New Zealand Principal Magazine Term 4 2016

November 2016 Volume 31, Number 4

Secondary Schooling – The Otumoetai Way Also

featuring

• Te Akatea Conference 2016 • Global Funding – is it the right option?

• Philip Harding – Life Member • Why COOLs are so Uncool • Unconscious bias and education

IT’S ARSON SEASON, SCHOOLS BEWARE! Schools are four times more likely to suffer an arson attack than commercial buildings. All schools can take some simple, inexpensive steps to improve fire safety and reduce the likelihood of arson.

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KEEP RUBBISH BINS AND SKIPS WELL AWAY FROM OUTSIDE WALLS • We recommend you keep all fixed bins and wheelie bins at least two metres away from all buildings • Lock and secure bins so they can’t be moved up against buildings.

FACT:

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REMOVE MATERIALS THAT CAN BE USED TO SET FIRES • • • •

Empty bins every night and weekend if school grounds are being used e.g. sports, fairs Remove loose combustible items from under buildings e.g. timber, desks, school crafts Lock recycle bin lids after hours Monitor school boundaries, as nearby rubbish can be easily carried to school grounds.

FACT:

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MOST SCHOOL FIRES LIT BY YOUNG PEOPLE ARE OPPORTUNISTIC

INSTALL/INCREASE SECURITY LIGHTS • Leave external lights on or increase timer periods for sensor lights • Cut back vegetation to make school buildings more visible & minimise places for arsonists to hide.

FACT:

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MOST SCHOOL FIRES ARE STARTED USING RUBBISH & OTHER EASY-TO-BURN ITEMS

THE LARGEST FIRES ARE SET AT NIGHT, ADDITIONAL SECURITY LIGHTS HAVE REDUCED FIRES & VANDALISM IN BRITISH SCHOOLS

INVOLVE THE COMMUNITY • Ask neighbours and parents to keep an eye on the school and report any fires and serious vandalism to Police immediately.

CONFRONT ALL FIRE-SETTING BEHAVIOUR, NO MATTER HOW SMALL • Report minor fire lighting to Police as it has been shown it is likely to continue • Increase night security patrols during November • The Fire Service offer a FREE programme to assist where young people are showing a fascination about fire. For further advice about the Fire Awareness Intervention Programme (FAIP) call 0800 FIREINFO or visit our website www.fire.org.nz/FAIP. This programme is highly effective in ending fire-setting behaviour. The intervention can be directed at known fire-setters or to school groups when it is not known who is lighting the fires • Record all information about fire-setting incidents for possible use by the Fire Service.

FACT:

SCHOOLS OFTEN HAVE A SPATE OF SMALL FIRES ON THEIR GROUNDS BEFORE A MAJOR ARSON ATTACK

Order resources from our Get Firewise programme to teach children general fire safety. Go to www.getfirewise.org.nz to order these resources, and feel free to get in touch with us through this page if you have any queries.

CONTENTS

Editor Liz Hawes Executive Officer PO Box 25380 Wellington 6146 Ph: 04 471 2338 Email: Liz.Hawes@nzpf.ac.nz

NOVEMBER 2016

2 EDITORIAL 3 PRESIDENT’S PEN Iain Taylor

Magazine Proof-reader Helen Kinsey-Wightman

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Editorial Board Iain Taylor, NZPF President Geoff Lovegrove, Retired Principal, Feilding Liz Hawes, Editor

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Advertising For all advertising enquiries contact:

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Te Akatea Conference 2016

Liz Hawes, Editor

Global Funding – is it the right option?

Cathy Wylie

Leading Change in ILE: Building Schoolwide Leadership Capacity

Dianne Smardon & Jennifer Charteris

Cervin Media Ltd PO Box 68450, Newton, Auckland 1145 Ph: 09 360 8700 or Fax: 09 360 8701

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Note The articles in New Zealand Principal do not necessarily reflect the policy of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation. Readers are welcome to use or reprint material if proper acknowledgement is made.

Subscription Distributed free to all schools in New Zealand.

For individual subscribers, send $40 per year to: New Zealand Principals’ Federation National Office, PO Box 25380, Wellington 6146 New Zealand Principal is published

by Cervin Media Ltd on behalf of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation and is issued four times annually. For all enquiries regarding editorial contributions, please contact the editor.

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Philip Harding – Life Member Liz Hawes, Editor

Otumoetai College

Patrick Purcell

Asia NZ

Liz Hawes, Editor

Why COOLs are so Uncool

Luke East

SCHOOL LINES

Lester Flockton

Opinion – ‘Unconscious bias and education’

Helen Kinsey-Wightman

MARKETPLACE SECTION

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Profiles from education product and

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Otumoetai College

MAGAZINE

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Editorial Liz Hawes

Editor

Can the US Presidential election campaign sink any lower?

She wanted every working New Zealander to be paid a With revelations that Donald Trump believes he can do what he fair and decent living, to be safe at work, to be respected and likes to women because he is so powerful, and if he doesn’t pay valued so that in turn every New Zealander could contribute to any Federal tax it makes him a smart business man, you have to making the country a better place for the next generation. Helen wonder whether he qualifies to be a member of American society. Kelly marched to the beat of a fairer, more just and equal New Yet his strong supporters remain unmoved by these disclosures. Zealand. She was the one standing up to the bosses at Pike River Such is their resolve for change. demanding to know why they Trump followers are so sick of More than at any other time had ignored reported warnings American politicians spinning about safety conditions for them false hopes and promising we need an army of people like workers for so long. She also them a share in the wealth stood up to the Forestry industry generated by corporate leaders Helen Kelly to stand up and bosses demanding explanations that they will support anyone tackle the issues of inequality . . . for their disregard for worker for President who does not safety and launched private represent status quo politics. It is prosecutions when Worksafe a desperately sad situation where real democratic choice has all New Zealand declined to press charges. but disappeared and there is a genuine possibility that America More than at any other time, we need an army of people could end up with a President who is completely free of human like Helen Kelly to stand up and tackle the issues of inequality values or any sense of morality, because there is nobody else to before we end up like America. There is no sharing of wealth in vote for.

New Zealand and like Mr Trump the wealthiest know every tax The level of inequality world-wide has now reached intolerable loophole to ensure they pay as little as possible, leaving the bulk levels. My last column was an examination of BREXIT and of the tax to be paid by the wage earners. There’s nothing moral what motivated the ‘leave’ vote. One set of BREXIT voters were or ethical about it, but what they are doing is legal. Everything is workers waiting for the wealth to ‘trickle down’ to create more weighted in favour of the privileged few, including tax legislation. jobs and better pay and conditions which after forty years of EU It’s a far cry from the New Zealand that our forebears travelled membership, has still not happened. Workers are certainly not the oceans to establish. Their motivations included escaping the sharing in the wealth being generated and for many people jobs inequalities that come with social class systems. They came to are under constant threat of replacement by technology. establish an egalitarian society where every person was treated As the powerful focus on creating ever larger profits, the as an equal and every person has an equal chance of succeeding powerless become victims of deficient health and safety practices, according to their efforts and ability. They did achieve such a lower wages, and fewer protections. We have witnessed some society and it is only in the last thirty or forty years that we have shameful examples here in New Zealand including the Pike River seen it all unravel.

Mine disaster and the Forestry industry’s shocking safety record.

Whilst this situation persists, there is never sufficient money Compromising workers’ safety is corporate greed out of control. to provide the public services that New Zealanders need to be There is none so welcome, in such times, as an effective a fair and just society. There is never enough money to prop up and courageous advocate to defend the increasingly muted low income earning families, or to adequately fund the quality work force. New Zealanders are privileged to have had such health and education systems that New Zealanders deserve. an advocate in Helen Kelly and the country recently united Consequently, we will continue to report poor health and in mourning her death. It is impossible, no matter what your education outcomes for those who don’t share in the country’s political stripes, not to concede that bravery, loyalty, fairness and wealth. It will take a Government of Helen Kellys to put this right. justice are commendable attributes and Helen Kelly had these in spades. She was one of the great New Zealanders. Everything she said or did was to support other people. She has been quoted as saying, ‘When you saw someone being treated in a way that was unfair, it was because they were not being treated as a human being, or a citizen or an equal.’ Her mission was to put that right.

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President’s Pen

Kia ora koutou katoa Iain Taylor

National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation

Being out of school for a year to be your national President have observed overseas, particularly in the UK, changes proposed has been a humbling experience and one of the most intensive to fix problems for a very small percentage of schools are being learning encounters of my career. I am grateful that I arrived in applied system wide. The vast majority of schools are doing very Wellington with plenty of experience in many different types well and don’t need these changes foisted on them. All they do is of schools, big and small because this job demands that you add to the stress levels and seem pointless to most. Getting that represent leadership in all schools. You immediately become message through to policy makers is the most frustrating aspect the national voice of principals of being your national president! in the media, the Ministry, ERO, Less experienced principals That said there are also hugely the Education Council, with positive things happening and I Ministers and politicians and on are feeling like they are drowning am proud to say there have been countless reference groups and some wins for us. Through our working parties. Forming strong under wave after wave of new focus on principal wellbeing, we relationships and engaging with demands. have convinced the Minister and these groups and organisations is Ministry and now EDUCANZ critical if NZPF wants to advocate that principals need a system wide for principals in the corridors of power and according to its history that is the main objective on which NZPF was founded.

