February 17, 2025 • 33 mins
All tumuaki want the ākonga in their schools to do well, but we know there are persistent disparities in achievement. In this episode, we speak with three tumuaki who have taken action to make a difference for tamariki and rangatahi previously at risk of underachievement. At the heart of their stories is the expectation that every student can achieve, even if some kids need more help than others to get there.
My guests are:
- Catherine Bentley, tumuaki of Hastings Girls’ High School, winner of excellence in leading award in the 2021 Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Awards
- Barbara Ala’alota, former principal of Auckland’s Sylvia Park school, former chair of the Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand, made Officer of the NZ Order of Merit for service to education in 2020.
- Angela Walters, tumuaki of Fairfield Intermediate School in Waikato, winner of Founders’ Principals Leadership Award in the National Excellence in Teaching Awards in 2022.
This podcast was produced for the Ministry of Education as part of Te Ara Tīmatanga mō ngā Tumuaki - The Beginning Pathway for Principals.
You can learn more about this topic by accessing Te Ara Tīmatanga mō ngā Tumuaki - The Beginning Pathway for Principals e-learning modules on the Education LMS: https://training.education.govt.nz
Show notes
Episode themes:
- What ākonga need to be able to learn well, and some of the barriers that prevent that from happening.
- Three stories about what strategies successfully turned around learning in three different kura.
Questions
1:30 [All] What do kids need to be able to learn really well?
4:04 [Catherine, Angela] What kind of barriers stop students learning?
5:12 [Barbara] What did you notice about the kura and about student achievement when you first started at Sylvia Park School?
14:13 [Barbara] What challenges did you face when trying to turn things around?
16:48 [Catherine] You have seen quite a turnaround in achievement at your kura. What did you notice when you first started at Hastings Girls?
17:55 [Catherine] How did you start the process of turning everything around?
19:21 [Catherine] I can imagine the teachers or the kaiako who engaged in deficit theorising, perhaps some of them decided not to continue?
21:39 [Catherine] What difference has it made for the kids?
23:36 [Catherine] What challenges did you face when making these changes?
25:13 [Angela] You were acting principal for three years at Fairfield before you became principal, and when you took over, where was the kura? What stage was it at?
31:24 [Angela] Have the changes made a big difference to student achievement?
31:59 [All] What's your best advice for new tumuaki about turning around learning in a kura?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Eleisha (00:07):
Kia ora and welcome to The Principals, a podcast series
for new tumuaki in Aotearoa NewZealand. I'm Eleisha McNeill.
All tumuaki want the ākonga intheir schools to do well, but we
know there are persistentdisparities in achievement. In
this episode, I'm speaking withthree tumuaki who have taken
action to make sure all studentsin their kura have a chance to
(00:28):
succeed. Just a reminder, youcan find information about this
and other topics in thee-learning modules and you'll
find a link to those in the shownotes. Here are my
Angela (00:39):
Kia ora, yes, I'm Angela Walters, the principal at
Fairfield Intermediate School inHamilton.
Eleisha (00:44):
Thanks. Catherine.
Catherine (00:46):
Kia ora, ko Catherine Bentley tokū ingoa, ko o te
tumuaki o te kura o Ngā RauHuia o Ākina. So I'm Catherine
Bentley, the principal ofHastings Girls', and I have a
background in primary school, soI was a primary teacher for 15
years and also did part of myearly childhood training as a
(01:07):
playcentre mum.
Eleisha (01:08):
Wow, ending up a principal of a high school must
be quite different. Quitedifferent. Barbara?
Barbara (01:14):
Kia ora koutou, ko Barbara Alaalatoa ahau um, I
loved, I used to love tointroduce myself as the
principal of Sylvia Park Schoolbut I don't really have a title
anymore, so I just say I'm aneducator at large, but I am
chair of Ako Mātātupu TeachFirst New Zealand.
Eleisha (01:30):
Thank you all for being here today. Really appreciate it.
I wanted to start by asking allof you, what do kids need to be
able to learn really well? Maybestart with you, Angela.
Angela (01:42):
Well I think, you know, just having the set up like, you
know, we have children that maywalk in the door hungry, we
might have children, they've hada bit of an argument just before
they've got there, so setting upthat pastoral support, I know in
our kura and all kura is massive.Once they get into school, kids
knowing it's a safe space, agood place to be, there's great
learning. There's highexpectations also, because it's
(02:05):
a about awhi-ing the kids in andthe staff, but it's also, you
about the teacher quality andteaching and learning is having
all that set up so thesechildren are getting the best in
both areas because I think ifit's not balanced out, sometimes
the pendulum can swing too far.So it's yeah, and creating that
safe environment for the kids tocome in and and flourish really.
Eleisha (02:26):
Definitely. Catherine.
Catherine (02:28):
I, for me, I would say that they have to have a
deep sense of belonging. Theyhave to see themselves in the
space and then through belongingthey develop that sense of
identity. And, you know, if wecan create a space that allows
that, then I think, you know,that that's when learning can
really start to happen.
Eleisha (02:47):
Yeah. Barbara?
Barbara (02:49):
Yeah, 100% I think belonging and you know,
belonging comes of excellentteaching. Excellent teaching is
about making sure that there's aconsistency of practice that
everybody has high expectationsabout you regardless of your,
your postcode or whatever elsethere is. They have to believe
that you are, the moment youwalk through the door that
(03:10):
you're capable of succeeding,they need to know students
deeply. They need to know thecommunity. They need to have a
deep knowledge of the curriculum,and they need to be able to knit
those things together so thatkids see themselves as the most
important thing in a school andthey see themselves reflected in
the learning. That's our lane,that's our offer. We're not you
(03:31):
know, we're not a bank, we'renot Pak'n'Save, we're not those
things, our lane is a deep senseof curriculum and a deep
knowledge of kids. And for us toknit the two things together so
that they see themselves aspowerful and the most important
thing that happens in the school.
Catherine (03:46):
Absolutely 100% agree, unfortunately to enable that to
happen a lot of our mahi isspent in removing the barriers
that stop that happening. And sothat becomes bigger than just
teaching and learning and it'sso complex.
Eleisha (04:04):
What kinds of barriers are you talking about
specifically?
Catherine (04:07):
Well, you know, four years ago, I wasn't the master
of providing lunch for students.
Eleisha (04:12):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:12):
You know, it's, which needs to happen.And it's
fantastic. But it's a bigworkstream.
Eleisha (04:18):
Yeah.
Catherine (04:19):
So uniform, bus tickets, there's just barrier
after barrier that some studentsface. And it's it's just not
equitable.
Eleisha (04:28):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:29):
And that's hard, that's hard work. So those those
are some of the barriers andthen you have the other ones
that occur too. If you don'thave good relationships with
your staff and students etc. Ifyou haven't got the right staff,
then that becomes anotherbarrier.
Eleisha (04:43):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:44):
So it's lining it all up, it's very complex.
Angela (04:49):
Absolutely. I think it's all the social and emotional
aspects as we know, the pastoral,you know, with social media and
all the pressures on thestudents, I think from any age
these days. But I certainly knowfrom an intermediate perspective
it just seems to be growing, itjust feels like there's a lot
more going on for the kidsbefore they even get in the door,
let alone, you know, before theteaching and learning commences
(05:09):
in some cases. So it's that's ahuge barrier.
Eleisha (05:12):
Yeah, for sure. Barbara, you've had a long career in
education. How long were youtumuaki at Sylvia Park?
Barbara (05:20):
Just about 18 years, something like that.
Eleisha (05:22):
That's impressive. What did you notice about the kura
and about student achievementwhen you first started there as
tumuaki?
Barbara (05:29):
I suppose the thing that was really striking is that
it was just I mean, everythingthey could go bad was bad. The
fights in the playground wereepic. The fights inside
classrooms were epic, therelationships with whānau were
just toxic, you know, we hadsome pretty dire kind of events
around that. And it was reallyjust because there was a lack of
trust between how the schoolresponded to stuff that happened.
