Exploring local history is one way schools can connect to the new Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum. Ako caught up with two Auckland schools who are uncovering local history right under their feet.
Conor Twyford, the new Community Organiser at NZEI Te Riu Roa, talks about the work she’s doing and how she’s supporting members to get active on climate change. “If we’re going to tackle the big issues like climate change,” Twyford says, “we need to do it in community, we need to do it together.”
Michelle Simms, the librarian at Te Totara Primary School, talks about some of the ways she supports literacy at the school.
Nerra Lealiifano-Tamarua considers herself blessed.
“I am one of the lucky generation of Pasifika New Zealanders who learned to walk in two worlds. I’m confident and successful as a Samoan and as a Kiwi – and that’s what I want for the students I teach.”
A number of mainstream schools like Otari School can date their Māori immersion units back to the late 1980s and early 1990s, developing alongside the Kura Kaupapa Māori movement.
“The relationship between the teacher and the student is one thing, but it’s so much richer when the community is backing that student as well,” says Eryn Street, a teacher at Papakowhai School in Porirua.
For Amie Roberts, a New Entrants/Year 1 teacher at Owhiro Bay School in Wellington, community means that teachers, parents and families are all working together to support the child in a holistic way, be it social, emotional, developmental or academic. “We’re a team,” she says.
For nearly a decade, Kapanui School in Waikanae has been using kapa haka as a way of building community in and around the school – and the benefits have been extraordinary for both Māori and non-Māori students.
Student motivation, behaviour and progress have shot up since Hampden Street School in Nelson introduced greater student agency.
At Raroa Normal Intermediate in Wellington’s northern suburbs, teachers have embraced the concept of student agency.