It’s been an intensive year and a steep learning curve which has transformed my view of the education world and I’m grateful for TM that learning. Amidst all the politics, the new policies, changes to the Education Act and other legislation, the VCA, the IES, CoLs, Global Funding and so much more, the NZPF executive has had to critique the pros and cons of every initiative so we could shape and promote the best position for you!

We asked how are all these changes, new policies and legislation affecting you as you lead your schools? Are you getting sufficient information and support to understand and make a call on these changes? Are all of these changes in the best interests of school leadership and children’s learning? If not and if we can’t make a difference at every level then what changes should we embrace and where should we push back?

I set off around the country to visit you at your regional events and conferences and time and again I got the same message.

Principals are feeling besieged! You are not feeling supported and are not getting sound or accurate advice about a lot of different issues. Less experienced principals are feeling like they are drowning under wave after wave of new demands. All of this means that principals’ wellbeing is diminishing as stress levels rise.

We made ‘principal wellbeing’ a strategic focus so that it remained in our sights throughout the year. I took every opportunity to lobby decision makers and say to the media that principals are over-burdened and under resourced to cope with the extent and intensity of change expected of them. We also noted that proposed changes often took no account of the diversity of the contexts within which schools operate. As we

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support and advice service that is delivered by the profession.

NZPF initiated this idea in 2014. Three principal advisory appointments have since been made and we have continued to work with the Ministry and EDUCANZ to expand the service.

We have now reached a point where the terms of reference for a suitable contract to run the advisory service has been constructed and the contract is out for tender. We are expecting that the successful contractor will be administering a system to employ as many as twenty full-time Principal Leadership Advisors (PLAs) all drawn from the profession and located from one end of the country to the other.

The key to the success of this service is that the PLAs are your colleagues and are not employed by the Ministry. They are (or have recently been) excellent, experienced principals themselves and are trained in skills of mentoring and coaching. You can safely share all your concerns with PLAs knowing that you will get wise and relevant advice that you can trust. PLAs are there to support you, not to judge or impose penalties on you and you can be assured of their confidentiality.

We have also witnessed a number of positive changes to statutory intervention policy and procedures after calling for a review to address aspects of fairness and transparency.

Further, we continue to see exponential growth in our Māori Achievement Collaboration (MAC) professional learning and development programme formed in conjunction with Te Akatea and the Ministry. This joint response to Māori student underachievement is a powerful initiative which has the potential to transform the way in which society approaches and embraces

bi-culturalism. As our country rapidly becomes more multicultural it is timely to establish our schools as places where we embrace more than one legitimate world view. Students then carry these values through to their home environments and future school(s) thus making acceptance of multiple world views a normal function of society.

I feel proud too to have introduced a strategic approach to executive reporting this year, linking our charter, goals, principles and values with our strategic foci and operational plans.

I leave the presidency in good hands and thank the NZPF executive for the support and confidence they extended to me throughout 2016. I urge all of you to continue to support the work of NZPF which remains true to its founding principles. It really does make a difference.

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Te Akatea Conference 2016 Liz Hawes EDITOR

The shores of Lake Rotorua invoke feelings of mystery and intrigue. The mix of morning mist and geothermal emissions create a spiritual atmosphere so palpable you can almost hear the haunting tones from Tutanekai’s pipe, beckoning his beloved Hinemoa from the mainland to the Lake’s Mokoia Island from where, as legend would have it, he serenaded her every night.

From the steamy haze the Kaikaranga’s call ascended in perfect harmony with the manuhiri’s response chant as the Te Akatea conference visitors were led on to Tunohopu Marae for the formal powhiri and conference. Whether the place dictated the programme theme or the programme was chosen to match the place we don’t know. What is certain however is that each conference presenter highlighted different ways that inner life forces can be ignited to uplift people, including those whose spirits, confidence and trust have been shattered through adversity.

Nga Pumanawa e Waru (NPeW) Trust First up on the programme was Nga Pumanawa e Waru (NPeW) Trust. Leith Comer, NPeW Chairman and Mercia-Dawn Yates, Engagement Leader, introduced the hundred or more conference delegates to a taste of what can happen when you have a backbone organisation that allows true collaboration between iwi, schools, whānau and business in Rotorua. Driving NPeW is a collective desire for Rotorua kids to succeed in education so that the region can flourish through strong community and business relationships and a well skilled future workforce. That means future focused education with twenty-first century learning supports.

Governed by a group of dedicated trustees including leaders of iwi, business and the community, NPeW currently works with 41 of the 50 Rotorua schools. ‘It all began humbly from a single kaupapa and four principals wanting to share and collaborate to enhance the learning experience of the kids in their schools,’ said

NZPF President Iain Taylor takes a break between conference sessions at Tunohopu Marae, Rotorua

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Mercia. As Mercia explained, this was never easy when schools operated in a context of competition.

Those four principals could never have imagined how the future might look with NPeW on board.

Today, the prime focus is making sure all learners are engaged and doing well in education, supported by capable teachers and their whānau. The education process is enhanced by providing personal devices to all, with assured connectivity at school, at home and in the community. According to Mercia that is the vision for NPeW and schools joining up subscribe to that kaupapa.

It’s an ambitious goal to put a device in the hands of every student participating in the programme, but that’s where the business partners feature. Their contribution ensures there is full access for the students to the technology they need. One of those generous partners supporting that provision and releasing funds for many other aspects of the programme is the philanthropic NEXT Foundation which is dedicated to educational and environmental causes. Completing the stable of business partners are The Mindlab, Samsung, Vodafone, Apple, HP, Noel Leeming, Ngati Whakaue Education Endowment Trust Board, Rotorua Lakes Council, Rotorua District Library and Pukeroa Oruawhata (Deloitte, Rotorua).

More than just provision of hardware, NPeW is there to assist with community engagement, technical support, leadership and pedagogy and alongside this work is a research programme headed up by academics from the University of Auckland, to survey the student and teacher voice and establish a measure of pedagogical change.

It’s a total package involving some of the very best education experts. ‘Engagement, for example,’ says Mercia, ‘is real engagement with schools, students, business and iwi. It’s not about informing, it’s about having real conversations,’ she said,

Leith Comer and Mercia Yates address the delegates on the innovations that NPeW brings to the students, whanau and business community of Rotorua

Founding members Pem Bird and Huria Tawa (centre) with the Te Akatea conference organisers

‘so that every voice is heard and valued. Iwi and whānau hold an important body of knowledge and both groups are unused and unrepresented,’ she said, ‘and we plan to change that.’ Iwi are migrating across the district but will come together as one to share this kaupapa.

NPeW was set up as a Trust to succeed. ‘We set up the Trust and found the best accountants, lawyers, academics and professionals,’ she said, ‘and fortunately for us they all said yes!’ At the heart of the programme is building capability and facilitating change and the integration of all these specialists is necessary if the system is to succeed.

To make sure the programme remains authentic and relevant a Principal Advisory Board made up of several Rotorua schools has also been established. Bringing schools, iwi and business together through NPeW is not only a rich collaborative experience it also allows principals to understand the learning process from year 0 to 13 and have a better appreciation of learning both within their own school and across schools. They also better appreciate that learning really is continuous both inside and outside the school gates, spilling over to whānau through links with the ‘Computers in Homes’ programme.

The programme challenges even seasoned principals, deputies and emerging leaders to shake status quo and embrace the future and all the exciting opportunities that technology brings to modern learning. It’s about preparing students to be life-long self-managed learners, to be entrepreneurial in their thinking, innovative problem solvers, creative and digitally literate cyber citizens of the world.

Mercia insisted this means rethinking traditional teaching strategies so learning is co-constructed, culturally responsive and based on disciplined inquiry and reflection. It’s about basing decisions on evidence and connecting new learning to prior learning. It’s about keeping learning authentic.

Principals and teachers are not left to flounder through these changes without support. NPeW incorporates coaching and mentoring for leadership and teachers and this work is headed up by an expert in leadership from Massey University, Dr Vikram Murthy.

Not surprisingly, Rotorua schools have flocked to sign up to NPeW. Just as those original four principals looked to collaborate to improve the learning outcomes for Rotorua students both in their own and neighbouring schools, so NPeW aspires to the same outcomes, only now principals don’t have to battle the Ministry for funding or raise funds privately to undertake collaborative change and pay for expensive devices for the

students and their families. NPeW is the backbone organisation that does that for them.

Te Akatea AGM Next up was the Te Akatea AGM, led by the President, Hoana Pearson. Before dealing with the usual formalities, Hoana reminded those present of the origins of Te Akatea and its main purpose which was to revive and maintain Te Reo through teaching the language in our schools. In order to achieve this goal, she said, we must keep Te Reo alive in mainstream schools as much as in Kura. Other goals of Te Akatea are to advocate for, support and create networks for Māori principals across the country, many of whom are isolated from each other. She indicated that Te Akatea needed to increase its membership to give it the strength and infrastructure necessary to continue this kaupapa.

