What is your School doing?

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Things to think about

If you were to organise a hui for Māori parents, what sorts of things could you tell them about the reo Māori programme in your school?

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Transcript

Student 1:
Our teachers are expected to put a Māori perspective in their planning. At Hukanui we have electives, which is a topic that children opt into, one day a week, they choose a different one and Māori is offered as an elective as well. Try to get sort of a mentoring and developing relationships with people within the community and other schools. We wanted to do a hui with our community, so we had a poi party to sort of link it in and try and get the community in.

Student 2:
We have a carved pou outside our library and he’s the centre of our school. We have a kapa haka group. We have whānau atawhai after school.

Student 3:
Some of us attended the TRCC course in Wellington last year based on teaching te reo with confidence. At the moment our school is developing an action plan for the professional development of our teachers. We have willing teachers. We have kapa haka, we do the matariki. Look at contacting outside facilitators as well as using our own human resources within our own school.

[On the screen]
... and what next?

Student 4:
And I’m thinking we’re going to go onto the old site which is now called "Te Aranga" and maybe do something on marae, have a pōwhiri there and welcome the staff on there and learn a bit about the history and so I’m just thinking, I still think we might do it, and then include ... rather than waiting a year 'til the other [indiscernible] staff come up ...

Student 5:
That would be something really good as a unity thing ... having that waiata ... revitalising something that is already there, which has been developed for your people.

Student 4:
I’m worried about developing the teachers’ confidence in doing this, so it’s a team building day, but I see that as a valid team building exercise. Why go through the book of team building games when there’s something really that’s a double barrel?

Student 5:
There’s nothing more powerful than leaders or teachers being learners themselves. And again you could tap into the whole prior knowledge that the students have, and they could become the teachers in some cases.

Student 4:
Well that’s the way I think it’s going to happen with the Pākehā teachers in particular. It doesn’t matter that my pronunciation at times just isn’t there—

Student 5: Isn't it great that a kid can actually correct you.

Student 4: —But I don’t have a problem with the child correcting me and telling me the proper way to do things, because it helps them so much.

Student 6:
There’s progression through the team so when they leave at the end of year 8, they’ve met some kind of ... they’ve got some sentence structures ... it’s not just every year, it’s the same old ... right it’s the beginning of the year we’re going to do ngā mahi.

Student 7:
So you’re looking for some continuity throughout the school?

Student 6:
And providing ... I mean there’s some resources there, they’re old photocopied stuff, you know, updating the resources, having them there. I’m already thinking maybe running a staff meeting on some of the ideas you’ve got. So giving teachers ideas on how they can do it.

Student 7:
We were talking about the need to find a starting point higher up than the existing starting point, that in fact for a while our schools going to have to run two starting points. Like a junior starting point for those starting off. Then somewhere into level 2, we’re going to need a second starting point for those that have been at school for some time and have covered the stuff at level 1. And actually determining where is the best place to start. Because for it to happen, it’s almost going to have to happen almost on a syndicate-wide basis.

Student 8:
So, you can have your lower ones and your higher ones across the whole school at the same time, doesn’t it?

Student 7:
And resourcing it so that the kits with the lesson plans and the worksheets that we’ve got and the songs [indiscernible] and everything are all set ready to go. Because for many of our staff, particularly those who are working at that higher level of the school, they need that support to be able to feel any confidence in teaching.

Student 8:
A lot of us don’t have that confidence.