Collecting data

What do we know about the achievement of Māori and Pasifika students in our school?

The following questions for secondary schools could be used as a baseline to identify how well your school is meeting the goals for Māori and Pasifika educational achievement.

Other questions to consider could be:

• What do we have in place to ensure that Māori and Pasifika students are present, engaged and achieving in Years 9 and 10?

• Looking at the data above, how well are these strategies working?

• How could we improve our approaches?

• How well do we help Year 9 students settle into secondary school?

• How do we engage parents/ whānau in the transition to secondary school?

Ka Hikitia

The Curriculum Report to the Board of Trustees: Term 3 2010 from Goldfields Primary school illustrates the school’s progress towards achieving the student outcomes of Ka Hikitia - Managing for Success: The Māori Education Strategy 2008-2012.

Transcript

As part of the experienced principals programme, we had days where as a group we all got together. There were some lectures and some opportunities to share ideas with fellow colleagues. We are pretty good talkers when we get together, and one of the themes at one of those hui was around looking at ways to improve achievement for Māori students. Which is an issue, I think, for all schools and we’re looking for silver bullets and can’t find them.

However, when we sat around the group of principals, I think there was about 12 of us and we were talking about things that we’re doing in our various schools. It struck me that I think five of the principals there mentioned the fact that they had a marae on their school and a wharenui on their school.

And they gave some really good stories, told really good stories about how that was important for their Māori students and an important part of their school campus. And I came away from that meeting sort of convinced that it was something that we had to give priority to. In our redevelopment plans for the school we did have the plans for a wharenui but it had sort of stalled somewhat and other things had taken priority. I came back from that meeting and made up my mind that we were going to change that priority around. So (I) had some convincing to do with the board which I have to say didn’t take much convincing at all.

So we set about that and within a relatively short time, we had plans drawn up and we’d secured the funding to the extent that in just a couple of weeks we’re going to be opening our new wharenui, which is a really exciting thing for our school. It’s going to be a grand affair, the opening, and we’re going to be really proud that the wharenui is ideally situated right in the front of the school. As you come into the main street there (it) brings you down, the first thing you see is our wharenui.

And so that’s a huge step in the right direction and I know that it’s not going to be a very important place (just) for our Māori students and their whānau - but it’s going to be a very important place for all students at our school and also for our staff. We’re looking forward to it with some excitement.