Otaki Convenors' Meeting

On Thursday 16 May Convenors met in Ōtaki and were hosted by the Te Reanga Ipurangi Ōtaki Education Trust. We had a warm greeting from Rachel and Jim (trustees) and it was interesting to see the great work the Trust is doing to support the local community

• Trust established under the mana of Ngāti Raukawa to serve the Ōtaki community - the Trust also sponsor the Central Pulse netball team.
• promote and lift educational achievement.
• contribute to the survival and prosperity of Māori as Māori.
• promote educational development of all people.
• promote the learning infrastructure for kura, schools and home learning.

I was impressed with Rachel's passion for the local community, and the infrastructure and opportunities the Trust is providing for all learners.

Takeaways from the day

• this kaupapa is about sharing PLD across schools and clusters. No one is telling us to do this, we have all agreed this is what we want to do.
• Blogger is the best platform for teaching Cybersmart. It enables us to engage outside of the community, for example, Summer Learning Journey. It enables children to make connections in a supported way and teach Digital Citizenship.

Data Collection

• important to include all children in data set. 
• we can advocate for them if we know who they are.
• once we have the evidence, we can advocate for these children ... difficult to do this if we only have anecdotal evidence. It requires visibility.

Junior Data
Why PM and not Ready to Read

• no one has figured out how to use Ready to Rewad consistently.
• PM is a better assessment tool - greater consistency.
• Why do we gather Junior data? Important to know if we are making a difference and we want to share good practice.

Board Forums
Russell also discussed the value of engaging our boards and holding board forums once a term. Some suggestions

• Get NZSTA to run a session
• Ministry of Education
• Other social agences; Police, OT, CDHB, ...

Another valuable opportunity to connect, collaborate and problem solve!

Professional Learning Groups (PLGs)

Six of the Uru Mānuka Manaiakalani Outreach Schools met this week at the Hornby Working Men's Club after school. Using the 2016 emerging findings from Woolf Fisher Research Centre, teachers chose an area of focus for their Teaching as Inquiry; eg. multi modal, feedback, rewindable learning, visible teaching, ... These are the teacher practices identified by WFRC as having a positive impact on student achievement.

There is good practice happening in all of our schools - Learn Create Share. Our cluster goals are to grow the capacity of all teachers and their understanding of Learn Create Share, provide opportunities to connect and share, strengthen Teaching as Inquiry so that it makes a difference for teachers professional practice and development, and also improve learning outcomes for all of our learners in Uru Mānuka.

Teachers in each group created a shared folder to keep resources in. Over time this will provide a valuable resource for all teachers within the cluster. Groups will meet each term in Week 9. No other meetings have been scheduled for these weeks in order to manage workloads.

We received great feedback about the session and teachers valued the opportunity to connect with others and discuss and share what is happening at various schools. Some have already organised visits to other schools before the next meeting. The afternoon was topped-off with tea/coffee, sandwiches and muffins!

Teachers LEARNING
Teachers CREATING
Teachers SHARING

"Excellent professional development initiative and what better way to enhance collaboration across Uru Manuka!!" (Kris, Acting Principal, Sockburn Primary)