Sharing expectations and aspirations

Posted on 12 December, 2016

Southland Girls’ High School is working closely with Māori students and whānau to ensure Māori language, culture and identity are protected and foundational to learning and well-being.

Recently school leaders, Māori students and their whānau, with support of the school kaumatua, engaged in a noho marae. This opportunity to openly share expectations and aspirations in a safe and nurturing environment has contributed to Māori students’ learning and wellbeing becoming central to power-sharing partnerships between whānau and staff.

It is also influencing the reimagining of how school systems and professional practices can most effectively support Māori learners to enjoy education success as Māori.

As part of these exciting improvements in meaningful partnerships between whānau and academic tutors, it is now business as usual for whānau to experience learning-focused conversations with staff that are increasingly potential-focused. Furthermore, expectations for maximum whānau and family engagement in formal home-school learning conversations are now commonplace.

This changing approach also means that whānau and students now have another academic rōpū option open to them; Te Manawa Kaharoa. This metaphor has been chosen by Māori students and whānau to represent a life blood within the school that needs nurturing; beating for generations to come. In focusing on learning progress and success as Māori, Te Manawa Kaharoa are a culturally responsive academic rōpū with mana in the school, making valuable contributions to school-wide change leadership.

A key outcome for Māori students is that the school is in a much improved position to effectively support each student to make a year’s worth of progress each year in a culturally responsive and relational environment.

Growth in teacher practice, from transmission to culturally responsive pedagogy, has been supported through observation and shadow coaching over two years.

Over the same period, shifts in pedagogy have been tracked through a school-wide evidence collection process known as Rongohia te Hau. The number of teachers demonstrating integration of the principles of culturally responsive and relational pedagogy has risen from 29% in February 2015 to 49% in October 2016.