the range possessions. Nor are is one pakeha family.
School welcome
The girls get dressed ready for Kapa Haka
Performing for the parents and the nearby Kindy kids
If Richmond School, which had dropped to a roll of 80 children, was to survive and make a positive difference there had to be changes made at every level. ‘Four weeks into the new job I sat down and had a long think about what I’d been observing in the classrooms and around the playground and decided first, to write to the Minister of Education. I said I was flabbergasted that the children in my new school had been left to flounder for so long and that despite statutory intervention the Ministry had made no positive progress for the kids of Richmond School.’ With that off his chest, next was to put a plan together. ‘Key to my plan was attracting inspirational teachers to change the school culture and splitting up kids in classes,’ said Matt. With the plan winging its way to the Head of the Ministry’s resourcing unit, Matt began a recruitment drive for specialist teachers who could make a difference.
‘I was very fortunate to know some excellent teachers who, like me, were motivated and energised to make a difference for kids in Maraenui,’ said Matt. Throughout the first term Matt lived in the classrooms because it was essential to change the poor relationships which had existed between teachers and the children. ‘Relationships with the kids are everything and I had to have teachers who could both build relationships with these kids and teach at the same time. Expectations of excellence and doing everything properly were set, classes were kept very small and the kids began to respond. We were determined that they would no longer feel that they couldn’t succeed, or that there was no hope for the future,’ he said. ‘I intended that the kids would be known as the ‘rich kids’, rich in skills and rich in belief,’ he said. Once he had his new Board established, Matt decided he would
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Finding a spot in the garden for the new art work
Enhancing the environment of the school with art work is important
Messages from Dr Suess motivate from the class room windows
Morning tea time
start with sport. His first mission was to build some facilities and ‘Most of our children have had no pre-school education so acquire sports equipment. they need to acquire some skills before they are ready for formal He built a bike track around the whole playing field with learning,’ says Matt. ‘We keep the beginners in the reception support from the District Health Board through the Kahungunu class until they are ready to move into formal learning. Here Hikoi Whenua and a not for profit organisation called ‘Bike On they are taught by a teacher who also has extended experience NZ’. The organisation was initiated by Paul McArdle and Meg as a Kindergarten teacher,’ he said. Frater and was first known as the ‘Bikes in Schools’ programme. Alongside the fitness programme, Matt introduced Kapa Its intention is to provide bicycles, helmets and bicycle tracks Haka and the school choir. These two activities not only gave on primary school grounds so that children can learn to ride, the children a sense of pride and identity but like the cycling especially children who have no cycling experience at all. programme, imposed a culture of ‘achievement through ‘Improving our school environment so that the kids could discipline.’ learn to be kids and safely participate in normal kids’ activities ‘I couldn’t have been more proud,’ said Matt, ‘as when we was our first focus,’ said Matt. ‘Fitness and discipline for our kids entered our children in the East Coast Region Choral Federation was one of the top items on our list Competition. They sang in four and now every one of them has an Expectations of excellence part perfect harmony. They won opportunity to learn to ride a bike three awards. ‘The Best Overall and doing everything properly and keep fit.’ Choir’, ‘The Gold Performance The cycle track was not the Award’ and ‘The Best Test Piece’. only environmental change. were set, classes were kept Their competition came from all Matt also established both flower very small and the kids began the primary schools in the entire and vegetable gardens and a fun region, and our kids won!’ dinosaur garden, play equipment to respond. It is successes like this that Matt and a smart new school entrance uses to build the children’s sense of so that the children were coming into a pleasant environment belief in themselves and extend that belief into academic areas. which they would come to respect, feel safe in, enjoy and take ‘We have concentrated very hard on writing and reading,’ said pride in. He also bought new furniture for the class rooms and Matt. ‘It helps of course having very small classes and teachers established a ‘reception’ class. who are highly experienced in reading recovery as well as ‘The produce from the gardens is cooked on sight for the classroom teaching,’ he says. ‘The intensity of the programme kids and is also used to make pizzas for fundraising,’ said Matt. is very demanding with every child having forty disciplined ‘The kids make the pizzas to sell so that they learn the value of minutes of writing every day and all of the children are working to earn money for extras such as going to school camp,’ getting both small group and individual teaching attention he said. every day.’
Learning to print in the ‘Reception Class’
Creating stories on the iPad
Motivating messages abound in the school
‘We are now making remarkable progress with 65% of all the children up to or exceeding expectation in writing’, said Matt proudly. New technologies are also part of the learning mix for Matt’s ‘rich kids’. ‘Our children benefit hugely from using ipads to record themselves reading their own work then listening to themselves. They pick up errors so much more easily and quickly correct them when they hear it for themselves,’ he said. ‘It’s instant self assessment.’ It’s not surprising that the kids love their ipads. They make movies every day. ‘They can take photos from a story book and replicate them on the ipad then using the pictures they tell the story doing their own voice-over. They even add music for effect!’ says Matt. In this way the children are improving their oral language, their clarity of speech, fluency, engagement in learning and gaining confidence, all while they have fun! ‘The ipads are very empowering and I was just so thrilled to take a group of our kids to Waikato University where they presented to 120 people on how they use ipads for learning,’ said Matt. ‘That was a huge achievement for those children.’ A third of Matt’s children are of Samoan culture so he has established a bilingual Samoan transition class too. ‘It’s an everyday class where the children learn until they can manage in a mainstream class. That might be six months or perhaps a year for some.’ There are two Samoan teachers and a teacher aide on the staff, all fluent in the language. Matt is a strong believer that knowing and understanding your own culture first is critical to developing a healthy identity and making progress.
It all sounds great but very exhausting work, but Matt assures me that there are huge rewards. ‘When I see the teachers getting a buzz out of seeing the kids do well and progressing, that gives me the greatest buzz,’ he says. A big focus the day I visit the ‘rich kids’ is practising for the Kapa Haka competition. The children ran through a practice performance for their parents at lunch time. ‘Not all our parents will be able to go through to Hastings to watch their children perform,’ said Matt, ‘so we have invited the parents to watch them today.’ The work Richmond school is doing with the children, giving them confidence, self-esteem, skills and belief in themselves Matt hopes will rub off on the whole parent community. It’s a very open school and Matt warmly welcomes all his parents any time. Parents are treated with whanaugatanga, as extended family. He’s also planning some evening English classes for the Samoan parents and wants to give parents access to a whanau room where they can use computers and the internet. They are immensely proud that their children are doing so well and that the roll is growing. There are no donations asked of parents and no stationery bills to pay. Matt finds the extra funds from grants and pub charity to help the school cover these expenses. The parents help too. The school has won the contract to clean McLean Park.The parents do that work and the money comes to the school. ‘More than anything else, we want to turn our kids into good people,’ says Matt, ‘people who have hope and who believe in themselves.’ If anyone can achieve that goal, it will be Matt O’Dowda.
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