(05:52):
And so, you know, that sense ofthem feeling like it was a place
where they were respected andresponded to appropriately just
didn't exist. And there was alot of blaming. So there was a
lot of you know, there wasnothing in the playground
because those kids couldn't betrusted with anything and all
that sort of stuff. So it wasjust it was just classic. But,
(06:13):
you know, and I think when Iarrived, we had the fifth ERO
review in six years, so you know,but it was a gift, you know, cos
the only way was up. And and Ithink for me, you know, I
suppose I'm kind of laserfocused in terms of if you lead
a school you lead learning. Andso the thing that really struck
me was the variability ofpractice. So depending on whose
(06:36):
class you went into, you know,and people had been there for a
very, very, very long time. Andso people had been teaching in
one room for, you know, 15 yearsand they'd always done it this
way. The next one had alwaysdone it that way. So there was
no collective understandingabout what constituted good
practice. So, you know, the factthey'd been doing it for a long
time was, you know, that was thestamp of approval because that's
(06:59):
how it had always been. So thething that really, I think was
the opportunity for me was tothink about, what collective
action looked like, you know,what did we do collectively to
think about practice inclassrooms that would get a
completely different result interms of the outcomes for
students, but particularly likein the culture of us, the
(07:21):
relationship that the pedagogythat underpins a curriculum that
is about kids, puts them frontand centre, addresses the things
that are front and centre forthem, but at the same time as as
taking them beyond that as well.So yeah, just making sure that
that whole curriculumimplementation and design and
pedagogy was front and centre ofwhat I did with them. The thing
(07:47):
that we did do is we juststarted small. There was,
everything was an opportunity,but we just started with reading,
Eleisha (07:54):
hmm
Barbara (07:55):
what does a high quality reading programme look
like? And at the time, it wasgoing back a bit, but there was
the LPDP was the literacyprofessional development
programme and Helen Timperley'swork had sort of shaped a lot of
it and really a lot of hercontention way back then was
that a lot of PLD was just a bigwaste of money because it was
(08:15):
sort of experts fly in, fly outand you got a bump in that area
they worked in while they werethere and when they left it went
back down again, so the wholepremise of that particular piece
of work was about how do youbuild the capacity of leadership
in a school to lead it? And sowe bought into that wholesale
big time. And in those firstcouple of years we got huge
(08:37):
bumps in our reading data andnot just data around summative
tests, this was like in
Eleisha (08:44):
hmm
Barbara (08:45):
terms of engagement and a whole lot of other things that
we'd built into a matricesaround what good would look like
and leaning into evidence,leaning into really good
research, that you know, talkedabout, what good looked like not
just in reading but also interms of pedagogy. So that whole
idea of starting small, but alsowhen you lead it, people
(09:05):
understand that this is the mostimportant thing that happens in
the school because the leadersare doing it, everybody's doing
it. And and I guess the thingthat we got when we got those
big bumps in student achievementwas being able to go back to
those teachers and say, teachersare powerful. You did this. We
don't celebrate that enough, totell them when we work
(09:26):
collectively, when we throw openthe doors of our classroom, when
we get into each other'sclassroom, and we are all
practicing, the practiceanalysis and giving feedback
about why we're doing what we'redoing and thinking about how it
might evolve, to celebrate thatand to say that that is powerful
just had the most incredibleimpact, also flipping it around
(09:48):
from blaming teachers to sayactually it's not your fault.
Nobody told you what good lookedlike. Nobody, nobody provided
the supports and the parameters.So, you know, sometimes teacher
blaming is easy, but actually,you know, as people leading
schools we need to be able tosay, what did we do to make sure
that there was no room forpeople going wonky.
Eleisha (10:10):
Yeah. Hundred percent. And you I mean,you introduced a
lot of different kind ofprograms or different approaches
within that school. What arewhat are some of the things that
you did across the school?
Barbara (10:20):
I think one of the things that we did was we
resisted programmes. So therewas, you know, all sorts of
programmes that come up.Everyone's got a good idea and
they come banging on the doorand they want to do this. But in
that same sense of like, whatconstitutes a high quality
literacy programme, whatconstitutes a high quality
integrated curriculum, whatever,you have to know as a leadership
(10:41):
team what good looks like. So ifanybody comes peddling their
wares, which they do invariably,you can work out what aspect of
that might you add to what youdo, but you do not sit there and
throw the baby out with thebathwater and say, oh god,
you're here to help us and solveour problems. That's never going
to happen. All that will happenis that something will happen,
(11:01):
then you might get a little liftin that that bit they want to
focus on and then once they'regone, you know, it just it will
disappear. So that really,really, really important that
what you do in that spacebelongs to you as the leadership
team and that staff see that,all staff see that, as being the
most important thing. And one ofthe things that way back then
(11:24):
was, was the schooling strategy,I think it was called. It had
three pou. Quality teachingevery day in every classroom,
evidence based practice. And thethird one was learning focused
partnership with whānau. And sowe invested a lot into those
first bits. We got after a fewyears a really high consistency
of practice in every classroom.We were very good with data,
(11:47):
rich data, and summative as well.And people knew the language of
assessment, but they understoodassessment from a much greater
perspective, not just, you know,league tables and we track,
monitor, review and respond. Andif you're not doing that, and if
you're not keeping your foot onthe pedal in terms of that stuff,
then you know you've probablyjust got your head in the sand.
(12:10):
And it's hard work, it's reallyhard.
Eleisha (12:12):
Mm hmm.
Barbara (12:12):
And I guess one of the things that we had to check
ourselves around was ourlearning partnership with
whānau. So we'd do a whole lotof stuff with them. We'd do a
sort of, you know, stockstandard come and have a talk
about this and blah, blah, blah.But really the question that we
would have to confront ourselveswith was would they go home,
with something tangible thatthey could respond to in terms
of their children, and beingable to make a kind of
(12:35):
contribution. And were welearning from them about what we
could do from their perspective?So we started a piece of work,
Mutukaroa, which was about theway in which we share things
with whānau. We need to sharethem in their fullness with
whānau, not dilute them likeour whānau are not capable of
understanding these things. Sopart of the work was just making
(12:56):
sure in the same way we did withour kids, we were explicit about,
you know, what the measures ofprogress would look like. We did
exactly that with our whānau,so meeting them wherever they
wanted, talking through, givingthem the data, asking about what
they thought some of theresponses to that, working out
the sort of supporting systemsaround that was key to that work.
(13:16):
And also we were very clear that,you know, with our sort of
social justice hats on, this wasabout making sure that they felt
entirely equipped to bedemanding of us and to not be
kind of talked over or havethings diluted in a way to them
that they wouldn't be able toquestion what was happening for
(13:36):
their kids and making sure thatthey were progressing and making
sure that they understood whatthe picture of progress looked
like but that we could share inthat language. But that meant us
investing a lot of work intothat, but it was so worth it
because, oh my god, I mean,we've got amazing achievement
results. When we started thispiece of work it was phenomenal.
(14:01):
But also just the relationshipwith our whānau who, just knew
that there was no secrets andthat they were, you know, the
centre of the universe when itcame to school and they could
ask for anything.
Eleisha (14:13):
Wow. So it sounds like that process of bringing the
families into the learningreally led to a massive
turnaround for the kids. Whatchallenges did you, you face in
that?
Barbara (14:24):
Actually there were less challenges than what you
might think in terms of I thinkthat once you build a collective
response, once you agree thatthis is what good looks like,
once you've put in systems andstructures to support people to
be able to do that, and once youmake it sort of front and center,
that collective response,actually it just grew and where
(14:44):
even when we had beginningteachers that would come in,
because there was such a strongapproach to practice, beginning
teachers didn't have to wondertoo much about stuff. They could
pick it up and run with it, werein and out of classrooms around
our practice analysis. And wecould see that even beginning
teachers could get really goodbumps in achievement over the
(15:07):
course of a year in the firsttwo years of teaching. And it
might sound, you know, a bitlike our way or the highway and
it was a bit.
Eleisha (15:15):
Mm hmm.
Barbara (15:16):
But we would always also say that, well, that's the
best we've got. If you've gotsomething better, fantastic. As
part of our review cycle, we putit on, we think about what we
can do because if you thinkyou've got something magic to to
bring to this process, then wewant in on it because if we're
going to get something moremagic out of it, we will do it.
