A sunny start to the 2024 Wānanga, with Pat Sneddon predicting the rain would start as we moved inside... He was startlingly correct.
The tamariki performing the opening was as spine-tingling as ever. It's SO impressive for those so young, this year from Panmure Bridge Kapa Haka!
We've been doing this for quite a few years now... and have grown dramatically.
Russell opened by reminding us that we are the navigators, of our kura, teachers for their classes. We can do stuff together, talking, hearing, and figuring it out, to navigate to a better place. Nobody stops us but us.
Brilliant Basics: Calm, hopeful, joyful, gracious, tika, pono, aroha.
Research and Development
Rebecca Jesson spoke about how large a group we represent now. These are the people we have accountabilities to, along with our teachers.
Mostly public education professionals, but also. research, PLD providers, and support partners that we are reliant upon. We are all trying our very best at whatever part that we are here to play. As leaders, we are here to coordinate "so that the places we touch become waters that join, not separate." Creating ways of working that are helpful, rather than unhelpful. There are some things we know that will not work and we know because we've been here a while now.
We used to do to create Equity... but does that still hold in these times of change?
We have been trying to improve progress and achievement at the same time. It links directly with what we've read from Russel Bishop.
We know what we need to do... but are we actually doing it yet? How do we effect change in order to get people (i.e. classroom teachers) to implement the research-based strategies that have been proven to have impactful change, rather than continuing to do what they have always done (but isn't working).
By tracking a cohort of students over many years we can see the long-term impact from the longitudinal data. We often think about what we need to change, but we need to be deliberate about what needs to stay the same.
A new era of change...
We choose how we think about this season of change.
Individualised or standard measures can stand, or float upon a sea.
What is still core?
What is still needed?
We need to move together. We need to move slowly and carefully toward our choice points. What do we want for our schools, our clusters, and our community?
We need to move together. We need to move slowly and carefully toward our choice points. What do we want for our schools, our clusters, and our community?
What do we maintain inside that core to maintain our island on a sea of creativity?
The basics are the floor. If we only aim for the basics, we don't get off the floor. We lower the ceiling and there is no room for growth.
As a leadership group, where are our people? How do we best lead them?
We've had these since the beginning:
How do we make sure our professionals are becoming more adaptive experts to hook our kids. We have been doing the basics for a long time.
People didn't know this before we started doing this. We talk a lot about the Research to inform our practice... but the practice has to happen to feed the research. This is the sharp end of the pencil.
JOUR, Trinidad, Jose (2023) Rethinking School Improvement Organizations: Understanding Their Variety, Benefits, Risks, and Future Directions
Our young people perform as well as we want them to. We get out what we put in.
Our boundaries can be tensions or joining points. There can be antagonism when people aren't on the same page.
It's easy to lose sight of the fact that we are first and foremost accountable to our community. Our young people.
We need to create harmony, not tension.
How can we harness all the potential in the room?
How can we aim for the ceiling, not the floor?
The four kaupapa in the middle that holds everything up and the processes of effective practice in place.
How will we ensure the relationships inside our place thrive?
How will we use them in our place?
While we have a great deal of change coming, it's actually what we've already been doing.
We've been focusing on creativity & engagement for a long time. They ARE included within the new curriculum if you delve deep enough.
By
The pillars of practice have been modified this morning, to include what is in the new curriculum.
Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Friedrich, L., Murphy, L., & Hogan, N. (2023). Reading for understanding: How reading apprenticeship improves disciplinary learning in secondary and college classrooms. John Wiley & Sons.
The RPI is not only our Primary teachers, It is also available to our Year 7-10 teachers.
Assessment is nothing new. We've always had a warts-and-all approach to data.
Watch this space regarding writing Assessment.
What We're Already Doing:
Teaching the Basics Brilliantly.
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We have been talking about the issues/dilemmas in reading for years now.
The light blue boxes highlight what is included in the new curriculum. The dark blue shows where the RPI delves deeper.
The light blue shows alignment, and the deeper blue shows where TMP have delved deeper. The white squares are where there's no alignment, mainly because there is no explicit teaching for "Whanau" or "Assessment".
The RPI is fantastic, well-rounded and responsive.
