NZ Principal Magazine Term 2 2020

June 2020 Volume 35, Number 2

Cracking the COVID – as the COVID gets cracking Also

featuring

• Arts in the Time of COVID • NZPF Moot 2020 Summary

• COVID-19: a bump in the road or a new highway forward?

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CONTENTS

Editor Liz Hawes Executive Officer PO Box 25380 Wellington 6146 Ph: 04 471 2338 Email: Liz.Hawes@nzpf.ac.nz

June 2020

2 EDITORIAL Liz Hawes

Magazine Proof-reader Helen Kinsey-Wightman

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Editorial Board Perry Rush, NZPF President Geoff Lovegrove, Retired Principal, Feilding Liz Hawes, Editor

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PRESIDENT’S PEN

Perry Rush

Cracking the COVID – as the COVID gets cracking

Liz Hawes

Principals’ Voice Arts in the Time of COVID

Professor Peter O’Connor

32 NZPF Moot 2020 SUMMARY Liz Hawes

33 Kia hiwa rā Martin Thrupp

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Opinion – ‘COVID-19: a bump in the road or a new highway forward?’

Helen Kinsey-Wightman

New Zealand Principal is published

by Cervin Media Ltd on behalf of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation and is issued four times annually. For all enquiries regarding editorial contributions, please contact the editor.

We acknowledge the many schools that supplied photos of home-learning for this issue

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MAGAZINE

Principals’ Voice

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Editorial Liz Hawes

Editor

We know we are living in unprecedented times, when the In many cases the connections between home and school world’s media channels are completely consumed by one piece became stronger than ever. We were all in this together. As we of news. Coronavirus – COVID-19 has been headline news have seen before, during the Christchurch earthquakes, the Pike for the past three months. And rightly so.

River disaster and the Mosque shootings, The globe is experiencing a pandemic of teaching profession always rises to meet What we saw was the the exceptional proportions. World-wide, on a challenge. In a major crisis, school leaders 15 May 2020, the number of cases of the true partnership become the trusted community leaders. They virus is 4.48 million and according to the revert to their default position which is to World Health Organisation’s (WHO) figures, of schools and collaborate, to support and to care. We have 304,000 people have lost their lives. Country it again throughout this pandemic. their communities seen lockdowns and border closures have become In an effort to give every student an equal the global new normal along with economic in action. home learning experience, school chrome collapse. books, iPads, and notebooks were distributed Our experience in Aotearoa New Zealand has charted a similar to families without devices. The Ministry of Education also course to other countries. By March 25, we had recorded 100 assisted in the provision of internet connectivity and devices cases of COVID-19 and our Government directed our people where homes had neither. Whilst this gesture was hugely to hunker down at home for the next five weeks. That of course appreciated by the many families who benefitted, it was never meant the closure of all schools. possible to reach every household in need.

A bright ray of sunshine amidst this catastrophic background What the lockdown did was highlight the extent of our society’s has been the way educational professionals have responded. ongoing, long term inequities. It highlighted the level of child All New Zealand students were to do their learning at home. poverty, of overcrowding and the number of families where Stories of schools’ experiences, published in this issue, testify to children are not safe at home on a daily basis. the incredible humanity, care and moral purpose the teaching As we have seen in the wake of other disasters in our country, profession applied to this challenge. nothing stays the same. Christchurch is now rebuilding a new Health and wellbeing were central to every school’s home and very different city. In the wake of Pike River, work and safety learning plan and this consideration was extended to the whole requirements were revisited and a whole new set of regulations to school community. Multiple learning options were prepared at protect workers was established. After the Mosque shootings we lightning speed with unerring support and guidance from the radically changed our gun laws and as a nation we reached out Ministry of Education. to our Muslim communities. We embraced them and as a nation What we saw was the true partnership of schools and their became just a little more inclusive and tolerant of difference. communities in action. We witnessed food in schools shifted to There will be no ‘normal’ to return to after this pandemic. But food in homes – in many cases delivered by teachers and school it gives us an opportunity to do things differently. It gives us the staff in the form of ‘care packs’. We saw multiple communication chance to inject the humanity that has been central to our home channels established to cater for the different home circumstances learning plans, into our regular school curriculum. The kindness, including through websites, emails, texting, zoom meetings and the caring, the generosity, the team-work and the empathy shown for those without electronic connections, phone calls. throughout this extraordinary period of our history can all be There was a heightened awareness that some parents would harnessed to educate future generations to be healthier, more be working from home and some would be out on the front resilient, more humane, contributing citizens. line as essential workers. For some families it would be a stretch to cope with home learning supervision whilst also caring for The pandemic has also shown us the power of collective effort. pre-schoolers or elderly relatives and for many families their It took five million New Zealanders to fight this disease. Five previously reliable weekly income stream had completely dried million people working together for a common cause. It has been up. Thousands became newly unemployed or were on wage impressive. Imagine if those five million people, post-COVID, subsidies. set a country goal to eradicate societal inequity.

Principals and teachers took account of all these variables and set expectations to suit each family. Health and wellbeing of the It’s time. whole family remained central.

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President’s Pen Perry Rush

National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the true heart of principalship. As so often happens in times of crisis, the extraneous minutiae of the job have fallen away revealing the core of who we are. Crisis crystallises what is important.

Principals have shown gritty leadership. It has been impressive.

Principals demonstrating effectiveness in response to being asked to turn ‘schooling on a dime’, not once as we moved quickly to remote learning in level 4, but many times in quick succession as we moved to a hybrid approach with some students at school and some at home and then down the levels. We have needed to be nimble and responsive as we dealt with the vastly different and often difficult challenges put to us. Such changes to our national education system at such pace were unprecedented and principals led the way with aplomb.

Principals uniformly responded to the Prime Minister’s call to duty with a ‘can do’ attitude. There is no more impressive action than the willingness to stand-up as a leader and take responsibility to keep schools open prior to the lockdown in the face of mounting public concern about the spread of COVID-19 and to open them up again as we moved to level 3. In doing so, principals demonstrated courage and commitment to our service ethic. It is an ethic that applies as equally to our commitment to young people as it does to our commitment to help our country get up off its knees and start moving again. Principals demonstrated a preparedness to act in the interests of a greater good – our communities.

Principals acted with collegiality. Never have we experienced the flashover of sharing that took place as we grappled with what home-learning would look like. The generosity and helpfulness of principals over the holiday period prior to the start of term 2 and as the term progressed, was impressive.

Principals who deployed kindness and concern for their staff, students and communities. The organisation of food packs for families, the remote digital Friday social hour for staff, the support for vulnerable teachers to remain in remote settings are only a few of the responses supported by principals working to respond to the human impact of COVID-19.

Principals unfailing good humour and almost complete refusal to grizzle at the hard stuff-the complexity of what was being asked of them and the pace with which they were being asked to work.

And finally, the celebration of teamship, of what it means to be part of a community of leaders confronted with tough challenges.

We have experienced a building of a collective consciousness about the power and authority of principalship. We have done so with grace and good humour. I have never seen as many memes circulated online all of which had the effect of enabling us to chuckle at the extraordinary daily challenges we were confronting

and the extraordinary circumstances we were experiencing.

But perhaps the most significant learning of this period of COVID-19 crisis has been observing the alchemy of practicebased principalship. We have experienced a renewed sense that the ‘buck stops’ with principals – our role during this crisis has required sharp decision-making and a ‘take charge’ attitude. This sort of ‘commanding’ leadership is not often experienced in our profession. We are well-versed with collaborative and collegial leadership, we embrace ‘flat’ leadership approaches and see our jobs as enabling others to grow in their leadership. While appropriate, this can have the effect of diluting our collective memory of the authority of principalship. The past months have shown that when direct and decisive leadership was called for, principals delivered.

We must build this renewed sense of authority into our

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collective professional psyche. We have proven that in a devolved and localised system of education it is possible to be connected to each other with strong horizontal principal networks and that these networks serve to deepen the practice-based knowledge of principals. We have also proven that, when called upon, the expertise and authority of principals comes to the fore. We have a job to now build on and nurture these powerful but fledgling realities to ensure they grow and strengthen the practice of education.

We have experienced decades of big government in New Zealand. This is government that involves itself in setting conditions in schooling that control the professional practice of educators. Governments often need reminding that they serve ‘the people’ not the other way around. Our job as professional educators is to advocate from our unique position of authority to ensure schooling is supported by government policy that reflects what is needed to succeed for every learner.

The cut and thrust of dealing with government of any stripe will always require principals to judge policy against our practicebased expertise. We support policy that enables a vision of education that is emancipatory for diversity – for every learner to be supported in their own development trajectory. We will oppose every policy that narrows, limits and controls teaching and learning in ways that damage that vision.

Exercising a renewed sense of authority in a principled manner and in a way that is unequivocal is the new normal.

We anticipate no backward step. The COVID-19 crisis has caused a renaissance in our leadership. We will build on what we have learned and become even more effective as leaders of education in our wonderful country.

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CRACKING THE COVID – AS THE CO Liz Hawes

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Editor

January 2020. Lead stories in New Zealand included that Australia was burning out of control; Our concert radio fans were fighting to retain their musical fix and ardent royalists were reeling from the bombshell news that the Duke & Duchess of Sussex were retiring as senior royals. Throngs of carefree holiday makers surfed the waves and soaked up the last days of fun in the sun before returning to work.

Meanwhile, some 10,000 kilometres away, a novel coronavirus most vile was stretching its tentacles uncontrollably through the city of Wuhan, in the Hubai province of China. The coronavirus

connected world, there was no escaping the rapacious appetite of COVID-19 to colonise the respiratory systems of homo sapiens, no matter their location, their status or race. It was completely egalitarian in nature and cared not which continent or country became its home.

By the end of January, New Zealand had already set up a National Health Coordination Centre (NHCC) and all Health Boards were ordered to report any cases of the virus. On February 3, it was announced that foreign travellers out of China, including international students, would be denied entry to New Zealand.

would be identified as COVID-19.

It was late December 2019 when the virus was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Chinese authorities indicated they believed it to be controllable. That prediction could not have been further from reality.

The Chinese health system was rocked by shockwaves as it struggled helplessly to contain the tsunami of admissions. A shortage of medical tests meant many affected were undiagnosed and overstretched hospitals could not accommodate the sick. To top it off, guidance from the Government was unclear at best and contradictory at worst.

The only measure to quell this extraordinary health crisis was to impose a lockdown not just in Wuhan, but across the country.

China was sent home.

It was all too late. COVID had already bolted. Within four months the virus had galloped through 184 countries forcing nationwide lockdowns across the globe. Normally bustling cities became ghost towns as the shutters were pulled on businesses world-wide, and workers retreated to lock-down at home. One by one, countries began closing their borders to overseas travellers and many were shut completely. March 11, 2020, the WHO officially declared the outbreak a pandemic.

Aotearoa New Zealand was the 48th country to be affected.

Already we had witnessed, the surge of cases right across China and wider Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Central America. With increasing concern, we realised, in our globally

Only New Zealand citizens and permanent residents could reenter, and all New Zealanders overseas were urged to come home.

It was not until February 28, 2020 that our first case was reported and hard on the heels of this revelation, the Government closed our borders to all people travelling from Iran – the likely source of our first victim’s infection. By Thursday 19 March, New Zealand’s borders were closed to all except returning citizens who would be forced to self-isolate for 14 days. Later, this requirement would change to ‘Government directed quarantine’.

It was March 21, when our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, made her first ever address to the nation and outlined the strategy to fight the virus. The plan was a four-tier alert system.

As a country, we were now urged to be vigilant about washing hands and observing social distancing rules. All those over 70 years of age or with compromised immunity were advised to stay at home. New Zealand was now at level 2 of the alert system.

Overseas travel was found to be the common factor in all New Zealand cases, up to March 23, when the first cases of community transmission were confirmed. That was the point at which Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashleigh Bloomfield, moved the country into Alert Level 3.

Within two days, as case numbers climbed to over 100, a State of Emergency was declared and the country moved to Alert Level 4.

Lock down began. The message from our Prime Minister was clear and simple. ‘Stay home, save lives.’ ‘Be calm, be kind, stay home. We can break the chain.’

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VID GETS CRACKING

This was an extraordinary moment in our history. Never had the entire country been sent home to lock down. As we had witnessed in other countries, our cities and towns were silenced.

Only essential workers, including supermarkets, continued to provide services.