So, that consistency of practiceand that, you know, being really
(15:39):
bloody minded about expecting itevery single day, was key to
that, but it did build a cultureof expertise and a culture of
being laser focused on thosethings. So honestly, like in the
staff room, in the corridors,you know, just celebrating
teachers again, you know. Webucked a whole lot of national
trends. So we're like, yeah,that's right. If we're poor, we
(16:01):
might be brown, we're stillcapable and that's a powerful
place to be. Last thing I'll sayis that one of the things that
we always said was to beliterate because some people say,
oh, it's just reading orwhatever, but actually to be
literate is to be powerful inthe world. So part of our
inducting into these things wasnot to say we're just learning
how to teach reading. We wouldalways look at the the bigger
(16:22):
environment of these things andto say that, you know, what we
do in these spaces is to ensurethat their kids are in places
where they are never going to bemarginalised. So, you know, that
sense of what we do and why wedo it, you know, carried us
through those things, so thatwhen we are prising open those
doors it's not just to check onyou. It's because we have a deep
(16:43):
belief that our role is toensure that our kids can
flourish in the world. Hugelyimportant.
Eleisha (16:48):
Yeah. And, Catherine, you have seen quite a turnaround
in achievement at your kura.What did you notice when you
first started at Hastings Girls?
Catherine (16:57):
I was really blessed to have ERO come within the
first couple of months. So I gotin really deep in the analysing
the data before they came andsaw that from when students came
in at year 9 and then went intoyear 11, their literacy and
numeracy data showed me that 2/3of the cohort had either
(17:18):
stagnated or regressed. So I gotan independent person in to come
and do a review for me, prior toERO, and together we sat down
and ripped up the annual planand rewrote an action plan which
in the short term startaddressing those needs. But it
meant that you can't argue withdata.
Eleisha (17:39):
No, you can't.
Catherine (17:40):
And that became the lever for a lot of change,
including looking at some of thethings that were the barriers
that we were putting up thatwere stopping students from
learning and one of the biggestones there was streaming.
Eleisha (17:55):
Right. So. So what did you do? How did you start the
process of kind of turningeverything around?
Catherine (18:00):
Oh, I don't know where to start. It was it was
huge. A huge, huge process. Itwas around in data, looking at
the way that staff talked aboutstudents, the deficit theorizing
that came
Eleisha (18:11):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (18:11):
through, deficit theorizing or racist, what would
you call it? Because I think inmany cases deficit theorizing is
just a soft way of saying you'reracist. And then I got data from
whānau and students and thattold us that the students didn't
see themselves in this space
Eleisha (18:30):
yeah,
Catherine (18:30):
and streaming does it. It's like a dip stick. You put
it in, you pull it out and it'sdarker the lower down the bottom
and that's how it worked here.We had a top class and then we
had another class underneath it,the diligence class I worked out
was code for nice girls or whitegirls. So they're the girls that
did the test and didn't quitemake it into the top class, but
(18:53):
for various reasons, they wereput into the diligence class
Yeah. So it took us a wee whileto crack that nut open.
Eleisha (19:00):
yeah,
Catherine (19:01):
It had to be a transformative change in the way
that everyone had to change.
Eleisha (19:07):
yeah,
Catherine (19:07):
Now we chose to change from within and come on
board and be part of it orwhether you couldn't, you know
it was best for you not tocontinue here. Everyone had to
change and that's what we'vedone.
Eleisha (19:21):
I can imagine the teachers or the kaiako who
engaged in deficit theorising,perhaps some of them decided not
to continue.
Catherine (19:29):
Yes, definitely. And and that's, you know, and
supporting portions of thecommunity with when you're
taking away streaming becausesome students thrive in that, of
course, and so it was workingthrough that with the community
as well. It was a bit of a rockyroad, I have to say. And then
it's if you take that away, whatdo you put in its place? So the
(19:51):
biggest workstream for us wascreating a curriculum where the
students could see themselves,and a curriculum that was robust
when it came to literacy andnumeracy, etc.. But you know
allowed the students to thrivebecause they felt
Eleisha (20:08):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (20:08):
that they could see themselves within there. And so
we imagined, reimagined ourjunior curriculum and created
hubs of learning. It iscross-curricula, and the
students choose where to go whenthey're coming in based upon
their own interests, skills andtalents.
Eleisha (20:23):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:24):
So for instance, we've got Engineering Your
future is a hub for the studentsthat are passionate about
science and mathematics. And
Eleisha (20:32):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:32):
that creates a pathway for our students to be
able to go and study healthscience or engineering further
on. And
Eleisha (20:39):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:39):
it's about but now to speak that into them. We've got
Pathway for the Podium, for thekids that think that they'd love
to wear the silver fern at onestage. Great Outdoors for the
kids that want to get outtramping and camping. So all
their learning is is through theeye of that lens.ensens
Eleisha (20:56):
Wow. That sounds so cool.
Catherine (20:57):
It is very cool. Great Outdoors hub, for instance,
their mathematics is throughthat lens, PE, social studies,
science is all through the lensof the great outdoors.
Eleisha (21:09):
Wow.
Catherine (21:09):
So you're drawing on something the kids are
passionate about. Through thatthe students can actually
challenge themselves furtherbecause they're doing it through
something that they love. Thekids in the class are also like
minded as well, because
Eleisha (21:25):
Yeah.
Catherine (21:25):
they love it. So we have Te Whai, Te Ao Haka, for
the kids that love Māoriperforming arts, Tautua Pasifika.
We've got a range of hubs andthe students chose the hub where
they best belong.
Eleisha (21:39):
Wow. And what, what difference has that made for,
for the kids?
Catherine (21:43):
Completely different. It's not the same space. The
hubs have been up and runningfully for a couple of years now,
we trialled it for two years andwe're refining it again further
next year. But this year we hadsome year thirteens that are
leaving, and it was wonderfulhearing the number of
particularly Māori and Pasifikagirls that are going off to do
engineering or health scienceand they had been engineers in
(22:06):
the junior school. So thepassion was ignited, and they're
carrying on through. So that'spretty jolly exciting. Yeah,
it's transformed it for the kidsbut it also, the staff, the
staff room is this hive ofenergy. Yeah. And we've created
a a tool. I've created a toolfor planning where all the
(22:28):
learning's mapped, so we can mapright across the hubs what
they're doing at any one time.We can map the mātauranga
Māori that's gone right acrossthe hubs because when we're
doing our planning we startthere and then we do the
empirical subject knowledge. Sowe start with mātauranga first.
Eleisha (22:48):
Yeah.
Catherine (22:48):
Yeah. So yeah it's pretty jolly cool. It was, it's
really important you know goingback to what been said earlier
from Barb, it's really importantthat we lead it as tumuaki. I do
a lot of the leading in thatspace
Eleisha (23:03):
Yeah.
Catherine (23:03):
that's essential, that's our core business. And I
think, you know, like mostschools Hastings Girls Year 9
and 10 curriculum would havepreviously been a dumbed down
version of NCEA level 1.
Eleisha (23:15):
Yeah.
Catherine (23:15):
But now we have a standalone curriculum that I
know maps to level one, we'vemapped all those progressions,
we know it connects seamlessly,but we don't have to do a dress
rehearsal for NCEA for two yearsbefore we hit year 11. The kids
are ready
Eleisha (23:32):
That's so exciting.
Catherine (23:33):
It is, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
Eleisha (23:36):
So you mentioned there you had a bit of kickback from
the community when you startedmaking changes, you know, around
streaming. What what otherchallenges did you face?
Catherine (23:45):
Oh so many,
so many. I found it's reallyhard going ahead and doing
something new, it's really hardto have the people, find people
that are like minded. It's it'slonely
Eleisha (24:02):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:02):
It's really lonely because, you know, I don't it's
not like other secondary schools.You're not moving fast enough
for some. So for our Māoricommunity for a while there we
weren't moving fast enough
Eleisha (24:15):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:16):
But then we were moving too fast for others.
Eleisha (24:18):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:19):
So it's rough. You know, it was for three or four
years there it was really rough.
Eleisha (24:26):
Yeah. Wow. Well, it sounds like you've done amazing
things. Do you do you take Imean, you take a massive sense
of pride, you can see it in yourface at the at the strides that
the, that your ākonga
Catherine (24:37):
Yeah,
Eleisha (24:37):
have made.
Catherine (24:38):
Yeah, it's amazing. It's it's fantastic. And there's
lots of work to do, because younever win in education. Crikey,
you know, you get one thing doneand then the next thing pops up,
it's like whack a mole. It'srelentless. So you do one thing
and then you start the next. Andthen I get excited about that,
so. But now it's not, it's notlike, oh, my gosh, it's change.
(25:00):
It's the next iteration. It'sthat process of reflective
practice and refining andreviewing and then moving on to
the next iteration and beingresponsive.
