Reporoa College - ‘Closing the Gaps’

They have told us this story of their learnings from their Kia Eke Panuku journey and the successes they are seeing in closing the gaps for their Māori students.

In particular, the school demonstrates how it has worked across all dimensions and with multiple sources of evidence in order to address the disparities of Māori and non-Māori outcomes.

In 2014 as a result of their participation in a Kia Eke Panuku wānanga, the Strategic Change Team in the school facilitated a series of workshops to understand what the school’s evidence was saying and what the implications were for all groups present.

In the words of the Reporoa College principal: You can’t do something to people. People have to do things for themselves, but what you can do is help to raise their consciousness as to how change can happen.

The school’s Strategic Change Leadership Team had also begun to engage more strongly with the local iwi.

Together they had begun to work with the school to explore ways to develop reciprocal projects aimed at enhancing the capacity of the iwi and the college.

For example through an iwi sponsored Rangatahi leadership programme, the capacity to support Māori students achieving success as Māori in the college could be progressed.

Work with the wider school staff, and into the Māori community. saw shifts in NCEA roll-based data from 2013 - the year prior to this school participating in Kia Eke Panuku - to 2014, the first full year in Kia Eke Panuku.

As can be seen in the table below, these shifts are quite remarkable. The improvements have been sustained into 2015.