Moving into Math:
There is a different picture for math...
The Pillars of OPractice have been developed for math, preempting the push in the current climate. The national and international research was combined and aligned. There has been great feedback from teachers who have partaken in the MPI.
There's an overlap of what TMP had foreseen as the
Teaching components are on the left, the Big Ideas.
The light blue shows alignment, and the deeper blue shows where TMP have delved deeper. The white squares are where there's no alignment, mainly because there is no explicit teaching for "Whanau" or "Assessment".
We need to look at how we can collaborate across schools with what different phase resources look like.
When thinking about whether a choice is the right choice, think about what your school currently does. The pieces that matter to you.
Secondary:
TMP have been responsive in looking at what's being rolled out:
The problems require close reading of the text. TMP has looked at what students are going to need in the way of support, across the curriculum.
What are we going to do to ensure our learners are successful:
Greenleaf, C., Schoenbach, R., Friedrich, L., Murphy, L., & Hogan, N. (2023). Reading for understanding: How reading apprenticeship improves disciplinary learning in secondary and college classrooms. John Wiley & Sons.
The RPI is not only our Primary teachers, It is also available to our Year 7-10 teachers.
Watch this space regarding writing Assessment.
The "Learn" component in L|C|S has always been a focus for our clusters, and continues to be a focus moving forward.
We have monitored elements of the learning in observations and questionnaires for a number of years and will continue to do so.
In observations, we looked for lessons where the learners reflected on their learning intentions, In the questionnaires we asked if learners knew how much progress they were making, if they know what they are learning to do and if they know they have been successful in their learning during reading. 65% of learners and 82% of teachers thought that the learners know when they were successful. This combines the Always and Mostly responses. Explicit teaching means teachers clearly explain concepts with specific learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson, rather than expecting students to figure them out on their own. This approach is useful when teaching new material or addressing misunderstandings.
From the curriculum: Explicit teaching is not just about teacher talk. In it, teachers gradually give students more responsibility for their own learning. Students stay actively involved, and teachers regularly check for understanding, providing immediate and constructive feedback.
In observations the use of a text set (more than one text on the topic or theme) was seen in 19% of lessons, this is down on previous years. However, in the questionnaires, 63% of learners and 64% of teachers thought learners were reading more than one text on a topic. We know that to go wide and deep on a topic helps understanding and exposes students to more texts over the year.
From the curriculum: In the teaching considerations at phase 2 it states Teachers should provide opportunities for students to read often and widely so they engage with a range of texts for enjoyment and to build knowledge.
In observations we could see the use of an audio text in 8% of lessons, a digital text in 31% of lessons, pictorial text in 15% and video is 23% of lessons. Print text was seen 75% of the time. In the questionnaires, 67% of learners and 78% of teachers thought learners got to read different kinds of texts.
From the curriculum Phase 2 working with texts:
Explore a wider range of national and international texts with students during this phase, including oral texts, visual texts, and both fiction and non-fiction written texts in electronic and print media.
In observations extended discussion was seen in 29% of lessons and different viewpoints shared in 39% of lessons, in the questionnaires 69% of learners and 85% of teachers thought learners were taught how to share opinions in discussion.
The curriculum in phase 2 states that Explicit teaching of oral language supports students to develop the more advanced skills needed to effectively present ideas and information in ways that engage an audience and take an effective part in collaborative discussions and group work.
In observations we looked for Higher Order Thinking Skills being used. Analysis was seen in 55% of lessons, Evaluation in 39% and Synthesis in 26% of lessons observed. In the questionnaires, 74% of learners and 87% of teachers thought learners knew what they were learning to do always or most of the time. This is learners being metacognitive about the learning process in reading.
From the end of year 6 - Critical analysis
At the end of this phase, students can discuss different interpretations of a text and justify a position using personal knowledge, evidence from the text, and knowledge of similar texts. They consider the effects of how people, places, objects, and ideas are represented in and across texts and can distinguish facts from opinions. They can also identify how their thinking has changed or solidified as a result of this critical analysis.