Legislation to allow extraordinary powers for Government, Civil Defence and Police were quickly passed. Police could now caution and arrest those breaking the lock down rules. Very few broke the rules and Police viewed their role as educative rather than punitive.

In this climate of fear and panic the inevitable stocking up on supermarket goods ensued, with many supermarkets struggling to keep pace with demand.

Swathes of empty shelves and signs limiting customers to ‘one-per-person’ became the norm, as supermarket staff worked around the clock to restock shelves. One inexplicable outcome was a country-wide run on toilet paper!

A more easily explained shortage was flour – clearly there would be baking sprees during lockdown. Home baked bread would become a popular choice and many examples, successful and otherwise, would be shared on social media channels.

Ironically, as families hunkered down in their ‘bubbles’ – the new term for the group we would live with for the next month – the feeling we had become a whānau of five million with a single mission, grew. As one, we all tuned into the daily 1pm COVID Update from Prime Minister, Ardern and Director-General of Health, Dr Ashleigh Bloomfield. Before COVID-19, Dr Bloomfield was relatively unknown. Within a few weeks of lock down, he had become a cult figure. A song, shared widely on social media, was created in his honour and tote bags were designed, bearing his image.

Dr Bloomfield introduced us to a whole new set of concepts, including bubbles, social distancing – we must at all times on our supermarket run, remain two metres from any other person – contact tracing, clusters of virus and what that meant, transmission of the virus and why the rules were so important.

We were instructed in hand washing, how far a sneeze can travel and why we must sneeze or cough into our elbow. He provided a daily update on the numbers infected, probably infected, those hospitalised and those in intensive care. He also announced our daily death toll from the virus.

He was the man we came to trust as fervently as our own grandmother. He gave us the facts in simple language, interpreted the numbers and answered questions with the clarity of cut crystal. Prime Minister, Ardern, similarly communicated her messages in a way that gave us confidence and persuaded us to get on board with the drive to eliminate this deadly virus.

We knew that the virus could not be completely eradicated until a suitable vaccine was found, but we would do the next best thing by reducing the number infected to the lowest of single figures and implement a system to successfully trace the contacts of any infected person.

We enthusiastically bought into this health goal and obediently observed the rules of social distancing when out for exercise or shopping at supermarkets.

Otherwise we stayed at home.

Homes across the country became places of endless creativity. Every week our TV stations ran competitions for the most inventive dances, ball tricks, backyard constructions and elaborate indoor obstacle courses – the nation was unwittingly being educated in time and motion studies.

Social media ran rife with jokes and memes that were shared many times over with friends and family. Grandparents learned to work the Facetime app, facebook and messenger services. Creatives wrote lyrics reflecting our new normal, which were put to old favourite tunes and performed on YouTube and other social media platforms. Thousands of culinary delights and new-found hobbies were shared. Gardens were planted and long forgotten DIY house repairs and painting jobs were completed.

There were walks and cycle rides close to home, and a new appreciation of the local environment. Easter holidays came and went without a single road death. Streets were pollution free from the absence of cars and industrial activities. Fantails and other native birds began to colonise the empty city walkways, trees and gardens. People found a platform to express their feelings: ‘No matter how much time I have, I will not spend it folding washing’. ‘The supermarket is more thrilling than I ever thought.’ Above all we discovered the value and importance of connecting with people. He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata. What is the most important thing in the world? It is people.

But lockdown wasn’t a load of laughs for everyone. For many, the already disadvantaged became more so. As unemployment

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numbers grew so did the need for social assistance. Food banks were overwhelmed with requests and the Government stepped in to support agencies and charities struggling to meet demand.

With food programmes in schools coming to a halt, there were fears many children would be missing out on basic meals.

There were also fears for the health and wellbeing of those suffering mental illness and those who found the lock down stressful and traumatic. Health and disabilities agencies were stretched to meet the influx.

Thousands of workers now had no income. For some, their jobs would disappear altogether. The formerly lucrative tourism industry was brought to its knees. These were surreal times and there was no rule book. The Government stepped up to provide billions of dollars in wage subsidies to keep workers afloat. More billions were injected to save businesses and plans were made for major Government investment in infrastructure projects to proceed as soon as the lock down was over.

There was no doubt that after lock down, the world would be facing an economic crisis of unprecedented proportions for some years to come.

Amidst these concerns, the Government and Dr Bloomfield kept us on course and determinedly focused on stamping out the virus. The message from Prime Minister Ardern was again clear. The health and wellbeing of New Zealanders comes first, or we have no possibility of economic recovery.

By May 6, 2020, COVID-19 had infected 1,488 New Zealanders and 21 people had died of the virus. Globally, 3.66 million had been infected and 257,000 had died.

Along with the lock down came the closure of all schools.

Only once in our history had schools ever been closed in New

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Zealand and that was during the 1947 – 49 polio epidemic. At the start of 1948, schools did not open and remained closed until after Easter of that year. All children were assigned to lessons by correspondence, administered by the Correspondence School.

This time, schools would provide home learning for the nation’s young people. There was no time to waste. Principals and teachers stepped up and set free every neuron of creativity they could muster. They found ways to communicate with their young people at home. Kids would meet up with their classmates and teachers through their laptop or by phone call. They created learning tasks to cover as much of the curriculum as possible and crafted the learning so that parents at home would manage and not be overwhelmed. Above all, they took account of the health and wellbeing of their families.

The Ministry of Education took the lead in supporting the efforts of schools, creating two television channels, assembling thousands of sets of learning resources for distribution to homes and providing thousands of homes with internet connectivity and devices. It was a herculean effort.

The Ministry of Education was also the conduit of information from the Director General of Health to the Education sector.

Regular updates were sent out to principals, guidelines for the different Alert levels were outlined and all communicated with clarity. It was a masterful display of coordination, planning and execution.

Different regions and communities experienced home learning differently. This issue now gives voice to principals from across the country who tell their own stories of their own experiences of lock down and their preparations for home learning.

Principals’ Voice Lysandra Stuart, Glenbrook School and President of the Franklin Principals’ Association Within hours, on March 23rd, Franklin schools prepared to close for an historic and unprecedented event. Immediately our principals, as a collective, led from the front.

Across the Franklin region we had great support from our colleagues.

Being able to talk through plans and thinking with each other, gave us confidence and reassurance in our own actions. There is no rivalry amongst Franklin principals. We shared plans, policies, advice, practical activities and strategies along with wellbeing checks. There was plenty of humour thrown in too.

The dialogue and support that was shared leading up to and during lockdown has been reassuring. The management and administrative approaches that were shared were a good resource bank to draw on so that we could hone our own school plans and policies when dealing with this pandemic. For our beginning principals it was comforting to have resources and support. We have been able to share concerns, ideas, successes and failures. Sharing and checking of proposals, resources and interpretation of Ministry advice has been important. Everyone was on the same page and agreed that leaders should do what is best for their school and community, without judgement. The Franklin Principals’ Association was there to support, assist, listen and care. ‘We are all in the same storm even if we are in different waka’.

Our schools were well organised considering the short turn-around time. Every school took account of their community. Hard copy packs were sent home, digital platforms and school websites for home learning were set up so that parents were well informed, as much as the students. Social media has played an integral role for many schools in keeping connected.

Whānau connected with each other and the school.

Our teachers and support staff across Franklin have been incredible. The ethic and duty of their ‘care lens’ has been proactive, professional and always, ‘How can I help?’. This includes our relievers. Everyone wanted to do what was necessary for the community and the country, with honesty, transparency and integrity.

We were conscious of the environment for our staff and students at home, which affirms our own pedagogical culture about knowing and understanding all our learners and their context. Staff appreciated and valued the verbal check ins, online korero and zui, and clear specific direction from leadership week

by week throughout the lockdown. Ensuring we shared next steps reduced anxiety and unnecessary worry for all. Regular communication was essential. The pandemic had gifted us time as a staff, so we have recently been able to use that time to strengthen our pedagogical position on learner agency as a collaborative collective.

Our teachers are amazing. They have shown leadership, innovation and support for each other. They have led by example as problem solvers, presenters, designers and collaborators. They rallied together to work as a tight knit team. Many schools were well on with their digital teaching and learning journey but some teachers have said the lockdown has really made them upskill fast!

It was exciting to be able to use the time for teachers to work collaboratively on how we incorporate technology more effectively, to share learner agency with families and strengthen our teaching time. We have been able to connect with the whole family which we could not do before because of other commitments such as duty, meetings and travel. Our families can engage in real time now as a group and learn together. The transparency and opportunity to engage as a learning community has been very exciting.

Families have reaffirmed that learning happens in different ways all around us and we as schools are able to celebrate and acknowledge that. Schools with technology have had a huge advantage technologically and we hope this inequitable issue can be solved.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the inequities across our communities and district. The inequities include access to economic, social and technological benefits and there are inequities in the capabilities of our people. Other inequities are space and the environment staff and learners are confined in. Many school staff have worked with families to support home learning based upon what families can cope with and what families want to do. There has been no pressure to have to learn or have to join in. The key message has been to do what works for the ‘Bubble’ in your home.

In preparing for home learning, some of the challenges Glenbrook School and other Franklin schools in our region faced included how to connect with those students and whānau we couldn’t reach. There was a small group that some of our schools could not connect with during Lockdown, some of those being low socio-economic and in very rural areas. Distributing devices from our rural schools by courier delivery was challenging, along with delays in deliveries.

Staff continuously identified learning and emotional needs for students and support for parents which also included pastoral and welfare care. Some Principals supported their communities by organising food drives, being a contact for families during times N Z Principal | J u n e 2 0 2 0

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of stress and speaking to students to defuse home environments.

Different homes had different expectations of home learning.

No matter how hard we tried to keep our messages consistent about wellbeing, being together as a family and not allowing home learning to cause stress or anxiety, in some homes the expectation was that children will be learning as if it was a normal 9-3 school day. Franklin schools made no judgements and supported the kaupapa of that home. The learning packages which the Ministry of Education sent our families were well appreciated and students especially loved receiving a package

with whānau. In other schools online lessons were welcomed as a break from the Bubble and were also a chance for small group learning. It was an opportunity where whānau could engage to see how learning occurs in our school and we received enormous positive feedback to the teaching and learning styles of our learners. We were always conscious that we were manuhiri in the homes of our whānau.

Across our Franklin schools, we were grateful for help offered by our Learning Support Coordinators (LSC), RTLBs, Public Health Nurse, Social Workers in Schools and PLD providers

that was specifically addressed to them. For many students this was the first time they had received anything in the mail!

A further challenge was ensuring the wellbeing of our various teaching staff who were managing their workloads in complex environments. For some staff, it was challenging teaching and managing parent responsibilities. However this gave a place of understanding to what was occurring in other homes.

Lockdown in New Zealand also highlighted opportunity.

Many families have written to share the whānau moments they achieved that had not been possible before because of work and other commitments. Being together has been a valuable gift. Students have emailed and shared all the things they do with their family as a family. As a school we have responded, encouraged and celebrated this whanaungatanga. Our families have loved being together.

For others it has been a time of stress and uncertainty, especially in homes where employment has ceased, adults are essential workers or parents are trying to work through the day at home. This stress will have indirectly affected students.

Students in blended families or custody arrangements have also been affected to varying degrees. For some it has been the school which has been the place families have turned to. These situations have highlighted the phenomenal capabilities our principals and leaders have to support those families from their own homes.

The effects of the lockdown on wellbeing and mental health were different depending on the home environment, the family dynamics and the child’s personality. Some of our families are vulnerable. Houses are overcrowded and there are alcohol, drug and violence issues which impact on students. As we return to school, it is this hauora we will all be focused on through wellbeing, physical movement, play and expression through the Arts.

Franklin Schools had a range of online learning activities and hard material tasks. At home, parents have done their best to assist each school’s provision. In one school a parent of a young child asked to be sent an ID sheet on dyslexia because her child wrote some letters the wrong way round today! Students were well supported by their teachers. There was no expectation of online lessons in some schools, and staff regularly checked in

to assist in any way. We regularly had offers of help from the Ministry of Education and other providers and agencies but had to be careful that we were not overwhelmed by having too many options to consider. We were grateful that support agencies took referrals from Principals when we knew homes needed food and welfare checks.

Schools have delivered support parcels as needed and supported students with wellbeing concerns via the phone.

