The 'Wai Learner'
Staff at Waimataitai School are well-versed in the attributes of a successful learner. During a teacher only day, they took on the challenge of making a presentation to demonstrate one of the attributes of the 'Wai Learner' armed only with a digital camera and the local community.
Waimataitai is a full primary school with a roll of approximately 460 and a total staff of 40. As a large school, it is able to provide a range of programmes and opportunities for students while actively fostering a family feeling with many activities building relationships between young and old within the school community.
Principal Jane Culhane leads from the front, side, behind, in fact all angles to create a community of learners. She believes schools need a robust induction system to help new staff embrace and embed the school vision, and join in the journey. Work is under way to develop this. She is fortunate to have an outstanding staff and committed community of reflective learners to explore The New Zealand Curriculum.
The staff started their thinking about curriculum change with the arrival of the draft document. Jane explains, "As a staff we felt we were ready to move beyond isolated curriculum 'topics'. Our curriculum knowledge and understanding was strong and we felt we were now able to make more informed decisions about what was important - strong desire for greater integration, more authentic coverage, more depth and development - doing less better. However there were clearly very different understandings of integration (and people) at different stages of the continuum."
The UNESCO four pillars of education underpinned further exploration:
- Learning to know
- Learning to do
- Learning to live together
- Learning to be
In response, the school created the Wai Learner. Students explored the idea of the Wai Learner by making visual representations, one of which was selected and reproduced by a graphic artist. Staff explored the idea by aligning the school vision with the key competencies, principles, values, and vision of the new curriculum. The resulting attributes for students at Waimataitai School are:
- Respectful
- Curious
- Motivated
- Reflective
- Happy
- Team players
On the launch day learning teams participated in various activities to introduce the Wai Learner concept. To reinforce the new language, different sized cardboard cut out versions of the Wai Learner popped up all around the school. The teaching staff felt it important to have the characters in three different sizes to demonstrate that students can be a Wai Learner at any size, as big people and as little people. All are Wai Learners and can aspire to become a bigger Wai Learner.
The staff showed students the presentations they had made during their teacher only day. The students really enjoyed these, and it demonstrated that their teachers were Wai Learners too. The Wai Learners concept is now a part of the learning culture of the school.
Each class was given a set of Wai Learners (cardboard cut outs) to take back to their classrooms as new classmates. The students were also given a bedroom door hanger of a Wai Learner with the attributes written on the side to reinforce the concept that you are a Wai Learner where-ever you are.
Researcher, Eileen Piggot Irvine, remarked on a recent visit to the school, "You can actually see it everywhere in the school. It is living."
Māori students make up 12 percent of Waimataitai's roll. Last year the school employed a Kaiārahi Reo to model and assist teachers with te reo and tikanga. Additional te reo opportunities were provided for two groups of students. Due to the demand across the school, this has been extended to three groups this year. The year 8 boys' haka was a highlight of the final assembly in 2008, demonstrating the sense of pride and mana of these fine young men, and how they felt about themselves and their school.
This year bilingual names will be introduced for the Wai Learner attributes along with an appropriate whakatauki for each.
Next steps
The staff are now developing overviews based on the 'big ideas' of what the school wants to achieve with curriculum over a period of time. This curriculum is to be empowering, and allow learners to go deeper in their inquiries. The biggest challenge for teachers is to create an environment that encourages both richness and spontaneity for student learning.
The staff have been 'playing' with the ideas in The New Zealand Curriculum and working with it.
One such initiative trialled is "Community Whānau time". All students have chosen an area of interest to contribute to their community. As an 'enviro' school the school wanted to build on the students' enthusiasm for sustainable and future focused ideas as part of the wider community. This will involve students identifying a need and determining how this could be met, then setting goals and action plans in place over the year to achieve them.
Kids are more likely to develop key competencies if they understand what's going on and are given a role in helping design and bring about change - if they are involved in solving real problems and creating knowledge.
Mary Chamberlain, Learning@School 2008
- Tags:
- primary
- vision
Published on: 20 Feb 2009
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Lesley Red Beach School - Jun 29, 2009 at 2:59pm:
Hi there Jane and staff of Waimataitai. Really enjoyed reading this account and I can well imagine how well the kids would have liked what you produced. Good on you!!!
Lesley, Red Beach School
Rosemary Smith - Jun 29, 2009 at 2:59pm:
It was good to read that the staff are getting their head around the "big ideas" before the finer details in the curriculum.Your initiatives sound interesting and exciting, and you call them trials. Means you can develop or drop what doesn't work for your community if needs be. A living model, nothing needs to be set in concrete,great. You sound as if you are in a good place on your "journey."
Rosemary Smith
Barb Perry - Jun 29, 2009 at 2:58pm:
Great to see this process in action in a large school and compare how it happens, with us as a smaller school. It is so important to help children to remember the attributes of an effective learner eg in this example the Wai learner. I enjoyed the examples of how this school made this come alive for the children in all sorts of creative ways! Thank you for sharing and being courageous.
Barb Perry, Principal