Eleisha (25:10):
Yeah
Catherine (25:10):
Yeah. So that that's a pretty nice place to be.
Eleisha (25:13):
That's fantastic. And Angela, you were acting
principal for three years atFairfield before you became
principal, and when you tookover, where was the kura? What
stage was it at?
Angela (25:26):
Yeah. It's been an interesting journey. Definitely
a journey I didn't know I wasgoing to be on, but yeah, I've
been at this school for quite awhile as deputy principal. It
was always a good, strong school,had a good, strong ERO history,
and then we had a change ofleadership, so that kind of made
quite a bit of a difference. Iguess, you know, while there's
some positive things, it wasmore the leader's probably more
(25:46):
polarising style, I guess you'dsay. ERO came in and were not
overly happy with the leadershipand where the school was at. So
they wanted a limited statutorymanager to come in
Eleisha (25:56):
Mm hmm.
Angela (25:57):
through that. So at that time the principal went on leave
and as a result, myself and thedeputy principal got called in
and asked if we'd act up, youknow, and I thought, okay, this
might be for a few weeks.
Eleisha (26:08):
Yeah.
Angela (26:08):
And at that time, of course, obviously the ERO review,
we'd been put on a longitudinalERO, we had a limited statutory
manager who was overseeingaround because of the leadership
at that time.
Eleisha (26:17):
Yeah.
Angela (26:18):
And they were there more to deal with that aspect of it.
So we were told right from thebeginning that we had the
ability to make change, do whatwe needed to do. So I guess at
that time the school, withoutsounding too extreme, it was a
bit broken. I'm not going to lie.It had always been a fairly
strong school, although itwasn't always perfect. I think
(26:39):
staff wise, the whole schoolculture was on a very much a low.
We were probably feeling alittle bit broken and like a
whirlwind had come through andand the students as well were
probably feeling that throughthe staff and the community. So
with community too it had beenvery polarising. So some people
were all on board, a lot werewalking
Eleisha (26:59):
Right.
Angela (26:59):
with their feet. I think the roll got down to 520 at time.
And to put that into perspective,now grown up to what, 940? So
Eleisha (27:06):
Wow.
Angela (27:07):
Quite, yeah Not, not a good place to be. So
Eleisha (27:10):
And how is it? How is student achievement at that
point?
Angela (27:13):
Not, flash. I mean, in fairness we've always had a, you
know, a tail of I guess,underachievement at our kura
where the children coming in, wefind a lot are coming in like a
lot of, a lot of intermediates,and high schools for that matter
coming in well below expectedcurriculum levels. So then we've
kind of got two years to try andaccelerate progress and get to
where we need to be. So, but atthat time, yeah, it was
(27:33):
definitely on very much a lowbecause as I say, I think it was
school culture as much asanything, and a lot of the good
curriculum systems and processesthat had been put in place and
had been there for a number ofyears had kind of got thrown out
Eleisha (27:45):
Right.
Angela (27:46):
and the principal had just new thoughts and new ideas.
He'd done a lot of it in hisprevious school. So he was
wanting to reinstate that, fromhis previous school at our kura.
But obviously a differentcontext, different, you know,
different ball park. So I thinkthat made a remarkable
difference. So yeah, essentiallywe had to review all our
processes, all our curriculumteaching and learning, what was
happening for our children andyes, staff morale, school
(28:08):
culture from scratch pretty much.
Eleisha (28:11):
And so how did you go about doing that?
Angela (28:13):
The first thing was it needed like we talked about
leadership before, I guess itneeded strong leadership. You
know, I didn't necessarily seemy place in that. I sort of got
the impression, especially fromthe previous principal too, that
even woman in leadership thatwas sort of a weaker way of
going, I guess. So for me, justfor where I was, I was probably
a bit broken too, but I knew forthe sake of the school and with
(28:35):
the help of the deputy principal,we kind of had to step up, and I
guess I'd probably been the mostdetermined I probably been in my
life that we'd been at a goodschool, I didn't want our school
to be broken for the sake of thekids, the community, the
teachers. And I certainly didn'twant us to be perceived as that
school. So we knew change had tohappen and we knew we had to get
out there and make sure theprograms were set up, the kids
(28:58):
were engaged, the teachers weregetting professional learning.
That was our starting point andeveryone sort of got on board
and we rallied. I think havingpresence, being visible, being
willing to listen, so all thataspect came into play, you know,
getting student voice, communityvoice, being quite strategic I
guess in our approach. We knowcommunication hadn't been great.
(29:18):
There was a lot of speculation,as you can imagine, especially
over three years,
Eleisha (29:22):
Hmm.
Angela (29:22):
because no one knew why the principal was on leave. And
so it was just being out andabout because I knew if there's
a void and people don't see thatthere's leadership there, then
they start to speculate, wonderwhat's going on at Fairfield.
And, you know, and of course, itimpacts on student achievement
and everything else. So it wasabout being out and about,
visible, having a clear plan inplace. And obviously all the
(29:43):
curriculum, you know, readingall
Eleisha (29:45):
Yeah.
Angela (29:45):
of the curriculum documentation in a sense and
processes and just focusing onthe teaching and learning and
what was going to be better forthe children. But as I said
before, that the school culturewas a massive part of it because
Eleisha (29:55):
Yeah.
Angela (29:56):
it was a bit divisive, to be fair. So we spent a lot of
time working, you know, makingsure the kids were feeling good.
And also, I guess with theschool, it was a sense of pride
about the school.
Eleisha (30:05):
Yeah.
Angela (30:05):
Where our school is, it's in a lower socioeconomic
area, although we attractchildren and families from all
over the Waikato, you know,there was that sense of you
don't want the kids to, oh,we're in the broken school. So
that was really important to getchildren's morale up
Eleisha (30:19):
Yeah.
Angela (30:19):
And that of course flows on to teaching and learning. You
know, that sense of belonginglike we talked about before, the
relationship's massive. We'vedone a lot of work and continue
to and will always aroundcultural responsiveness, you
know how we're working together
Eleisha (30:32):
Yeah.
Angela (30:32):
as a whānau and and what it actually means for the
kids and for every child it'sdifferent. So that's always the
challenge. We were quitestrategic, reviewed the
strategic plan, looked at theschool culture. While the
principal had, there were somegood things in place. So while
we've retained some of the goodthings that were put in, we've
just, you know, made tweaks andchanges and in some areas we had
(30:53):
to make significant changes, sowe just re-looked at all of that
as a staff and yeah, looked atprofessional learning. It was
very much a team effort and ourboard of trustees was amazing
and also the educationalcolleagues around me, super
supportive, and and alsoMinistry. I got given a first
time principal mentor. Yeah, sowe were really lucky and
(31:15):
although I didn't have a lot ofprincipal experience, that was a
huge learning curve, the onesaving grace I guess was I'd
been at the school a while.
Eleisha (31:24):
And have those changes made a big difference to student
achievement?
Angela (31:27):
Yeah, they have. I mean, I think we're still on a journey.
I'm certainly not going to sithere and say, all of a sudden
the kids are all, you know, 99%,you know, we, we, we've got the
realities. We get a lot ofchildren coming in level one,
level two of the curriculum whenwe are trying to get them to
mid-end of level four. So it'salways a challenge,
Eleisha (31:44):
Yeah,
Angela (31:45):
but definitely the achievement's improved and as
you can imagine in anintermediate it's a pretty quick,
quick turnaround having the, youknow, you induct half a school
each year. So yes, that's alwaysa challenge, but that's why
we've got to hit the groundrunning as soon as the children
get in really.
Eleisha (31:59):
For sure. I want to wrap up by just asking each of
you, what's your best advice fornew tumuaki about turning around
learning in a kura? Barbara, doyou want to start?
Barbara (32:11):
I would just say just be clear that to lead a school
is to lead learning. So justeyes on the prize. You know,
there are so many things thatcan distract you. They actually
don't matter. None of thatmatters if you can't guarantee
what's happening every day inevery classroom, you don't have
a vision and clarity about whatgood looks like in that space.
(32:31):
Don't be distracted
Eleisha (32:33):
Catherine.
Catherine (32:33):
Yeah, I totally agree. I think vision is huge. It's
particularly if you are going tobe doing a big turn and heading
in a new direction, have areally clear vision, but have
the data that sits underneath itthat helps hold it up. You can't
do it without really good dataand really sound practice.