In observations Māori representation was seen in 32% of lessons, this matches 38% of our demographic that identify as Māori. Pasifika representation was seen in 14% of lessons, not quite matching our demographic numbers of 23%. (we acknowledge that it is sometimes difficult to find Pacifika texts and know that this has been a focus in the School Journals for a while now.) In the questionnaires 54% of whānau, 46% of learners 67% of teachers and 64% of leaders thought learners read texts that included a range of different cultures.
In the text forms and genre section, the curriculum identifies texts from learners' cultures as being required. At the end of year 6 learners compare and contrast different text forms and genres across a topic, including cultural texts from their own and others’ cultures, and discuss how they are written for different audiences.
knowledge and learning but also creating and engaging our learners in their education. This holds true as we see a focus on knowledge building in Understand | Know | Do.
But we also need to be valuing the pieces that have helped us create successful clusters if schools with a focus on creativity and engagement.
The digital create is usually a focus for us in Manaiakalani when we are upskilling teachers but we acknowledge that your teachers are creative across the whole of the curriculum in a myriad of different ways and not just digitally.
From the curriculum at the end of year 6 composition / writing:
Use a range of digital tools to create and edit texts with a mixture of print, visual, and audio content. We know we want this as a way to apply understanding for our learners across the curriculum, not just in writing.
This is an example of Manaiakalani going further or deeper in the teaching and learning than what we see in the curriculum.
In observations 16% of learners collaborated on their create activities, interesting to see the drop off in the NCEA years 11-13. In the questionnaires, 58% of teachers and 56% of leaders thought learners worked together always or most of the time. Being able to collaborate is one of our 21st-century ‘soft skills’
Again From Phase 2 developing positive identities as communicators, readers and writers:
Give students choice and opportunities to collaborate. We have looked at collaboration for a number of years in both observations and questionnaires.
**My provocation is that, in some spaces, our learning environments aren't designed to enable collaboration.**
In observations 37% of of lessons had the students share their learning, either on blogs or in person. In the questionnaires, 51% of learners and 57% of teachers thought learners shared their create activities always or most of the the time.
In Communication for learning under Oral Language in Phase One in the new document, there is a section on metacognition, specifically asking students to reflect on what they have learned. We are asking our learners to be metacognitive about all of the learning they share with an audience by reflecting on the learning intentions and success criteria. When creating DLO’s to share students are being purposefully reflective about their learning.
what opportunities have we created for our learners in these areas?
How are we giving our learners opportunities to succeed in these areas?
Interesting to see the difference between what support Leaders highlighted in comparison to teachers.
Leaders focused on supporting teachers. Teachers focused on supporting learners.
My favourite word... Fidelity
Fidelity to our learners, our school, and our community.
How will we make aligned choices so that we maintain fidelity, knowing why we have made the decisions we make.
Pat's korero:
I always love a great talk from Pat Sneddon. It's fascinating to note the change in the audience. I doubt he even needs the microphone he grasps. You could hear a pin drop as the entire audience listens intently, with a subtle tap of keys the only sound, as educators attempt to capture the message he so successfully delivers.
"We are here to effect change.;"
Around 13% of Kiwi kids live in deprivation and poverty. They are invisible to the government and politics that are in a position to create change.
If capable governance over education was the only ingredient necessary for resolving educational outcomes for low decile NZers we wouldn't have our current literacy & numeracy challenges.
It's about teachers wanting to undertake DFI, RPI, & MPI in order to make them better teachers for their learners.
Eric Dearing (2024) Accumulation of Opportunities Predicts the Educational Attainment and Adulthood Earnings of Children Born Into Low- Versus Higher-Income Households
https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X241283456
Ragnedda, M. (2020). Traditional Digital Inequalities: Digital Divide. In: Enhancing Digital Equity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49079-9_3
Maggie Farrar (2015) Learning Together: The power of cluster based school improvement https://ipsalliance.eq.edu.au/supportandresources/formsanddocuments/documents/seminar-series-249.pdf
Adapted from: Sachs, J. (2015). Teacher professionalism: why are we still talking about it? Teachers and Teaching, 22(4), 413–425. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2015.1082732
Andy Hargreaves (2000) Four Ages of Professionalism and Professional Learning, Teachers and Teaching, 6:2, 151-182, DOI: 10.1080/713698714
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/713698714
Looking forward to another thought provoking day tomorrow.
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