Effective leaders

In this sabbatical report Michael McMenamin, Headmaster New Plymouth Boys' High School, seeks to investigate, by talking with Māori students (and other participants in their education), how a better understanding of Māori students’ experiences in the classroom and analyses of these experiences might lead to improved policy and teaching and learning that would ultimately result in greater Māori student achievement. 

EDtalks, a Core Education initiative, features videos from conferences and seminars, institutes, and schools. Schools and individuals are free to download the video files for use in whole staff or personal professional learning. This can be done by downloading directly from the website.

Visit the Ako Panuku website to see the national online network of teachers/educators in secondary schools and engage in professional discussions about your experience as a teacher.

This report attempts to answer the question, “How might medium to high decile schools with a low percentage of Māori and Pasifika students successfully engage family and whānau in their children’s learning to help raise student achievement?”  

This article by Juliette Hayes and Amy Clode in the Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice, introduces an approach where school personnel listen to Māori students with the purpose of learning about their experiences at school.

In this article, in the September 2012 edition of The New Zealand Principal, Liz Hawes talks to the principal of Te Akau ki Papamoa School about factors that have led to raising Māori students’ achievement. 

Detroit Sterling is a learning advisor, at Unlimited Paenga Tawhiti in Christchurch. He has a pivotal role in supporting staff and students around Māori student achievement. In this story he talks about the importance of relationships in his work.

In this case study, Newlands College deputy principal John Murdoch reflects on his school’s experience in setting up a whānau advisory group. The group began in response to data showing the college’s year 9 Māori students were struggling.

This case study explores how Te Kopuru School’s principal Lee Anderson has spent the past 8 years changing the culture of her small Northland school to improve the education, social, and cultural outcomes of the school’s Māori learners.

This case study (available in te reo Māori and English) looks at how two early childhood education services in the Waikato region are supporting vulnerable whānau to develop their knowledge and skills and get hooked into the education system early.