Hoana acknowledged the close relationship they have with NZPF which is a valued and necessary relationship for advancing the Te Akatea kaupapa. ‘These relationships,’ she said, ‘where others walk alongside of us allow us to create and manage our own destiny, our own Tino Rangatiratanga.’ We need Te Huarahi (our pathway), to be strategic and deliberate; Whanaungatanga, healing our spirits and uniting in a common cause; and we need to build capacity, capability and credibility. ‘There are 350 Māori principals,’ she said, ‘and we need them all to be members of this organisation.’

Heeni Morehu Heeni Morehu, brought a whole new aspect of how with the right whanau support, inner spirits, broken through adversity, can be strengthened again and channelled into positive action.

Heeni’s heartbreak began with the death of her eldest son in a car accident. Her second son escaped the accident but as the surviving brother, always felt guilty. Heeni acknowledged that dealing with the pain of losing her son meant she did not pay attention to the grief that was consuming her surviving son and two years later, she lost him too, this time to suicide. ‘I couldn’t grieve and think of my children too,’ she cried, still emotionally raw despite the passing of the years. The grief cycle began all over again and as Heeni said, she could not have survived without the unerring support of her close whānau.

That might have been the end of the story until a work colleague persuaded her to write her story. Initially reluctant to share her grief and self-doubt with the rest of the world, Heeni came to realise that this could help someone else. Again, with united whānau support, the project was completed and is N Z Principal | N o v e m b e r 2 0 16

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now read by tamariki as well as those experiencing their own grief. Heeni’s concluding message to the audience was to say ‘Support your tamariki and if there is anyone out there who has lost someone to suicide be there for them because we can’t get through alone.’ Finally she acknowledged her two beautiful sons Kahu and Hohepa ‘for letting us share.’

In lighter spirits, comedian, raconteur and award winning public speaker, Kingi Biddle, was next on the podium. Steeped in story telling flair, Kingi entertained while leaving his audience of principals with some important messages. Prominent amongst these were some ‘warning’ messages not to assume that all tamariki are alike and want to play sport and excel at it, or even want to qualify for university. He used the example of himself saying ‘I hated athletics day! I’m short. I had lost every race before I started!’

He said he couldn’t find his place in the world but eventually did at High School where he discovered Billy T James and other comedic

Louise Nicholas Draw card for many delegates was hearing the story of high profile rape victim, Louise Nicholas. Her story of being repeatedly raped from the age of 13–16 by several senior NZ Police Officers is well known. Her journey to bring those men to justice is also well documented and makes for harrowing reading.

What may be less known is the way in which Louise Nicholas has used this experience to make system changes within the NZ Police Force. She now trains Police recruits in dealing with survivors of sexual abuse and is making in-roads to changing the culture of the Police Force. She is determined to see the incidence of sexual abuse reduced.

‘We need to give victims a voice and the courage to say what has happened to them,’ she said. At the same time she acknowledged that there are barriers to reporting sexual abuse because perpetrators are often family or whānau members. One

Jim Schuster, a founding member of Te Akatea was one of the panelists

Heeni Morehu shares her story of turning grief into good

actors. ‘I found I could do comedy skits!’ he said proudly. He then started winning competitions. ‘I had won my first race!’ he shouted.

‘My kaupapa was to make people laugh,’ he said. He concluded by saying, ‘We need colour in this world, so if the brightest kid in the school wants to be a florist, let them! And they will lift the saddest tangi with their bright colours!’

thing she recognises from her own experience is how brutal the court system can be for victims.

‘I will continue to fight systems and our courts,’ she said. ‘The brutality of our evidence systems and the way defence lawyers can treat victims is unacceptable,’ she said.

Louise Nicholas had everything against her including the most powerful Police in the land. Police foiled her first three attempts to seek justice but they did not break her spirit. She fought on and eventually was vindicated. In an extraordinary turn of events she has now used her experiences to change the very institution that abused her in the first place. Without doubt her courage and strength and now her work in training a new generation of NZ Police will make a huge difference to the way Police will treat victims of abuse in future.

The conference wound up with presentations from a panel of Te Akatea founding members, Jim Schuster, Pem Bird, Huria Tawa, Punohu McClausland and Irimena Heke. Panelists reminded the audience of Te Akatea’s roots and the importance of continuing to strive for the teaching of Te reo in schools and for the right for Māori tamariki to be taught in the context of a Māori world view. They emphasised that the pathway for future success lay in Māori being empowered to determine their own destinies.

It was a well-attended conference with presenters’ stories pulling the delegates in. Principals were inspired to share their own stories in lunch time conversations and in turn lent support to each other.

As evening fell, damp mist and light rain returned to envelop the marae, as if the Gods were shedding a tear for the sadness shared and casting a protective shroud about those gathered to say their farewells.

Tracy Ormsby and Jacque Webber Brother and sister, Tracy Ormsby and Jacque Webber told a different story again entitled ‘Beneath the Surface’. Consistent with the conference theme it was a story of spirited hope where previously there had been little. Both are engaged in the Māori health programme, Whānau Ora and shared their experiences of working with young Māori and Māori families struggling with health issues. They are passionate about their mahi and consider it a privilege to be working with their people. Important to both is to be healthy, active role models themselves and to look beyond the immunisation and presenting health issues. ‘It’s about the whole context,’ says Jacque, ‘including whether there is good food in the fridge and whether the house is cold.’ Tracy’s focus is Māori men’s health including lifting men’s aspirations to give up drugs, alcohol and crime. ‘It’s about eliminating the negative and accentuating the positive,’ he said. Just as Jacque talked about seeing the whole context, Tracy too has found that some 86 per cent of Tane he has worked with have other undiagnosed issues.

Their job is to look beneath the surface issues to find long term solutions for the health of their people.

The brother and sister duo brought a new perspective for the audience of principals showing them the effects that underlying health issues can have on learning in school.

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Can our school funding system be improved?

Cathy Wylie

NZCER Researcher

The government’s current review of the systems for funding schools and early childhood education services raises some fundamental questions about what we are trying to achieve for students, and how best to do that. Like other countries, what New Zealand wants from its education system has expanded.

Education is seen as key to national, as well as individual, wellbeing and productivity. Schools are asked to raise the ‘floor’ of educational achievement, to increase the numbers of high achievers and also deepen the nature of educational achievement: to grow students’ soft skills (aka Key Competencies) so they can contribute well to society and the economy. But at the same time, public money is under increasing pressure. No public education system is entirely adequately funded in terms of what we expect of it, even in countries which have more of a welfare state approach than New Zealand now has. So New Zealand is no exception when it comes to policy interest in seeing how public money can be used more effectively and efficiently in relation to student outcomes and how best to provide for students with the highest level of needs. And we’re no exception either, when it comes to the real challenges of finding ways to do this that are robust, and that are likely to make a tangible positive difference to the opportunities school leaders can provide. In this article I want to touch on a few fundamental points around the current funding review.

What can we do to get more efficiency?

Efficiency means getting more outcomes for the same or reduced cost. Bear in mind that student outcomes from their time in school reflect some complex interactions over time, as portrayed here.

Interactions behind student outcomes

What are the drivers of the costs of our schools, and what could we change?

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Students – we can’t change who comes through the doors in a public system Property – we could change some aspects here

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Utilities – can the system as a whole get cheaper costs for schools?

ICT – can the system as a whole get cheaper costs for schools?

Staffing – cutting numbers is unlikely to achieve system goals, given the current workloads of teachers and school leaders and growing expectations But we can think about • working on making teaching-learning processes more effective • whether existing policy frameworks create extra work for teaching staff that impede more effective teaching-learning processes (e.g., having a secondary qualification (NCEA) with 3 levels – unlike any other country) • ensuring school leaders have adequate preparation and ongoing development • reducing competition between schools • maintaining and deepening school leaders’ and teachers’ motivation, especially in our most demanding schools.

Thinking well and creatively about making more of what we have isn’t just about working out a funding formula for schools. It’s about seeing how the system as a whole works to support strong and engaging learning. You can’t just think of school resourcing in terms of per-student amounts. You also have to think about the infrastructure schools need to provide this. Sometimes it’s visible – can you access really good professional learning or advice when you need it, for the things you are working on? Sometimes it’s invisible – what are the policy settings that frame your priorities and time use? Our education would not be able to deliver the outcomes we expect if we simply put all the education money into individual schools, or attached it to individual students.

Measuring efficiency Education poses real challenges when it comes to working out the relationship between spending and outcomes, and the effectiveness of resource use. The evidence base around ‘what works’ is not a filled-in map, giving reliable directions to guaranteed strategies or slot-in lessons for given student challenges. No other country can offer us a proven methodology of resource allocation that improves both the efficiency and effectiveness of public education, ensuring improved outcomes.

How we’re going to get gains in outcomes, through using the prime resources of educator and student time more effectively, will owe a lot to our system-wide commitment to the habitual use of inquiry spirals. We’ll also need much more sharing of what we learn, and system-wide coherence so leaders can focus well on this work. Funding changes that can make a real difference aren’t just about changing funding formulae.

