Let me take you back to 2019, to the principal’s office at Good Shepherd Primary School. Jane Hahn and Michelle Mill (Good Shepherd and Monte Cecilia Primary School principals respectively) invite me, Alana Madgwick, to a scoping meeting.
“We are on a quest, Alana, to find someone who can support our Kāhui Ako to improve success outcomes for Pacific students. Can you help us?”
I paused before answering, not because I didn’t have the content knowledge or experience but because I knew that collaborations across schools are full of challenges. My previous experience in Whanganui with seven secondary schools and iwi proved that these types of school collaborations require commitment, determination, relational trust and expertise. Also, the solutions might seem simple but are quite complex.
Walking out of that meeting, where hands were shaken and agreements made, I remembered my Samoan grandfather’s words to me “My Pine Tree (you will smile if you have seen me), 99/100 is not enough; you need to learn from that one mistake so you can get 100/100 next time.” High expectations, resilience and alofa followed me down the path out of Good Shepherd Primary School.
So where does one start?Initial PLD started in the Good Shepherd hall packed with teachers wanting to learn about Tapasā: the cultural competencies for teachers of Pacific learners. The engagement was high, and conversations were animated. But the Tapasā compass only points us in the right direction. Pacific voices need to be listened to contextualise each school. Then the generalised becomes personalised; hearsay becomes truth say; abstract becomes concrete. Our Kāhui Ako PLD kaupapa was starting to take form: listen to the voices of your Pacific learners, what is working well and what their challenges are. In their voices lie our solutions.
Now the complex challenge begins. Research shows us that Pacific learners thrive in some classroom environments, but not all. Why is this? Some teachers know how to accelerate Pacific learners' success, but not everyone, and not consistently enough across classrooms and schools to make a meaningful difference.
Can we break down individual classroom successes and de-privatise practice? The first step to de-privatising practice is to build a common language of what works. Without this common framework, solutions can seem random, dependent on the teacher's innate abilities, not practice. Thus, we used research to construct the seven principles for culturally sustaining practice: whanaungatanga, mana motuhake, building on Māori and Pacific world views and languages, activating prior knowledge, ako, power sharing and feedback and feedforward (our Effective Teacher Profile).
Our downfall: To be sustainable, all tools need to be co-constructed, not just by a mere few, but by everyone. When a tool is given to time-poor schools, whilst the enthusiasm for answers is high, the ownership for accountability is low. Looking back on this part of our journey, each school needed to take ownership of its own common framework, building on its own principles and aligning it to the most up-to-date research of culturally sustaining practice. A school’s evidence-based framework needs to be lived and owned by each school. If not, individualisation continues.
Our successes: Where schools have unpacked the ETP together and aligned it to a curriculum area, made sense of it and taken risks, de-privatised practice and entered into each other’s classroom to learn alongside each other, transformational practice and acceleration of Pacific success outcomes has happened. At the 2023 ACKA conference, I am hopeful these success stories can be shared and celebrated. We know what works, and getting it to work in all our schools and classrooms continues to be our Kāhui Ako challenge.
Final thoughts: Back in that GSS principal’s office, Pacific success was the goal. We have enough success stories in our Kāhui Ako to know what works- we need to be open and strategic enough to share these ideas and practices. Your Across School Leaders: Jerremy, Laureen, Bridget, Sam, Makerita and Paul, all have the expertise to help grow your understanding of culturally sustaining practice. Moving forward into 2023, the momentum is shifting into a beautiful and timely area: the deep desire to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi respectfully and diligently.
Let’s continue to walk together in unison towards this goal.
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