Kia Ora Koutou

As we draw to the end of Term 2 I know that all of our kaiako are well and truly ready for a well deserved break.

I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution Phil Keenan, Principal of Stratford High School and Denise Hendren, Principal of Avon School have both made to their school communities and our Kahui Ako. On behalf of us all I am sure you will join me in wishing them all the best for their next steps adventures.

Most of our PLD for the first half of the year has been put on hold as we refocus our schools. All of our PLD providers will be back in our region meeting with schools face to face from Term 3.

Our Kahui Ako have a facebook page and we are trying to use this platform to show case the great work that is occurring across our kura in support of our Achievement Challenges. Please encourage your teachers, support staff and BOT members to join this page.

Kim Waite

Lead Principal

principal@toko.school.nz

We are pleased to announce that Kathryn Pick, Principal Eltham school has been appointed to this role. Kathryn's focus for this will be to assist our Kahui Ako in the wellbeing space. This is a fixed term appointment for two years starting the beginning of Term 3 2020.

Kia ora everyone

I am really excited about working alongside Kim in a support principal role for our Kahui Ako from next term. Wellbeing is a strong interest of mine, and one I personally prioritise at Eltham School for our students, staff and whanau. While I do have some well being related ideas we could implement, my intention is to seek your input and find ONE key focus we can prioritise to benefit all of our schools and centres. I look forward to working with you all, and I hope that together we can make a positive difference for our learners.

nga mihi

Kathryn Pick

Our Key Leadership Team (KLT) meet about 3 times per term. This group oversee the running of the Kahui Ako and the Lead Principal provides updates, next steps planning, finances and how we are progressing with our Achievement Challenges. Currently the KLT Team consist of

Kim Waite - Lead Principal, Graham Sands - Support Principal, Megan England, Jason Elder, Phil Keenan.

At the end of Term 2 each year we will seek reappointment of Principals to be on this team. If you are not on this team and would like to be involved for the next 12 months can you please contact Kim before the new term starts.

The Taranaki Mohoao 2020 Teachers Conference was attended by 153 Principals, Secondary School Teachers, Primary School Teachers, Early Childhood teachers, Specialist Teachers and Support Staff. What an amazing day!!!!!

The purpose of the day was to build capability and create connections.

We were proud to begin the day with our first powhiri as a group, being welcomed onto Te Amorangi - The cultural centre for Stratford Highschool.

The kahui ako worked hard to provide workshops presenters in response to our survey at the end of 2019, which asked you how you would like to further your own learning within the areas of our four achievement challenges: Transition, Cultural Capacity, Learner Agency and Wellbeing.

A wide range of presenters were selected and appreciated, people were spoilt for choice and gaining teacher’s opinions early was paramount to the success of our day. Everyone participated in two workshops of their own choice. Lots of laughs resonated through the halls during our team building activity.

What an honor it was to have our four iwi represented on the day and guiding us through our local stories, talk about creating connections!

Ngā mihi ki ngā hau e wha, greetings to everyone.

The Kahui Ako o Taranaki Mohoao have been extremely busy building partnerships with all local Iwi. We are in the unique position of having 3 Iwi boundaries with Kahui Ako o Taranaki Mohoao. The three Iwi are Ngati Ruanui, NgaRuahine, and Ngati Maru. We are currently engaging with representatives from each of those Iwi. We also working with representatives from Whakaahurangi Marae. There is a lot of mahi to be done.

I have recently met with Des Henderson (Whakaahurangi Marae) , Sue Rine (Permaculture), Joseph Bradley (Permaculture), and Richard Carr (Taranaki Enviro-Schools / TRC)

to listen to all the wonderful stories about those people who started the journey of creating the mara (Garden on Ahitahi whenua) at Whakaahurangi Marae. We would like to support this kaupapa in any way we can. One of the many goals would be to create an outdoor classroom for everyone to use. Lots of hard work has already gone into creating Pā Harakeke and other aspects of permaculture. Looking through the photos I saw so many passionate people giving back to Ahitahi (Hapu) and Whakaahurangi Marae.

We are also going to use Whakaahurangi Marae as a place to have all our Kahui Ako o Taranaki Mohoao meetings. This way we grow a sense of belonging to the marae.

We are also looking into our local history. We will be using Kathe Tawhiwhirangi (Core Education Facilitator) and our Iwi Representatives to guide us through this amazing journey.

These are just some of the wonderful connections we are making.

He korero whakamutunga ki a Phil Keenan raua ko Denise Herden. Kei runga noa atu korua. He timata te ara hou, Kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui. To Phil and Denise you both have been truely amazing and we are sadden to lose both of you to your new pathways. Have strength, be brave and steadfast in all you do. We wish you all the best.

Graham Sands - Support Principal

Our Kahui Ako are really excited to be organising a combined powhiri at the beginning of the year for all our schools at Whakahurangi Marae. This will be a chance to welcome any new staff in our kura that have not already been welcomed onto the marae and to really lay the foundation for some genuine partnerships between our local iwi and all our kura in Te Kahui Ako o Taranaki Mohoao.

More information will follow later in the year.