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Addressing disadvantage None of the outcomes we seek for education as a whole can be gained if we don’t address disadvantage. There is strong evidence that students from poor homes benefit from additional government funding for their schools. One recent study that was able to track students into adulthood in one U.S. state found that increased funding overall benefited these students substantially in terms of school completion, higher earnings, and reduction in adult poverty.1 Increasing the amount of student funding by 25 per cent over the 12 years of their schooling “eliminates attainment gaps between children from low- and high-income families.” What such an increase in funding needs to be to close the attainment gaps would be different in each country, depending on what was provided before, and what was done with the increased funding. In this case, it went mainly on staffing, and longer instructional time. If we are serious about addressing disadvantage, we need to analyse carefully what margin needs to be provided above the universal per-student amount to provide gains, matching that with additional resourcing for these students and their teachers and schools in the infrastructure around them.

Decile funding was originally intended to target the schools serving the most disadvantaged students. It was stretched beyond this purpose to spread funding over more schools, in the process leading to the labelling which has now undermined it and sharpened some of the social segregation between schools. It has only covered some additional to operational funding and not additional staffing (unlike a similar approach in the Netherlands).

Decile funding has been characterised as a ‘blunt instrument’, largely because it uses Census data, which may not reflect the

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current social situation and is not precise for each individual. It has the advantage of being low-cost to operate. Finer targeting can cost more, and can be less accurate, especially if parents are asked to provide information on their income or education levels. England, for example, has the Pupil Premium, whose purpose is to close achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students. It provides a loading of 31 per cent on the per-student funding for primary schools and some for area deprivation. Any school can get the Pupil Premium for students for whom they can supply evidence that the student is either ‘looked after’ (in foster care with the local authority) or receiving free school meals. But parents need to apply for Free School Meals, and an estimated 11 per cent of those who were eligible were not doing so, a figure that is thought to be increasing.

Australia has had similar difficulty getting accurate information from parents on their own qualifications, and occupations, particularly for schools serving low-income areas.2 That results in less funding for those schools.

Systems that provide a higher amount of per-student-funding (often called ‘weighted student funding’) to counter disadvantage usually prioritise poverty, low parental education levels, foster children, the country’s language as a second language or immigrants from poor countries. They also provide additional funding where there is a concentration of students who fit the criteria.

In New Zealand, we need to think of two categories of additional need that warrant sufficient additional funding to make a difference to student outcomes. As with other countries, there is need in the form of deprivation – poverty, stability of housing, relationships (e.g, being in a foster home, having jailed parents).

There is also higher need: students with special needs, revitalisation of te reo Māori and culture, English as an additional language, and the retention of Pacific languages.

There is no single measure for all these needs that could be used to weight per-student funding. Yet multidimensional measures raise their own issues of how you weight each contributing need.

Careful modelling of some different measures of student need in relation to existing provision, with a range of school sizes and contexts are essential. We need to know what difference any new measures might make and whether there are any additional administrative costs to the new measures and their application that would mean reductions for the funds available for actual learning and the infrastructure that supports it.

It is good to see that decision points about whether to proceed are built into the current outline of the review of educational funding systems. These need to be real decision points, real times to check the substance of the proposed changes against their logic. We need all the layers of our system to make a meaningful contribution to the design of the measures and the testing and for the sector to be involved in discussion of the results to ensure that any changes will provide a better ground for improving educational outcomes. This is all the more important given that this fundamental and highly ambitious review is not increasing the overall resourcing for education.

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References 1 Jackson, C.K., Johnson, R.C., & Persico, C. (2015). www.nber.org/papers/w20847 2 Cobbold, T. (2010). Issues in using Enrolment Data to Measure the Socio-Economic Status of Schools. SOS Policy Brief. www.savourschools.com.au.

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Leading change in ILE: Buildin leadership capacity Dianne Smardon and Jennifer Charteris University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

For many years we have been interested in the engine room of school improvement – the practices that strengthen organisational capacity and leadership at all levels of schools.

Today there is immense transformation underway in Aotearoa schooling. With the expectation that all schools become Innovative Learning Environments (ILE), and administrations reframed into Communities of Learning (CoL), it is timely that we write about the nature of leadership as a process of organisational capacity building in this change milieu.

The relentless focus on change, both within schools in general and in leadership practices in particular, have ongoing implications for school leaders. Bogotch (2016) notes that schooling structures and practices have fundamentally remained in place over a few centuries. In light of this stasis, she presents us with provocative questions for leadership in the 21st century. Firstly, do apparently good ideas go out of date? Secondly, does a correspondingly sequential and linear approach to complex schooling issues preclude us from recognising future possibilities?

With the challenge to implement ILE for future focused learning, we invite you to further consider the nature of leadership required in NZ schools.

Adjectival Leadership There is a proliferation of catch-all categories that conveniently partition leader practices, yet nod to the inherent complexity of leadership dynamics. Adjectival leadership has been the rage over the last couple of decades. We have adaptive, aesthetic, charismatic, community, complexity, constructivist, cultural, distributed, craft, reflective, flexible, instructional, managerial, servant, sustainable, synergetic, systemic, systems, and transformational leadership (See Quantz et al., 2016). In what can be seen as a ‘research epidemic’ where writers scramble to forge careers by framing a new leadership territory, practitioners can be left with binary boundaries figuring where they fit in these new typologies.

Perhaps we need to look beyond the rigidity of these categories to consider the dynamic of situated action and aspirational imagination? Quality research informs rather than drives practice. The term ‘driven’ undermines principal decision making capacity. Its rigidity deprofessionalises school leaders who are positioned as accountable for the evidence that they use to support and justify decision making. In short, it undermines leader agency. We prefer the perspective articulated by Bogotch (2016) that “leadership calls for us to act, not for us to follow the actions directed by others for others” (p. 2).

Whether we call it pedagogical leadership, instructional leadership, or learning leadership, a focus on capacity building and the importance of learning outcomes for children are inextricably linked. The growth of ‘leadership for leadership’ 16

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has been apparent in the research we have been conducting into student and teacher agency and participation in school decision making. Although more longitudinal research is required to examine the long-term impact of distributed leadership development, there is a growing body of scholarship on principals’ efforts to foster leadership capability across their contexts (Klar et al., 2016) (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. Principal as leadership capacity builder framework (Note: A conceptual framework for understanding the principal’s role in increasing leadership capacity to realize increased student learning.) (Klar, Huggins, Hammonds & Buskey, 2016, p. 117) The push for all Aotearoa schools to move to ILE requires a leadership focus on flexibility and an emphasis on school communities collaboratively evolving and adapting to changes in educational practices. Fullan and Langworthy’s (2014) ‘New Pedagogies for Deep Learning’ model can be useful for considering the nature of flexibility. It is premised on the ubiquitous use of digital technologies where teachers and students discover and master content together, co-create and use knowledge and develop pedagogical capacity. We suggest the conception of flexibility holds much potential as a signature pedagogy in ILE. (See Figure 2.) Further, we envisage that processes which foster deep learning can be connected with leadership that fosters the various dimensions of this model.

Figure 2. New pedagogies for deep learning (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014, p. 3).

Leadership for pedagogical capacity building is fluid and reflexive. Fullan and Langworthy (2014) identify a range of indicators of pedagogical capacity in teachers that leaders can utilise to foster deep learning and a climate for innovation as part of implementing ILE with staff. We adapt and add to these also on the basis of our own research work with stakeholders in schools (Smardon & Charteris, 2014). We envisage that leaders:

ng school wide Jennifer Charteris

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Foster relational trust with students, teacher, leader peers, community and other stakeholders; Seek and provide mentoring for leadership at all levels of the school; Promote the development of challenging learning goals, tasks and criteria for success to facilitate the creation and use of new knowledge (leader peers, teachers and students); Encourage varied teaching strategies and provide support for their development; Provide high-quality feedback and learning systems that strengthen feedback loops within and across schools; Foster a culture of collaborative inquiry into the impact of teacher pedagogy on students; Model and support teachers and students to develop a disposition to learn (growth mindset); and Support teachers and students to continuously discover and create digital learning tools and resources.

It must be noted that what has been termed ‘new pedagogy’ is not new for many leaders and teachers who have been moving in the digitally infused, flexible learning environment direction over the last decade. Nor is the notion of leadership capacity building across school communities new for many Aotearoa school leaders. Yet, there are changes in the digital and political landscape that increasingly require student, teacher and principal adaptability and leadership capacity. With the added mobility and choice inherent in ILE, ongoing digital innovation, agency and leadership capacity are important dimensions of learning schoolwide. All participants in ILE require opportunities to move beyond instrumental conceptions of ‘managing self ’ to engage in complex, relational activities. Systemic changes in Aotearoa Education provoke a challenge for principals to mediate and broker change for innovation, as leaders who lead leaders.

References Bogotch I. (2016). “What and where is education today? A leadership perspective”, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19:1, 1–4, DOI:10.1080/13603124.2015.1096074

Quantz, R., Cambron-McCabe, N., Dantley, M & Hachem, A. (2016): Culture-based leadership. International Journal of Leadership in Education. DOI:10.1080/13603124.2015.1099741 Smardon, D., & Charteris J. (2014). Strengthening teacher coleadership through professional inquiry. Journal of Educational Leadership, Policy and Practice, 29(2), 73–83.

About the Authors Ms Diane Smardon has provided professional learning for principals and teachers that aimed to raise student achievement. She is based in Hamilton and undertakes contract work for the University of New England as a teacher educator in Nauru.

