MĀORI ACHIEVEMENT IN A MAINSTREAM SCHOOL Liz Hawes asks Bruce Jepsen, Principal of Te Akau ki Papamoa, the key factors which have led to the remarkable lift in achievement for the Māori children in his beach-side Bay of Plenty school.
It is the most talked about subject in education today, from the Minister’s office at parliament to the tea rooms of schools across the nation. Māori achievement, or more usually Māori under-achievement, is the centre of attention for Government policy, the Ministry and the Education Review Office and features in the charters of countless schools up and down the country. The OECD reports of the last decade provide plenty of evidence that New Zealand’s education system is a very high performer compared to other countries and the vast majority of Kiwi kids are excelling. What OECD reports also tell us is that the gap between our highest achievers and lowest is one of the biggest in the world and our Māori students are over-represented in the lower group. It is these low achievement ratings for Māori that brings the Secretary for Education to provocatively declare that New Zealand cannot claim to have a world-class education system – not while so many Māori kids are not achieving. Bruce Jepsen doesn’t disagree that there are inequities that urgently need addressing but says ‘We can’t change the background kids bring to school each day, and we try not to over-analyse. We have children who arrive at school with all the competencies they need to move on to formal learning and we have kids who arrive at school who can’t write their name, can’t name colours or numbers and who have had no experience of books at home,’ he said. Obviously the kids in the second group are going to take a lot longer to be ready for formal learning and meanwhile the other kids have moved on. ‘That’s why we have to focus on progress,’ says Bruce, ‘not just whether a child is meeting some norm referenced or national standard at some particular age or stage. You could have a child who has made huge progress, but still won’t be up with their peers straight away. It will take longer,’ he said.
Bruce believes that there is no ‘silver bullet’ for building a school culture in which every child can succeed. He says there are multiple factors that contribute to success including setting high expectations. Every parent wants their child extended and our Māori parents have very high aspirations for their children. Success includes establishing an appropriate learning environment and part of Bruce’s approach is to set a bicultural environment where both English and Māori languages and cultural practices are normalised. Setting the right environment begins with an agreed set of values. ‘We have a set of seven values,’ says Bruce. ‘We call them the seven waves and they represent ‘how we do things’, he said. These seven waves include: Vision – Moemoea, or defining the future of the school and having a clear learning continuum that everyone understands. Think – Whakaaro, how to solve problems, higher order thinking and reflecting, individualised learning, in depth learning and research. Learn – Ako, providing opportunities to develop skills, attitudes, values to contribute to society and be selfmotivating, lifelong learners who stretch and grow their minds. Nurture – Atawhai, with a whanau approach so each child is treated like our own, in an environment that is physically and emotionally safe Grow – Tipu, assisting learners to discover, develop, demonstrate and celebrate talents
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The 7 waves – the values that drive Te Akau ki Papamoa School
Communicate – Korero, celebrating excellence when we achieve it and sharing what we believe in. Consulting regularly with our community and building relationships Shine – Tiaho, celebrating individual strengths and suc cesses, modelling and building self-belief and confidence. The whanau approach is central to the culture of Te Akau ki Papamoa. In Bruce’s view, when everyone feels they belong to the school family, they will feel safe and secure and will do better. That means there are certain ‘family’ practices that must be followed. One of them is the way in which visitors and new children are welcomed to the school. ‘We greet everyone here warmly,’ he said, ‘so that they quickly feel part of our whanau.’ When new children or groups of child ren start at Te Akau ki Papamoa School they are welcomed with a full powhiri no matter who they are. Bruce told the story of the little girl who arrived from the UK. After the powhiri she met her new class mates but wanted to thank everyone for singing for her. She decided she would return the gesture and sang an ancient folk song from her own country, as a gift to her new class mates. It is such a perfect illustration of what Bruce means when he says ‘we don’t have to talk about the values so much as just practise them. People soon understand what we mean and they become normal,’ he said. Bruce Jepsen’s is a decile four mainstream school with a roll exceeding 500, 40% of whom are Māori. ‘We know how important it is for all our children to know where they come from and what their connections are,’ said Bruce, ‘so all of our Māori children are registered with their iwi when they first come here.’ Bruce showed me the map of New Zealand with all the iwi geographically plotted. ‘These are the iwi that the kids in this school have affiliations with,’ he said proudly. ‘Sometimes parents may not know what their iwi connections are, so we help them find out. It’s important because knowing where you come from is central to understanding your identity.’ Bruce believes that once children have established who they are and where they are from, then they can establish other connections and build relationships. ‘Identity and connections lead to children having pride and high self -esteem,’ says Bruce, ‘and that’s not just for Māori kids. That goes for all kids. They will learn much better if they feel good about themselves, so we make that a priority,’ he said. Te Akau ki Papamoa has its own identity too. ‘We are a bicultural school, and every child learns Te Reo here,’ says Bruce. Not only do the children learn Te Reo, they share their learning with the whole Papamoa community through their own radio
station TAKP, 107.60FM. The children take on the DJ role and the entire broadcast is in Te Reo. Parents and the local community can tune in and learn along with the children. The radio station broadcasts directly to every classroom. The day I visit, the DJ is running a bingo game for the older children. It’s about children having fun while they learn. Through working in the radio station the children learn a lot. They learn to report news, research, interview people, broadcast, advertise and learn about music selections all in an authentic high tech studio. ‘The kids love it,’ says Bruce, ‘but we won’t stop at the radio station. We are ambitious to get a television studio up and running with Apple TV.’ There is not much that children at Te Akau ki Papamoa don’t already have access to: Superb sporting facilities and a dedicated staff member coordinating the whole physical education programme ■■ Two digital class rooms where children can engage with the latest technology work cooperatively and have fun while they learn. ■■ Specially designed ‘whanau’ classroom spaces built to MLE (modern learning environment) code. Pods of four classrooms can all open into each other, a central shared learning area, breakout spaces and resource room so that all teachers can use the spaces to meet the needs of learners. This physical environment means that team teaching is common and teachers support, mentor and encourage each other easily. ■■ A ‘boys only’ class, established in response to the need ‘to enhance opportunities for all boys to succeed.’ ■■ KFC (Key Friday Competency) Programme, through which children can learn elective subjects including foreign languages. ■■ An empathy building Programme, through which children care for real babies in a supervised capacity ■■
It’s not the wealthiest community in the country so how can Bruce’s decile four school afford all these extras for the children? ‘That’s where the sponsorship comes in,’ he says. He points to his brand new boundary fence that has hardly had time to set in its new concrete. ‘I’ve just sold that,’ he says with a grin, ‘to businesses, for advertising,’ he said. ‘Next week there will be bill boards up there, and more activities in here,’ he smiles. He has excellent entrepreneurial skills and attracts consider able extra funds to support the school so that no child misses out, but make no mistake, unless an initiative helps lift children’s achievement, it won’t be adopted at Te Akau ki Papamoa School because lifting achievement is the major focus. Everything is about providing the very best conditions, facilities, learning environment, school culture and programmes to help children learn better.
