Effective leaders

Three schools in the Te Kauhua initiative – Hillmorton, Lincoln, and Hornby High Schools - opted to cluster together for purposes of their research inquiry. They worked from a common research question, but tailored their inquiries to their individual school contexts. The cluster schools met regularly over the duration of the project, sharing findings and challenging one another’s practice and thinking. The following case study highlights the approaches and findings of Hillmorton High School. 

Lincoln High School investigates how, as part of a cluster arrangement, a school can foster the development of an effective professional learning community that is focused on teaching as inquiry and premised on three underpinning principles: ako (reciprocal learning), culture counts, and productive partnerships.

In this sabbatical leave report from Sue Horne, Principal, Maungatapu School; Sue investigates culturally responsive leadership and teaching practices that will support Māori student achievement in a Primary School.

In this article Hamish Ruawai talks about his career as a leader. Hamish discusses the importance of knowing that for Māori students to be effective learners they need effective relationships with people who are teaching and how this knowledge influences how he works at Kaikohe West School.

In this report Marion Fitchett discusses how the Ministry of Education examined the effectiveness of its initiatives to support leaders’ professional learning and confidence in implementing the Ka Hikitia strategy.

Sally Wilson, Principal, Raurimu Avenue School discusses how she used the school’s commitment to Ka Hikitia to make dramatic changes at Raurimu Avenue School.

The community engagement section of the New Zealand Curriculum Online website presents resources on this site support school leaders, teachers and professional learning facilitators as they engage with school communities.

The Special Education (SE) Māori strategy uses the imagery of a meeting house (wharenui) to explain how Service Provision for Māori can be facilitated within the context of Special Education.

Approaches to conceptualising, identifying and providing for gifted and talented Māori students are dual faceted: they may emanate from Te Ao Māori; a Māori worldview on the one hand, and have significant connotations to Te Ao Hurihuri (the global world) on the other.

This working paper written by Ally Bull for NZCER, discusses the relationship between schools and their communities. It explores the purpose of different school-community initiatives and discusses the case for a wider public engagement in education for the purpose of rethinking how schools meet the needs of all learners in the 21st century.