Parent Portals, social media and emails have been used for weekly updates and some schools have daily posts to share what families across our school community have been doing. Teachers made ‘how to videos’, reading and music videos. Anything we could do, to connect with our students and whānau.

The importance of Principals’ Associations for supporting each other in what is an isolating and demanding role has been crucial and highlights the need for such associations. With so many other networks pulling at us for their kaupapa, Kahui Ako, PLD providers, Ministry of Education, Unions and agencies, The Principals’ Associations become even more important as a group to safely share, as a colleague, ask for assistance or just have a laugh.

NZPF members have valued the direction in which Perry Rush (NZPF President) has encouraged our own well-being during this crisis. By checking on our own wellbeing, principals have been able to offer greater support and strength to their teams and communities.

There are many positives to take from this journey through the unknown. Staff have shown strengths, resilience and faith.

Families are reconnecting and we are showing manaakitanga, as a nation and as a local community.

As a profession, the mana and manaakitanga of schools has been central to the continuing duty of care we have. Whilst there have been challenges and uncertainties, there have also been opportunities, celebrations and successes. These have highlighted the importance of key competencies, acknowledging the role whānau have as partners in learning and the qualities and skills of all our staff. There is also an opportunity here to focus on what we as a school community see as important and value, and to discard educational relics which hold us back.

NZ Principal | June 2 0 2 0

Leadership is a collective responsibility and I, like many others, am certainly privileged to be a leader in an environment like New Zealand.

Julie Henderson, Eastern Hutt School Although there are many positives, there were also challenges putting together home learning plans.

There are schools within our cluster that have families with several devices in the home, and there are a considerable number of families where the only device may be a cell phone. For many families, English is a second language and so communication has been a challenge, and there are families who NZEI Te Riu Roa, photographer Mark Coote have children with special learning needs who may normally have a teacher aide supporting them.

Putting together the home learning plan wasn’t too difficult except for the brief time we had to prepare. We chose an ‘Eastern Hutt School (EHS) at Home Learning’ grid that was sent home at the beginning of each week, with the seniors having a daily grid. We had begun planning in the week before lockdown and were already having a staff meeting on the day the Prime Minister announced the lockdown. Our criteria for planning for learning was that it had to be accessible, achievable, engaging, fun and maybe inclusive, meaning a brother or sister could

share the learning task. The grids allowed tamariki and whānau, to complete at ‘their pace’. Learning at home, didn’t necessarily equate to ‘online learning’. For us, it meant learning at home, that was sometimes ‘online learning’.

We ensured there was a similar approach across the school.

Keeping tasks simple and open was key for this to be successful in homes where parents were supporting more than one child, managing their own work at home, either with no device or limited devices.

We kept to Google Classroom for our senior classes and used Seesaw across the school. Connecting was through Google Meets with many classes having ‘table group’ meets and allowing the tamariki to chat with each other. They loved that!

Many of our local schools took similar approaches and used a cross-curriculum planning grid that tamariki could select from. For many of the senior students, Google Classroom was a platform for learning that they already used within the classroom anyway.

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well-being for everyone in their communities, tamariki, whānau and staff. The Ministry of Education supplied many sources of information but it was important to be selective in what was being shared and to not overwhelm parents with information.

Teachers connecting either by group or 1-1 has been vital to maintaining relationships and that sense of belonging for tamariki.

With the teaching staff, everyone has their own back story relating to their personal lives that you, as principal, may or may not know about therefore they respond practically and emotionally in different ways. Several of our staff are in the ‘health risk’ category which causes anxiety for them facing

where there was a bird flying around in the background! There has been such an opportunity for student agency, creativity and innovation and open ended tasks have provided lots of surprises!

Our teachers are already reflecting and discussing what they can take from this into the classroom when students return.

Obviously whānau who don’t have devices are limited but we have ensured that the learning tasks are not all required to be completed online or using online programmes. Some of our ELL (English as second language) families have struggled and our ELL teacher has been closely involved with them. Whānau who have tamariki with additional learning needs also struggle but the RTLBs have been checking in on them and that contact

the ‘unknown’ and ‘what ifs’. Some are single parenting, supporting elderly parents and one has experienced both a family bereavement and a parent in hospital who they have been unable to visit. These are their stories and all of this adds another layer of anxiety and stress, while managing their current home lives, looking after their own families, supporting their children with their learning, and planning for the learning of their class.

As a leader, it is important to be mindful of the impact of these situations on individuals, being aware of their circumstances, and knowing that people will respond in different ways. Being empathetic, flexible and being aware of the bigger picture means we can adjust plans accordingly. We had a plan for ensuring we were checking in on staff throughout this time.

As with teachers, every whānau has their own story. Their work and home life has altered significantly. Some whānau are in a stronger position to support their child’s learning than others.

Our teachers have been diligent in connecting with all whānau in various ways. We have made sure the learning tasks are open, so tamariki can achieve at their level and some are flying! We responded to the Ministry of Education survey for learning materials and devices for some of our whānau but on return to level 3, we also prepared EHS Home Learning Packs and they have been delivered today by staff who aren’t supervising bubbles.

I have heard some heart-warming stories about children lighting up on seeing a teacher and receiving their EHS packs with a brand new set of pencils! They know our teachers are thinking about them and care about them – that is special!

Amidst all of this there have also been new opportunities to enjoy, such as being able to connect without distraction! Some of the Google Meets have been quite focussed and easier for some of our tamariki who usually find it difficult – apart from the one

has been valued.

Our cluster wasn’t allocated Learning Support Coordinators, so we did not have support from them in developing our plans.

We adopted the attitude expressed by the NZPF President, Perry Rush which was to, ‘roll up our sleeves and just get on with it’.

The Ministry of Education has done an incredible job in a short space of time and their work has supplemented what the school has done.

The Ministry of Education prepared hard packs, 2 TV channels and online learning to support home learning. The issue was how quickly they could be delivered, as it was a massive roll out. Also, the school would be assisting whānau in how to utilise them.

Many of our schools were way down the list for any deliveries.

For us, our communication to our families has always been about using the TV Channel to supplement what teachers had put in their plans.

We are very aware that whānau will be handling the stress of lockdown differently and for some tamariki there will be a lot of anxiety about this ‘big scary thing’ which they can’t fully comprehend at their age. At level 3, we recognise that tamariki are coming into school to ‘bubbles’ that will mean different teachers, different ‘bubble mates’ and a different class space. They have also been in lockdown with their whānau for so long and now separating from them in a time that we are doing things so differently is a big transition. We are making their Bubbles relaxed and the teacher is supporting their ‘EHS at Home Learning’ like their classmates at home, with plenty of ‘brain breaks’ and some mindfulness activities.

In our case we were lucky to be able to learn from the Chinese experience first-hand. Our Deputy Principal had colleagues working in International Schools in China who had experienced

NZ Principal | June 2 0 2 0

lockdown for over 7 weeks. We were able to take some learning from their experience which was that there was high quality engagement in the first couple of weeks and then this waned.

What was most important was connecting with the students and providing opportunities for them to connect with each other.

We have found this to be our experience too. Our tamariki love the 1-1 Google Meets with their teacher and a parent, the ‘group meets’ and our Year 2 tried a ‘Year 2 Google Meet’ with lots of tamariki which was exciting for them. Feedback has been mostly very positive from whānau, despite a few technical glitches at the beginning. The majority complete their tasks in the mornings and in the afternoons were free to play and exercise!

I know there were mixed views about returning to school under Level 3. There is a risk but it is a low risk. There are families that need to go to work and it is our job to help enable that. As the Prime Minister has said, we are a ‘team of 5 million’. Health and other essential workers are out there, and we must join them.

Saying goodbye to our tamariki on the day of the Lockdown announcement was a significant day for us and moving into level 3 will also be significant as we have 6 Bubbles arriving to work in a different environment and in a different way to when they left. We will always remember this!

NZPF President Perry Rush’s weekly newsletters got to the heart of it every time. They were about the care of ‘people’ and keeping it ‘real’. We agree.

Jason Swann, Otahuhu Primary School, Auckland Initially every school in NZ needed to put together a learning plan quickly that would cater for the multiple levels and needs of our students. It brought together a real sense of enhanced collegiality and team work. I was very grateful and proud of our staff and Board at Otahuhu Primary School and our extended New Zealand Pasifika Principals’ Association members who immediately shared what they were doing, including their thinking, so that we were all in a position to consider a wide range of options and resources. Our staff, as many other schools experienced, continued their ‘can do’ and solution focussed attitude towards challenges and set about creating learning packs both as hard copy learning packs and as online links via our school website. We then communicated with our parent community that these packs were available for pick up and proceeded to give out hundreds of these.

Our first learning packs were targeted at current learning topics and reinforcing learning. Our digital links were then developed so that students were able to access these and continue to learn at their own level. Within the packs we included health tips to keep safe and how to use their home environment to learn. Our staff have been accessing information from a variety of resources that have appeared via digital platforms to inform content for our student learning.

There are more than a dozen staff who are not available to be on school site during Alert Levels 3 & 4. This has meant that we have needed to communicate in a variety of ways. Zoom has been our primary form of meeting and keeping up to date with each other. Staff have really enjoyed catching up and seeing how everyone is and continuing to develop what we are currently

doing. I have needed to be aware of each staff member’s situation and being able to cater for this whilst keeping everyone informed and feeling safe and supported.

There is a wide range of effects on our whānau. There is the ability to access online digital platforms but immediately, this separates opportunities for our community. There is the impact of the financial effect that our whānau have to contend with.

Many are essential workers, many others are unable to work due to COVID restrictions and yet others have had a change in employment situation due to COVID. This then has presented new issues for whānau to consider and attend to.

This pandemic and home learning has given us an opportunity to explore the different platforms that are available to deliver learning and what this can potentially look like. It has also provided a platform for schools, associations, Ministry of Education, clusters and colleagues to share more frequently what they are doing with the intent that we are all trying to make someone else’s job easier. Students and families have also appreciated the effort being applied to ensure that learning is taking place and the different ways that it is being delivered.

I feel that COVID has highlighted the equity gap. When you look at the ability for families to have digital devices and connectivity as one aspect of the equity gap it is very pronounced.

Some students are very comfortable learning on their own device, some students need to share devices and some students have no access to a device. A survey of our parents showed us that some families are counting their device as a parent’s mobile phone, which in turn needs to be shared amongst several siblings for learning. This in turn is using mobile phone data as there is no household internet connectivity, which many of us take for granted.

I have been impressed with the level and speed of support that has been offered by many, but particularly the Ministry of Education and the bulletin from the Secretary for Education, Iona Holsted. I have also been impressed with the kindness and empathy from everyone I have encountered as we all work towards achieving successful outcomes for our students, their families and in turn our society. There has been a wide range of online learning resources offered by companies and educational institutions that have been very welcome. The Ministry has delivered learning packs to our students and the online and TV

N Z Principal | J u n e 2 0 2 0

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learning resources have been excellent. One of these successful resources has been our Talanoa Ako online programme which is presented through 531PI and the Pacific Media Network. This programme has been delivered in different Pacific languages for our Pacific communities to continue their understanding of the COVID situation and extending learning for our students and families. Another initiative has been our Tautai o le Moana programme that supports school principals to keep in mind a Pasifika worldview when delivering learning and decisionmaking. This has been very successful in our Auckland and Wellington principal clusters. This learning has continued online for our principals.

As previously noted, the Ministry resources are very welcome to enhance the learning taking place at home. But once again, it depends on the family situation and ability to access. The equity gap is highlighted again in this scenario. It is important that there is a variety of learning opportunities available for students but one of the important issues for many who do not have equitable opportunities is – how do students who do not have digital devices or such access, research the learning they are completing? Their ability to explore this may be limited by the knowledge in their COVID home bubble.

Wellbeing and mental health is very important and different situations are contributing to different scenarios for different whānau. Financially, there has been a wide variety of different effects that families have had to contend with. Finding support and navigating the unknown, places stress on families. As a school we try to support and mitigate these as best we can in conjunction with our families. It really becomes a team effort so that everyone can succeed. It relates to the village effect and not the individual trying to succeed. If the village succeeds, we all reap the benefits.

We have been engaging with our students and families via phone, Facebook, school website, email, text messages and online learning platforms such as Zoom, class dojo and Seesaw, to name a few. Communications have been individual and in groups.

This has helped us keep in contact and continue to foster our relationships and our love of learning.