Dr Jennifer Charteris is currently Senior Lecturer of School Pedagogy at the University of New England in Armidale Australia.

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Fullan, M., & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning. (New Pedagogies for Deep Learning White Paper). London: Pearson. Retrieved from www.michaelfullan.ca/ wpcontent/uploads/.../3897.Rich_Seam_web.pdf Klar, H., Huggins, K., Hammonds, H., & Buskey, F. (2016).

Fostering the capacity for distributed leadership: a postheroic approach to leading school improvement, International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19(2), 111–137. DOI: 10.1080/13603124.2015.1005028

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Philip Harding Becomes Latest NZPF Life Member Liz Hawes EDITOR

I remember Philip Harding’s farewell party in 2012, before he moved north to become the NZPF President. I met his parents Paddy and Mary. Meeting Mary was like meeting the school ‘Dux’. A thoroughly engaging, charming and articulate woman, with a razor sharp mind, Mary didn’t dabble in trivia.

You critiqued issues with Mary and came to logical conclusions.

Then I met Paddy. Paddy was a hoot.

Paddy could make or fix anything.

Importantly, he was happy to tell you, in humorous anecdotes, how he went about solving insurmountable practical problems by just being downright creative, clever and doggedly persistent.

Me e t i n g Mar y an d Pa d d y completely demystified Philip.

Clearly the product of both parents’ finest qualities, he is witty, engaging, articulate, immensely clever and creative with a layer of diligence, which fuels his ability to undertake those less colourful administrative tasks like setting up workable systems and schedules that turn a school into an organised functioning unit. Without the administrative capability he almost certainly would have ended up on the stage.

So why did he choose teaching?

He often said that teaching was a bit like being on the stage and I don’t doubt that his extensive repertoire of devices for getting peoples’ attention served him well in the classroom. It also helped that he loves children and wants every one of them to be the very best they can be.

In the teaching world he rose quickly through the ranks to team leader, senior leader and principal. A dedicated Cantabrian, he also served his time on the Canterbury Primary Principals’ Association (CPPA) in a communications role from 2005–2012.

Denise Torrey, a Canterbury colleague, in honouring his contribution to CPPA wrote: ‘After the Christchurch earthquakes, it became Philip’s responsibility to interpret key information as it emerged and pass it on to the Christchurch principals’ network.

These were difficult and chaotic times and principals and Boards were deeply grateful for Philip’s communications

which were always timely, relevant and succinct. He also served on the Ministry of Education’s Earthquake Recovery Team. In 2012, in recognition of this work, he was presented with the NZPF Award of Distinction for services to his colleagues.’

He was elected to the NZPF executive committee in 2009 and by 2013 was ready to take on the Presidency. I had the great privilege of working alongside Philip for the next two years and couldn’t be more pleased that the NZPF executive voted to make him a life member on his retirement this year.

As Denise Torrey wrote in her dissertation, nominating Philip for the life membership award: ‘As pre s i d e nt he qu i ck ly understood his political role and cemented strong relationships with all political parties. His wis dom, intelligence and insight led to many education spokespeople seeking his advice when forming their own party policy and he created many opportunities to have the NZPF views aired in parliamentary debates through direct contributions to MPs questions in the House.’

A major role of NZPF presidents is to have as much influence over education policy as possible. The ultimate achievement is to be invited to contribute ideas to a political party’s education policy and Philip achieved that goal with more than one party.

Politicians welcomed him whether in their own offices or in the more formal Select Committee Rooms. When presenting to Select Committees he commanded everyone’s attention.

He thrived on the theatre of the occasion and more than once was allowed to continue answering questions well beyond the allocated time. He always prepared well, and members of the Select Committee were genuinely keen to hear his views which were always presented with articulate argument and just a touch of wit.

The media flocked to Philip and before long he was the first

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choice of all the main media outlets for education commentary.

I recall a conversation with the producer of National Radio’s Jim Mora show when Philip was attending an overseas conference.

The disappointment in his voice when I explained Philip was not available for his afternoon panel was profound. It wasn’t even that there were serious educational issues to discuss. They just loved having Philip on the show because he always expressed interesting opinions and adapted easily to the more relaxed afternoon panel format!

His tenure as NZPF president encompassed the most extensive education reforms since the 1980s ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’. Whilst ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’ was about introducing competition and selfmanaging schools in a drive for greater efficiency, performance and devolved decision making to communities, the Global Education Reforms of the 2000s are more about injecting notions of privatisation into the system with charter schools, increased funding to private schools, Private Public Partnerships (PPPs), accountabilities through performance targets and a relentless focus on specific assessment through national standards and measures of NCEA. There were also attempts to reduce class sizes, and introduce performance pay which got no traction, but perhaps the greatest challenge for Philip came with the announcement of the IES policy in 2014. Very quickly Philip recognised that the structure of leadership for the collaborative clusters intended was underpinned by managerial business principles and would never find favour with the profession.

Further he recognised that achievement challenges for clusters were too narrowly defined. ‘We need a basket of options and multiple forms of evidence to show progress with these challenges,’ he said. He advocated strongly for changes to the model first presented and subsequent NZPF presidents have held fast to this position.

Throughout his career as a teacher, a leader and a national advocate for the profession, Philip would ask, ‘How is this good for children’s learning? Will this give children a richer learning experience and broaden their curriculum options? Will this help children build more successful lives?’

It is a rare privilege to meet a principal so talented, so passionate and who has made such a substantial contribution to the profession over many years. Philip retired as principal of Paparoa Street School in Christchurch in September 2016.

We now welcome him with great pleasure into the fold of distinguished life members.

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Secondary Schooling – The Otumoetai Way Patrick Purcell

Deep in the heart of suburban Tauranga sits Otumoetai College, a co-ed secondary school of nearly 2,000 students. As you pass through the front gates of ‘Oats’, as it is affectionately known by the students, you feel the pride this college has in its people and its reputation. Throughout the school, the walls are adorned with visual memories and mementos of grand sporting achievements, high performing cultural groups, outstanding academic achievements and graduating classes that have since left the school. This acknowledgement of past and present achievement links two of the school’s core values; high expectations and a sense of belonging.

I had the pleasure of speaking with a number of staff at the school, including long-serving principal Dave Randell. Randell has twenty-nine years of principalship behind him, the most recent sixteen of them leading Otumoetai College. Before embarking on a tour of the vast school campus, I asked him about his leadership style and his vision for the ColIege.

To manage one of the largest schools in the country I would imagine is a challenge, so I asked Randell how he does it. “There are a few key things I try to focus on,” he said. “Staff wellbeing and being visible are two of them. It would be easy for me to sit

in my office all day reading emails, but I wouldn’t be doing my job very well. Every morning tea and lunchtime, I stand out in the quad and have a chat to the students. I also try to get to as many school activities as possible, whether it’s weekend sports, prizegivings or performances. That’s what parents, staff and the students want. They want to see that their principal cares about what’s happening in the school, and I do care.”

Another of Randell’s strategies is empowering others through a solution focus. “I love it when people come in my office with an issue so that we can discuss it. I like to ask them questions like ‘how can we work it out?’ rather than saying ‘this is what we’re going to do’. I think principals need to be able to trust their staff with responsibility and authority. It’s also important to show enthusiasm and to have a sense of humour in order to survive the job. I never like finishing a meeting on a sour note, so I like to congratulate staff and celebrate success in the school,” he said. This positive approach and use of humour has rubbed off on many of his staff, including Social Studies teacher Alan Kirkby, who for years has started every one of his classes with a joke or two, some of which have become legendary in the school.

“It gets the students in a positive frame of mind before we get

Principal Dave Randell checks his emails while acknowledging that being a principal involves a lot more than just desk work

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Building relationships with staff and students is a key part of Randell’s style

into learning, and sometimes they even laugh,” chuckles Kirkby. the need for print-outs, and the students like being able to revisit Randell handed me a small booklet he’s authored himself past content easily,” said Media Studies teacher Ellen Rombouts. entitled ‘Teacher Wellbeing: Remember to Given the school’s commitment to technology, Remember’. “I have something I call a Randell I was keen to know the school’s views on Rule. You come first, your family comes second, the Minister’s most recent announcement to your job comes third. My staff ’s responsibility establish ‘On-line Schools’. Randell’s response is inspiring, enthusing and delivering so that was emphatic. In his view, technology can never my students feel safe and confident. It’s my replicate the relationship between student and job as principal to make sure they are in the teacher. He shared with me the experience of right space to be able to do this. It only takes his own son who had taken Physics through small things to make people feel better about the Correspondence School and found the themselves and their jobs. We have ‘Thankful lack of face-to-face interaction with the teacher Thursdays’ where five staff get certificates each limited his learning. “Teachers are facilitators week and Friday wine draws for the more for learning. Once upon a time, their role was informal moments. It’s about acknowledging simply to regurgitate facts, but this has changed.

An award, presented by his the work your people do, especially when a lot The job is now about collaborating with the staff, to celebrate principal of it can go unnoticed,” he said. students and coming up with new methods and Randell’s impressive career Long-serving English teacher Ed Weston strategies. They get our young people wanting later confirmed Randell’s emphasis on wellbeing and said of to discuss the subject in order to further their learning. Those his principal. “He’s certainly an innovative leader. More than anything though, he’s very supportive of his staff. I think we’ve come a long way under his principalship,” Weston said.

