Section
Practice
Te Rito o Te Harakeke
On Monday, I was welcomed as the tumuaki hou | new principal of Ruakākā Primary School. In my culture, starting well is important. I was raised with sayings like, ‘Start as you mean to go on . . . ’, and ‘You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.’ In Māori culture beginnings are […]
Whitiora School’s Success Story
Editor In recent decades, housing has become a symbol of inequity in Aotearoa New Zealand. It clearly signifies the haves and the have nots. So entrenched are the inequities that stories of families living in garages, caravans, tents, cars and vans no longer make headlines. Governments of all shades have weathered blame for housing issues. […]
Māori Achievement Collaboratives (MAC) Making A Difference for Tamariki Māori
EDITOR It is no secret that Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of racism and inequity. Like so many colonised countries, the real intention of colonisation was not so much to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, their language, culture and lands, but to assume power and sovereignty over them. of Māori would be […]
The Four Sights of Wise Leadership
Principal, Edendale School, Southland It is often said in any organisation, business, club or association, that you need to have the right people in the right places. I would go further and say that you need to have the right people, with the right thinking, in the right places. It’s crucial. In an education setting, […]
Falling on your Feet
Over the last year or so it’s become a feature of our university staff meetings for one or two people to do a pepeha, followed by a few minutes of explanation in English of the various points made. It’s both a way of building staff confidence in using te reo Māori and of understanding and […]
Collective Resilience
‘Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini’ The pandemic years have presented Principals with enormous and ongoing challenges. It wouldn’t be surprising if you were sick and tired of ‘the R word’. Exhortations to ‘be resilient’, focusing exclusively on the individual, sound suspiciously like ‘take a concrete pill and harden up’. […]
Unteach Racism – How it can help your practice
Senior Advisor, Teaching Council | Matatū Aotearoa What is Unteach Racism? The first iteration of Unteach Racism was released in May 2021 with an aim to help teachers, identify, confront, and dismantle racism in education. The Teaching Council | Matatū Aotearoa partnered with the Human Rights Commission’s Give Nothing to Racism campaign to create conversations […]
Lets Talk About Professional Boundries
Professional Insight Principals – have you ever posed this question to your staff? Do you accept that invite to an 18th birthday party? Do you answer that late night text from a student who says they are feeling depressed? These are just some of the issues teachers must navigate throughout their career. Maintaining professional boundaries […]
Culture Change at Westport North School
Editor It is impossible not to be overawed by the Buller. Nature reigns big in these parts. On a 1040-meterhigh bed of rock, sleeps the giant Mount Rochfort, named after John Rochfort (1832–93) a pioneer survey-engineer who conducted mineral surveys of the Buller District. R ochfort broodily oversees the town of Westport and shares a […]
The Positive Impact of Assessing Student Wellbeing
Kiwitahi School, New Zealand Kiwitahi is a rural primary school in Waikato, New Zealand. The school is in the dairy farming heartland of the North Island, with the majority of pupils coming from farming families. There are 41 children currently on roll, with numbers forecast to grow later this year. The school is state funded, […]
Creating Culture at Frimley Primary
Editor Camera in one hand, laptop in the other, I stride to the front gate of Frimley School. Two youngsters on scooters are headed for the same gate. ‘Morena whaea!’ they smile in unison. They stand back. ‘Kia ora e ngā tāmariki,’ I reply, immediately warming to my new friends. We introduce ourselves, chat a […]