(32:57):
You're not going for the nextbest thing. Do your research.
Eleisha (33:00):
Angela.
Angela (33:01):
I'd agree with everything that's been said
wholeheartedly. I think it's andlike you said too, it's bringing
people with you as well. So it'shaving all the systems, having
all the processes where possible,having that shared vision around
that of what that looks like,which is not always easy as
we've discussed before,especially if you've come have
staff that have been in theschool a while or got different
ideas. And it's a massivechallenge I think for every kura.
Eleisha (33:25):
Yeah.
Catherine (33:26):
And I think celebrating the steps along the
way, too. Let's celebrate thevalue that we're adding and
seeing the value because notevery every kid will make it to
that finish line. But let'scelebrate the steps along the
way and the value that we'reputting in
Eleisha (33:39):
Definitely. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to
you. And thank you all for yourtime today.
Angela (33:45):
Yeah thank you so much
Barbara (33:46):
Hei konā.
Eleisha (33:47):
Thank you all. In the next episode, we're going to be
talking about supportingstudents with diverse learning
needs. Mā te wā.
Kia ora and welcome to The Principals, a podcast series
for new tumuaki in Aotearoa NewZealand. I'm Eleisha McNeill.
All tumuaki want the ākonga intheir schools to do well, but we
know there are persistentdisparities in achievement. In
this episode, I'm speaking withthree tumuaki who have taken
action to make sure all studentsin their kura have a chance to
(00:28):
succeed. Just a reminder, youcan find information about this
and other topics in thee-learning modules and you'll
find a link to those in the shownotes. Here are my
Angela (00:39):
Kia ora, yes, I'm Angela Walters, the principal at
Fairfield Intermediate School inHamilton.
Eleisha (00:44):
Thanks. Catherine.
Catherine (00:46):
Kia ora, ko Catherine Bentley tokū ingoa, ko o te
tumuaki o te kura o Ngā RauHuia o Ākina. So I'm Catherine
Bentley, the principal ofHastings Girls', and I have a
background in primary school, soI was a primary teacher for 15
years and also did part of myearly childhood training as a
(01:07):
playcentre mum.
Eleisha (01:08):
Wow, ending up a principal of a high school must
be quite different. Quitedifferent. Barbara?
Barbara (01:14):
Kia ora koutou, ko Barbara Alaalatoa ahau um, I
loved, I used to love tointroduce myself as the
principal of Sylvia Park Schoolbut I don't really have a title
anymore, so I just say I'm aneducator at large, but I am
chair of Ako Mātātupu TeachFirst New Zealand.
Eleisha (01:30):
Thank you all for being here today. Really appreciate it.
I wanted to start by asking allof you, what do kids need to be
able to learn really well? Maybestart with you, Angela.
Angela (01:42):
Well I think, you know, just having the set up like, you
know, we have children that maywalk in the door hungry, we
might have children, they've hada bit of an argument just before
they've got there, so setting upthat pastoral support, I know in
our kura and all kura is massive.Once they get into school, kids
knowing it's a safe space, agood place to be, there's great
learning. There's highexpectations also, because it's
(02:05):
a about awhi-ing the kids in andthe staff, but it's also, you
about the teacher quality andteaching and learning is having
all that set up so thesechildren are getting the best in
both areas because I think ifit's not balanced out, sometimes
the pendulum can swing too far.So it's yeah, and creating that
safe environment for the kids tocome in and and flourish really.
Eleisha (02:26):
Definitely. Catherine.
Catherine (02:28):
I, for me, I would say that they have to have a
deep sense of belonging. Theyhave to see themselves in the
space and then through belongingthey develop that sense of
identity. And, you know, if wecan create a space that allows
that, then I think, you know,that that's when learning can
really start to happen.
Eleisha (02:47):
Yeah. Barbara?
Barbara (02:49):
Yeah, 100% I think belonging and you know,
belonging comes of excellentteaching. Excellent teaching is
about making sure that there's aconsistency of practice that
everybody has high expectationsabout you regardless of your,
your postcode or whatever elsethere is. They have to believe
that you are, the moment youwalk through the door that
(03:10):
you're capable of succeeding,they need to know students
deeply. They need to know thecommunity. They need to have a
deep knowledge of the curriculum,and they need to be able to knit
those things together so thatkids see themselves as the most
important thing in a school andthey see themselves reflected in
the learning. That's our lane,that's our offer. We're not you
(03:31):
know, we're not a bank, we'renot Pak'n'Save, we're not those
things, our lane is a deep senseof curriculum and a deep
knowledge of kids. And for us toknit the two things together so
that they see themselves aspowerful and the most important
thing that happens in the school.
Catherine (03:46):
Absolutely 100% agree, unfortunately to enable that to
happen a lot of our mahi isspent in removing the barriers
that stop that happening. And sothat becomes bigger than just
teaching and learning and it'sso complex.
Eleisha (04:04):
What kinds of barriers are you talking about
specifically?
Catherine (04:07):
Well, you know, four years ago, I wasn't the master
of providing lunch for students.
Eleisha (04:12):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:12):
You know, it's, which needs to happen.And it's
fantastic. But it's a bigworkstream.
Eleisha (04:18):
Yeah.
Catherine (04:19):
So uniform, bus tickets, there's just barrier
after barrier that some studentsface. And it's it's just not
equitable.
Eleisha (04:28):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:29):
And that's hard, that's hard work. So those those
are some of the barriers andthen you have the other ones
that occur too. If you don'thave good relationships with
your staff and students etc. Ifyou haven't got the right staff,
then that becomes anotherbarrier.
Eleisha (04:43):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (04:44):
So it's lining it all up, it's very complex.
Angela (04:49):
Absolutely. I think it's all the social and emotional
aspects as we know, the pastoral,you know, with social media and
all the pressures on thestudents, I think from any age
these days. But I certainly knowfrom an intermediate perspective
it just seems to be growing, itjust feels like there's a lot
more going on for the kidsbefore they even get in the door,
let alone, you know, before theteaching and learning commences
(05:09):
in some cases. So it's that's ahuge barrier.
Eleisha (05:12):
Yeah, for sure. Barbara, you've had a long career in
education. How long were youtumuaki at Sylvia Park?
Barbara (05:20):
Just about 18 years, something like that.
Eleisha (05:22):
That's impressive. What did you notice about the kura
and about student achievementwhen you first started there as
tumuaki?
Barbara (05:29):
I suppose the thing that was really striking is that
it was just I mean, everythingthey could go bad was bad. The
fights in the playground wereepic. The fights inside
classrooms were epic, therelationships with whānau were
just toxic, you know, we hadsome pretty dire kind of events
around that. And it was reallyjust because there was a lack of
trust between how the schoolresponded to stuff that happened.
