Where has this past 11 weeks gone?

Our Kahui Ako are making great strides in working towards our combined Achievement Challenges. This year myself, Penny and Sonia have finally put together our achievement challenge refresh for approval with the Ministry of Education. This has been a long and drawn out process and it is great to have this completed:

ACHIEVEMENT CHALLENGE REFRESH

As a result we will be asking all Principals and Boards to resign the Memorandum of Understanding. Kim will be in touch with you all about this.

The focus for myself and our Across School Leads (ASL) over the next two terms is to further strengthen our evaluative capability as a Kahui Ako and to develop ways to share our journey across all four of our Achievement Challenges. As we develop this work we will start to share this with you via our website/facebook page and newsletters. We are going to have our heads down concentrating on this big piece of work so you may not see much of us during Term 2.

It was with great disappointment that we had to cancel our combined Teacher Only Day scheduled for this term. We tried to coordinate another date but we weren't able to. Mary Chamberlain is booked in to work with us next year.

Congratulations to Kathryn Pick (Support Principal) who has been elected to the Board of Tutaki as an education representative for our Kahui Ako.

Thank you also to Graham Sands (Support Principal) who has been elected as Treasurer of Whakaahurangi Marae.

Kathryn Pick (Eltham School), Chris Mattock (Makahu School), and Chris Linders (St Jospeh's School) are all on Ministry of Education sabbaticals next term. On behalf of everyone we wish them all the best on a chance to research, study, reflect and or conduct school visits.

We hope everyone takes some time to recharge their batteries, with what they love doing, over the non contact time so you are at the top of your game to start the new term :)

Kim Waite

Lead Principal

principal@toko.school.nz

It is really exciting to announce that a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes to form a kapa haka leadership group for the tamariki (Year 5 - 13) in our Kahui Ako. With the support of Whakaahurangi Marae a lot of planning is underway. We have sourced two tutors - Raewyn Ashby and Clive Tonga to lead this group. A flyer with further information will be coming out in the next few weeks. This group will meet weekly (on Wednesdays from 3.30 - 4.30) for tamariki who would like to excel and become leaders in this area. Gifted and Talented, Rangatira mo apopo, Tautoko o Whakahurangi Tikanga. These tamariki would represent our District Councils, communities, schools in powhiri, celebrations etc. Please look out for the flyer that will be coming your way over the next few weeks to book tamariki in from your kura.

Thanks to the great work of Penny we now have a new website for our Kahui Ako. This is still a work in progress as we fine tune the layout and information. Please have a look through. If you have got any feedback please do not hesitate to share this with us. This website is for all the staff in our Kahui Ako and we went it to be easy to use and easy to find and share information.

To keep up to date with all things related to our Kahui Ako we encourage all staff and Board members to join our closed facebook page.

Our Key Leadership Team (KLT) meet 2 times per term. This group oversee the running of the Kahui Ako and the Lead Principal provides updates, next steps planning, finances and how we are progressing with our Achievement Challenges. Currently the KLT Team consist of

Kim Waite - Lead Principal, Graham Sands and Kathryn Pick - Support Principals, Megan England, Jason Elder, Cam Stone and Makere Gerrard

This was a fabulous way to start the year as a Kahui Ako. With so many new staff starting in our schools across the Kahui Ako it really was great to bring everyone together. Now that all our staff have been welcomed onto the marae it is now an opportunity for our Kahui Ako to continue to hold some of our hui there. Thank you to Graham Sands for coordinating this day.

As a result of our powhiri our Principals/Centre Leads and Cultural Leaders, in our schools, met with Phil and Puhi (Ngaruahine) up at Dawson Falls to listen and learn about their local stories.

Introducing our WSL's across our schools:

Shelley Fuller - Toko School - Transition to High School

Mandy Crowe - Ngaere/Eltham Schools - Cultural Capacity

Emma Dravitski - Ngaere School - Learner Agency

Caitlyn Murray - Midhirst School - Cultural Capacity

Gentry Simpson- Taranaki Diocesan - Cultural Capacity

Chad Jacob - Stratford Primary - Wellbeing

Emily Stevenson - Stratford Primary School - Learner Agency

Lorelei Franklin - St Jospeh's - Learning Agency

Dan Wood - Stratford High School - Transitions - Primary to Secondary

Reijanne Campbell - Stratford High School - Transitions - Secondary to life

Wendy Walker - Stratford High School - Wellbeing

We have had two hui this term to share our action plans and work over the past 10 weeks and to assist with planning the Super Staff Meeting. Look out for our WSL's and book in a time to chat with them at one of their workshops. These people are leading great things in their schools. If you need any assistance or just want to chat with them about what they are doing please make contact with them. They will be more than willing to share their journey.

Our WSL's are also participants in our Emerging Leadership programe.

Applications are open at the moment for the above position. We have advertised this via our facebook page and application packs have been sent out to all school Principals. If you are interested in finding out more about these roles please give Kim, Penny or Sonia a call.

The purpose of this AP/DP group is to create a professional development group for APs and DPs. This is for a couple of purposes

1. To form a local network of AP/DPs for professional discussion on leadership.

2. Make sense of the AP/DP position in the Kahui Ako.

3. Enable discussion and learning about effective leadership and change management.

4. To develop the inquiry around the achievement challenges in the Kahui Ako.

5. To be responsive to the needs created from the participants.

This fabulous group work with Ben Laybourn over the year. Below are some team building photos to get the group started for the 2021 school year.

We continue to consolidate our work this year and our Kahui Ako have continued to engage with:

Kathe Tawhiwhirangi - Core Education - to work with our Emerging Leaders and to work with our school leaders on our Cultural Capacity goals.

Ben Laybourn - Evaluation Associates - Learner Agency and Learner Focused Relationships/ Data/Evaluation and our AP/DP network

Bek Galloway -0 What If Education - Localised Curriculum and Learner Agency

Cathie Johnson - NZCER -Data/Evaluation

Del Costello - Cognition Education - Oral language

Christine Braid - Massey University - Structured Literacy

To book into these or to find out more about any of these PLD providers please touch base with Kim, Penny or Sonia.

We look forward to welcoming Del Costello back to our Kahui Ako in Term 2 on the 9th, 10th and 11th of June.

She will be running sessions over the three days for:

• Teacher aides: Working on strategies to work with children with Oral Language difficulties
• SENCO's, LSC's and Lead Teachers of Oral Language: Developing systems to track and support children with Oral Language difficulties through your schools/centres.
• Teachers: In school support with modelling and coaching of Oral Language strategies.

9/10/11 June Term 2 Booking Sheet: Del Costello

Kahui Ako funding enabled Eltham School to provide four sessions of the Reading Together programme to our parents/whanau. This was an opportunity to provide support and guidance with home reading. This programme has been run by our school literacy team of Mrs Barnes and Mrs Wilkins. Our parents/whanau received certificates and a thank you pack for their valuable contributions and participation in this programme. We were encouraged by the feedback that they gave us around how the sessions have supported their child/children with their reading at home. Special thanks to Billie Sculpher from Eltham Library whose input was invaluable at all sessions.

Some of the feedback given to us:

13 May - ASL applications close

18 May - Leadership Data/Evaluation Workshop 3

20 May - AP/DP Workshop

26 May - Super Staff Meeting

27 May - e.asTTle Training

1 June - Hautu Training - BOT Members

1 June - Emerging Leaders

2 June - Leadership Hui - Cultural Capacity - Kathe Tawhiwhirangi

24 June - Leaders Meeting

30 June - Leadership Data/Evaluation Workshop 4

30 June - WSL Hui

18th August - Super Staff Meeting