You are here:
Case study: Rotorua Lakes Cluster
Sections
Schools' professional development focus
The professional development activities at Rotorua Lakes High School focused on building teacher capacity in teacher-student interactional patterns that support student attendance, engagement, retention, and participation in examinations.
The professional development activities at Mokoia Intermediate School focused on developing teacher capacity in:
- relationship building
- the use of an increased range of teaching and learning strategies to implement in literacy and numeracy programmes
- the use of classroom te reo Māori.
Background
Two schools formed the Rotorua Lakes cluster: Mokoia Intermediate and Rotorua Lakes High School.
Mokoia Intermediate is a decile five, co-educational state intermediate school with a roll of 393 students. An additional 204 students from nine client schools join the Mokoia Intermediate community for weekly technology classes. Forty-eight percent of the school population is Māori and 52 percent non-Māori. Four percent of the overall population are Korean international students.
Rotorua Lakes High School is a decile six, co-educational state high school with 727 students. Thirty-five percent of the school population is Māori and 65 percent non-Māori. Of the total population, approximately 15 percent are international students.
Seventeen staff at Mokoia Intermediate School were involved in the Te Kauhua initiative including the principal, a kaiarahi reo, a kaiawhina i te reo, three teacher aides, and 11 teachers. Fourteen of these staff members were Māori and three non-Māori.
At Rotorua Lakes High School 41 staff members were involved with the pilot, including the principal, senior management team, one teacher aide, and 37 classroom teachers. All heads of department were represented as participants in the pilot. Six participating staff members were Māori, and the other 35 non-Māori.
In addition to the staff directly involved in the project, a comprehensive team provided further support for the Te Kauhua Pilot in the Rotorua Lakes cluster. This included a facilitator who was employed full time to coordinate the project over the two schools throughout the pilot period. A further two Māori liaison teachers, a senior teacher, and the deputy principal were appointed at Mokoia Intermediate and a European liaison teacher/dean was appointed at Rotorua Lakes High. Five resource teachers of learning and behaviour (RTLBs) supported the project.
For the final 12 months of the pilot, the cluster worked with the University of Waikato year 9 and 10 research team and also with Poutama Pounamu staff in Tauranga. Other personnel involved in the project were a whānau support roopu, a Māori curriculum team, and a Māori advisory committee that is an arm of Mokoia Intermediate School's board of trustees.
Intended outcomes
The intended outcomes of the Te Kauhua initiative at both Rotorua Lakes High and Mokoia Intermediate schools were:
- community/stakeholder consultation to identify the preferred focus for teacher professional development
- enhanced relationship and teambuilding amongst teachers, between teachers and students, students and students, and teachers and whānau
- enhanced teacher efficacy in terms of pedagogy and responsiveness to Māori students
- Treaty of Waitangi staff workshops to assist staff in preparation of students for noho marae and to explore the application of the Treaty of Waitangi in the classroom
- exploration of factors relating to student attendance, retention, and participation.
Within the Te Kauhua project, Rotorua Lakes High School focused on enhanced relationships and student engagement, with a learning area focus on literacy and National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) results. Specific attention was also paid to indicators of educational status such as attendance, retention, and participation in examinations.
There were two key foci at Mokoia Intermediate:
- building stronger relationships within classrooms
- increasing teachers' repertoire of pedagogical practices that foster Māori student achievement.
Literacy and numeracy were the curriculum areas that professional development activities centred on. Staff were further supported through weekly te reo Māori language sessions.
A range of data collection methods were used to evidence shifts in teacher and/or student behaviour, attitudes, and achievement. These included school-wide academic achievement data, student attendance data, student retention data, student participation in examinations data, teacher and student observations, co-construction focus groups, quantitative data of whānau attendance at hui, and document analysis.
