Editorial
E ngā kaipānui, nau mai haere mai ki tēnei hautaka, he kohikohi rangahau mātauranga hou mō ngā kaiako i ngā kura o Aotearoa. He mihi ki ngā kairangahau, ngā kaiako, me ngā kaituhi o ēnei tuhituhinga. E ai ki te whakataukī nei, “He aha te kai ō te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. What is the food of the leader? It is knowledge. It is communication.”1
At a time when Aotearoa New Zealand’s education policy is recalibrating, with a steer from the Education and Training Act 2020 and Cabinet Paper: Refreshing the National Curriculum (Tinetti, 2021), it is essential that teachers keep up-to-date with current thinking and practice and take part in direction-setting conversations. I hope that Set provides an avenue to access rich and useful research-based information so that teachers feel confident in their role as leaders of learning. Thanks go to the researchers and practitioners whose articles help to build educators’ knowledge and stimulate discussion.
As from January 2021 boards of trustees must ensure that every school gives effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, including by
(i)working to ensure that its plans, policies, and local curriculum reflect local tikanga Māori, mātauranga Māori, and te ao Māori; and
(ii)taking all reasonable steps to make instruction available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori; and
(iii)achieving equitable outcomes for Māori students.(Education and Training Act 2020)
February 2021 saw the release of draft curriculum content for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories (Ministry of Education, 2021a) and Te Takanga o Te Wā (Ministry of Education 2021b). The Ministry of Education also announced the upcoming revision of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education 2007) and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (Ministry of Education 2017). For The New Zealand Curriculum this means a rolling refresh of each learning area, likely drawing from the new structure modeled by the draft histories document (Tinetti, 2021). A new curriculum centre of excellence will be established in place of Te Kete Ipurangi and enhancement is intended for Kauwhata Reo,2 an online hub of te reo Māori resources for schools learning in and through both English and te reo Māori (Tinetti, 2021). Overall, these changes add up to a policy context that should provide clarity, improve equity, strengthen biculturalism, value mātauranga Māori, support te reo matatini, and promote active citizenship. Schools are promised greater support for developing their local curriculum alongside an expectation that they will nurture relationships with whānau, hapū, and iwi.
All schools have the potential to embody Māori values, honour te reo Māori, and uphold tikanga a-iwi. Kay-Lee Jones and colleagues’ opening article explores teaching and learning in te reo Māori within English-medium and Māori-medium schools. Kay-Lee interviewed whānau and staff involved in Level 2 and 3 settings, where ākonga experience between 31% and 80% te reo Māori instruction. She found that bilingual education was perceived to affirm cultural identity and benefit culturally responsive practice. Even in situations where the proportion of te reo Māori spoken might not guarantee proficient aquisition, with language comes experiential access to history, knowledge, and values.
How to understand and enact cultural values is also the topic of the next article. Fuapepe Rimoni and her co-authors describe the value of service as fundamental to quality teaching for Pacific students. They note that service can interpreted differently by Pacific and non-Pacific teachers, adding another layer to their previous Set article about the Pacific value of respect (Rimoni and Averill, 2019).
One of the aims of the national curriculum refresh is to help teachers to understand “how the knowledges, skills and capabilities in the national curriculum should be woven with locally relevant contexts and knowledges” (Tinetti, 2021, p. 2). Also, to “enable more seamless integration, transfer of knowledge and understanding across the curriculum through the weaving of the various curriculum content” (Tinetti, 2021, p. 13). Sue McDowall gives useful insight how schools currently integrate curriculum. Her article looks at teachers who work to build meaningful connections between different learning areas, as well as the key competencies, within authentic contexts. She attends to how student agency balances with content coverage and knowledge-building.
