A student’s perspective of inclusive education

Pip Williams – Board of Trustees chairperson
I think the students have greater strengths in their own identity. They have better relationships with others and a greater knowledge and understanding which has really supported their learning and because it’s based very much on their interests then it’s really helped them to have success and have that feeling um of achievement.

Herepo Wynyard – student
In my e-learning portfolio, I set goals every term and my mother comes in and looks at them and helps me try to achieve them by the end of the term. One of my main goals was to get a placing in the shotput a couple of years ago, um I achieved that because my mother would get a big heavy box or something filled with metal and she’d make me throw it around the house and from all the training I ended up throwing 12 metres and I won first.

I also take VLN where I learn Spanish and French and even te reo Māori. I also get extra leadership opportunities where they send me to Rotorua every now and again.

My mother’s really active in my learning. She came in a couple of months ago to help with our family boards where we had to work together to create this one board to tell everyone about our families and how we’ve come down through generations.

Mum loves looking at my portfolio because she can ask me how I’ve been doing and we’ve got a lot of conversation topics, and we can talk to each other more than before. When I’m on my laptop I get to go to the school blog whenever I like and I can go into my e-portfolio and show my mum all of the things I’ve been doing over the year at home as well as at school.

Richard – Principal, Waerenga o Kuri
The major impact of MASAM has been with the parent and community involvement in the school and the willingness of parents to come in. They now feel a lot more welcome and included in their children’s education. We’ve deliberately had programmes where the parents can come in and join in with their children’s learning which has been huge for them as well. They can sit beside their children and see the processes, see the technologies as well they’re using at school and being able to help out and having a voice in their child’s education

Their achievement data has improved with having their parents on side as well working together. And the children having a greater buy-in to their learning and being part of the planning and the process of learning at school.

Herepo Wynyard – student
In the 125th year anniversary of our school I made a PowerPoint with photos and movies about what we’ve done over the past few years and throughout the history of Waerenga o Kuri school. I loved working on it because I got to learn more about my school’s history and what we’ve been through I feel like I’m really, a real big part of the community now. The teachers also give me time to do a painting and its to remember what I’ve done throughout my time at Waerenga o Kuri School and its also to remind the kids of what I was doing here and how I’ve helped them over the years. With the art piece it makes me feel like everyone around me is my family now. When I go to high school I’m going to be very confident

I learnt if we can dream it and believe in it, we can achieve it.