Thank you to Stratford Primary who hosted our Transition to School network meeting on the 24th of October. We were very fortunate to hear from Kate Mills from Stratford Primary (A kahui ako within school teacher) about her work with “Ako mai” an Oral language Tuakana/Teina programme. Judy Brady also presented us with her inspiring inquiry “To what extent do I support ngā tamariki to transition to school?” Great to see so many early childhood and new entrant kaiako support our network and attend.

CHANGES in 2020 ...As a group we have agreed that we need to take greater ownership of our work together. We will be changing our format of our transition so each centre or school will have a chance to host and present. This way the leadership will be distributed and the topics presented will tap into the strengths and interests of our group. Any queries please email penny@ngaere.school.nz or deborahc@sps.kiwi.co.nz

Penny Andrew - Across School Teacher

penny@ngaere.school.nz

I have seen some great examples of Student Agency across our schools and classrooms. We are all on a similar journey across the Kahui Ako! The next steps being beginning to visit each other in class to share some of the great practice and ideas. For some the journey is just beginning so I am concentrating on completing a website as a one stop shop for resources, tips and next steps to gain more student agency.

Below is a link to a fantastic reading “Learner Agency” The 10 conditions written by Core Education. It provides teachers or learning teams, school leaders, educators and learning communities with a shared understanding of learner agency, and provides practical tools for tackling and/or embedding the concept of learner agency within education systems.

The Learner Agency Student Survey is ready and available for teachers. This can be used as a tool to gauge where your students are at and look at next steps in your classroom and on your Learner Agency Journey.

Thanks so much to all of you who have taken the time to fill in the short survey about Teacher Only Day 2020. This will give our team much needed information to ensure that all of the Break Out’s during that day are both relevant and well attended. If you haven’t had the time to fill it in here is a link to do so: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeRm3qImp91Vr94J-u6gOrRAy1XQ96LDpy0DGOAnZ7V75tT7g/viewform

We have been really fortunate to have had local Kathryn Michefski design our new Kahui Ako logo. We are proud to display the logo on the website and all of our documents!

Tracy White - Across School Teacher

tracyw@sps.kiwi.nz

It has been a very productive time working on transitions, both into and out of our secondary schools. It has been wonderful to have had so much support from our contributing schools with our attempts to be more careful and proactive in the gathering of rich data and stories about all our ako so that our secondary schools are more ready for our new tamariki in 2020. Thanks! SHS has been able to do a much better needs analysis for the whole 2020 cohort. SHS has taken a different approach to their ‘Orientation Day’ and I am working to better connect others in the system who are there to support our learners (such as the RTLB service). We hope that these changes mean that our students and their families are more confident in the transition from primary school next year.

At the other end of the system, we have been involved in the ‘Taranaki Roadmap 2050’ project and have some opportunities to engage in the very progressive plans around ‘people and talent’. The significant challenge of building a low carbon future provides some amazing opportunities for our young people. Organisations such as Taranaki Futures sometimes find it hard to connect with a group of schools given how complex we are as organisations, so they are really pleased that we now have a single point of contact in central Taranaki to help build a whole-community approach to helping our young people plan for their futures.

Angela Roberts - Across School Teacher

ra@stratfordhigh.school.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