(05:52):
And so, you know, that sense ofthem feeling like it was a place
where they were respected andresponded to appropriately just
didn't exist. And there was alot of blaming. So there was a
lot of you know, there wasnothing in the playground
because those kids couldn't betrusted with anything and all
that sort of stuff. So it wasjust it was just classic. But,
(06:13):
you know, and I think when Iarrived, we had the fifth ERO
review in six years, so you know,but it was a gift, you know, cos
the only way was up. And and Ithink for me, you know, I
suppose I'm kind of laserfocused in terms of if you lead
a school you lead learning. Andso the thing that really struck
me was the variability ofpractice. So depending on whose
(06:36):
class you went into, you know,and people had been there for a
very, very, very long time. Andso people had been teaching in
one room for, you know, 15 yearsand they'd always done it this
way. The next one had alwaysdone it that way. So there was
no collective understandingabout what constituted good
practice. So, you know, the factthey'd been doing it for a long
time was, you know, that was thestamp of approval because that's
(06:59):
how it had always been. So thething that really, I think was
the opportunity for me was tothink about, what collective
action looked like, you know,what did we do collectively to
think about practice inclassrooms that would get a
completely different result interms of the outcomes for
students, but particularly likein the culture of us, the
(07:21):
relationship that the pedagogythat underpins a curriculum that
is about kids, puts them frontand centre, addresses the things
that are front and centre forthem, but at the same time as as
taking them beyond that as well.So yeah, just making sure that
that whole curriculumimplementation and design and
pedagogy was front and centre ofwhat I did with them. The thing
(07:47):
that we did do is we juststarted small. There was,
everything was an opportunity,but we just started with reading,
Eleisha (07:54):
hmm
Barbara (07:55):
what does a high quality reading programme look
like? And at the time, it wasgoing back a bit, but there was
the LPDP was the literacyprofessional development
programme and Helen Timperley'swork had sort of shaped a lot of
it and really a lot of hercontention way back then was
that a lot of PLD was just a bigwaste of money because it was
(08:15):
sort of experts fly in, fly outand you got a bump in that area
they worked in while they werethere and when they left it went
back down again, so the wholepremise of that particular piece
of work was about how do youbuild the capacity of leadership
in a school to lead it? And sowe bought into that wholesale
big time. And in those firstcouple of years we got huge
(08:37):
bumps in our reading data andnot just data around summative
tests, this was like in
Eleisha (08:44):
hmm
Barbara (08:45):
terms of engagement and a whole lot of other things that
we'd built into a matricesaround what good would look like
and leaning into evidence,leaning into really good
research, that you know, talkedabout, what good looked like not
just in reading but also interms of pedagogy. So that whole
idea of starting small, but alsowhen you lead it, people
(09:05):
understand that this is the mostimportant thing that happens in
the school because the leadersare doing it, everybody's doing
it. And and I guess the thingthat we got when we got those
big bumps in student achievementwas being able to go back to
those teachers and say, teachersare powerful. You did this. We
don't celebrate that enough, totell them when we work
(09:26):
collectively, when we throw openthe doors of our classroom, when
we get into each other'sclassroom, and we are all
practicing, the practiceanalysis and giving feedback
about why we're doing what we'redoing and thinking about how it
might evolve, to celebrate thatand to say that that is powerful
just had the most incredibleimpact, also flipping it around
(09:48):
from blaming teachers to sayactually it's not your fault.
Nobody told you what good lookedlike. Nobody, nobody provided
the supports and the parameters.So, you know, sometimes teacher
blaming is easy, but actually,you know, as people leading
schools we need to be able tosay, what did we do to make sure
that there was no room forpeople going wonky.
Eleisha (10:10):
Yeah. Hundred percent. And you I mean,you introduced a
lot of different kind ofprograms or different approaches
within that school. What arewhat are some of the things that
you did across the school?
Barbara (10:20):
I think one of the things that we did was we
resisted programmes. So therewas, you know, all sorts of
programmes that come up.Everyone's got a good idea and
they come banging on the doorand they want to do this. But in
that same sense of like, whatconstitutes a high quality
literacy programme, whatconstitutes a high quality
integrated curriculum, whatever,you have to know as a leadership
(10:41):
team what good looks like. So ifanybody comes peddling their
wares, which they do invariably,you can work out what aspect of
that might you add to what youdo, but you do not sit there and
throw the baby out with thebathwater and say, oh god,
you're here to help us and solveour problems. That's never going
to happen. All that will happenis that something will happen,
(11:01):
then you might get a little liftin that that bit they want to
focus on and then once they'regone, you know, it just it will
disappear. So that really,really, really important that
what you do in that spacebelongs to you as the leadership
team and that staff see that,all staff see that, as being the
most important thing. And one ofthe things that way back then
(11:24):
was, was the schooling strategy,I think it was called. It had
three pou. Quality teachingevery day in every classroom,
evidence based practice. And thethird one was learning focused
partnership with whānau. And sowe invested a lot into those
first bits. We got after a fewyears a really high consistency
of practice in every classroom.We were very good with data,
(11:47):
rich data, and summative as well.And people knew the language of
assessment, but they understoodassessment from a much greater
perspective, not just, you know,league tables and we track,
monitor, review and respond. Andif you're not doing that, and if
you're not keeping your foot onthe pedal in terms of that stuff,
then you know you've probablyjust got your head in the sand.
(12:10):
And it's hard work, it's reallyhard.
Eleisha (12:12):
Mm hmm.
Barbara (12:12):
And I guess one of the things that we had to check
ourselves around was ourlearning partnership with
whānau. So we'd do a whole lotof stuff with them. We'd do a
sort of, you know, stockstandard come and have a talk
about this and blah, blah, blah.But really the question that we
would have to confront ourselveswith was would they go home,
with something tangible thatthey could respond to in terms
of their children, and beingable to make a kind of
(12:35):
contribution. And were welearning from them about what we
could do from their perspective?So we started a piece of work,
Mutukaroa, which was about theway in which we share things
with whānau. We need to sharethem in their fullness with
whānau, not dilute them likeour whānau are not capable of
understanding these things. Sopart of the work was just making
(12:56):
sure in the same way we did withour kids, we were explicit about,
you know, what the measures ofprogress would look like. We did
exactly that with our whānau,so meeting them wherever they
wanted, talking through, givingthem the data, asking about what
they thought some of theresponses to that, working out
the sort of supporting systemsaround that was key to that work.
(13:16):
And also we were very clear that,you know, with our sort of
social justice hats on, this wasabout making sure that they felt
entirely equipped to bedemanding of us and to not be
kind of talked over or havethings diluted in a way to them
that they wouldn't be able toquestion what was happening for
(13:36):
their kids and making sure thatthey were progressing and making
sure that they understood whatthe picture of progress looked
like but that we could share inthat language. But that meant us
investing a lot of work intothat, but it was so worth it
because, oh my god, I mean,we've got amazing achievement
results. When we started thispiece of work it was phenomenal.
(14:01):
But also just the relationshipwith our whānau who, just knew
that there was no secrets andthat they were, you know, the
centre of the universe when itcame to school and they could
ask for anything.
Eleisha (14:13):
Wow. So it sounds like that process of bringing the
families into the learningreally led to a massive
turnaround for the kids. Whatchallenges did you, you face in
that?
Barbara (14:24):
Actually there were less challenges than what you
might think in terms of I thinkthat once you build a collective
response, once you agree thatthis is what good looks like,
once you've put in systems andstructures to support people to
be able to do that, and once youmake it sort of front and center,
that collective response,actually it just grew and where
(14:44):
even when we had beginningteachers that would come in,
because there was such a strongapproach to practice, beginning
teachers didn't have to wondertoo much about stuff. They could
pick it up and run with it, werein and out of classrooms around
our practice analysis. And wecould see that even beginning
teachers could get really goodbumps in achievement over the
(15:07):
course of a year in the firsttwo years of teaching. And it
might sound, you know, a bitlike our way or the highway and
it was a bit.
Eleisha (15:15):
Mm hmm.
Barbara (15:16):
But we would always also say that, well, that's the
best we've got. If you've gotsomething better, fantastic. As
part of our review cycle, we putit on, we think about what we
can do because if you thinkyou've got something magic to to
bring to this process, then wewant in on it because if we're
going to get something moremagic out of it, we will do it.
So, that consistency of practiceand that, you know, being really
(15:39):
bloody minded about expecting itevery single day, was key to
that, but it did build a cultureof expertise and a culture of
being laser focused on thosethings. So honestly, like in the
staff room, in the corridors,you know, just celebrating
teachers again, you know. Webucked a whole lot of national
trends. So we're like, yeah,that's right. If we're poor, we
(16:01):
might be brown, we're stillcapable and that's a powerful
place to be. Last thing I'll sayis that one of the things that
we always said was to beliterate because some people say,
oh, it's just reading orwhatever, but actually to be
literate is to be powerful inthe world. So part of our
inducting into these things wasnot to say we're just learning
how to teach reading. We wouldalways look at the the bigger
(16:22):
environment of these things andto say that, you know, what we
do in these spaces is to ensurethat their kids are in places
where they are never going to bemarginalised. So, you know, that
sense of what we do and why wedo it, you know, carried us
through those things, so thatwhen we are prising open those
doors it's not just to check onyou. It's because we have a deep
(16:43):
belief that our role is toensure that our kids can
flourish in the world. Hugelyimportant.
Eleisha (16:48):
Yeah. And, Catherine, you have seen quite a turnaround
in achievement at your kura.What did you notice when you
first started at Hastings Girls?
Catherine (16:57):
I was really blessed to have ERO come within the
first couple of months. So I gotin really deep in the analysing
the data before they came andsaw that from when students came
in at year 9 and then went intoyear 11, their literacy and
numeracy data showed me that 2/3of the cohort had either
(17:18):
stagnated or regressed. So I gotan independent person in to come
and do a review for me, prior toERO, and together we sat down
and ripped up the annual planand rewrote an action plan which
in the short term startaddressing those needs. But it
meant that you can't argue withdata.
