TE KAHUI AKO O TARANAKI MOHOAO

Hi Team

Well its been another busy month. It really does feel like we are building the plane while we are flying it. This month we have been really focussed on understanding the role of the Within School Teaches and how this connects to the Across School Teachers and ultimately our Achievement Challenges. Moving forward I am sure you will see and hear a bit more from the WST's and AST's as they/we being to understand their roles and the expectations related to this. We are learning and growing together in this space and we want it to be as effective as possible for our tamariki and our schools. Your feedback and input is extremely valuable as we grow as a community together.

The role of the Lead Principal is immense and challenging and I am finding that I am having to prioritise what is urgent and what can wait a little longer. I am released two days per week to do this work and most often this takes place on a Tuesday and Wednesday. If I don't respond straight away to your emails/phone calls please be rest assured that I will do so as soon as is possible.

New Appointments

Congratulations to Dan Wood and Reijanne Campbell who have been newly appointed at Stratford High School to work in the transition space.

WST Hui - Wednesday 7th August

Our WST's came together for the first time to unpack the role of the WST. This was a really successful meeting. At the meeting we:

• Unpacked the job description
• Looked who all the groups in our Kahui Ako are and how they are all connected.
• We discussed the Kahui Ako Achievement Challenges and how the WST positions must directly relate to one or more of these.
• Our WST's shared their inquiries and focuses within their schools.
• We discussed how the AST's will work with the WST's and that there would be a regular connect between both.
• At the end of the meeting WST's made some next steps/actions that they have hopefully shared with their Principals.

WST Hui - Wednesday 25th September

This meeting will be taking place at Stratford High School. This will be our second meeting as a group to discuss the place of the WST within our Kahui Ako and to plan our next steps.

We have allocated our AST's an area to inquire into that links to our Achievement Challenge:

Tracy - Enhancing Learner Agency through a localised curriculum

Angela - Raising achievement through enhanced transitions - Year 7 and beyond.

Penny - Raising achievement through enhanced transitions. - ECE to Primary

Our AST's have been allocated schools:

We have had to make a few changes, schools have been notififed of this, these are highlighted in bold.

Tracy - Stratford Primary, St Josephs, Toko, Avon, Huiakama, Marco, Makahu

Angela - Stratford High School, Taranaki Dio, Pemroke, Midhirst

Penny - Ngaere, Eltham, Rawhitiroa,

Our AST's can be contacted by any schools with regards to anything related to the Kahui Ako.

We received really good feedback about our first Super Staff Meeting and as a result have a second one planned. This will take place at Eltham Primary School. The focus for this meeting will be Learner Agency, Curriculum, Pedagogy. Staff will be encouraged to share their inquiries or areas of interest.

Our facilitators have asked me to provide some feedback about how the PLD is progressing in our Kahui Ako. If your kura is involved in this PLD could you please ask a representative to take the time to complete this short survey.

FEEDBACK

Thank you for your feedback. We are pulling this together and will have the final refresh of this doc out soon.

Relationships and Responsive Transitions/ Weaving the Curriculums

Purpose: To provide support to Central Taranaki Kāhui Ako around transition pathways to school and kura, in particular understanding the connections between Te Whāriki and New Zealand Curriculum.

A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO THOSE CENTRES AND SCHOOLS WHO ARE REACHING OUT TO EACH OTHER! LET”S KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING!

Click here to revisit our work from our last session!

YOUR WORK NOW IS THE FUTURE FOR OUR TAMARIKI!

I can't wait to come back together and hear about all the gems of practice that have come from our mahi together. A few reminders as we head towards the end of the term.

Dates for Term 3 are …

• 19th September session 9.00 - 3.00 pm Taranaki Dio

• Log into our ECE PD folder on drive to register yourself so we can book our catering: Register here

The Kahui Ako will be using our Learning Pathway Matrix as our way of recording our journey. Could you please have these filled in and ready for our session on the 19th September (LOL I know I was supposed to collect them at last session). Just one per centre or school. Fill it in together! It is essential for teachers to fill in with their principal's or leadership team members.

It is really important that our PD is being responsive to your needs going forward. We have a small amount of time left with Sarah. I would like you all to email me back with one area you want to look at deeper. Looking forward to your responses.

Penny Andrew - Across School Teacher

penny@ngaere.school.nz

July has seen more action across the Kahui Ako, with our first Within School/Across School Hui. Our roles are becoming clearer, with us now having a focus on one particular Achievement Challenge. I am excited to be working in the Learner Agency space, with so many schools already running their own programmes I am keen to come and see some great practice around our Kahui Ako. In the interim I am creating a one stop shop presentation for “What is Learner Agency?” Also a resource bank for those who want to learn more or improve their practice. There will be opportunities to begin to visit each others spaces in the near future. Please contact me at tracyw@sps.kiwi.nz if this sounds like something you would be keen on, or similarly if you or one of your colleagues are willing to share your programme with like minded people.

I have been lucky enough to already visit our three Eastern District Schools, Makahu, Marco and Huiakama, which was a great opportunity to see and hear about the fantastic things happening in our small rural schools.