Technology is prominent at Otumoetai. Students have access to more than 1,000 computers which are an integral part of the College’s pedagogical approach. “Technology isn’t going away,” says Randell, “so we might as well use it responsibly as an asset for our students’ learning.”

Some ninety-six per cent of the school’s parents have access to a computer, so the school has made a strategic change to its mode of information dissemination from print to digital. “Feedback I’ve had from parents about our digital shift has been very positive”, says Randell. “They can read daily notices, access information about their child’s learning, and in general get more involved in their child’s education in a constructive way.” The school also uses Google Drive to create ‘virtual classrooms’ so that students can Social studies teacher Alan Kirkby explaining one of his trademark access all of the classroom content from home. “It does away with jokes

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interactions are irreplaceable,” he said.

Technology can also bring its own problems. Through some high profile suicide cases we are acutely aware of the negative contribution social media channels, for example, can make to cyber bullying, cyber stalking, and other harmful behaviours.

Not surprisingly, the presence of mobile phones in schools was a topic at this year’s international forum at Otumoetai’s sister school Morioka Chuo High School in Japan. Randell takes four head students to the forum each year.

“The majority of the participating schools ban or strongly limit them [mobile phones], whereas I’ve gone the other way,” Randell explains. “I believe, if used appropriately, mobiles can be great learning devices. In regards to cyber-bullying, we have a ‘Cyber Society’ group of students who actively promote safe use of technology and all students sign an agreement of ‘proper use’.

We provide advice and guidance to students and parents on this topic through our newsletters and in-class advocacy,” he said.

Technology isn’t the only ‘modern’ approach embraced by

boost the achievement of our Māori students,” he said.

The latter of these programmes is based on the concept of a journey towards success that is both dynamic and continuous, building from the school’s current situation to where it aspires to be for Māori students. Through learning new theories and practices for teaching, the programme hopes to make schools places where both Treaty partners can enjoy success in education.

“We have inspiring teachers of Māori language and culture in the school and groups such as Kapa Haka have grown from strength to strength. We recently did a survey [on Māori students], and the results showed our Māori students are largely feeling valued and experiencing success, both culturally and academically. We know it’s something that now needs to be maintained, and we’re confident of doing so,” Randell explained.

Otumoetai’s values are not just words painted on an outside wall. ‘Belonging and Connecting (Kotahitanga)’, ‘Growing Strong Relationships (Whanaungatanga)’, ‘Life Long, Life Wide Learning’, ‘High Expectations (Tu Maia)’, and ‘Serving

Junior students taking a break while the seniors are busy studying!

Staff of Otumoetai College having some well-deserved down time

Otumoetai College. Recent property developments have seen the school’s art block transformed into a ‘state of the art’ learning space complete with a stunning new foyer or ‘art exhibition area’, from which ascends a staircase giving entry to a world class flexible learning space and innovative learning environment.

“I think these classrooms are the way forward,” says Randell.

“Rows of desks have no place in today’s environment other than maybe for exams,” he opines. “I love the idea of people sharing ideas, using others’ strengths. Innovative learning is a mind-set which you have to get people used to. Some of us have taught on our own for the last 40 years, in a box . . . In this school we’re looking at taking a few walls out, making the rooms flexible, and getting some colour in there.”

Lifting the academic achievement of Māori has been a focus for the current government since it came to power in 2008. There are good reasons for this because after 170 years of colonisation Māori linger at the bottom end of education, economic and health achievement statistics. Every public school in the country has now been challenged to focus on their Māori cohort of students and find ways to make a positive difference to their academic fortunes. With around twenty per cent of the College’s students identifying as Māori, Otumoetai faces a tough challenge. Randell has wasted no time in turning his attention to the challenge and has implemented two very effective programmes in his College.

“In the last three years we’ve been running programmes including ‘Success for Learning’ and ‘Kia Eke Panuku’ to try and

the Community (Moho Ao)’ are living values in the College and Randell is determined to model them. He calls them ‘The Otumoetai Way’. He leads by example which is why I observe him at the morning tea break connecting with a group of junior girls who had just emerged from a maths class with their latest test results. They were pleased with their results but even more uplifting was having them acknowledged and celebrated by their principal. “[The Otumoetai Way] is our school’s culture and what we hope people see and experience when they come to this college,” he explained. “We’re a proud school. We believe in success. In fact, at every assembly I remind the students that success is not an option, it is an expectation, but with that expectation must come a passion and a desire to excel. We have a special ethos about who we are and if you talk to past students they tend to have fond memories of their time here,” he said.

The ‘Otumoetai Way’ would not be complete without a component of community service. For one day every year the students put away their study books and laptops and go out to work. Every student is expected to volunteer their labour for the day in service to their community. On a larger scale, every two years a group of students travels to Mexico to provide labour for housing construction sites for the poor. It’s about reaching out and making a difference.

Randell’s commitment to high expectations is manifest everywhere, including in the school hall, which doubles as an

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Rows of desks have no place in today’s environment other than maybe for exams

exam room. There, students cannot escape the prominently displayed notice boards on which are inscribed the names of the school’s highest achieving students from school leaders and students achieving excellence in NCEA qualifications to high achieving sports alumni including Black Stick Samantha Charlton, Black Caps’ fast bowler Trent Boult and silver medallist Olympic canoeist Luuka Jones. They provide inspiration and are role models for the current students.

Education has gone through radical changes since Dave Randell first began teaching, but he believes that these are exciting times for students. “I came from a system where I put students in rows and gave them knowledge to regurgitate. They had very little say. Today, the opportunities are endless. We offer fifty different sports here and we encourage young people to have an opinion and to find out things. We give our students

a lot more trust and responsibility these days, and they thrive on this,” he said.

One way the school entrusts its students is empowering the head students and student executive to plan and organise the annual school ball. They are allocated $40,000 for the event and have free reign to create a celebration of their choice, provided of course the very high school standards are not breached!

Randell says, despite the challenges, the satisfaction of striving to meet individual student and staff learning needs every day means the job is never boring. He says if he had a choice, he wouldn’t do anything else. With the college increasing its achievement levels in so many areas all the time, Randell and his staff must be commended for their work. Without doubt, I believe the families of Otumoetai College feel that their children are in safe hands.

Otumoetai College has a strong sporting history and students are encouraged to get involved

Magazine covers created by students cover the walls of this classroom

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ASIA NEW ZEALAND FOUNDATION – SUPPORTING SCHOOLS TO EQUIP THEIR STUDENTS Liz Hawes EDITOR

At present 12 per cent of New Zealanders are of Asian descent. By 2038 that percentage is expected to reach 21 per cent. In the case of Auckland the percentage of Asians is already 23 per cent and expected to increase to 33 per cent by 2038. At the same time the Asian region is experiencing a rapid rise of its middle class, expected to reach 60 per cent of the world’s middle class by 2030 equating to 3 billion consumers. Such changes to our demographic landscape and wider region is having an increasing impact on our culture, careers and education system, especially in Auckland.

The question is ‘Are schools ready to accommodate these changes and adequately equip their students for a more Asian orientated world?’ Research would indicate that we have a long way to go. Surveys undertaken on behalf of the Asia New Zealand Foundation reveal that some 66 per cent of New Zealanders know very little if anything about Asia.

As the population of Asian immigrants increases, Experiencing traditional Chinese gardens during the Shanghai Business Forum Asian children are pouring through the doors of New Zealand schools, especially in Auckland. Immigration from language weeks or more general Asian awareness activities.

Asia is accelerating at such a pace that some schools are under Through these cultural events students learn about the food, pressure trying to access sufficient and timely ESOL (English dance and drama, common beliefs, practices and music of an for Speakers of Other Languages) support for their students. Asian country or countries.

Some are also struggling to know how best to accommodate Secondly, the Foundation supports connections with Asian the changing face of their schools and create a welcoming and people and cultures. Jeff Johnstone believes many schools already accepting environment within which children from multiple connect well with their local communities, ‘The Foundation helps Asian countries can celebrate their own cultures in a different schools to encourage members of their Asian communities to country. get involved with school activities and events so that all children The Asia New Zealand Foundation cannot solve the ESOL can benefit from their expertise and their own children can stand problem for schools but they do have an Education arm headed tall and be proud of their own culture’. up by former primary principal, Jeff Johnstone (Education The Foundation also assists New Zealand schools to connect Director) and former secondary teacher, Sean O’Connor with schools, teachers and students in Asia. Information about (Educators Network Manager). Established in 1994 and funded sister school relationships is readily available on their website. largely by the New Zealand government, the Foundation has The Foundation also takes New Zealand educators to Asia on recently launched its Educators’ Network to support principals professional development trips. Most recently Jeff Johnstone took and teachers throughout New Zealand to equip their students 12 New Zealand teachers to Singapore to partner with 12 local for our future with Asia.