Eleisha (17:39):
No, you can't.
Catherine (17:40):
And that became the lever for a lot of change,
including looking at some of thethings that were the barriers
that we were putting up thatwere stopping students from
learning and one of the biggestones there was streaming.
Eleisha (17:55):
Right. So. So what did you do? How did you start the
process of kind of turningeverything around?
Catherine (18:00):
Oh, I don't know where to start. It was it was
huge. A huge, huge process. Itwas around in data, looking at
the way that staff talked aboutstudents, the deficit theorizing
that came
Eleisha (18:11):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (18:11):
through, deficit theorizing or racist, what would
you call it? Because I think inmany cases deficit theorizing is
just a soft way of saying you'reracist. And then I got data from
whānau and students and thattold us that the students didn't
see themselves in this space
Eleisha (18:30):
yeah,
Catherine (18:30):
and streaming does it. It's like a dip stick. You put
it in, you pull it out and it'sdarker the lower down the bottom
and that's how it worked here.We had a top class and then we
had another class underneath it,the diligence class I worked out
was code for nice girls or whitegirls. So they're the girls that
did the test and didn't quitemake it into the top class, but
(18:53):
for various reasons, they wereput into the diligence class
Yeah. So it took us a wee whileto crack that nut open.
Eleisha (19:00):
yeah,
Catherine (19:01):
It had to be a transformative change in the way
that everyone had to change.
Eleisha (19:07):
yeah,
Catherine (19:07):
Now we chose to change from within and come on
board and be part of it orwhether you couldn't, you know
it was best for you not tocontinue here. Everyone had to
change and that's what we'vedone.
Eleisha (19:21):
I can imagine the teachers or the kaiako who
engaged in deficit theorising,perhaps some of them decided not
to continue.
Catherine (19:29):
Yes, definitely. And and that's, you know, and
supporting portions of thecommunity with when you're
taking away streaming becausesome students thrive in that, of
course, and so it was workingthrough that with the community
as well. It was a bit of a rockyroad, I have to say. And then
it's if you take that away, whatdo you put in its place? So the
(19:51):
biggest workstream for us wascreating a curriculum where the
students could see themselves,and a curriculum that was robust
when it came to literacy andnumeracy, etc.. But you know
allowed the students to thrivebecause they felt
Eleisha (20:08):
Mm hmm.
Catherine (20:08):
that they could see themselves within there. And so
we imagined, reimagined ourjunior curriculum and created
hubs of learning. It iscross-curricula, and the
students choose where to go whenthey're coming in based upon
their own interests, skills andtalents.
Eleisha (20:23):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:24):
So for instance, we've got Engineering Your
future is a hub for the studentsthat are passionate about
science and mathematics. And
Eleisha (20:32):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:32):
that creates a pathway for our students to be
able to go and study healthscience or engineering further
on. And
Eleisha (20:39):
Yeah.
Catherine (20:39):
it's about but now to speak that into them. We've got
Pathway for the Podium, for thekids that think that they'd love
to wear the silver fern at onestage. Great Outdoors for the
kids that want to get outtramping and camping. So all
their learning is is through theeye of that lens.ensens
Eleisha (20:56):
Wow. That sounds so cool.
Catherine (20:57):
It is very cool. Great Outdoors hub, for instance,
their mathematics is throughthat lens, PE, social studies,
science is all through the lensof the great outdoors.
Eleisha (21:09):
Wow.
Catherine (21:09):
So you're drawing on something the kids are
passionate about. Through thatthe students can actually
challenge themselves furtherbecause they're doing it through
something that they love. Thekids in the class are also like
minded as well, because
Eleisha (21:25):
Yeah.
Catherine (21:25):
they love it. So we have Te Whai, Te Ao Haka, for
the kids that love Māoriperforming arts, Tautua Pasifika.
We've got a range of hubs andthe students chose the hub where
they best belong.
Eleisha (21:39):
Wow. And what, what difference has that made for,
for the kids?
Catherine (21:43):
Completely different. It's not the same space. The
hubs have been up and runningfully for a couple of years now,
we trialled it for two years andwe're refining it again further
next year. But this year we hadsome year thirteens that are
leaving, and it was wonderfulhearing the number of
particularly Māori and Pasifikagirls that are going off to do
engineering or health scienceand they had been engineers in
(22:06):
the junior school. So thepassion was ignited, and they're
carrying on through. So that'spretty jolly exciting. Yeah,
it's transformed it for the kidsbut it also, the staff, the
staff room is this hive ofenergy. Yeah. And we've created
a a tool. I've created a toolfor planning where all the
(22:28):
learning's mapped, so we can mapright across the hubs what
they're doing at any one time.We can map the mātauranga
Māori that's gone right acrossthe hubs because when we're
doing our planning we startthere and then we do the
empirical subject knowledge. Sowe start with mātauranga first.
Eleisha (22:48):
Yeah.
Catherine (22:48):
Yeah. So yeah it's pretty jolly cool. It was, it's
really important you know goingback to what been said earlier
from Barb, it's really importantthat we lead it as tumuaki. I do
a lot of the leading in thatspace
Eleisha (23:03):
Yeah.
Catherine (23:03):
that's essential, that's our core business. And I
think, you know, like mostschools Hastings Girls Year 9
and 10 curriculum would havepreviously been a dumbed down
version of NCEA level 1.
Eleisha (23:15):
Yeah.
Catherine (23:15):
But now we have a standalone curriculum that I
know maps to level one, we'vemapped all those progressions,
we know it connects seamlessly,but we don't have to do a dress
rehearsal for NCEA for two yearsbefore we hit year 11. The kids
are ready
Eleisha (23:32):
That's so exciting.
Catherine (23:33):
It is, it's pretty cool. Yeah.
Eleisha (23:36):
So you mentioned there you had a bit of kickback from
the community when you startedmaking changes, you know, around
streaming. What what otherchallenges did you face?
Catherine (23:45):
Oh so many,
so many. I found it's reallyhard going ahead and doing
something new, it's really hardto have the people, find people
that are like minded. It's it'slonely
Eleisha (24:02):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:02):
It's really lonely because, you know, I don't it's
not like other secondary schools.You're not moving fast enough
for some. So for our Māoricommunity for a while there we
weren't moving fast enough
Eleisha (24:15):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:16):
But then we were moving too fast for others.
Eleisha (24:18):
Yeah.
Catherine (24:19):
So it's rough. You know, it was for three or four
years there it was really rough.
Eleisha (24:26):
Yeah. Wow. Well, it sounds like you've done amazing
things. Do you do you take Imean, you take a massive sense
of pride, you can see it in yourface at the at the strides that
the, that your ākonga
Catherine (24:37):
Yeah,
Eleisha (24:37):
have made.
Catherine (24:38):
Yeah, it's amazing. It's it's fantastic. And there's
lots of work to do, because younever win in education. Crikey,
you know, you get one thing doneand then the next thing pops up,
it's like whack a mole. It'srelentless. So you do one thing
and then you start the next. Andthen I get excited about that,
so. But now it's not, it's notlike, oh, my gosh, it's change.
(25:00):
It's the next iteration. It'sthat process of reflective
practice and refining andreviewing and then moving on to
the next iteration and beingresponsive.
Eleisha (25:10):
Yeah
Catherine (25:10):
Yeah. So that that's a pretty nice place to be.
Eleisha (25:13):
That's fantastic. And Angela, you were acting
principal for three years atFairfield before you became
principal, and when you tookover, where was the kura? What
stage was it at?
Angela (25:26):
Yeah. It's been an interesting journey. Definitely
a journey I didn't know I wasgoing to be on, but yeah, I've
been at this school for quite awhile as deputy principal. It
was always a good, strong school,had a good, strong ERO history,
and then we had a change ofleadership, so that kind of made
quite a bit of a difference. Iguess, you know, while there's
some positive things, it wasmore the leader's probably more
(25:46):
polarising style, I guess you'dsay. ERO came in and were not
overly happy with the leadershipand where the school was at. So
they wanted a limited statutorymanager to come in
Eleisha (25:56):
Mm hmm.
Angela (25:57):
through that. So at that time the principal went on leave
and as a result, myself and thedeputy principal got called in
and asked if we'd act up, youknow, and I thought, okay, this
might be for a few weeks.
