In the initial consultation we held a hangi for the school population. This was a chance for the staff and the board of trustees to mingle with our Māori community. Some weeks later we followed this up with a hui and personally invited all our Māori families to take part. We had a high percentage of families involved and this was extremely beneficial. We gathered wonderful ideas of ways we could move forward and cater for the children.
One of the links from the consultation is implementing te reo Māori within the classroom. We conducted a staff survey to get a feel of what the needs were and the confidence and abilities in terms of te reo Māori. From the staff survey we developed professional development workshops that we held during a te reo kai time breakfast. Teachers came in to do little workshops on practical things such as greetings, days of the week, pronunciation, and developing and accessing resources. This is developing staff confidence, which is then filtering into the classrooms. We mainly worked through Te Aho Arataki Marau mō te Ako I Te Reo Māori – Kura Auraki as we identified our school as being at tamata (level) one. The shared professional development opportunities really helped us make everything consistent through the school, making sure we were using the same te reo and the same format.
Another practical support for teachers is we created a folder on our server which teachers can access containing a whole lot of waiata ā ringa with music attached to it. This is supporting teachers to easily do waiata daily in the classrooms. We are supporting teachers with really practical ideas.
Continuing to support the teachers where they feel they most need the support. Going to the next level in terms of integrating the te reo and getting the children to use te reo Māori a lot more. We would like to aim at a bilingual assembly, maybe branching out and going into a poly group, we are in consultation with the local community about having a kapa haka group, and we have a Māori carver coming in so we are looking at the Māori culture and arts.
We are part of a pilot programme called the Kahakura: A Ngāi Tahu cultural learning programme for students, whānau, and schools that was developed locally with the help of the Ngāi Tahu Fund. We have a group of five children participating in this, which aims at developing awareness of the Ngai Tahu culture, tribe affiliations and its history.
The amazing thing about our Ka Hikitia development is the positive feedback from teachers - they are so keen. They are quite happy to come up and ask for help and that has given us a lot to move forward with. The majority of teachers say, ‘this is what we need help with’ and they turn up to the meetings and the next day it is being implemented in the classroom. They are taking those ideas away and working with them. This is a great environment to work in.
Published on: 10 Dec 2009