Singaporean teachers. The teachers spent time in the local schools There are three main areas in which the Asia New Zealand learning about the Singaporean education system first-hand. The Foundation support schools. The first is in developing cultural trip concluded with a conference where the partner teachers competency. Through its website, principals and teachers can planned sustainable online connections between their students. freely access and download a range of resources including Finally, although the Asia New Zealand Foundation does not teaching units ranging from Curriculum Level 1 to NCEA Level provide teachers of Asian languages in schools they do promote 3. Other resources include country maps as well as fact sheets. and provide guidance and support for Asian language learning in In addition, funding for hosting Asian orientated events in schools. The Foundation, in collaboration with the New Zealand schools is currently available for either country specific festivals/ Association of Language Teachers (NZALT) recently published,

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Enjoying local cuisine during the Korean Studies Workshop

Visiting a slum school in Jakarta during the Indonesia Cultural Connections Trip

‘Five key recommendations for learning languages to thrive in New Zealand schools’. Written for the Minister of Education and the Ministry, the recommendations include:

demographics in New Zealand are having a profound effect on the lives of our students’, suggests Jeff Johnstone, ‘If we want our students to thrive and contribute towards a prosperous and harmonious New Zealand, then we believe it is the obligation of all educators to equip their students adequately for a future with Asia’ Principals and teachers can join the Foundation’s Educators Network by signing up to their online newsletter in order to be kept informed each term of upcoming events, trips, resources and funding opportunities. For more information email Jeff Johnstone jjohnstone@asianz.org.nz or Sean O’Connor soconnor@asianz.org.nz

–– –– ––

–– ––

Engage the community Develop a Languages in Education Strategy Review and update the New Zealand Curriculum and NCEA requirements Provide targeted funding for language learning in schools Build a quality language teaching force

The document is available from the Foundation’s website as is other available support for Asian language learning in schools.

‘The rapid rise of the middle class in Asia and the changing

distinction

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Why COOLs are so uncool . . .

What the Education (Update) Amendment Bill means for you?

Luke East

Luke East is hoping to pursue a future in politics in order to give more Kiwis the chance to get ahead. He’s been following the process surrounding the Education (Update) Amendment Bill and believes that with something as important as education, there should be increased consultation around this Bill.

New Zealand. A free country where children are able to reach their true potential. Or so we’re told. The current education system is in need of reform. Because despite having skill-based programs, education is still focussed on students being able to absorb and regurgitate the correct information for an exam.

We must reform our system to focus on the skills and ethics that will carry our children on to further education and into the workforce. There is a growing outcry both domestically and internationally for ‘education not indoctrination’ and for students to be taught the skills for critical thinking rather than being punished for giving a wrong answer. Across the globe the #EducationReform movement is pushing for system change, because focussing purely on grades doesn’t provide maximum benefit to students and won’t encourage lifelong learning. Schools should be about so much more than simply giving children the answers that examiners want to hear.

The Government’s new Education (Update) Amendment Bill which is being spearheaded by Minister Parata and her push for Communities Of Online Learning (COOLs) will streamline the process of indoctrination and reduce the opportunity for real and lifelong learning. Personally I believe that allowing “Corporate entities” to register as educational institutions is a worry and will result in the exploitation of education in order to make a profit. Moving to full-time education through COOLs is likely to reduce student achievement and result in diminished class sizes and school rolls. The connection students have with their teachers is crucial not just for education but for the development of life skills. Students learn as much or more through social experiences than they do through school. Through the COOLs system, the information will be streamed directly into their brains without person-to-person tuition or interaction. It is inevitable that technology will play a larger part in the way we teach and educate, but it should be a complement to go alongside traditional teaching methods, rather than a replacement.

We must integrate technology into our education system because digital literacy is one of the most important skills for these changing times, but it is useless on its own. It must come alongside social skills and other proven aspects of education and learning, whilst restructuring the system to encourage creativity and individual thought processes. We must embrace the opportunities brought by change, but I believe the move to full-time online education through COOLs is a step too far. It is our duty to give our children the best start in life and to give them the skills they need to succeed. This duty will not be fulfilled

by giving the Minister the power to appoint BOT members and/ or the Board Chair. Because the people who best understand what the sector and their community need, are teachers and school staff.

The quality of our children’s education is becoming increasingly diminished because teachers are having to spend more and more time on paperwork and bureaucratic procedure. This will be further worsened by a ‘global funding model’ which will require school staff to allocate funds and cut costs, something that is currently in the hands of the Ministry. A teacher’s primary concern should be the education of the students in their care, not hiring and firing. Teachers devote an extraordinary amount of their own free-time to planning classes and marking assessments, something that is not reflected in their paychecks. Our teachers and school staff are everyday superheroes.

For students from difficult backgrounds, the kind, smiling face of a teacher is a morale booster. Some of the people that

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do the most challenging and rewarding work are the special needs teachers and teaching assistants. If we really want to see growth and positive change in our country, we have to start building it from the ground up, brick-by-brick. If we want more skilled workers, we have to upskill our own students rather than importing workers. The argument that we only bring in migrant workers with skills we need is false. If that were the case, then why would people here on skilled migrant visas be doing retail assistant and fast food checkout operator jobs? There are 131,000 unemployed people in New Zealand, any one of them could fill jobs in either the two categories I’ve just mentioned.

The best way to upskill our population is to encourage them to go on to further education, something that could be done by introducing free tertiary education. Work is the greatest liberator from poverty. One of the things we desire most is a decrease in poverty and an increase in employment. Incentivised tertiary education and training programs would be a great way to achieve this. We have to stop focussing on short term surpluses and look at the long term social cost we will have if we don’t invest in our own people through education. Better funding means better learning. By doing this we will be freeing up teachers and schools to focus on teaching methods and activities that best fit their students and communities.

We cannot avoid change, but good leadership is often identified by a measured approach to change and therefore I believe the opportunities brought by technology merit further exploration, but this should not and cannot result in the replacement of a tried and tested school system. We need education reform, but full-time online learning is not and will never be the answer.

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School Lines Importers, Emulators & Copycats Lester Flockton

lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz

National Standards, targets, data driven improvement, literacy & numeracy fixation with curricular distortion, repetitive chiming of the Raising Student Achievement singsong, inquirybased teaching, public-private charter schools, “open plan” flexible learning spaces, one principal and one board managing and governing multiple schools, communities of schools (learners), communities of online learners, targeted funding, teaching first, master’s degrees for all, etc. etc.

Where have the ideas behind all of these and other policy packages come from? Did the seeds for the “initiatives” germinate in fertile homegrown minds of smart, insightful and proven New Zealander educators? No. Did they come from practising professionals (principals and teachers)? No. School communities? No. School Trustees Association? No. On-song, in-favour academics? No. Government’s servants (Ministry of Education, ERO, and others)? No. Politicians? Surprisingly, no!

If my answers to the above are accepted as correct (as they have proven to be), then where did the seeds for all of this stuff come from, if they didn’t originate down here? The answer is simple – they came from up there, undeclared at our borders through political immunity, perceived political capital, and academics’ freeways. Without exception, each of the packages listed above has derived from systems elsewhere, particularly the USA and UK, albeit that in most cases they have emerged as adaptive mutations.

Now, there is nothing wrong with importing and adapting good ideas that we can be confident of working well in practice here as well as there. But when so many of the seeds of policies, packages and programmes have failed to produce convincingly sustainable and widespread results in their places of origin, then alarm bells should be sounded. The wholesale implementation gates should be firmly shut until imported ideas have undergone rigorous field trials and independent health and safety checks to protect vulnerable schools, vulnerable principals, vulnerable teachers and vulnerable children from harm and risks associated with ill proven policies.

Let’s take just one example: National Standards.

In a scripted 2010 video, Prime Minister Key announced: “I am concerned to learn that up to 1 in 5 of our children leave our schools without the literacy and numeracy skills they need to succeed. That’s right. Up to 1 in 5 New Zealanders leaving school with inadequate reading, writing, and math skills. That’s why the National led Government is introducing National Standards in all years 1 to 8 schools.”

So National Standards were specifically introduced by politicians on the premise of rescuing one-in-five children who are allegedly failing in literacy and numeracy (and let’s not forget that this policy, to all intents and purposes, derived from systems in the UK and USA). It has seen millions of dollars and thousands upon thousands of hours spent (not invested) on developing, implementing, administering and overseeing a system required of every child, every year level, and every non-charter primary school. Moreover, those at every level of the system are required to be involved – bureaucrats, their contract advisers, principals and teachers, and school boards. And now, after 5 years of heavyduty intensification, the results give overwhelming evidence that the policy is failing abysmally to deliver what the politicians claimed, as depicted in the following flat graph that shows at least 1 in 5 children continue to perform below the “standard”, which is typically mirrored in every other system we have been forced to follow. (figure 1) Endemic in all of this is persistent denial at the highest levels of the true causes underlying low achievement – causes that cannot be simplistically addressed by a National Standards industry (Or is it ignorance, or political inconvenience?). That is the shameful part of this enormously wasteful saga. To claim over and over that the remedy (again, National Standards driven) is improved teacher quality amounts to overstated nonsense. We know that, in general, children in mid-to-high decile communities succeed, while those in low decile communities are highly overrepresented among those who struggle. And interestingly, research tells us that there is little, if any, significant difference in the quality of teaching across the deciles. Therein lies the truth of the matter.