The Ministry of Education intends to establish records of learning, which will “enable a holistic picture of learner strengths, aspirations and needs to be collaboratively generated by learners, families and teachers” (Tinetti, p.12). Numeracy and pāngarau are two of the areas in scope for initial development. The next three articles help to unpack what holistic progress in numeracy and pāngarau might look like. Lisa Darragh considers students’ mathematics identity and confidence through the impact that certain mathematics games can have on them. Dawn Pollard and Sally Birdsall look at how students’ beliefs and feelings about mathematics are associated with achievement and influenced by different teaching approaches. Hilary Rodley and Judy Bailey argue that problem-solving approaches to teaching mathematics can improve student confidence and engender positive attitutes. Real problems may have one or more solution while the method is “neither given nor apparent, and the solver does not know how to arrive at an answer” (p. 44). Setting the class culture is key, and no doubt teachers will be asked to comment on how students contribute and collaborate in their future records of learning.
While curriculum policy is being updated to support an education system that is fit-for-purpose, Set continues to reflect on the upheavals in practice caused by COVID-19. Our focus section, Leading and Teaching from Home, adds to previously published Set articles by Melanie Riwai-Couch and colleagues (2020), Carol Mutch (2020), Sabina Cleary and Carmen Kenton (2020), and Charles Darr and Rosemary Hipkins (2020). In the current issue, Kate Thornton examines how principals’ leadership through crisis reflected—even surpassed—expectations set out in the Education Council’s (2018) Leadership Capability Framework. Cathal Doyle and co-authors present insights from six teachers that emerged as they taught from home. Potentially, advancements in the use of digital technology, including capturing naturally occurring evidence for assessment, might inform the iterative curriculum refresh and the initial iterations of records of learning.
An iteration of the opening whakataukī is: Ko te kai a te rangatira, he kōrero (The sustenance of chiefs is words.) The whakataukī remind me that discussion surrounding each article will be as important as reading it. Likewise that keeping informed about the policy sphere should also spark deep conversation within schools and communities.
Josie Roberts
Etita
Notes
1.The translation of this whakataukī and others is recorded by Māori Language Net at https://www.maorilanguage.net/maori-words-phrases/proverbs-nga-whakatauki-nga-whakatauaki/
2.Kauwhata Reo, “designed to make teaching and learning in te reo Māori fun, easy and relevant for teachers, learners and whānau”, can be accessed in English or Māori at: https://kauwhatareo.govt.nz/
References
Cleary, S., Kenton, C., Hipkins, R., & Roberts, J. (2020). Making the most of learning from home during times of crisis. Set: Research Information for Teachers, (1), 69–71. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0164
Darr, C., & Hipkins, R. (2020). Opportunities to reframe moderation practices in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Set: Research Information for Teachers, (2), 49–51. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0172
Ministry of Education (2007). The New Zealand curriculum. Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2017). Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. https://tmoa.tki.org.nz/Te-Marautanga-o-Aotearoa
Ministry of Education (2021a). Aotearoa New Zealand’s Histories in the New Zealand Curriculum. https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/content/download/169209/1249015/file/CO2716_MOE_Aotearoa_NZ_Histories_A3_FINAL-020.pdf
Ministry of Education (2021b). Te Marautanga o Aotearoa draft curriculum content for Te Takanga o Te Wā. https://kauwhatareo.govt.nz/en/resource/te-takanga-o-te-wa/te-takanga-o-te-wa-2/
Mutch, C. (2020). How might research on schools’ responses to earlier crises help us in the COVID-19 recovery process? Set: Research Information for Teachers, (2), 3–10. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0169
Rimoni, F., & Averill, R. (2019). R*E*S*P*E*C*T: A value vital for Pasifika learners. Set: Research Information for Teachers, (3), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0146
Riwai-Couch, M., Bull, A., & Nicholls, J. (2020). Puna kōrero: Learning from the parents of Māori and Pasifika students. Set: Research Information for Teachers, (1), 58–65. https://doi.org/10.18296/set.0162
Tinetti, J. (2021). Cabinet paper: Refreshing the national curriculum. https://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/1.-Cabinet-Paper-material.pdf