The basis of the professional development activity at both Mokoia Intermediate and Rotorua Lakes High Schools was the year 9 and 10 research project. Volunteer staff attended a one-day training hui followed by an additional four day hui held on a marae. Māori student narratives were utilised as a powerful tool to help staff identify the issues, barriers, and solutions voiced in the transcripts. Solutions provided in the narratives, formed the basis for the future direction of five research based professional development interactions including:
- a change in teaching practice from a traditional to a discursive model
- the inclusion of both visible and invisible Māori processes
- caring for students as culturally located individuals
- raising teacher expectations of Māori student performance
- in-depth planning.
With a broadened understanding of the solutions needed to enhance Māori student achievement, staff received professional development support in these five key interactional approaches, to enable the theory based solutions to be translated into classroom practice.
Professional development was provided in the use of an observation sheet that enables detailed tracking of the effectiveness of teaching practices and beliefs. A colleague acting in the role of coach, and who is usually a member of a co-construction group to which each participating staff member belongs, conducted classroom observations.
Following an observation, a co-construction session is held in which group members ask "Where to from here?" in terms of using the understandings gained through the observations, to inform and enhance classroom practice, and ultimately, raise Māori student achievement. Once the support required is identified from the co-construction meetings, shadow coaching is provided.
The format of the shadow coach session is dependent upon what is negotiated as an area of professional development need between a teacher and their coach. It may for example, involve the coach modelling a lesson, or supervising a group of students within a class while the teacher trials a new interactional strategy.
Key results
The data indicate positive outcomes from the Te Kauhua initiative at Rotorua Lakes High and Mokoia Intermediate Schools including:
- an increasing number of staff participating in the Te Kauhua initiative and contributing to resource development
- a shift from traditional to discursive teaching practices resulting in increased rates of Māori student engagement and retention
- increasingly positive, professional changes in teacher attitudes toward Māori students, pedagogy, and feedback
- students increasingly supportive of one another's learning
- increased Māori student confidence, participation, engagement, and success in NCEA and senior examinations
- increased Māori student literacy skills at Mokoia Intermediate. For example, the reading comprehension comparative data from 2001–2002, of 38 year 8 Māori students, indicate that 28 of the 38 students were performing either at, or above their chronological age; 9 had maintained their 2001 reading comprehension level and one had fallen a stanine.
- increased Māori student numeracy skills at Mokoia Intermediate. Māori students improved in all areas assessed, particularly in multiplication and proportion, evidencing particular gains in fractions.
- Māori community partnerships fostered
- increased levels of whanau involvement in schools.
Lessons for ongoing practice
There are clear implications for teachers and school communities from this pilot research.
Firstly, the success of any initiative to enhance Māori student achievement rests upon the unqualified support and participation of the principal, management team, board of trustees, teaching staff, kaumatua, whānau, and Ministry of Education. The profiling of such a project in the school community is critical, as is Māori consultation and representation in decision making.
Secondly, enabling structures and processes are pivotal to staff engagement and commitment. For example, childcare provision; food; a culture of sharing and a recognition of internal experts; off-site professional development; equity of opportunity for all staff to engage in professional development activities, and a recognition of participants as professionals, are key success factors in this kind of initiative.
Thirdly, teacher receptivity and commitment to change is fundamental to the growth of an inclusive school community.
Finally, the development and use of meaningful and effective data collection tools that evidence shifts in student achievement are critical to the credibility of such an initiative at school, community, and national levels.
Conclusion
The Te Kauhua Pilot has afforded Rotorua Lakes High and Mokoia Intermediate Schools the opportunity to engage in significant community consultation and staff professional development activities. These are showing initial positive indications of improved achievement outcomes for Māori students.
The consultation process was more prolonged than was initially expected.
Consequently, whilst positive results have been realised, there remains much work to be done in terms of developing the foundations laid and addressing issues of sustainability. The ongoing challenges for schools in the cluster are funding, resourcing, personnel, and the collection and analysis of data to evidence progress in terms of enhanced outcomes for Māori students.