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NZ Principal | June 2 0 2 0

We are confident that we will have our school ready for the safe return of our students when that happens. We have protocols and procedures in place, as many other schools do, that adhere to the guidelines provided by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health. We will be working within our classroom bubbles and student entry and exit from school will be tightly managed to ensure safety. Our cleaning staff have been working diligently to ensure our school is ready.

I would like to thank all our colleagues and those supporting education for their support in all we do. I have been very thankful that as a nation we are able to be solution focussed (number 8 wire mentality) and are able to get on with what is in front of us. Yes, we may have a variety of opinions on how best to get where we need to go, but we’re all in it together and will get there – for sure!

Rosina Wikaira, Homai School, Manurewa Knowing that there was a possibility of Ne w Z e a l an d g oi n g i nt o lockdown because of the COVID-19 coronavirus, a community survey was conducted to ascertain what support would be required for homelearning to succeed in the home.

The response from our families and whānau was alarming – but not surprising considering the socioeconomic status of our community.

Almost 70 per cent of our families lack suitable devices for online learning and many are without internet connection. This in itself posed a challenge for our families to connect to any online learning. The best way to support our students with learning in the home was preparing a 1 month home-learning pack to cater for their needs and wellbeing.

Our amazing staff were able to organise these packs and deliver them to homes the day before lockdown began.

This challenge was mirrored across our wider community with many families lacking adequate learning devices and no internet connection, so home-learning packs were sent out community-wide.

Many principals & teacher leaders collaborated, shared ideas and supported one another to ensure our home-learning plans were suitable and effective in these extraordinary times. Our number one focus is always the health and wellbeing of our learners and COVID-19, strengthened our resolve to do more for our community and ensure they were well supported in their homes for learning to take place.

We have an incredible staff, who have gone over and beyond the call of duty for our students and families. They are resilient and want nothing but the best for their learners. Many of them have their own children and are doing their best to balance their home life with working from home. Before the lockdown some of our staff were in isolation due to their age, pregnancy, a partner who had travelled overseas and other vulnerabilities and still they continued to support their learners from their homes.

During the lockdown they have kept in touch with students and their families assuring them that we are still here and care for them. This is because at Homai School we see ourselves as one big whānau. Our physical environment may have changed but our relationships with our students and whānau haven’t. This has provided a sense of relief and care to our whānau knowing

we are only a call or text message away. Our website has been constantly updated each week to keep our families and whānau engaged and up to date with what we as a school are doing to make home-learning an easy process.

My role as their leader is to keep my staff well informed and updated each week and to assure them that we are doing the very best possible for our students and families. We meet via Zoom to share how we are coping in our bubbles, make sure we are looking after our health and wellbeing and to share any celebrations like birthdays, anniversaries etc. This keeps everything light and stops us stressing about what’s happening around us – even if it is for just a short time.

We see our parents as their children’s first teacher. There are many teachings in the home that complement the teachings in school, such as cultural, spiritual and emotional experiences.

Although many of our parents may feel that they are inadequate to provide learning like numeracy, science or technology, we have collaborated with them to use cooking, cleaning, dancing to music as part of their child’s home-learning plan. They have been incredibly supportive and together we continue to be partners in the teaching and learning of their children in the home.

At school, we share students’ lived experiences in the classroom. Home-learning has provided the opportunity for us as leaders and teachers, to be invited into our families and whānau homes, sharing learning with their children. As we (school &

home) work together to provide learning in the home, we are strengthening our school-home partnership, building stronger relationships which are key to successful learning outcomes and learner well-being.

The equity gap has been the biggest barrier for many of our families and whānau. Just trying to provide devices and some kind of connection has been a struggle, but this is nothing compared to our families trying to cope with putting food on their tables, providing a warm home and keeping up with their utility bills, etc. This has been, and will continue to be a trying time for everyone and as teachers, educators and schools, we can only do so much to meet their needs. Thankfully there have been some great community groups out there supporting our families with food parcels, which is a great start.

Our emails have been inundated with so many on-line learning/distance learning programmes, plans and options. The key for our school is to continue to provide our learners with learning that is ‘our Homai norm’. The only difference is our physical environment. Our teachers are sharing links to support everyday life learning that our students can and will relate to. Our very own LSC and SENCO leaders are continually working with teachers, students and their whānau to support learning in the home for our special needs learners, ngā taonga.

The support from the Ministry of Education has been a Godsend. Their home-learning plans have been crucial to our families and whānau who don’t have devices and internet

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connection. They have filled the gap that we as schools could not.

They provided devices, more learning packs, television coverage and WIFI connections. Our families and staff have been truly grateful for their ongoing support, during these testing times.

Our students are very resilient and can adapt to any situation that comes their way. I know that many will take each day in their stride and cope.

Other students may find things difficult, especially our ‘taonga’ (special/ learning needs students), who are used to routines, structure and won’t be able to understand why they cannot go to school. This will put a lot of stress on our families, trying to teach their child/ren to cope with change.

We are using a variety of platforms to engage with our students and families.

Facebook seems to be the most popular for our parents followed by phone. For those with internet and devices, Zoom and Google are being well used for connectivity. Our school website has also been a consistent space for community wide sharing of information and keeping our parents and whānau up to date.

When it comes to returning to school, I think we would be pushing to try and get our schools cleaned and prepped for opening within 2 days as there is so much to be done both inside and outside of our schools. We also need to ensure that our staff are well prepared for teaching at level 3 and that they feel safe and protected on their return.

On our return to school at level 3 many of our schools will not be fully staffed as we have so many teachers and support staff with a variety of circumstances in their own bubbles that would put them or students at risk healthwise. Having said that, we will work to manage with a skeleton staff, and will provide the best we can in these circumstances.

Bruce Jepsen, Te Akau ki Pāpāmoa Primary School, Tauranga and NZPF Executive Member The COVID-19 pandemic crisis had been known for some time and New Zealand already had its first cases.

Inevitably we would be moving up the Alert levels, so we prepared early for the lock down. Our challenge was to get all school devices insured and indemnity forms signed and we dispatched all iPads into homes within two days. The devices would be a key factor in our home learning plans.

Papamoa principals worked well in collaboration with each other and Te Akau ki Pāpāmoa school offered free PLD to teachers right across Aotearoa to help them develop their distance learning plans. Local principals in the Papamoa area collaborated via Zoom to ensure communications from all schools to whānau, were consistent within the rohe.

Our school prioritises hauora and it is important to acknowledge that staff and students have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in different ways. When considering teaching & learning expectations for both staff and students, we have taken this into account. We have teachers who are parenting

at home and at the same time teaching from home. These are the realities. Communication with teachers and with students is very important to ensure teachers are not overburdened and students stay engaged in their learning. That means our communications must be timely, clear and open, and allow teachers the time to process new information.

Since whānau would be supporting our students at home, we made sure they were also well supported. That is why we provided 1:1 technology (iPad) EDA (Equitable digital Access) and all our teachers are qualified Apple teachers. We deliver teaching & learning via Seesaw and can monitor student engagement as well as engage whānau to support them in real time.

Our school has an established Tūhono (Connectedness) model which considers all aspects of supporting tamariki and whānau.

The ‘Know Me Before You Teach Me’ school mantra laid a strong foundation for teachers to consider how they would personalise their approach for our tamariki so we took the opportunity to build on already established relationships.

Examples of teaching and learning for sharing and collaboration are shared and can be viewed via twitter #remotelearningtakp The COVID pandemic has identified the huge inequity within NZ education. The ‘Haves and Have Nots’. It has clearly reinforced the status quo and the total lack of Māori voice continues to perpetuate a rhetoric in education that simply is not representative of tangata whenua. Some whānau have experienced job loss, others from low socio-economic backgrounds are struggling to survive before they can consider teaching and learning. We have supported these whānau with the delivery of essential goods packs.

It has been interesting watching the ‘Rise of Experts’ in this health crisis, with no real experience in online remote learning at all. Whereas, our school has been operating as a 1:1 digital school for the past nine years. What we really need is support for leaders to address the well-being of staff, students and communities in real time and in the future, not the provision of online learning packages.

Reports across regions confirm that Ministry of Education supports have been variable, depending on the region. Delivery of devices and modems was very slow for some. Whilst we have not used any of the Ministry supports, I am aware that some aspects of the Ministry support have been well received by other schools and communities.

In our region, well-being and mental health will certainly be affected by the lock down. Despite being well resourced and having confidence in our teaching capacity, it could be quite overwhelming for parents and students working in a new uncharted way. It certainly means a significant change to taha whānau-family well-being and taking learning into the home means change. The impact will be different from whānau to whānau.

To generalise, students in New Zealand are active at school and love making the best use of the natural environment around them through play and other activities. They are sociable and spend sizeable blocks of time interacting, working collaboratively, both digitally and face to face, in a range of contexts. The things continued on pg 20

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NZ Principal | June 2 0 2 0

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students and parents treasure about school are quite different under the novel lock down circumstances.

Our daily incidental contact and non-digital face-to-face contacts have disappeared overnight. These are integral aspects of the taha wairua, the spirit, feeling and culture of our school. Our physical human communications are critical to our relationships and the way we work together because our shared values and beliefs are all interwoven in our daily interactions. Connections with friends and teachers and regular forms of communication are important.

In terms of the changes needed, it has been important to ‘go slowly’, at a pace at which our teachers and whānau can adjust to, adapt to and adopt. We did not want to overload anyone during the transition to lock down but let change evolve gradually.

In this way, tamariki would be able to synthesise the different components of their learning. We suggest the same approach should be adopted when we move back to school.

Te Akau ki Pāpāmoa school takes a holistic perspective to the health and well-being of its students and staff. We recognise the balance of multiple dimensions of well-being to be considered when working from a distance. Each is interconnected and contributes to the balance and strength of teaching and learning as a whole. We draw on the research of Sir Mason Durie’s Te Whare Tapa Wha model of the 4 dimensions of wellbeing to provide a Māori perspective on health. It includes taha hinengaro (mental wellbeing), taha tinana (physical wellbeing), taha wairua (spiritual wellbeing) and taha whānau (family wellbeing). Our framework for the lock down is based on what we already do and have been doing for many years, but it also takes into consideration the significant difference between ‘teaching from home’ and ‘learning at home’.

Our teachers are taking the slower approach and planning carefully for a balance of activities that are synchronous and asynchronous. In this way we can be ‘flexpert’ in the way we incorporate competencies and values in a range of innovative ways. Students’; living conditions are variable. In these unusual circumstances there are challenges, but with those challenges come opportunities that we can learn from and use for long term gains.

I am fully confident that the leaders of schools will prepare their schools well for students to return. Having an extended lead in time to ensure we are following the health and safety guidelines carefully so we can be confident that all tamariki and staff will be safe at school, would be helpful. A generous timeframe would also allow us to communicate effectively with our whānau.

I am impressed by and proud of my colleagues and the capability they have shown to lead in a crisis – mauri ora!

Kiri Gill, St Matthews Trinity Schools, Wairarapa and President of the Wairarapa Secondary Schools Principals’ Association The challenges presented in schools came by the need to create a homelearning plan for our taitamariki.

To a certain extent we have all been students in this COVID setting, because the speed at which the virus has swept through communities has paralleled the speed at which schools have had to adapt and learn.

Like the supermarket stockpiling we

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witnessed prior to Lockdown, we have had to fill our trollies with: digital upskilling, thoughts about what NCEA changes may be ahead and how we cater to those in this new set of circumstances, and literal piles of all the paraphernalia required to operate our classrooms remotely.

We were mindful of the internet access in some rural locations and the challenges that would present for our teachers and learners. The provision of learning tasks has also presented its own dilemmas – how much is enough? Is it too much? As we make our way through this situation we are rising to the challenges with gusto, creativity, and good old NZ no.8 wire.

Collaboration across the region has ranged from messages of support to being at the end of a phone or screen for questions from colleagues. Our Kahui Ako has created a greater empathy for our colleagues across the sectors which has enhanced the community of kindred spirits. As a community much work is being done around wellbeing. It is fair to say that the wellbeing of youth is stronger if those who orbit them are considered. Schools have all made sure that with the remote teaching and learning moments there have been opportunities taken to check-in with staff, learners and their whānau through regular communication, sharing of resources, wellbeing tips, and utilising the many links provided by the Ministries of Health and of Education.