A viewing of YouTube: The First 1000 Days/Johan Morreua/ TEDxTauranga, explains the realities that we all – especially

Source: Ministry of Education (2016), Education Counts

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those who are presently controlling the system! – need to face that most Finnish teachers had master’s degrees. So they decided up to and accept as major causations of underachievement. Dr that all teachers in England should have a master’s degree too.

Johan Morreua’s message is consistent with numerous others, And so the simplistic ball was set rolling, despite the fact that including that of Nash and Prochnow (2004) which too politely there is more than ample good evidence saying that a master’s stated, “The dismissal of home environment as an effective site degree is not the defining qualification of successful teachers. for the generation of cognitive habitus is Many are now asking, “When will all misguided.” of this policy importation, emulation Our mission as adults So why do we persist in deriving and copy-catting stop?” When will our policies and programmes from “up is to protect our policy makers, bureaucrats and on-song there”, albeit in variant form, that fail academics come to the realization that children from to produce results commensurate with what might work somewhere else will their very considerable cost? As widely politicians. We also not necessarily work here – even with respected Dylan Wiliam cautions in his adaptive tinkering. Or, as Wiliam advises: excellent book, Leadership for Teacher have an ethical and moral Those who want to determine what Learning, there are distinct dangers in works in education are doomed to fail, responsibility to importing others’ approaches in the because in education, “What works?” quest for solutions to problems of student tell business people is rarely the right question for the achievement. Emulation is built on the simple reason that in education, just flawed assumption that what might appear to stay out of our building. about everything works somewhere, to work in others’ contexts will work and nothing works everywhere. equally well in our own. Cases in point are places like Singapore Wiliam (2016), p. 63 and Finland, where policy-shopping tours have been common That “everywhere” applies not only to different systems, but among politicians and their policy hunters.

Take, for example, the current drive for all teachers to have equally within systems: differences among communities, master’s degrees – an emulation from Finland that has been differences among schools, differences among teachers, different picked up by a number of systems, including our own. According children, different values, and different beliefs.

But to return to the question, “When will all of this stop?” The to Wiliam, a delegation of politicians from England simplistically concluded that the cause of Finland’s success must be the fact answer is, probably not in our lifetime. After all, one of the most far reaching and pervasive outcomes of Tomorrow’s Schools was the heightened politicisation of education in our country. That is most unlikely to be changed by Ms Parata’s Education Update Bill which, if anything, further entrenches political control.

So perhaps the best we can do is to follow the advice of one of Finland’s professors:

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Our mission as adults is to protect our children from politicians. We also have an ethical and moral responsibility to tell business people to stay out of our building.

Doyle, W. STUFF, 28 August, 2016 Footnote: In the high performing Shanghai school system, there are thirteen salary points on the scale for regular teachers. To get to higher points on the scale, teachers have to spend a certain amount of time working in hardto-staff, more challenging schools. Now there’s an idea – and it could be applied to principals too! But it won’t happen. Do you know why?

References Doyle, W. (2016). This is why Finland has the best schools. STUFF, 29 August.

Nash, R. & Prochnow, J. (2004). Is it Really the Teachers? NZ Journal of Educational Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2.

Wiliam, Dylan. (2016). Leadership for Teacher Learning. Victoria, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education.

Unconscious bias and education Helen Kinsey-Wightman

My eldest son loves rap music. A couple of weeks ago we went down to Christchurch to see Macklemore in concert.

Whilst I love good music in almost any genre, I have always struggled with the number of expletives hip hop artists feel compelled to use – particularly those on the theme of mothers – an hour into an Eminem concert I lost count when we got past 30! I like Macklemore though because his lyrics are really thoughtful and positive; he challenges consumerism and the need for girls to wear make-up; he talks about art, 10,000 hours of practice, gay rights and op-shopping.

Yet, despite all the great messages, I left the concert feeling overwhelmingly sad for America. Macklemore used his song White Privilege to highlight the Black Lives Matter movement. Despite having watched the news and understanding the need for the message – I find it shocking that 50 years after the end of segregation, in a country with a black president, there is a need to campaign under this banner.

My reading for the flight to Christchurch, coincidentally, was Unconscious Bias and Education: A comparative study of Māori and African American students. The 2016 report by Anton Blank, Dr Carla Houkamau and Dr Hautahi Kingi of University of Auckland and Cornell University respectively, draws comparisons between current socio-economic statistics for Māori students in NZ and African American students in the US and finds that, “While the histories and cultures of the two groups are very different, almost every economic and social statistic indicates that they occupy similar social spaces in their respective societies. When educational outcomes of Māori and African American children are compared, a strong and consistent pattern of disadvantage emerges.” 1 The report states that, “Racism is disparaged in New Zealand where the vast majority of the population consciously endorses fairness and equity.” Dr Houkamau suggests that there are inequities in our society that are the result of unconscious bias defined as, “perceptions which occur outside of the perceiver’s

conscious awareness.” 2 During the term break I took my boys down to Wellington.

I think Wellington is one of the best cities in the world and I count myself privileged to live within a 2 hour drive. My 5 year old stopped on the waterfront at a café under Frank Kitts Park where the owners put out a brightly painted piano that anyone can play. While he played I got a coffee and bought him a bar of chocolate. When I handed it to him, he looked at it and handed it back saying, “I don’t want this one . . . ” At first I thought he was joking, when I realised he wasn’t I asked him why. It was a Trade Aid chocolate bar with a picture of a smiling Ghanean woman on the label – he pointed to her and said, “I don’t like her, she doesn’t look nice . . . ” Whatever our age, ethnicity, body shape, religion or gender, the reality is our brains are programmed to identify with people whom we perceive to be like us. Conversely we are likely to discriminate towards “out-groups.”

Discrimination in NZ is becoming a topic of conversation in the media. A story screened on Seven Sharp recently featured Pakeha New Plymouth Mayor Andrew Judd claiming he had been the recipient of racist behaviour – including having been spat on in front of his children – for pushing to have Māori representation at the council table.

He calls himself a recovering racist and talks startlingly honestly about growing up in Masterton and the attitudes that led to the development of his own conscious and unconscious biases towards Māori. In an interview with E-Tangata he says; “I’d bike past other state houses and Mum would say: “Make sure your lunch is locked and safe because it might get stolen.” So, as I’d go past, I’d speed up. And no lunch was ever stolen. I was never stopped and harassed in any way, shape or form.

Small examples, but examples of how attitudes to Māori were planted deep in my psyche.” 3 Mike Hoskings’ dismissive comments following this interview led to formal complaints to TVNZ from the public and comments

N Z Principal | N o v e m b e r 2 0 16

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from his colleagues – among them Miriama Kamo: “Like most Māori I have lived with casual, and often deliberate racism my entire life, but when we use a powerful primetime television platform to dismiss and ignore racism in our community, my view is that is unacceptable.” 4 So what does this mean for education? Studies quoted in the report on Unconscious bias showed that both teachers and students hold negative perceptions about Māori which, “leads them to treat Māori as if they were not capable of success . . . ” 5 Given that unconscious bias is by its very nature unconscious how can we begin to raise this issue with our staff and students?

Interestingly the report finds that cultural competence training which is often espoused in our staffrooms and PLD programmes, “had no real impact on reducing bias.” 6 Studies in the US found that, “when white participants actively engaged in an activity where they were collegial or teamed with African American people or were asked to vividly imagine scenarios where they had positive relationships with African American people – their bias . . . reduced.” 7 My own strategy has been to try to become more aware of my own biases, why they might be there and to think about times when they have been proven wrong.

On my way back to the airport an Indian couple got on to the shuttle – examining my biases reminded me that I grew up in a society where it was normal to refer to Pakistanis as Pakis

and led me to remember my grandfather’s largely negative comments about his time in the Army in India. His experiences and viewpoint came from a different place and time – yet they have affected mine. I am fortunate to have travelled in India and to have met many people whose kindness I am able to remember to counter my grandfather’s comments – but I am aware that the attitudes I learned earliest still persist.

I have recently begun teaching a class for students identified as needing support with literacy. We are using reciprocal reading as a deliberate strategy to improve reading comprehension. Early evidence tells me it is working too. We cover a wide range of reading material and I find our discussions really interesting.

Last week someone mentioned girls who wear headscarves to school – a Tongan student casually remarked, “Oh you mean one of those terrorists . . . ” I must have grimaced – she looked at me and said, “Sorry miss – but that’s what they call them on the news . . . ” Just as my grandfather was very influential in my own life, our students spend a lot of time observing us and listening to what we say. They get to know us well and what we believe matters. We must model challenging our unconscious biases and those of our colleagues and then teach our students to do the same.

References Blank, A., Houkamu, C. And Kingi, H. (2016) Unconconscious Bias and Education: A comparative study of Māori and African American students. Oranui Diversity Leadership. http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/andrew-judd-an-upbringing-too-whiteby-far http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/303433/tvnz-toreview-‘racist’-comments

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N Z P r i n c i p a l | N o v e m b e r 2 0 16

1

Blank, Houkamau & Kingi p5

2

Blank, Houkamau & Kingi p5

3

http://e-tangata.co.nz/news/andrew-judd-an-upbringing-too-whiteby-far

4

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/303433/tvnz-toreview-‘racist’-comments

5

Blank, Houkamau & Kingi p11

6

Blank, Houkamau & Kingi p15

7

Blank, Houkamau & Kingi p16

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