Sustainability - Arihia Latham

Arihia Latham has been facilitating Sustainability in Education through the Enviroschools programme in Wellington schools for ten years. She is also a rongoā practitioner (traditional Māori healer) and a writer who is working across all platforms to re-indigenise our community.

The Enviroschools Kaupapa has a commitment to ensuring our schools are supported in strengthening cultural sustainability which is aligned with place-based education, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, local curriculum and history studies.

This workshop will look at how we ensure we are being good treaty partners, how to be culturally safe and why forming relationships with mana whenua is key. We'll look at the Enviroschools programme as a whole and how being community oriented strengthens schools as hubs of inspiration in their community.

Ximena: cultural safety, eg. mihimihi vs pepeha, Pakeha/Tauiwi need to tread carefully, follow the lead of mana whenua, cultural appropriation

John: Love and awe; being in the environment, knowing the place and feeling comfortable in that environment.
The vibration at a really deep level of Health.
Take students to places where they can feel a sense of Mauri, describing, anming Mauri, energy transfer,
Tangata tiaki,
The classroom without walls……..whether inside or out…

Beth, Jess Suz and Annie:
We need to know enough to be able to teach the kids about maori culture and language in a culturally appropriate way. Sensitive to all cultures in the community - relationships with whānau - how individual whānau regard themselves - what would they like us to know about
Wide range of cultures in the class - understanding which parts you can incorporate - works well with home life - everyone can find meaning . Just making sure that we show we are learners too. Genuine shared learning journeys - not the expert in the room.
Approaching in the way we are less likely to make unhelpful assumptions. We are teaching but not our knowledge to share. Lifting up voices - Mana and authority.
Using words in the way they were intended to be used in Māori culture - not appropriating it for school reasons, realising that in certain contexts there are better words that can be used rather than kaitiakitanga at all times such as tangata tiaki
Understanding the concepts behind these words. There is a right way to teach these concepts.
When teaching these concepts or māori culture. Give options and reasons why e.g. different types of mihi, students can approach this in the way that works best for them/is the most appropriate.


Jenny, Nic + Carl:
Cultural appropriation… feeling more nervous about teaching Māori. Felt like it was opposite to what Hana O’Regan was saying - about giving things a go.
Giving things a go - admitting when wrong. Taking an interest in a person and a culture helps to build these things.
Tiaki > kaitiaki - being mindful of the meaning behind the word.

Local Curriculum Review - Learner Attributes

John is leading the charge on updating the local curriculum. We spent some time looking at the Learner Attributes. We discussed what is still relevant and changes that could be made. 

Maths Moderation and Number Grids

 

This idea comes from Ruth Merttens. If we are consistent with this across the school, then students will have a good representation of patterns with numbers and place value. 

https://di4c76y7libww.cloudfront.net/documents/practical_reasoning_primary_mathematics.pdf

We finished the session with making OTJs on 2 students (5 and 6E)

We use these tools when moderating:

Assessment for planning (learning lines/ used to be called Sally lines)
Base Maths Concepts: https://lpf.mathsnz.com/ loosely linked to stages. The framework, descriptors, big ideas and illustrations / exemplars are from the Ministry of Education.

Motu Kairangi Kāhui Ako Bicultural Hui - Hanna O'Regan - Week 2, Term 2, 2022

For the Bicultural Hui, we started with Hana O’Regan’s Presentation and Workshop. We completed ECGs.

Presentations watch are not to be shared outside of school. 

Here is a similar presentation by Hana O'Regan at ULearn 2018:    

Zine PLD - Week 1

Writing Moderation- Term 1 2022

 

Spirituality and Science to Action

P4C

The emotionless robot

It has the same physical and cognitive attributes as humans. It can discuss great philosophical issues and follow complex logic. It can build skyscrapers and dig ditches.

What makes this robot different from humans?

Flexible Grouping

 

3 short readings for all 

1. Raising the bar with flexible grouping

2. We read and watched the short video:

Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities

Stunning results from culturally responsive Maths- effects of social grouping (developing communities of Mathematical Inquiry)

We met in 'Quads' (formerly known as triples).