WEDNESDAY 27TH JANUARY 2021 - 1.00PM

“Face to Face”

“In the past, generations of children have learned rhymes and songs at the knee of parents and grandparents. Children now live in a busier, more digital world and some of these childhood traditions have diminished.” (Amorson & Wilson, 2016,p.26).

With all that has come and gone over the last term, I thought it would be quite timely to revisit and refresh. To re-examine the reasons “why” our Early Years kaiako are working so hard in the Oral Language space.

We are raising achievement through shared pedagogy.

Our Scanning and Noticings:

Centres, schools, leaders and kaiako have identified Oral Language as an area of concern and priority through our Kahui AKo. We have noticed the following …

• A rise in Oral Language difficulties through schools and centres.

• Centres and Schools are experiencing greater delays in Oral Language relative to children’s age.

• Gaining Ministry Support for children with Oral Language difficulties is becoming increasingly difficult. This leaves kaiako asking what can we do ourselves before we receive support?

• Schools and Centres have acknowledged minimal professional development to support Kaiako with Oral Language in both centres and schools.

• Schools and Centres have noticed a decline in practices that support Oral Language in their communities.

• Feedback from our Early Learning Network is to focus on one aspect of the curriculum to deepen our understanding of how to weave Te Whariki and the New Zealand curriculum across the sectors.

Our Goals:

• To ensure parents/whanau, centres, schools, leaders and kaiako provide language-rich environments and experiences for children.

• To ensure parents/whanau, centres, schools, leaders and kaiako have the skills and capabilities to ensure that children thrive as thinkers, talkers and early readers, and leave early learning as confident communicators.

• To ensure centres, schools, leaders and kaiako have the knowledge, skills and support to provide parent/whanau with education around Oral Language in the home.

I was so excited when kaiako reached out and said they wanted more support in this space during Term 2. I look forward to hearing all your success stories via Zoom on Thursday 2nd of July, 3:15 pm at our Early Years Transition Network meeting. Zoom Meetings with Del 1st and 2nd July

Looking forward to Term 3 we are excited to announce that the Kahui Ako has received funding for the “Reading Together” programme. This programme will support schools and centres to reach out to parents, teaching whanau to be able to provide positive reading experiences in the home and supporting language-rich environments. A full update will be in our next panui.

Penny Andrew - Across School Teacher

penny@ngaere.school.nz

A doc has been sent out to all Principals and the data team re requirements for this. Please make sure you have read this and are aware of what is required and by when :)

Year 8 and 9 teachers and pastoral teams from across Te Kāhui Ako o Taranaki Mohoao came together for a day to continue to work towards building a coherent and effective transition experience for our students. We had a really productive day covering all aspects of transition. With regards to data and relationships, we worked through the events and work that we currently action as well as the changes that we have trialled over the last 12 months. This collaborative approach means that we are able to continue to refine and streamline these processes for everyone involved. Keep an eye out in Term Three as we trial an extended transition programme for some of our students.

We also spent time on exploring the curriculum, in particular the learning areas of maths, English, science, and social sciences. It was wonderful to engage around the ‘back end’ of the curriculum and start to set some collective goals. The team are keen to continue to work towards developing a coherent transition for each of these learning areas for all of our students. Some next steps include sharing best practice, and developing a shared language around content and assessment.

In the ‘evidence’ space we have been setting up a baseline survey to better gauge our progress with regards to building an effective collaborative culture across our kahui ako. It is hoped that we will be able to collect a range of viewpoints from across our community and use the data to help track our progress across a very complex range of indicators. The behaviours that we will be looking at (drawn from the Ministry of Education’s Development Maps) are all ones that will help us to meet ourachievement challenges.

Angela Roberts - Across School Teacher

ra@stratfordhigh.school.nz

I would like to introduce and welcome to our Kahui Ako Whanau:

Our Kahui Ako have booked John Parsons to come and work with our cluster of schools. Due to Covid-19 this was cancelled. Unfortunately the earliest we are able to have him return to our area is 30th August - 3 September 2021.

We were really lucky to scrap in with this workshop just before lockdown. It was fabulous to have 40 plus staff attend this. It is our intention to bring Marg out each year so we can ensure all our teams are trained in restorative practices. We are yet to confirm dates for 2021 due to Covid-19.

If you have any reimbursements for Term 1 and Term 2 can you please send them to: office@toko.school.nz asap. If you staff attended the Transition Day - Primary to Secondary on the 17th June you can claim the teacher release costs.

Leaders Meeting - 22nd July - AC - Cultural Capacity - Kathe Tawhiwhirangi

Ben Laybourn in Taranaki - 27th - 31st July

AP/DP PLD - 29th July - 1.00 - 4.30

Bek Galloway in Taranaki - 27th - 29th July

Emerging Leaders - 4th August

KLT Meeting - 11th August

Super Staff Meeting - 12th August

ECE PLD - 13th August

Bek Galloway in Taranaki -17th - 19th August / 24th - 27th August

Within School Teacher Meeting - 3rd September

Leaders Meeting - 10th September

Lead Principal - Kim Waite

Support Principals - Graham Sands/Fiona Green

Email: principal@toko.school.nz
Website: https://stratfordcol.wordpress.com/
Location: Central Taranaki
Phone: 0273483550