It has been important to remind our stakeholders who their go to people are – no different really from ‘normal’ school. We have also increased the go-tos for things like the internet wellbeing of our youth. Schools have also been inventive and creative with student-led wellbeing interludes via YouTube like workout videos, singing competitions, and ‘pass the parcel’ to name a few. Another has continued with wellbeing tips and reminders through their achievement lead teams. All schools have posted photos of all the fabulous exploits that students are getting up to in this new teaching and learning landscape.

The impact on teachers through this crisis evokes the phrase ‘united we stand’ and are continuing to stand. As leaders we have

all spoken of teachers’ team spirit and a willingness to support each other. This supportiveness has been evident across our entire staff. As one fellow Principal articulated ‘compassion, relational trust and flexibility has been key.’ As leaders this has been vital because we have needed to keep in mind that many of our teachers are balancing the remote work process from home with looking after their own children or caring for aged or vulnerable family. As leaders keeping the communication flowing, transparency and certainty in this extraordinary and sometimes uncertain time has been buoying for us all.

There is a line from a periodical that reads ‘from the moment your first child is born, you become a teacher. Although not a formally qualified one’. Whānau have stepped into the role of coach and teacher – again. We can only celebrate them for what has become a temporary new reality. Many are also juggling their own jobs from a distance alongside supporting their children with their learning at home. Compromises have had to be made as all members of bubbles balance their different tasks. Reminders to parents that they should be the parent first and only do or encourage their children to do what they can have been consistent messages. Keeping the communication lines with school open has provided that necessary helpline when required. Potentially t h is c r is is has e nc ou r age d, through whānau involvement, our taitamariki to become better independent learners. But the real impact of this crisis on whānau is still to be realised.

Teaching taitamariki remotely or at a distance has also created numerous opportunities across schools. IT and other equipment purchased to accommodate this new set of circumstances has meant some are better placed for the future. Digital pedagogy and skills for both staff and students have seen marked growth and the educational dividends from these will be far reaching.

Without variation there has been a building of relationships among stakeholders and it has reinforced the importance of connecting and staying connected. The partnership between home and school has always been valuable and in this setting, there has been value added. Resource libraries have been stocked through incredible sharing opportunities. With this has been the chance to be creative and innovative so as to develop and cultivate lifelong learning.

Sadly, the equity gap has become more noticeable in Lockdown.

Not all students have had the same internet quality. It has been noticeable for some of our rural families, and for families with many siblings on slow internet. In some households there has been a single device or no device. The work done by the Ministry of Education in this area with the provision of devices to schools has been extraordinary in closing these gaps. So, too have the efforts of Internet providers who have given assistance to help those whānau in need. But we are aware too that for many families across our nation no internet and multiple tamariki

running around the three bedroomed house is the story of lockdown. Translation – no calm space to use the one device they have at home and, for many, increased tension through missing the breakfast and lunch they get delivered at school. Quality internet connections for these members of our community would be a dream.

The availability of resource for schools has been abundant and the uptake has been variable across schools. Schools have looked at the provision of materials as a way of checking thinking about what we are offering and delivering to our learners.

We have had to ensure that we do not lose sight of our own curriculums, characters, contexts, values, and the expectations our communities have of us. The Ministry of Education provision of prepared hard packs, 2 TV channels and online learning facilities to support home-learning has been a huge benefit for some families so therefore well received.

We are all in general agreement that it is yet too early to tell the impact on wellbeing and mental health of taitamariki as a result of the lockdown. Reaching out to those who are at risk, knowing that this takes different forms, has been important for us all. Networks of help have been provided so that our taitamariki have had ways of seeking assistance. The lack of face to face communication, such a big part of what we do, has made it difficult to determine how well they are coping. The wellbeing and mental health needs created by this set of circumstances will become more evident when we return to onsite learning.

As Tumuaki we have all employed a variety of methods to engage with taitamariki and whānau to support learning and wellbeing during lockdown. Maintaining regular communication has been important. There has been a sense of safety in one’s bubbles, but it has been gratifying to know that in this state of self-isolation we have not become isolated from our communities.

That is also the case for those families in our communities who have thanked us for staying in touch and keeping them informed.

As schools we have employed: our school apps, our SMS facility, Google classroom, social media, Microsoft teams, skype, zoom, and an oldy but a goody – phone calls as lines of communication.

The implementation of a plan to fully clean school property to be ready for the return of taitamariki has been variable. There was a signal to the MoE prior to Alert 4 that we would need sufficient time to prepare our sites for reopening. The initial timelines were tight but the shift in dates to allow access to sites to complete necessary work has made that preparation process easier. The likelihood of low numbers under Alert 3 will assist with the cleaning and grounds preparations.

In closing, we are mindful that the world after COVID-19 will be different, but we can cope as we have demonstrated our adaptability and agility. The efforts of the government to us as leaders has been excellent role modelling. In times of crisis and uncertainty people need certainty. Hard decisions have had to

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be made with evidence and in a wholly transparent way. We applaud the efforts of our Ministries of Health and Education whose directives have assisted us to move, although cautiously, with confidence. We will look back positively at the learning we have had, but I am sure that we all look forward to the completion of this achievement standard – and I think we can feel we have come through this as a nation achieving an excellence.

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Kate Mansfield, Glenavy School, North Otago In putting together our home learning plans, the biggest challenge was internet connections and devices.

Some of our families have limited access to the internet especially those who live in remote areas.

Some families only have data on their phones and the only device is the parent’s phone. In some cases, parents don’t have the language, skills or capacity to support their own children’s learning.

North Otago Primary Principals have been in close contact with each other throughout his process. We are working together for the greater good of all the children in our region.

We are sharing resources and plans to support our tamariki. Our thinking is about how best to support our collective learners.

My teaching staff are coping with this situation incredibly well. As a leader I listen to my staff and then take action. I have

day or at least weekly. One of my Filipino teacher aides’ roles is to support my large Filipino community and answer questions and provide help.

The biggest impact on my whānau is a lack of knowledge and connection. As principal, I ensure that all whānau are well informed and have the opportunity to seek help and support when and if needed. During this process staff have been ringing families, sharing newsletters, emails, zooms and meetings. As they speak with families, they are sharing their children’s learning stories with me. I stress to them that they just do what they can and not put added stress on themselves. By making this time flexible it works better for their individual families.

On the upside, the lockdown provides an opportunity for student agency and student led learning to thrive and this is a huge positive, especially with our senior children. The children are driving their learning. Student agency gives students voice and choice in how they are learning at home. Each teacher has work set up in a google drive for the children, they are invited into zoom meetings with the whole class and small groups and then the children are able to decide when and what they will be learning each day.

There is an equity gap, however, and it is not just computers and the internet. It’s deeper than that. It’s cultural and it’s the capability of our parents to support home learning. By cultural I mean those that do not have a strong culture of communication with the children or connecting with school to support children’s learning or are not in an emotional state to organise daily routines. If parents cannot set boundaries

staff members with limited technological experience, staff with concerns about how home learning would look and how the children would be supported. During the holidays I quickly engaged with our PLD provider, Cyclone, and changed our 20 hours Professional Development design. Each staff member received support 1 on 1 to help design a platform to support the teacher to become more confident and proficient using tools for distance teaching. As a school we have developed our own Normal Plan to teach at a distance. Each class has set expectations about their learning for each day. We designed each day so as not to overwhelm the teacher, the parents or the students. My Teacher aides all have a role to play too. They have small groups of children that they touch base with each

and expectations for their children they will not be able to get them to engage. In North Otago we have families with different capabilities to cope with this lockdown and distance teaching.

Our job as Principals is to support our families in the best way we possibly can.

Each school in our region is developing and designing their own home learning plans that will suit their own learners and families. Principals and staff know their learners and what barriers and limitations each family has. As an association we are constantly talking to one another and supporting each other and sharing resources that work. Schools have reshaped their Professional Development hours to use during this lockdown to also support staff to be ready to deliver the distance teaching.

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Throughout the holidays staff attended zoom meetings and accessed professional development and they developed platforms to deliver the schoolwork.

The TV channels, learning packs and online learning which the Ministry of Education has prepared will support and enhance our own school learning packs. Children need diversity and a range of different ways to learn. We cannot expect our children to just sit and work all day in front of a computer, so using the television channels and paper copies and drawing on home learning experience will combine to make up their learning each day.

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Within the North Otago region, the effects of lockdown on mental health and wellbeing will differ. Most students are doing well but many are not engaging with distance learning for a variety of reasons. It might be the lack of digital devices and no internet connection and it could be stressed families. My own school is a small rural school and most of my families are working on farms. Because of this, our children and families have been able to continue to work and support their children at home. Because of the time of the year it has been easier for my families to support their children. If the lockdown was during the calving season, both parents would be outside working very long hours and the children would be disadvantaged and parents would not be able to cope.

From what I have seen of our tamariki, I think they have adapted incredibly well to the world changing overnight on them and having so many new rules thrown at them. I know they are missing friends terribly, but teachers have been amazing at providing lots of learning and fun activities to keep them occupied and have kept in touch to support relationships.

Our tamariki are incredibly fortunate to live in rural areas and have wide expansive ‘playgrounds’ on their back door-steps. I have heard beautiful stories of togetherness and strengthened relationships between siblings as the bonds grow within bubbles.

Zoom meetings with school are a highlight with the opportunity to see friends that are dearly missed and the children are now organising their own meetings between bubbles. The contact between home and school is brilliant and checking in with whānau has generally shown ‘positive signs of lockdown’ from our rural kids. They seem to be treating it much like an ‘autumn holiday’ with plenty of practical learning on the farm to balance with online distance schoolwork. Maintaining connections has been a blessing. Throughout the school holidays I continued to

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send out weekly newsletters sharing positive stories of children and their whānau making things, creating and playing together.

Sharing learning stories and encouraging whānau to just complete what they can has been our approach.

Looking towards the future and the next alert level, the Ministry has stated that we would not have to return to school for 1 week after the change of the Alert Level. I am confident that we will be able to clean and organise the school ready for the children. We are a small school and do not have a school hall, so we will only be able to cater with a small number of children if we have to adhere to the bubble size of 10 children per class. But that is all in the future and rules may change. The North Otago cluster of schools has been working on a joint document listing concerns, questions and queries relating to how and when we can open our doors for instruction. Things like accessing hand sanitizer, social distancing in the class and playground and how to keep our tamariki safe are all on the top of our list.

Gisborne Central School – Andy Hayward Like most regions, Tairawhiti has diversity. Any home-learning planning provided by schools, needed to ensure access to learning for all children. For most schools, this meant organising hard copy learning packs as well as digital learning opportunities.

In our school, we ensured the packs went out to all years 1- 4 children and that there was enough in the packs to keep them going for a couple of weeks. We gave out chrome books to families that had wifi at home, but no suitable device. Years 5 and 6 packs were organised for children who needed them too.

Support for schools in the region, as they prepared homelearning plans, was thin on the ground. Personally, I didn’t receive any local support other than a phone call with a list of questions from higher up in the Ministry. In fairness to the local team though, there was not a lot of lead in time to the event, and once it was announced, it was all hands to the pump to get our plan together and put it into action. Once the emails started to appear in the inbox from the Secretary for Education, Iona Holsted, with follow up emails from the regional director, we were information rich.

The TV channels, prepared by the Ministry for home schooling, helped those families without internet access. They were a great supplement to the hardpacks they already had, provided they were delivered promptly.

I certainly believe that the planning for distance learning has opened doors between schools. The challenge to provide programmes for students, while retaining the personal connection, was complex. Teachers and principals across the region were happy to share knowledge and resources and collaborate to ensure the best possible outcomes for the children in Tairawhiti.

My staff handled this crisis very well as they worked through the many challenges that the COVID-19 crisis threw at us. Early on, it was designing and putting together home learning hard packs and then collaboratively creating digital programmes to run from home. Group messaging became the norm and teams regularly checked in with each other to ensure everyone was okay.

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During the lead-up to the lockdown it became very clear to me how social media influences the information people receive and the way they respond. Social media responses were very reactive and often came from rumour and an individual’s own interpretation of what was ahead of us. Getting the correct information and plans out to my staff was critical to reduce anxiety and ensure they were not overwhelmed by social media commentary.

Throughout this crisis, our biggest push has been to reassure whānau that their children will be okay, and the children will learn, regardless of how much they engage with the school programme. We respect parents as first teachers and trust that they will do their best. We ensured our whānau knew we were there to support them and they had a range of ways to connect with us.

