Duration: 2:24
Parents, BOT, and teachers from Motu School discuss their collaboration to create their Māori achieving success as Māori (MASAM framework). An area of significant progress is whanaungatanga. They have deliberate strategies in place to make connections with whānau and community, both formally and informally.
Paul Cornwall – Principal:
We needed to look closer at the question of Māori achieving success as Māori so we called a hui to address that problem and to ask members of our Māori community what that meant to them.
Vonita – Parent:
We were given a questionnaire to look at, all the Māori parents were given it.
Hamish Newman – Board of Trustees chairperson:
They were all asked the question what Māori achieving success as Māori meant, and no one could come up with the answer.
Paul Cornwall – Principal:
The question was asked to a wider more professional field and that’s where the matrix came back in and we then positioned ourselves in two sections within the document. The teacher section looks more deeply at what is ‘as Māori’ and the Board looks at a more overall school perspective.
Vonita – Parent:
It’s our children achieving as Māori in school through our culture.
I’ve actually seen a difference in both my children. They’re achieving, but they’re actually getting quite confident in asking for help when they need it. Asking everybody not so much just teachers, like asking us as parents, but actually going outside the school and asking the community. The Māori language is starting to come in quite well into school. I see a lot of confidence coming through on that and a lot of leadership
Paul Cornwall – Principal:
One of the areas that we feel that as teachers we’ve made significant progress in is under whanaungatanga. We have actually got deliberate strategies in place to make connections with whānau and community both formally and informally.
Hamish Newman – Board of Trustees chairperson:
One of the things that this has taught me is that Māori students are different. They learn differently, and whatever gets them happy or keeps them happy while they’re learning, that’s got to be good for them.
Trevor Bond – Blended e-learning facilitator, CORE Education:
The key success factor of this whole process, I think is the school ownership of the content that’s gone into the framework. They’ve painted the pictures, they’ve self-reviewed against it.
They totally own it and so that’s been really powerful.