DJ for the day gets ready for broadcast time
No one in Bruce’s school community is taken for granted, least of all his teachers. Empowering staff is really important and all members of the senior team go through a special ‘life coaching’ professional development programme. ‘This builds up capability in our senior teachers,’ says Bruce. ‘The professional development is tailored to the teacher’s particular personality and gives them greater confidence in their decision making and handling difficult situations,’ he said. Bruce is a leader who has excellent communication skills himself and clearly enjoys the daily contact and easy conversa tions he has with both his staff and students. He likes to get involved. There is an inter-house dodge ball competition in train at lunch time and immediately he appears, Bruce is collared by supporters of both teams. He tosses his suit jacket aside and joins the game. His enthusiasm for participation is infectious and I count no less than four male teachers all playing their part in the dodge ball game. ‘We are so lucky,’ says Bruce, ‘to have a good cohort of male teachers and especially teachers prepared to give up their lunch time to organise these competitions and play with the kids. They are such important role models especially for our boys,’ he says. In Bruce’s experience Māori learners have staggering potential and learn best when whanaungatanga (interrelatedness), hui (meeting), awhi (support), ngati (inclusiveness), aroha (love) and ukaipo (governance) are all interwoven in the delivery of the NZC. ‘It’s about taking a holistic stance,’ says Bruce, ‘where the emotional and physical are just as important as the academic.’ That all sounds good, but in practice is it achievable to take a truly holistic approach? ‘It is when teachers have the relevant professional development, knowledge, resources, support and the motivation to implement these ideas,’ says Bruce, ‘but all of that comes with a substantial price tag.’ This is a price Bruce, with the help of sponsorship from the business community, is prepared to pay. ‘Our Māori children were not doing well, but with the change in emphasis and shift in pedagogical approach, we have seen massive improvements,’ says Bruce proudly. ‘Following the introduction of our new focus, structures and organisation and with achievement central to all we do, we have made huge gains,’ he said. ‘Our first curriculum focus was on reading and understanding and this was deliberate because reading is key to accessing the rest of the curriculum. Our approach was refined over time, as we used achievement information to identify needs. There were certain elements that contributed to making the difference including additional reading recovery teachers, PD for all teachers, we unpacked ‘effective literacy practice’, introduced ‘Rainbow Reading Intervention, provided SPELD support onsite, introduced Lucid Cops screening tool, set SMART targets to literacy and other prioritised curriculum areas, made links to teacher quality improvement cycles, built a learning landscape (new library) and made significant resourcing contributions to literacy development Whilst these elements were important, what made the huge difference for us was the change in attitude when identity, culture and language were acknowledged, reinforced and understood. They are the things that accelerated progress,’ he said. ‘Take our year one Māori learners,’ he said, ‘Last year in February, we had 50% of them not achieving at expectation. By
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December, we had 84% achieving at expectation and of these 9% were exceeding expectations.’ ‘Our year two Māori learners were similarly not doing well with only 15% achieving at expectation and none achieving above. Within the year, 87% were achieving at or above expectation. In fact all of the Māori learners in this cohort, by the end of the year were achieving equivalent to other learners in the year level.’ ‘Year three Māori learners were similarly struggling with just 32% achieving at or above expectation but at years end the numbers had dramatically changed. In December, 44% were achieving at expectation and 32% were achieving above expectation. These results were better than for the whole of school results. ‘A similar picture emerged for year four Māori learners. In February, 73% were performing below expectation. By December
Tumuaki Bruce Jepson joins a class as they listen to the school radio broadcast and play Bingo in Māori
all learners had made progress with 46% achieving at expectation, 19% above and 38% had made significant progress.’ If this is impressive, the data for year five is astonishing. The cohort of Māori learners shifted from 75% performing below expectation to 14% achieving at expectation and 67% above. Such figures are well above national norms. The results for year six students were similar shifting from 56% below expectation to 39% above and 39% at expectation. These results exceed those of their peers. Te Akau ki Papamoa school simply bucks the national trends. It is on a road to success and will not be distracted. That’s not to say there aren’t barriers to continuing success and these include maintaining access to relevant professional development to support teacher delivery and teachers’ understanding of what elements contribute to effective practice for Māori learners. Success requires continual review, access to specialist learning support programmes such as reading recovery, further expansion of the school library and ICT programme and of course a continual focus on leadership development, structure and organisation which is paying such high dividends. We might describe Te Akau ki Papamoa as a model school for raising Māori learner achievement, but Bruce Jepsen is quick to remind us ‘Each school has to work out for itself, with its own community and in consultation with its own local iwi , the best way to engage Māori learners so they can experience success. Our way will not be the best way for every school. What each school needs is to know how to find out what is the right way for them. Then and only then will we see a real turn-around in Māori learner achievement.’
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