Through children learning at home with our digital programmes, many families strengthened their knowledge and understanding of what their children are learning, and what they can do independently. I think this is a positive outcome of the distance learning programme. I would pop into the google classrooms when students were working and the collaboration was very obvious and improved over time. The children asked questions of each other, clarified expectations and shared ideas.

It was neat to see their growth in how to frame questions to get the information they needed.

Lack of access to quality internet and suitable devices is significant for many families. Schools worked hard to reduce this effect and the Ministry of Education put plans in place to provide

resources as well. However, there is a lag and not everyone’s needs will be met. Other equity issues that will be highlighted again and will have a profound impact on the children’s ability to learn, is the housing situation that families are living in and the importance of having food in the belly.

To stay connected, we knew we had to make regular contact a focus for the lockdown period. Emails, messaging, individual and group online meet ups, and phone calls were all used to keep the connection between home and school.

As we move forward, the impacts of COVID-19 will have a far-reaching impact across the Tairawhiti community. Mental health and wellbeing will be affected negatively. There will be stresses added to households with job insecurity or job losses and managing the financial impact of this. Drug abuse, including alcohol, is rife in many areas across the country, our region included and children have been spending more time living in houses, seeing and feeling the impact of these drugs on their lives. Many children will return to school fragile and stressed and will need extra support. This will be a long-term recovery.

Christine Chadwick, Ashgrove School, North Canterbury At Ashgrove School, students have better opportunities to access home learning if they have a device. Planning a programme that catered for individual support was manageable. The home learning programme needed to provide variety for individuals and not be too overwhelming for the students to be successful with their learning.

Teachers were very creative in putting together a range of activities that provided choice and a certain amount of independence.

Thirty-eight of the school devices were collected by a courier and delivered to families. Around the North Canterbury district, challenges included the lack of available digital devices and internet access in households. The provision of packs and devices was well received by many in North Canterbury.

Throughout the region many schools have been collaborating through their Kāhui Ako, RTLB service, and Mana Ake providers. There have been many interagency conversations occurring around the district with principals, teacher forums including SENCOs and Learning Support Coordinators. This region of professional educators is highly collaborative and the sharing of ideas through google shared drives, hangouts and zoom meetings resulted in a bank of resources that has been shared across groups. Tamariki and caregiver well-being has been identified as a number one priority by principals and teachers in all the schools. As home learning got underway, it was important that the teachers were able to check in to ensure that everyone in the whānau bubble was managing alright. Equally important for parents, the district principals were clear when communicating with the families that if home learning could not be done on a certain day that would be okay. Every family had to make it work for them, therefore avoiding any stress or anxiety for parents and tamariki who already felt overwhelmed.

The teaching staff have been fabulous. They have amazed me with their commitment and strength to put aside the stress and anxiety they may have felt, they rose up and accepted the

challenge to work online and provide learning and feedback.

Individual teachers have felt stressed with situations their own families were coping with, especially the unknown issues of the Alert Level and COVID-19. Some anxiety arose from pressures out of their control such as pre-existing health conditions, partner job loss and unexpected family member deaths. As their leader, I ensured communication was strong and all staff heard from me and I was open to hear from them. It was important to listen to them and provide the support and calmness that they could trust to guide them through this crisis. At times it has been challenging to maintain a balance between the pastoral and professional leadership needed. My colleagues in North Canterbury reiterated similar views that communication was a key element. We also had to recognise that teachers are individuals with their own home contexts to consider and that COVID could impact negatively on them. At the same time, it might also free hidden strengths.

When home learning began, we did not know how many students would engage with the activities we provided. We were happily surprised and have been impressed with the responses so far. Tamariki have been highly engaged. Some have had support from parents, which has been great, then there are those students who have struggled, as parents are working from home or are essential workers. Teachers are making regular contact with parents if they have not heard from the student after two or three days. There are no expectations that work must be completed but when contact has been made there is usually an increase in students’ engagement. Teachers assure the parents that they are just happy to connect with their child in the short term. We are

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very fortunate that our Learning Support Coordinator has been keeping in touch with those families that need help or guidance for their children to continue with their learning. In the wider district some families have found it stressful, particularly where the children are at different learning levels and schools.

We are using all forms of communication methods available to us to keep in touch with families. We aim to contact families twice a week. Mostly, we use emails and our school app. Regular communication has helped to provide reassurance to parents.

Class teachers are the main contact with parents and a regular newsletter from the principal gives families confidence the school is managing well in extraordinary times and we are all navigating this storm together.

It seems to me that more learning is happening at home than we have seen in the past. Parents and whānau are getting involved in the home learning and having more quality time with their children. It is also evident that there is an increase in technology skills by students and teachers with learning and teaching. There is greater independence with students working and exploring opportunities to create, commentate and download work for their teacher to view.

On the downside, the COVID lock down has highlighted the inequities we already had – access to the internet and availability of devices would be one obvious issue in North Canterbury. The Ministry of Education providing devices and packs helped to close the gap. One family asked for a pack of resources as both parents were working from home. Their child found the material in the pack more interesting than doing home learning on the iPad all the time. The parents responded that when the pack arrived at home their child really enjoyed doing the activity sheets he received. The availability of other home learning options like the TV channels do offer another choice when families and tamariki become disengaged with the home learning provision from school.

As a region, we have had incredible assistance to help us with planning. Help came from all parts of the sector. From colleagues in Kahui Ako to Ministry of Education advisors to local RTLB and our own staff and LSC. It is a little hard to tell right now how much the lock down h a s af fe c t e d t h e mental health and

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wellbeing of our tamariki.

Children are very resilient and for the most part have enjoyed learning from home. When the children are at school we maintain set routines and structures for the school programme which children, in general, prefer and respond to really well. However, family life, in some situations, is very complex and some tamariki have very different experiences during lockdown. We need to be mindful of these young peoples’ ability to cope and be safe when home is a very stressful place and the security of teachers and school is not there. So, we expect that when schools reopen, some will return to school with trauma, stress and anxieties that will need special attention from us.

We were quickly able to prepare the school for Alert level 3 and to meet all the health and safety requirements, albeit opening only for those children who need to be back at school. Across the country, that turned out to be less than 2 per cent of all school age students.

Principals in our North Canterbury region have been really impressed with the information provided to schools by the Government, Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health.

The provision for supporting home learning was very good.

Though some principals did say that the announcement to move to Level 3 with very minimal practical details did cause stress and pressure on their staff.

Principals also commented that school will look quite a lot different in the coming weeks as we move down the Alert levels and all students return to school. They are worried about the impact the lock down may have had on learners as they return to school sites. Their ability to make normal learning progress may have slowed and their wellbeing may have been impacted.

We will all need to prepare well for this new normal.

Grant Stuart, St Peter’s Catholic School, Cambridge Some of the challenges that our school and those of our region faced when planning home-learning, relate to devices in the home and sharing these with siblings. The high number of families that require hard copy learning packs and the packs not arriving, meant we had to photocopy the packs ourselves. Parents are juggling working from home and having to take time out for setting up their children with different learning activities.

The schools in our region are being very collaborative with plans and sharing ideas. A lot of this is being done through social media channels like Facebook. The Kahui Akos are another way schools are keeping connected and collaborative. There is a strong focus on wellbeing both for tamariki and caregivers.

A lot of schools are using the material produced by Nigel Latta (Psychologist) and Nathan Wallis, Neuroscientist, to help parents during the lockdown.

Our teaching staff have been affected by the crisis on many different levels. My focus has been on their wellbeing and looking

at ways I can support them so that they can help meet the needs of their students.

The crisis has had a big impact on the way the family unit operates day to day too. We are in constant contact with whānau through our website, email and social media. We seek feedback from them and make changes to the way we deliver our home learning plan and support them if they are having any issues.

Whilst there are some challenges there are also opportunities to the lock down and having children learn at home by distance learning. It’s a great way for our learners to really unpack some of the key competences particularly Managing Self. Also it is a great opportunity too for the students to spend time being creative.

It’s something that didn’t get much teaching time when national standards was the focus.

On the downside, the equity gap certainly had an impact in the early stages of lockdown but once we were able to get devices and learning packs into the homes that helped. Our community has also been working on care packages for those families that need extra assistance.

We had great support from the PLD providers that our school is currently working with. Their assistance proved timely as they helped in the construction of home learning plans. Also, our Ministry of Education Adviser has been a great help in preparing home-learning plans.

The Television channels which the Ministry of Education prepared were a great initiative to supplement home learning, especially as many in our region lacked devises and hard resources. These and other steps the Ministry have put in place have really helped take the pressure off our teaching team to provide a full day of activities for the students.

While these supports have been very helpful for our students, the lockdown has been hard for a number of our tamariki.

They have really missed playing and hanging out with their friends and mates. Naturally this is going to have an impact on wellbeing and metal health. I know many teachers have been thinking about ways to help their students keep in contact with their peers.

As a teaching team we meet regularly via Zoom to discuss how we can improve the way we are engaging our tamariki. The feedback that we are getting from the families is so important and allows us to make changes to the way we support them. The focus of the feedback is around those two key areas learning and wellbeing. Regular class Zoom meetings are keeping the students engaged.

We are confident that when we do all return to school, we will do what is required to make that happen. Ideally, having due warning to prepare would be great but we will work hard to get it sorted.

Paula Weston, Dyer Street School, Naenae, Lower Hutt Challenges that our school and those in our region faced putting homelearning plans together, include the variability in access to devices, not just from the home perspective but also in the number of devices schools have available to lend families.

Initially our school didn’t focus on devices going home and made our preparations based on some having them and some not but as the drive from the Ministry of Education changed we adapted.

We were reasonably well organised for the big ‘shut down’.

Our prediction was that schools would close in week nine of the school term, so we had been working on our plan for that happening. The reality was it came a few days early. The big challenge was the space of time. The announcement was made at 1:20pm and most of the children were gone that day by 3:00pm.

Most of our students took work packs home with them that afternoon.

Our planning for home learning was a collaborative exercise.

In Naenae, we have a Kahui Ako consisting of two ‘clusters’ and 16 schools. Across the clusters we make a very collaborative group who are generous with ideas, advice and wisdom. When collecting the data on home devices, we were able to share information about families from contributing schools, intermediate and college, to ensure we had captured the most accurate information and didn’t have 3 different schools contacting one family.

In terms of wellbeing, this has been at the forefront of every conversation both within and across schools. When we are making decisions for our schools we are thinking about the wellbeing of the households first and trying to plan for learning that allows for different family situations. Flexibility has been a key feature.

A further note on wellbeing is that we are being very mindful of the wellbeing of our staff, who are working in ways that, for some, are completely foreign and they require a great deal of support. We are also being mindful and deliberate in looking after our principal colleagues’ wellbeing. We have regular check ins with each-other and people know they can ask the questions that are possibly making them lose sleep. We also do social things as a group, like sharing a drink on a Friday.

My teaching team has really stepped up to this challenge. I have been amazed by their resilience in the face of the pressure of the shut down and in their preparation for children’s learning to continue. I try to be responsive rather than reactive which was why our planning started a few weeks before the shut down and I think that supported the team to feel they had some

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control over things that were emerging. It was also important that I was part of the big picture of what the learning would look like, but allowed for my staff to bring their creative genius to the table and let that flow. My part was to ensure our systems were robust enough before the new term started.

I’m not going to say that the level 4 status hasn’t been stressful for staff and for a couple it has been really challenging on personal levels, but I try to stay as connected as I can with the whole team and with individuals. Most of the team have approached it with a relaxed mindset and I think that helps. As a school we have done some work around personal wellbeing and I think we are reaping the benefits of this focus.

Families have been amazingly positive and supportive too and we have been so touched by the way our whānau have embraced our communication with them. To be responsive, we did attempt to target fami lies t hat we were aware might need extra support.

We engage d our Swis (Social Worker in School) and our learning support coordinator to help with this. We have also set up a traffic light system within our communication log system so that we can see at a glance any families or teachers that have concerns so that we can then triage them and give them support in a timely manner. Our ability to respond to such needs is probably swifter than on a regular school day.

Some of the opportunities in teaching our tamariki at a distance include the creativity it inspires and the opportunity for us to look at learning in a new way. The ability of schools to adapt has been demonstrated nation-wide as a strength and I sometimes think this has provided the best ‘just in time’ learning and for teachers to push themselves beyond what they thought they were capable of technologically. It has also provided children and whānau the opportunity to see their homes as a key place for their children to learn and to see their local environment as pivotal to their learning journey. Parents can connect with that learning, particularly for the younger children. I think creativity has been the real champion for us. I hope we see that flow back into schools when we reopen.

