Ensuring the best for our rangatahi

By Maria Dunn, Principal, Mangakahia Area School

Education is about opportunities, about providing young people with the tools and skills to fill their kete (basket) with a whole lot of opportunity to navigate through a challenging and ever-changing world.

I have been in education for 23 years, most recently gaining a Principalship at Mangakahia Area School. As I reflect on the educational changes that have taken place over the past 23 years, whether as a teacher, middle leader, senior leader or principal, what remains the same is that education matters, and children matter. Crucially, creating an educational environment of equity and excellence for all learners continues to be challenging. In some respects, the issues and challenges we would like to tackle in education have remained the same for an extended period. We’re still discussing ways to empower our rangatahi, to provide adequate pastoral support and to ensure their wellbeing not just in the classroom, but that the wider community is being catered for. Equitable educational outcomes for all our students is the focus.

I believe in structures, systems and processes. But it’s about having a really clear vision. Why are we implementing these programmes? What do we currently see happening? It’s about identifying what is and isn’t working for our rangatahi. And that doesn’t necessarily mean starting from scratch, but identifying how we can add value, and enrich our systems to ensure the very best outcomes for our young people.

Building a collective identity

From the beginning of my time in education, I always thought secondary school was the place to be. But coming to Mangakahia Area School, I realised: what a wonderful opportunity. Area schools can truly be localised, and that’s a real strength.

What’s unique about area schools is that there’s opportunity to be fully engaged. You have ākonga from the time they’re nohinohi (little). This presents us with the opportunity to fully put that korowai around them and provide a robust, purposeful, and relevant curriculum for them. That’s what’s exciting for me. We’re sitting on a goldmine, and I think that’s yet to be fully tapped into.

Coming to the school, I wanted to capture the “low hanging fruit” straight away. From a kura which had so much whakamā (shame) in its past, I wanted to build pride, relevance and identity for students. On my second day, I made a point of addressing our uniform. Now we have beautiful uniform standards, and it’s a way of instilling pride in the cohort.

Additionally, we are a small school of 93 students, and we have a primary, intermediate and high school. I wondered, ‘why are they sitting in isolation from each other?’ I began thinking about ways of bringing the schools together. How could we create a community across schools? I began thinking about our shared spaces, and creating days of shared activities where the older students and the younger children were able to interact with each other.

The vision of a shared community across our primary, intermediate and high schools have also driven our staffing appointment decisions. We recently hired a teacher who brings expertise both in primary and secondary. Notwithstanding the importance of a thorough appointment process, we saw this as an opportunity to create continuity across the year groups. Here is an educator who understands the context from which older students come from, and the context which younger ākonga will mature into.