Harakeke

 Harakeke Staff Development

• Practise and develop the use of te reo and tikanga Māori. 

We are very lucky to have harakeke growing in our grounds and unfortunately they have been neglected through the years.  Rather than let them continue to be left and overgrown and to be able utilise this resource, I approached our Resource Teacher For Māori, Christine Brown for help.  

She came to school and took a staff session which was open to all staff.  She took us through the tikanga and explained why harakeke is such a precious part of our heritage and culture.  We spent some time with our plants and had the opportunity to cut it, making sure we followed the correct protocol.  We then went back indoors and worked in pairs to create a taka.

This session was so valuable for all of us individually and as a school.  Our next step is to cut off dead parts and tidy the area around where our harakeke grow.  Some classes have already used harakeke with children and our senior part of the school plan to use harakeke as the base for our technology unit in term four.

Teaching as Inquiry 2020

Extended Learning Conversations With Students and Whānau 

• Specifically support the educational aspirations for Māori learners, taking shared responsibility for these learners to achieve educational success as Māori. 

For my Teaching as Inquiry in 2020, I chose to look specifically at the Māori students within our senior learning space and see if having extended learning conversations with students and whānau, showed some positive progress in Reading.

Although Covid 19 threw some challenges, I was still able to engage in learning conversations with students and some whānau, particularly those in my Literacy class.

The slide below shows this journey:

My next step is to share more Reading work through Hero regularly and not just at the end of the term.