Despite all the positives, I don’t think we will fully understand how hard lock down has been on some whānau until much later. There are the obvious things like access to technology and resources, and the statistics that we are all acutely aware of around family harm, but when those things become exacerbated by an unexpected lock down situation I think we will find those who have potentially internalised some trauma. For some parents, the pressure of being an educator and working from home, or worrying about their future employment, is a growing concern

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and this has been exacerbated by the media. We know this stress is also felt by children no matter how hard parents might think they are hiding it.

To a large extent, the way wellbeing and mental health of tamariki have been affected by the lockdown depends on the responses and reactions of the people in their immediate environment. The more relaxed a home bubble can be, with some structure to support that, the better off tamariki will be. The start of the new term seems to have increased the anxiety levels a bit from what we can see, particularly with parents, but on the upside that has helped some of those, normally harder to engage, to get in touch and ask for help. Children will be missing their teachers and the familiarity of their school day.

They will likely be craving the human c on n e c t i on t h at we are all craving but one thing that is universally true about our young people is that they are resilient.

We have t r i e d to keep our communication methods to the same platforms that were in place before lockdown. Things li ke S e es aw and Hapara and Signmee are key players for us.

We have of course added video calling elements to that. We don’t just have information available in one place, we have it on all the platforms that are available to us. For some of our families it’s a personal phone call once a week to talk through any worries and for others it’s messaging and video sessions. Our traffic light system also helps us have a team approach to supporting families and children that need it.

In terms of my engagement I try to be very measured in my messaging. I don’t bombard the community with any and all messages about COVID-19 that they are being bombarded with every time they open their phones or turn on the tv. The messaging that comes from me relates to the impact of decisions on our school community and what that will look like. That is proving effective and the response from whānau has been very positive. Once we know what level 3 will look like I will prepare my next communication to families around that.

We also acknowledge the Ministry of Education’s resource package which gave additional flexibility to the system schools have put in place. I think the hard packs will really support families for whom access and ability to engage online may be challenging. I know that for many of us, not being able to send out that physical work was frustrating and when we got the chance to go in and prepare our chromebooks and iPads, it felt like we were being an active part of the solution.

When schools do reopen, I know my staff will do whatever it takes to be ready for our children to return. I am also confident that our cleaners will be preparing for that day and will deliver.

ARTS IN THE TIME OF COVID Professor Peter O’Connor

Her face has haunted me again these past weeks. I was teaching in a school devastated by the earthquake that killed 370 people in Mexico City in September 2017. The crowded classroom with over fifty children and dozens of local artists, musicians and theatre makers seemed to be overflowing with singing and dancing. Six weeks after the earthquake less than half of the children had returned to this school in one of the most quake affected parts of the city, their parents too scared to let them out of their sight. As we worked, I noticed a growing group of families gathered outside the classroom.

I opened the door to find out why they were there and they flooded in. They had come to school that day because they had heard the artists were coming and they wanted to participate with their children. One mother came forward and demanded that all the children of the school should have had the opportunity to participate in our arts making. She wanted to know why the school had excluded some children, including her own daughter from working with me and the other artists.

It was about money and time and bureaucracy but I literally didn’t have the words to explain this then. So, instead, I welcomed her, the other mothers, grandparents and their children into the already crowded room. Parents had brought their children to school that day so they could begin learning and re-engaging with the world again. It was the arts that had drawn them back to the school.

When I close my eyes I can still feel her fear of the present and for the future. As schools moved to Level 3 of the lockdown I saw, on television, the same fear written across the face of a mother in Auckland as she dropped her daughter to school. She seemed to ask of me, ‘How might the world be safe again for my little one? What does school have to offer?’ I knew what the answer would be if she asked about the arts.

I know well the damage earthquakes and natural disasters cause, the fear and despair they generate. I have worked in multiple disaster zones for over a decade. My first experience was in China after the Szechuan earthquake in 2008.

In some villages, every child died in the poorly constructed schools when the earth opened up underneath them. I’ve worked since in earthquake zones in Christchurch and in Mexico City, and most recently in Australia as it seemed the very earth was burning and blackening the sky. Natural disasters take lives, destroy homes and smash economies. In the days and years that follow, the primary focus in disaster zones is on repairing and then rebuilding the physical damage caused. The fiscal case for this focus on economic recovery is imperative. Yet, my experience of working in multiple disaster zones is that the biggest damage caused is usually unseen, it lies in the spirit and soul of the people.

COVID-19 is a different kind of disaster than those that rip buildings apart. Yet its cost in the dismantling of lives across the globe is immeasurable. Like all natural disasters, COVID’s damage will linger long beyond its initial impact, its damage lurking in the inner fabric of people’s lives.

My years of research on post disaster response and the experience of the last ten years has taught me that schools become the healing grounds for children, the place where teachers help them connect again with each other, with learning and the future.

I’ve learnt too how the extraordinary power of the arts can bring life back to damaged communities and the schools in them – in a way nothing else can.

I had found myself in Mexico City working with artists in classrooms with children, because I had done the same in Christchurch after and during the years of earthquakes that had stolen futures there, literally upending peoples’ lives. I remember the confused looks on the faces of Christchurch teachers, unsure

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as to what they should do when their children returned. I can still picture the cold indifference of the national Ministry of Education at the time, who offered them little support other than to tell them to ensure they established the old routines and to make sure missed literacy and numeracy lessons were followed up on. I remember the faces of the children I played with in classrooms on the first day they returned to school after the February 21 earthquake. I can still imagine the dislocated looks of young ones whose worlds had been literally tipped upside down. I remember too their total and complete absorption in the drama work I did with them that day. They became lost in learning, finding themselves in the arts, playing inside the story of a little girl whose dream cloth had been torn. I remember their joy in fixing the torn dream cloths by painting their dreams and then making thread strong enough to heal the tear before finally restoring its beauty with a teaspoon of light. Disaster makes us all victims, we feel as if we are unable to control and manage the darkness that envelops us. The moment in our drama on the morning where the little girl looked into our pretend cloud bowl and offered her teaspoon of light to meld together hope and love, reminded me that arts give us a moment where we make again, we are producers of the world, not consumers. Actors not spectators.

John Dewey understood the importance of these acts of making. He understood that democracy was shaped and made by our hands. Participatory citizenship, acting on and for others, is what this drama was all about as school reopened that day. After disasters the arts give us a sense that at least in those moments we might have the chance to change our lives. We might make something beautiful, stitch new dream cloths together as an act of defiance against the world that has acted against us.

I can still see the frightened faces of the refugee and migrant children I worked with in Christchurch in March last year, after a tragedy that still deeply scars our nation. Only two weeks after the terror attack, I was working with children in Hagley again.

With 5 and 6 years olds, we imagined super powers that we might need. One boy suggested an invisible cloak and we used our imaginations to make ourselves invisible, unnoticed and safe in a dangerous world. I remember our laughter as we developed other superhuman characteristics and wore cloaks of kindness.

One young boy using the full strength of this power told his father he was ‘quite good looking’. As we sat and thought about the drama we might make together, one child suggested we do a version of Alice in Wonderland. She told us, this story would be about a place where you are promised everything will be fine, but you don’t know the rules and you are made to feel like you’ll never fit in. I asked, ‘that would be a great place to have our drama set but what might happen there.’ With a knowing smile, the young girl added, ‘Don’t forget, there is a Queen who wants to cut your head off.’

The arts always allow us to use fiction, the making of other worlds so we might better understand our own world. The arts are perhaps so powerful in education because they are not about preparing for the future. They resist the nonsense of a futures focused curriculum. Instead they are about the urgent and demanding task of helping children make sense of the world now. The metaphor of Alice in Wonderland and our work over 30

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the coming weeks as we tried to make the Queen see that her visitors to Wonderland deserved to be treated well was exactly the metaphor we needed to address the deep questions they had about the world after the mosque attack where death might fall on you suddenly and without warning. As we worked towards a fairer and more just Wonderland we practiced a form of active citizenship, of being able to influence and change the world in which we live. Perhaps the greatest strength in the arts in education is that rather than preparing children for the future we are working with them so that they can re-imagine it differently and see themselves as agents in the change we desperately need.

In Christchurch, after the terror attack, I understood too how the arts create a bridge to the past. Albert Wendt knows that the dead are woven into our flesh ‘like the music of bone flutes’.

And it is the arts that weave their stories, their faces, their lives into who we are as people, and as a nation. It is the arts that allow us to bring them in some form back to life again, for us to speak to them, to be with them again. They come to us in the moments when tears spring uncontrollably to our eyes as the high-pitched call of the kaikaranga sends a shiver down our spine. They come to us when we hear again the songs we once sung together. They walk across our stages, sit inside our novels, dance in our poetry, hang in frames on our walls. They come to us when we need them to help us survive the present. As we speak through the arts to the dead, we also disinter ghosts. The arts have a way of finding those ghosts we bury deep within our collective consciousness, or they reveal the stories of those deliberately forgotten and obscured from our formal histories. The arts carry the potential to challenge and subvert stories that have colonised ways of national knowing. In the New Zealand context, the ghosts of colonisation are regularly wakened by artists who – rather than affirm a singular identity as New Zealanders – challenge and question who we are and who we might become.

Teaching the arts gives children access to this bridge, so that they might use it throughout their lives when they need to reconnect with what has been lost. Children need to also learn how others have used different cultural forms to more deeply understand our past and how we arrived at the present. That knowledge gives them a creative and critical capacity to read the arts, to name their world.

The arts after disaster bind us together, they become the bridge where we might find the pattern, shape, the image of our deepest hurts, both individually and communally. The night after the terror attack I attended a concert in the Auckland Town Hall with 1,000 others. It was a celebration of Māori Waiata. After the whakatau and karakia we sang Whakaaria Mai. We started tentatively, listening carefully to each other. We found ways to weave our own voice, our own story into the wider song. I felt the tears burning my cheeks, recognising how this act of communal music released our pent up hurt and anger in a way that only music can. As I remember that night, I find a different anger rising. An anger for the generations of primary children in New Zealand who now no longer have music in their classrooms, for the empty rehearsal rooms in my own faculty at the University of Auckland, where cobwebs decorate the musical instruments.

I feel a silent rage at teacher education courses where the hours

of training in music has been reduced to almost zero.

The great joy of the arts helping to connect beyond our own bubbles is even more important when we have lived in bubbles for weeks before returning to school. The bubble of a desperate mother in Mexico City, or a bubble in Lockdown 3 here in New Zealand. The arts help us to notice each other again, how to move through space, reconnect bodily with each other. The arts remind us that digital learning can never replace the full embodied joy of using all our senses and our whole bodies to learn, rather than just with our fingers.

And perhaps most importantly the waiata connected us together in the room and then it felt, we were somehow connected to the people of Christchurch. In the soaring chorus,

education background would be part of any decision-making or consultative process.

Neil Gaiman says there is no word to describe the micromoment between drawing in breath and breathing out. This is the space we have been in now for weeks while living in Lockdown.

In that moment between collective breaths many teachers have taken stock of what they do in schools. We can bounce back to what we had, or we can take a risk, we can leap, skip, and dance forward. I led a team at the University of Auckland to develop Te Rito Toi, an arts-based resource to help teachers use the arts when classrooms reopened.

Within a week, over 70,000 page views confirmed for me that there is a genuine and real hunger for change, for restoring the

as we grew louder and more confident, our singing became a bridge to possibility. Our song was a cry of faith and hope. In its communally created beauty, an act of defiance against the ugliness of terror. This is the possibility inherent in arts making.

It gives us, as individuals and communities, the strength to imagine afresh, to see the world again as a place where hope might dwell. It gives us the possibility of connecting to others across time and space and beyond life itself. Through the arts as a nation we will remember, mourn, come together, rebuild who we are after COVID-19. The arts will be the way we claim back the spirit of who and what we might be as a nation. In the same way that we sang that night, through many different art forms, we will find ways to deeply listen to each other and to find new ways to breathe in harmony.

