Duration: 3:24
The principal, students, teacher, and a parent of Motu School talk about the positives of parents engaging in their children's learning.
Paul Cornwall – Principal, Motu School:
By looking at, or understanding, Māori achieving success as Māori has created some positive changes. I think, because it means, that while all our parents willingly came into the school and shared their children’s work and helped out with fundraising and things. I’d like to think now there is a deeper understanding and, or a clearer understanding of how their children are progressing and knowing that we’re actually making a serious effort to meet their children half way.
And by bringing the e-portfolio in and making it part of a student led conference that’s created a three-way presentation with the student sharing their year's work with their parents and with us as teachers just sitting on the side.
In our second half yearly portfolio we’ve added a added a new page in which we’ve labelled Te Reo. It has some goals that are our class goals, followed up with a student’s own goal, and they’ve created their page to reflect their learning, and then share with their parents along with the other areas.
Jermial – Student:
I asked my mum about the e-portfolio if she could like put comments or something about what I’ve been learning.
She said to like keep on writing stories at home and that and keep on practicing my handwriting. I feel quite good when my mum is talking about my writing and me achieving on it.
Shelley Cornwall – teacher:
By using e-portfolios the kids actually have to acknowledge, this is where I am at, this is what I’m doing. It’s a really neat situation, and at the end a lot of them don’t write a lot, but they say a lot to the kids, and they’ve got this common ground and they’ve got a real knowledge of what their kids are doing.
They’ve got real examples and they’ve got real feedback. So, I think it’s just so valuable.
Mahinarangi – Student:
And another one of my goals in te reo is pronouncing the karakias and that properly. I sit down at the table with Mum and we practice saying words. I’ve been progressing a lot Mum says. She says it’s really cool to see all the kids learning Māori.
Vonita – Parent:
Well, the e-portfolios they’re actually like a running report and the kids have got goals they set themselves with the teacher. We get to see it and they get to comment on it. It’s their feedback to us about what they’re learning, what they’re doing, and where they want to go. With my children, it’s good because they take the feedback quite well from us especially like for their te reo and that to kind of build it up a bit more. We discuss a lot what goes into their e-portfolios. If I’ve got any questions I’ll talk to Paul and them but with my children, I’ve seen a great growth put out of them.