Transcript
Narration
Underpinning the key features of successful professional development are important Māori ways of thinking and relating to each other. Attending to these values is essential. Some of these values are: manaakitanga – the care for students as culturally-located human beings above all else. Mana motuhake – the care by teachers for the academic success and performance of their students. Whakawhanaungatanga – the nurturing of mutually respectful and collaborative relationships between all parties around student learning. And ako – the promotion of effective and reciprocal teaching and learning relationships, where everyone is a learner and a teacher. Rotorua Lakes High School and neighbouring Mokoia Intermediate have established a collaborative learning community where they share professional development opportunities. The process of developing better relationships with students began with asking the students what the issues were.
Diane Beattie – Board of Trustees Mokoia Intermediate School
When we started thinking and talking about the achievement of our Māori students, we wanted to find out what students felt worked for them in school, what made learning easy, what made school a comfortable or uncomfortable place. So what we tried to do was to use a process that was as open as possible, that would enable students to set the agenda. To identify what issues were important for them, the students actually recorded the information themselves on paper, and that is very very different from an old style closed consultation, where... a powerful interviewer writes down information themselves, and the person who is being consulted may not even see what that information is, how it will be used. We were able to use students, senior students from Rotorua Lakes High School, to come down and lead small group facilitation. We spent some time with the students to help them to understand what the aims we were trying to achieve with this consultation were.
Brian Hinchco – Principal Mokoia Intermediate School
What surprised us was that they tended to generally be very positive comments. A number of curriculum areas had mixed reporting. So the areas of reading and maths had both positive and negative comments, and it was those mixed areas that we could work on and develop.
Narration
Besides improving the delivery of curriculum areas, the information also suggested a range of ways that teachers could relate to their students. Lunchtime sports provided such an opportunity.
Ross Everiss – Associate Principal Mokoia Intermediate School
We’re out there on the field with them refereeing as a class teacher. We’re out there supporting and working with our classes to make sure they were participating in a positive way, rather than having to deal with incidents in a negative kind of way.