We discussed flexible grouping and decided on some actions. We will come back to these actions throughout the year. 

Wellbeing Plans- Staff Only Days

In preparation we read: Building a Whole Child Wellness Team  

We asked

What stands out? 

What do we want to build across school?

Why is it important for us to model Positive Health?

We will have a big focus on Positive Health this term

Here are our agreed actions:

• We reviewed the Wellbeing plan. 

We worked with a Wellbeing buddy to set SPIRE goals.

We shared our focus word for 2022.

Visual Literacy

 

Our purpose

• N.Z.C. ‘Understanding, using and creating oral, written, and visual texts of increasing complexity is at the heart of English teaching and learning’.

• We are aiming to create a culture of Visual Literacy.

• Responding to a world that is rich in visual complexity and almost constant communication.

• Empowering our children as consumers, readers - and, ultimately, creators of visual texts.

• We’ll start to look at ways that we can do this today - but more to come!

Share a visual text you love (buddies; rotate?)

• What excites, moves, interests you?

Hook: how many different kinds of visual texts have you encountered so far today?

Brief share - paint a picture of what’s coming our way on a daily basis (film, TV, phones, coffee cups, food packaging, billboards, posters, signage, branding, print media etc.).

How this world looks to our children

• Growing up in a world of sophisticated visual texts.

• We know that some of our children are particularly invested in games, YouTube etc.

• They are adept at reading these texts. Can they say how they do what they do? (Inside the black box.)

Putting power in our children’s hands. Can we help them to become more conscious and knowledgeable consumers (and creators).

Banksy: visual texts in the built environment

• A picture is worth a thousand words - designed for maximum impact!

• Connects to advertising, logos, signage - and the shorthand that’s possible in pictures.

• Share an example and short discussion. Imagine you come upon this on a wall. What do you notice first? What else do you see? What’s your reaction? Is there a message? Are there other layers of meaning carried by the images?

Making design choices: some principles (rules to use - or choose to break)

• Having a few design principles in mind helps us get started with a visual text (reading or creating).

• Here are some ideas from the world of print to consider:

• Visual hierarchy (what key things do you want people to notice and what do you want people to look at first?).

• Directing eye movement (through lines, making use of how our eye track across the page, the Z and F).

• Space and balance (negative space; how things are arranged on the page).

• Lines and shapes (curves, straight lines, dynamic movement and direction, organic and inorganic).

• Layers (hierarchy, dynamism, movement)

• Typography (size, style, hierarchy).

• Symbols (think Banksy, shorthand, loaded with meaning - but concise)

• Colour (snags the key, carries a range of powerful messages).

Focus on colour

Look at the colour swatch on your desk. What associations does it have for you?

• Actually, we all have expertise in reading colour as part of visual texts: based on tens of thousands of years of human interaction with the natural environment - cultural knowledge and influences (which will differ).

• Unpick some of the colours.

A great resource that sums some of this up 99designs.

Time for some art

• Using what we’ve learnt about design, and especially colour, create a poster manifesto for yourself: My Ways of Working (choose around 3 words to work with).

• Allow time to share.

Wrapping up and planting a seed

• We hope there are some ideas you can already begin to share with your children.

• How else can foster a culture that takes visual texts

Emotional Culture Mapping - Staff Only day 2022

The Emotional Culture Mapping was a workshop that resulted in us having agreed on the guiding principles that set our emotional culture. It’s a more in depth way of developing ‘ ways of working’. It will also be a great guide for us to track in different ways across the year.

Prior to this session we read: Manage Your Emotional Culture

The outcomes:

What makes you, you- Staff Only Days 2022

The ‘What makes me me!?’ sessions have a close connection to both Positive Education and Emotional Culture.

Staff prepared presentation of what makes you, you.

 

This included anything we think impacts and shapes us as a person. The things that make us unique.  It was related to beliefs, culture, ethnicity, family structure ,social groups, community, upbringing ,dreams and aspirations, religion......

Kei a koe te tikanga .