I have also been busy working on our Kahui Ako website. A central point that will eventually be a great place to access resources, make connections and keep up to date with all that is happening. My hope is that by the end of the year all of our teachers will have this site bookmarked for easy and quick access.

https://centraltaranakikahuiako.wordpress.com

Tracy White - Across School Teacher

tracyw@sps.kiwi.nz

Visits to Pembroke and Dio have helped me to better understand their priorities and get a sense of their unique school cultures. The draft Achievement Challenges have proven to be a useful place to start engagement at Dio, Pembroke and Stratford High. Teachers are already strongly engaged in work that connects with the challenges and see the huge potential in collaborating around these challenges with colleagues in other schools. A common concern was how we will find the time to collaborate in our already very busy days.

We have started to collaborate around improving transitions for our students between Year 8 and 9. We had a great initial meeting of teachers and leaders involved in transition to high school which clarified the process as it currently happens. While we have some best practice occurring, we have identified some simple changes to the process of building connections that can be implemented quickly that should help both students, their whanau and schools to be better prepared for next year. Dan Woodd (WST) will be leading the changes to the Year 9 orientation programme at Stratford High and we will try and ensure that we can align their programme with Dio’s when appropriate. The next piece of work is to better streamline the transfer of knowledge about students between schools. I am looking forward to building a picture of the complex and rich body of knowledge that comes with each student as they move between schools. The teachers involved have plenty of ideas about how we can make the most of this knowledge in our planning. I am looking forward to progressing this work with them.

In addition to the significant transition between primary and secondary, I am starting to look at best practice with regards to the transition between schools. To that end, I am hoping to try and gather some baseline data about the numbers of students that move between schools as a starting point.

Angela Roberts - Across School Teacher

ra@stratfordhigh.school.nz

Our Kahui Ako have booked John Parsons to come and work with our cluster of schools. This date is saved in the Kahui Ako calendar. More information will be coming out closer to the time.

For more information about John please follow the link: http://www.simulate2educate.co.nz/

We are excited to announce that we are bringing Marg Thorsbury back to work with educators in our Kahui Ako. Educators will need to commit to a three day workshop.

It is important that the three day workshops be attended by people at the top if you want to change the direction of your learning centre and move from punitive to relational. You need to be there and take at least one significant staff member.

All staff at Taranaki Dio are trained in restorative practice including their boarding staff – they de-escalate “stuff” all of the time. We use it in our personal lives and we are approached by students to have a “restorative”. We are not all experts but want to have the best possible relationships with students, colleagues and parents.

Marg’s website https://www.thorsborne.com.au/

Marg’s blurb from her TED talk

When harm is done (by us or others to us), reconnecting is only possible when we are a) willing to communicate with the other b) honest about what happened (no blame or excuses) and how it has affected us and finally c) being willing to express our vulnerable feelings about what happened.

Marg is a passionate advocate for healthy relationships, conflict resolution, restorative justice and relational leadership. With a long history first as a teacher and counsellor, and now as a consultant, she works tirelessly to help school communities and organisations understand what emotional health and wellbeing looks like, sounds like and feels like.

She is widely recognised as an international pioneer and expert on school & workplace bullying, and has played a major role in the introduction of restorative practices into schools and workplaces in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, USA, Canada and UK.

If you are a little school and would find it hard to cover the 3 days leave then talk with us about what the bigger schools could offer to support you

Registrations are open for this now:

REGISTRATIONS

Fiona Green

fionag@taranakidio.school.nz

We are pleased to announce that Fiona Green, Taranaki Dio has been appointed as our second Support Principal. This is a 12 month fixed term position. The focus for Fiona in this role will be to support our Kahu Ako Wellbeing Achievement Challenge.

At our most recent Leadership Meeting we had a webinar with Cathie from NZCER about the wellbeing@school tool. It has been decided that this will be the tool we will use to collect data which will then inform our own school and Kahui Ako wellbing actions

All activities relating to the Kahui Ako will be logged on the calendar including venues.

What the calendar entries mean:

AST Meetings - Across School Teachers

WST Meetings - Within School Teachers

KLT Meetings - Key Leadership Team Meetings

If you receive a calendar invite for a Kahui Ako meeting please do not reply to the e.mail just click: YES / NO / MAYBE regarding your intention to be at the meeting or not. It is very time consuming chasing up people who do not respond to calendar invites :)

Kahui Ako Boards of Trustees - 20th August

We are encouraging Board of Trustees to attend this 1 hour meeting so we can update them collectively on our work to date and moving forward.

This will take place at St Josephs Parish Hall from 7.00 - 8.00pm

Restorative Practices - Marg Thorsbury - 16th - 18th March 2020

3 day Workshop for Educators in our Kahui Ako. The Kahui Ako will cover all registration costs. The single cost to schools will be relieving costs.

Principal/ECE Leaders Hui - Tuesday 19th September 2.00 - 4.30 - This is a change of date

Super Staff Meeting - Wedensday 18th September 3.30 - 5.00.

Wellbeing@school surveys to be completed by all schools by the end of Term 3.

Principal/ECE Leaders PLD Cultural Inclusiveness - Thursday 17th October

Lead Principal - Kim Waite

Support Principal - Graham Sands

Email: principal@toko.school.nz
Website: https://stratfordcol.wordpress.com/
Location: Central Taranaki
Phone: 0273483550