Eleisha (26:08):
Yeah.
Angela (26:08):
And at that time, of course, obviously the ERO review,
we'd been put on a longitudinalERO, we had a limited statutory
manager who was overseeingaround because of the leadership
at that time.
Eleisha (26:17):
Yeah.
Angela (26:18):
And they were there more to deal with that aspect of it.
So we were told right from thebeginning that we had the
ability to make change, do whatwe needed to do. So I guess at
that time the school, withoutsounding too extreme, it was a
bit broken. I'm not going to lie.It had always been a fairly
strong school, although itwasn't always perfect. I think
(26:39):
staff wise, the whole schoolculture was on a very much a low.
We were probably feeling alittle bit broken and like a
whirlwind had come through andand the students as well were
probably feeling that throughthe staff and the community. So
with community too it had beenvery polarising. So some people
were all on board, a lot werewalking
Eleisha (26:59):
Right.
Angela (26:59):
with their feet. I think the roll got down to 520 at time.
And to put that into perspective,now grown up to what, 940? So
Eleisha (27:06):
Wow.
Angela (27:07):
Quite, yeah Not, not a good place to be. So
Eleisha (27:10):
And how is it? How is student achievement at that
point?
Angela (27:13):
Not, flash. I mean, in fairness we've always had a, you
know, a tail of I guess,underachievement at our kura
where the children coming in, wefind a lot are coming in like a
lot of, a lot of intermediates,and high schools for that matter
coming in well below expectedcurriculum levels. So then we've
kind of got two years to try andaccelerate progress and get to
where we need to be. So, but atthat time, yeah, it was
(27:33):
definitely on very much a lowbecause as I say, I think it was
school culture as much asanything, and a lot of the good
curriculum systems and processesthat had been put in place and
had been there for a number ofyears had kind of got thrown out
Eleisha (27:45):
Right.
Angela (27:46):
and the principal had just new thoughts and new ideas.
He'd done a lot of it in hisprevious school. So he was
wanting to reinstate that, fromhis previous school at our kura.
But obviously a differentcontext, different, you know,
different ball park. So I thinkthat made a remarkable
difference. So yeah, essentiallywe had to review all our
processes, all our curriculumteaching and learning, what was
happening for our children andyes, staff morale, school
(28:08):
culture from scratch pretty much.
Eleisha (28:11):
And so how did you go about doing that?
Angela (28:13):
The first thing was it needed like we talked about
leadership before, I guess itneeded strong leadership. You
know, I didn't necessarily seemy place in that. I sort of got
the impression, especially fromthe previous principal too, that
even woman in leadership thatwas sort of a weaker way of
going, I guess. So for me, justfor where I was, I was probably
a bit broken too, but I knew forthe sake of the school and with
(28:35):
the help of the deputy principal,we kind of had to step up, and I
guess I'd probably been the mostdetermined I probably been in my
life that we'd been at a goodschool, I didn't want our school
to be broken for the sake of thekids, the community, the
teachers. And I certainly didn'twant us to be perceived as that
school. So we knew change had tohappen and we knew we had to get
out there and make sure theprograms were set up, the kids
(28:58):
were engaged, the teachers weregetting professional learning.
That was our starting point andeveryone sort of got on board
and we rallied. I think havingpresence, being visible, being
willing to listen, so all thataspect came into play, you know,
getting student voice, communityvoice, being quite strategic I
guess in our approach. We knowcommunication hadn't been great.
(29:18):
There was a lot of speculation,as you can imagine, especially
over three years,
Eleisha (29:22):
Hmm.
Angela (29:22):
because no one knew why the principal was on leave. And
so it was just being out andabout because I knew if there's
a void and people don't see thatthere's leadership there, then
they start to speculate, wonderwhat's going on at Fairfield.
And, you know, and of course, itimpacts on student achievement
and everything else. So it wasabout being out and about,
visible, having a clear plan inplace. And obviously all the
(29:43):
curriculum, you know, readingall
Eleisha (29:45):
Yeah.
Angela (29:45):
of the curriculum documentation in a sense and
processes and just focusing onthe teaching and learning and
what was going to be better forthe children. But as I said
before, that the school culturewas a massive part of it because
Eleisha (29:55):
Yeah.
Angela (29:56):
it was a bit divisive, to be fair. So we spent a lot of
time working, you know, makingsure the kids were feeling good.
And also, I guess with theschool, it was a sense of pride
about the school.
Eleisha (30:05):
Yeah.
Angela (30:05):
Where our school is, it's in a lower socioeconomic
area, although we attractchildren and families from all
over the Waikato, you know,there was that sense of you
don't want the kids to, oh,we're in the broken school. So
that was really important to getchildren's morale up
Eleisha (30:19):
Yeah.
Angela (30:19):
And that of course flows on to teaching and learning. You
know, that sense of belonginglike we talked about before, the
relationship's massive. We'vedone a lot of work and continue
to and will always aroundcultural responsiveness, you
know how we're working together
Eleisha (30:32):
Yeah.
Angela (30:32):
as a whānau and and what it actually means for the
kids and for every child it'sdifferent. So that's always the
challenge. We were quitestrategic, reviewed the
strategic plan, looked at theschool culture. While the
principal had, there were somegood things in place. So while
we've retained some of the goodthings that were put in, we've
just, you know, made tweaks andchanges and in some areas we had
(30:53):
to make significant changes, sowe just re-looked at all of that
as a staff and yeah, looked atprofessional learning. It was
very much a team effort and ourboard of trustees was amazing
and also the educationalcolleagues around me, super
supportive, and and alsoMinistry. I got given a first
time principal mentor. Yeah, sowe were really lucky and
(31:15):
although I didn't have a lot ofprincipal experience, that was a
huge learning curve, the onesaving grace I guess was I'd
been at the school a while.
Eleisha (31:24):
And have those changes made a big difference to student
achievement?
Angela (31:27):
Yeah, they have. I mean, I think we're still on a journey.
I'm certainly not going to sithere and say, all of a sudden
the kids are all, you know, 99%,you know, we, we, we've got the
realities. We get a lot ofchildren coming in level one,
level two of the curriculum whenwe are trying to get them to
mid-end of level four. So it'salways a challenge,
Eleisha (31:44):
Yeah,
Angela (31:45):
but definitely the achievement's improved and as
you can imagine in anintermediate it's a pretty quick,
quick turnaround having the, youknow, you induct half a school
each year. So yes, that's alwaysa challenge, but that's why
we've got to hit the groundrunning as soon as the children
get in really.
Eleisha (31:59):
For sure. I want to wrap up by just asking each of
you, what's your best advice fornew tumuaki about turning around
learning in a kura? Barbara, doyou want to start?
Barbara (32:11):
I would just say just be clear that to lead a school
is to lead learning. So justeyes on the prize. You know,
there are so many things thatcan distract you. They actually
don't matter. None of thatmatters if you can't guarantee
what's happening every day inevery classroom, you don't have
a vision and clarity about whatgood looks like in that space.
(32:31):
Don't be distracted
Eleisha (32:33):
Catherine.
Catherine (32:33):
Yeah, I totally agree. I think vision is huge. It's
particularly if you are going tobe doing a big turn and heading
in a new direction, have areally clear vision, but have
the data that sits underneath itthat helps hold it up. You can't
do it without really good dataand really sound practice.
(32:57):
You're not going for the nextbest thing. Do your research.
Eleisha (33:00):
Angela.
Angela (33:01):
I'd agree with everything that's been said
wholeheartedly. I think it's andlike you said too, it's bringing
people with you as well. So it'shaving all the systems, having
all the processes where possible,having that shared vision around
that of what that looks like,which is not always easy as
we've discussed before,especially if you've come have
staff that have been in theschool a while or got different
ideas. And it's a massivechallenge I think for every kura.
Eleisha (33:25):
Yeah.
Catherine (33:26):
And I think celebrating the steps along the
way, too. Let's celebrate thevalue that we're adding and
seeing the value because notevery every kid will make it to
that finish line. But let'scelebrate the steps along the
way and the value that we'reputting in
Eleisha (33:39):
Definitely. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to
you. And thank you all for yourtime today.
Angela (33:45):
Yeah thank you so much
Barbara (33:46):
Hei konā.
Eleisha (33:47):
Thank you all. In the next episode, we're going to be
talking about supportingstudents with diverse learning
needs. Mā te wā.
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