Pakaraka School
Vee Singh is leading a culture change at Pakaraka School, based on clustering with other schools to develop professional practices, and which values the individual.
Pedagogical beliefs
I was born in South Africa where all education was segregated. So when I came to New Zealand I wanted to participate in enabling children, especially indigenous children, in being able to have free and equal access to things that I might have been denied in my own life.
I believe that individuals are important and need to be valued. They must have the opportunity to participate in education and to be prepared for participation in society through free and fair access to information, resources, and equipment.
For effective teaching and learning to occur, communication needs to be open and honest and there needs to be an opportunity to network, and to enjoy different cultures. Synonymous with that, and of equal importance, are simple core values such as honesty, integrity, willingness, sincerity, and such things. They are critically important and you can't buy them.
I also believe in effective teaching and strong home, teacher and child relationships. And most importantly having happy, valued, and relaxed teachers who know that when they step into a classroom, their principal will support pretty much everything they are doing. So when they are at ease they will teach the best that they possibly can.
I think, above all else, leadership to me is about e tangata, e tangata, te tangata – the people.
Joining the cluster
When I became principal of Pakaraka School there wasn't a culture of celebrating student achievement, and there didn't seem to be a lot of information that informed me about their achievement. Individual teachers obviously dealt with student achievement in their classrooms, but there didn't seem to be much information across the school. I think teachers were acquiring data, but I don't think they were doing much with it.
We decided to address this. We joined the cluster initiative so that we could gain expertise, work collaboratively alongside staff members from other schools and improve things for our school and our students.
Since then we have participated in a range of contracts. Staff identified that they needed professional development in te reo Māori and they needed upskilling in areas like the teaching of numeracy. We also joined the RAPU project, which involves reporting, analysing, planning, and using student achievement data to inform teaching. Out of that came assessment for learning. So the staff are really busy. And the good thing is to watch everybody come back from a meeting, really heightened with excitement and enthusiasm, wanting to share something that is effective for their practice.
Lead teachers
We work on the concept of using lead teachers in most of the projects we participate in. Prior to signing up to a project we find out whether there is a need. We find out who would benefit most from being a lead teacher for the project, and their ability to come back to school and introduce those concepts in the classroom in a meaningful and practical way.
As a principal who is on a 0.7 release and who has a bit of extra time granted by the Board of Trustees, I am able to take the place of the lead teacher and release them while not incurring the cost of a reliever. I'll take the class while the lead teacher works alongside another teacher in his or her class.
We've also introduced the practice of videotaping teachers while they teach. Initially we had huge resistance to this. Now that we are doing it, teachers just love it. It introduces reflective practice, and teachers are able to sit with a colleague in a non-threatening environment, and be supported. Through discussion they can identify the next step required to raise their standard of delivery so that students will benefit.
What has changed?
The most obvious changes that I have noticed since participating in the cluster is the increase in evidence-based practices. Teachers are asking what the data tells them, questioning how they will use it, identifying the next step in the student's learning journey and also what skills they, the teacher, need to gain.
Although we use a range of specialists in school, we don't ask them to come and work with a student over a protracted period of time. Instead we now ask them to work alongside the teacher. The teacher implements the practice and then organises a review date with the specialist to discuss progress.
We use current literature from Waikato and Auckland Universities and it's just great. For example we took the entire staff to a local marae and listened to Russell Bishop who talked about making a difference for Māori students. He talked about personal conversations with students, building relationships, and conducting review meetings to identify what's working and what's not. He talked about support, celebration and how to take learning a step further. The staff acknowledged what he was saying and commented "Isn't that what we should be doing anyway?"
Valuing the individual
I heard a talk recently by Wayne Mills on the subject of insufficient males reading to students. He explained that if children don't see dads or granddads or other males in their homes reading, then for those children reading is not an acceptable practice.
So I decided to act on that and, being a male, I chose to read to students at assembly. One of the books we looked at is about John Britten, as to me, he is a New Zealand icon. He was labelled a student who was not achieving in school, yet became a master inventor. He thought outside the square, and was highly supported by his own family and friends. He gained recognition worldwide then met a tragic end.
We have also introduced a silent reading programme to engage students in reading. Our silent reading programme is all about giving children the opportunity, in a quiet, caring environment, to be able to sit with a book of their choice, and read and enjoy it.
To ensure that we give students an opportunity to extend themselves, we now have three qualified music teachers who come into the school for an hour a week and work with our senior students. We split these students into small groups and they work with musical instruments such as the keyboard, all types of wind instruments, and guitar. The intention is that towards the end of the year we will be able to record a soundtrack in a music studio, so these children will have a sense of achievement. I'm being told by the music tutors that one or two of our students display all the hallmarks of being gifted and talented in things like wind instruments and keyboards.
Next step
Our next step is to implement a sustainability programme. We have school improvement initiatives at various stages, so we are looking at reskilling and upskilling people who have recently joined our staff so that as people come and go, these programmes will continue.
We have started to install an ICT network at school so that children have equal and fair access to information.
We have principals, deputy principals, and classroom practitioners from other schools coming in to look at the best practices in our school. In the future we hope to collaborate even more closely with them and share ideas and strategies with them. We hope that they will trial some of our successful programmes and if these work then we will be contributing to education on a larger scale.
It's great to see that our teachers are willing to share their knowledge. We believe that what's important is not the information but how we use it to benefit our children.
Leadership
I've discovered several things about leadership during this process. Firstly I've realised that I need to ask, because if I don't ask – if I don't consult – I fail myself, and in doing so I fail the teachers, the school, and everyone else. I need to be in touch with pretty much everything at grass roots level.
I've discovered that it is good to belong to different principal association groups, because I can then work alongside my peers, network, and benefit from others that can act as temporary mentors for me.
I recognise the importance of building a trusting relationship with my staff, as I need to get good rich feedback. And I now recognise the importance of prioritising. I don't think I was very good at that for a while in the beginning, because being new to a school I was trying to please everyone.
I have also learnt that appraisal is important to me. I need to have someone from the outside, an external appraiser coming in and looking at the way I do things over a lengthy period of time. In other words I need lots of sessions. I need to have clear-cut goals, I need to have a defined and meaningful plan to work with, and I need to have the support of the Board of Trustees.
