Marlborough Express - Weekend Express
Local collaboration – a New Zealand first
‘‘While working in this way is very different for all teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees after 25 years of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ and working within a competitive model, we are making great progress.’’
It is an exciting time in education here in Marlborough right now. Piritahi Kahui Ako was the first Community of Learning (CoL) established in the country.
The CoL supports 21 schools and six kindergartens from Ward to Tuamarina and Wairau Valley, to work together in different ways for the benefit of our students.
Our school principals, kindergarten leaders and teachers are breaking new ground every day in how we can learn from each other, strengthen our practice and smooth out the learning pathways of our students. This is demanding and challenging work, but our students are totally worth it.
Our ultimate goal is to raise achievement outcomes for the 6000 students across our schools, by growing and sharing best teaching practices.
The co-location of our two colleges is a significant opportunity to sweeten the education offering in Marlborough with new 21st Century, modern learning environment facilities fit for purpose for today’s and tomorrow’s secondary students.
Right now our focus is on lifting the quality of writing achievement for our students. This sees us exploring the work that our schools and teachers are currently doing in writing, and underpinning that with disciplined inquiry.
The buzz right now in all our schools is about Spirals of Inquiry, in which teachers examine their own practice and consider what approaches and strategies they use that impact the most on student learning. Sharing and trialling different teaching methods and building on theoretical and practical knowledge are at the core of this work.
To support this collective focus, Piritahi has developed a comprehensive and innovative approach to teacher professional learning and development.
Through the establishment of five very specific development clusters including Visible Learning Theory, New Pedagogies for Deep Learning, Digital Literacy, Write that Essay and Readiness to Write our teachers are able to draw on the professional expertise of several providers to guide teacher learning and practice. We are in our first year of this approach and we look forward to measuring the full impact of this approach on student learning.
We have been working with Professor Helen Timperley and Associate Professor Anne Hynds from Auckland University, through the Ministry of Education’s ‘Expert Partner’ funding initiative. They provide us with research-based support and guidance in our leadership and planning across the Piritahi Kahui Ako. They have also assisted us to build a collaborative model for working across our community, which is proving very helpful in strengthening the pathways from Early Childhood Education right through to Year 13.
While working in this way is very different for all teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees after 25 years of ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ and working within a competitive model, we are making great progress.
A new work stream is about to begin for Piritahi which will provide an overlay for our writing focus by be exploring Cultural and Relational Pedagogies and Responsiveness. We are about to begin collecting baseline data on this work under the umbrella of ‘Poutama Pounamu’ (a metaphor for student engagement) – a programme run by Waikato University. We are rolling this out over the next three school terms with cohorts of five or six schools.
Very soon, Cohort 1 which includes Blenheim kindergartens, Renwick, St Marys’, Redwoodtown, Blenheim and Ward schools will be asking our communities to complete a short online survey to help us gauge our starting point.
Why is this important for Piritahi? The research is very clear about what makes the biggest difference for students in their learning – the quality of the leadership across all levels, the quality of the teaching that students receive and the quality of the relationships between students and teachers.
Poutama Pounamu represents a very important strand of our work in Piritahi Kahui Ako for all teachers and students. We absolutely want to get this right for all students.