Knowing about the power and potential of the arts, our proud history of educators such as Gordon Tovey and Elwyn Richardson, you would imagine the arts to be sacrosanct in New Zealand schools. The truth and the heart of the matter is that they have all but disappeared. The near death of the arts in New Zealand schools is not just some unintended collateral damage in the never ending pursuit of better PISA rankings in literacy and numeracy. The callous disregard for their potential is the result of years of deliberate neglect, of successive governments’ policy that has marginalised and trivialised their role within schools.

Elliot Eisner reminds us that there are multiple curriculums.

He suggests the arts are part of the nul curriculum. One of the things that are deliberately not taught, like New Zealand History.

The risk we ran before COVID-19 was that an impoverished curriculum would continue to fail to realise the dreams of young people. Ministerial reference groups continued to rehash the same tired ideas, tinkering with examination systems, focusing on assessment and ensuring no one with an arts

arts back into schools and using them to imagine a different kind of schooling. Te Rito Toi is the first resource in the arts developed for New Zealand schools (recommended but not endorsed) by the Ministry of Education in over a decade. In 2002, I was working as the National Facilitator for Drama overseeing the implementation of the Arts curriculum, I remember the discussion on the last resource developed for drama. We had to decide whether to put it on VHS or this new thing called DVD. We chose VHS because we were not sure how long DVDs would last. No wonder teachers are ready for support and grabbed at the resources we developed.

As part of Te Rito Toi a group of writers produced a suite of lessons using nga toi called Ha Ora. Co-writer Rawiri Hindle, who was 15 years ago the National Facilitator for the Nga Toi curriculum, thinks it is the only resource ever developed to support that curriculum. That we have abandoned the Arts Curriculum is one thing, but Nga Toi is the only National indigenous arts curriculum document in the world. That we have neglected and let that languish is a national disgrace.

I remain haunted by that mother in Mexico, who so desperately wanted her child to experience the wonder and joy of making art in a classroom. She knew that was her right. Just like that day I stood in front of her, I still can’t find the words to say why we have let the arts die in New Zealand schools. We have lost much as a result of COVID-19. Perhaps we might imagine schools rich with the joy of the arts, the colour and vibrancy of making and rebuilding our democracy. There will be no guidance about this from the Ministry nor the various Ministers of Education for whom this is totally alien to their narrow view of schooling.

A more whole, arts-rich curriculum will come from teachers and principals who understand and value the possibilities this rare moment between breaths has given us.

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MOOT 2020 SUMMARY Liz Hawes

EDITOR

This issue of NZ Principal is dedicated to the historic global pandemic and the education sector’s response to it. The NZPF Moot 2020, is therefore a brief summary, but a full report will be published in the Term three issue of NZ Principal.

In his opening speech, President Perry Rush emphasized the importance of a return to practice-based leadership and training and a revival of Arts in schools which also address wellbeing issues. He also called time on Government’s inaction to address mental health and violent behaviour issues for our most challenged students and floated some solutions to address these.

The Minister, Hon Chris Hipkins said pillars of his Government’s education manifesto include child centred, inclusive, quality public education and teaching that is relevant to our future. He agreed the emphasis on wellbeing is critical. In terms of the 2020 Budget, he made no promises for education given the escalating COVID-19 crisis but reported that any education allocation would be prioritised for the early childhood sector.

The regional presidents concluded their day’s debate identifying five priority areas for the NZPF 2020 manifesto including wellbeing and equity, leadership, learning support, Māori education and curriculum.

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MAGAZINE

You can now access the current and past issues of NZ Principal magazine online You can search by magazine issue, article name or author visit www.nzprincipal.co.nz

Kia Hiwa Rā COVID-19 and new challenges for principals Martin Thrupp

thrupp@waikato.ac.nz

Well, my last column was called ‘Overtaken by events’ and didn’t we get more than we bargained on! However I believe the main theme of that article about principals being well placed to lead in their communities is as true for the pandemic as for the climate crisis.

At the time of writing (just after Easter) it is not clear to what extent the COVID-19 outbreak will remain a continuing medical concern or just how much economic and social mayhem it is going to create either. The situation has been moving so fast that plenty of commentators have already had to eat their words.

What seems clear enough however is that there will be new challenges for principals. Some are obvious but there may also be unexpected consequences that will bring complexities as well.

Something likely to be obvious is that the communities served by our schools have been changed by the pandemic. Anxiety, depression, health problems, abuse and deprivation will all be intensified.

Never mind if the country has been saved from multiple deaths, if there are environmental gains, and examples of wonderful community spirit. For many people life will have changed for the worse and they will be feeling it.

I expect we might see a new social fault-line open up across all socio-economic groups between the ‘merely’ COVID-impacted and the COVID-hammered. The latter will include parents who lose jobs, businesses, homes and relationships. They may also relocate in the search for new opportunities, increasing student transience across our schools in the process.

Ironically, parents who are used to insecurity and powerlessness might often deal better with aspects of the situation than those who are used to being ‘winners’ in our society. But there will be the COVID-hammered amongst the poor too and they will have fewer resources to fall back on. The mythology of the pandemic as ‘a great leveller’ and that ‘we are all this together’ is being called out in many countries.

I wonder how you will deal with all this as a principal. I’m sure you will be listening carefully whenever you get the chance and that you will realise that some previous generalisations about your school community are no longer helpful. You might need to make that point forcefully to the education agencies at times! Putting the struggles of people in the context of both their usual life experiences and their recent life events will take an extraordinary amount of understanding and empathy I think.

Another issue is that a shift to more online teaching or some hybrid model seems likely, and this could bring changes in teaching practices that last beyond the pandemic. But have you considered the ‘disaster capitalism’ aspect of this development?

Businesses in many countries will be trying to make money selling resources for online teaching or PLD, and questionable

international philanthropic or charitable groups will be seeking to increase their influence in the same way. These interests will often be bad news for public education and quality teaching and learning, and not just because the online resources offered lack our Aotearoa New Zealand context.

Here’s an example. Auckland-based ‘The Education Hub’ offers summaries of New Zealand educational research but at the time of writing is also offering a free ‘schools webinar’ with a presenter from the Ambition Institute in England. The Ambition Institute is headed up by Hilary Spencer, a former aide to Conservative politician Michael Gove, England’s Secretary of State for Education from 2010-14.

Gove was – let me put this politely! – a divisive and capricious character in that role. Many members of the Ambition Institute board are also close to the Conservative government and its various horrible education policies such as expanding and reinforcing the academies programme.

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In short, I wouldn’t touch the Ambition Institute with a bargepole and it’s concerning that The Education Hub is acting as a conduit between such destructive influences and New Zealand educators, probably often without the latter realising it.

So my message to principals is to be really careful about who you are getting involved with, educationally speaking, at such a time when there will be many new offers to solve problems for you and your staff. Even if they are free offers!

It’s a theme I’ll come back to repeatedly in my columns – that some private actors in education are better than others and that principals need to do due diligence and be extremely discerning.

This background research takes precious time but if we can share our information it will help a lot.

A third area of new complexity will be around the teaching workforce. It seems clear enough that teachers (and principals) will not be immune to some of the pressures already mentioned.

Some who were planning to leave teaching will carry on because their retirement plans are no longer secure. Others will quit if online teaching becomes a major part of school offerings, or will be amongst those needing to relocate because of their family circumstances.

Overall I expect teaching to become a more sought-after occupation because it will be relatively secure in the uncertain years ahead. But let’s face it, job security is not the greatest motivator for being a good teacher. It may be that our teacher education selection processes will have to put more emphasis on a demonstrated aptitude for working with children and young people. Principals might also need to become more wary of teachers’ motives.

Finally, responding to government policy is another area of new complexity I will mention because policy directed at the COVID-19 situation is likely to open up many unintended consequences. A crisis can be used by policymakers to exercise managerial powers that would have seemed heavy-handed in usual times. For instance principals might find themselves being asked to push interventions at unreceptive COVID-hammered parents.

The strong personality-based leadership being modelled by our PM – a great communicator anointed by a fearful public – can only go so far. It may become fashionable as others try to emulate her style but it will all be doomed to fail unless we are being led in the right direction.

As always, just because the Government is saying ‘jump’, principals don’t have to ask ‘How high?’ It is pointless being first cab off the rank with government initiatives that are problematic. And where a response is insisted upon, token or substantially modified practices might be the very best ones.

Principals need to seek ways forward that are sensitive to local conditions, including, and especially now, the circumstances of particular families.

I’ve raised a lot of problems in this column but a major disruption like the pandemic is bound to open up new opportunities to do good and worthwhile things as well. I’m sure you’ll be looking out for those. All the best with the days ahead!

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COVID-19: a bump in the road or a new highway forward?

Helen Kinsey-Wightman

2020 was already going to be a unique year for me. After unexpectedly spending much of 2019 in an Acting Principal role, I applied for a TeachNZ Study Award to spend a year studying Te Reo Māori. After only 2 short weeks on campus, COVID-19 took hold and 6 hours of daily immersion has become a 2 hour daily Zoom Hui – which soon became known as a Zui!

the announcement of a timeline for the move to Level 2 and a return to a new normal in the shadow that COVID-19 has created and I am well aware of the hard work going on in schools across the country to prepare to shift gears again.

One of the issues that we as educational leaders must now tackle has been discussed a great deal in my Friday evening Messenger drinks with teacher friends, via social media teacher groups, in online professional learning and in the articles within this edition: When students return, will school look exactly the same or will this experience change students, teachers and leaders and thus education itself? In the much more eloquent words of Professor Peter O’Connor: ‘In that moment between collective breaths many teachers have taken stock of what they do in schools. We can bounce back to what we had, or we can take a risk, we can leap, skip, and dance forward.’

My pre-Zui prep begins with 45 minutes of burpees and star jumps in my 9 year old’s Zoom Whakapakari tinana/exercise class.

Whilst flinging myself around the lounge in a desperate bid for approval from his teacher, I cannot help but notice that way too many of my son’s peers seem to have ridiculously fit Fire Officer/ gym instructor/Iron Māori participants for parents. In the 15 minutes before my own class starts I create an exciting schedule to ensure he has enough meaningful learning activities to keep him fully engaged for 2 hours (mostly so that he doesn’t spend the lesson correcting my classmates’ Māori pronunciation and laughing at their Lockdown hairstyles when my mic is on . . . ) Whilst I cannot report that my kaiako has successfully gained 100 per cent of my attention and I may have spent more time than strictly necessary wondering whether a blue lampshade would work better in my fellow student’s lounge or becoming distracted by the cobweb in the corner of my own, I am happy to report that I have so far managed to avoid the worst kinds of Zoom oversharing using 2 key strategies, namely, (i) having a strict policy of not taking my device to the bathroom with me and (ii) ensuring I am always fully dressed during meetings even in areas of my body which will never make it on to camera.

Hence you have not seen me featured in the international media, trouserless during a meeting, with a feather duster in hand.

So, having shifted into gear for remote learning, we now await

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Early indications are that schools are prepared to treat this experience as an impetus for change and creativity. In a statement on the Albany Senior High school website their principal notes: ‘Depending on the modelling you look at and how well we all abide by the lockdown rules we could be looking at further weeks of lockdown and will most likely face a future of further regional lockdowns as the COVID-19 waves roll through. Whilst on one level this is kind of terrifying, I also believe this gives us “a once in a pandemic” chance to prepare for a “new normal” in all areas of how we love, live and work but as I am a secondary school leader, I am going to focus on how we could (and possibly should) reimagine secondary schooling, so as to ensure it has a hope of rolling with the punches and coming out of this fight fit for purpose.’

Julie Henderson, Principal of Eastern Hutt School indicates that this discussion has already begun : ‘On the upside, the lockdown provides an opportunity for student agency and student led learning to thrive and this is a huge positive, especially with our senior children. The children are driving their learning. Student agency gives students voice and choice in how they are learning at home. . . . Our teachers are already reflecting and discussing what they can take from this into the classroom when students return.’

Kiri Gill, Principal of St Matthews Trinity Schools, Wairarapa and President of the Wairarapa Secondary Schools Principals’

Association picks up the theme of student agency: ‘Potentially this crisis has encouraged, through whānau involvement, our taitamariki to become better independent learners.’

One of the challenges that is easier to ignore when students are dressed uniformly at school is the inherent disadvantage that some students face on a daily basis. The fact that not all students have the physical and emotional access to resources for learning has been very obvious in recent weeks as schools have challenged themselves to provide remote learning.

In a live streamed PLD session entitled Colouring in your Virtual White Spaces attended by more than two thousand educators, Ann Milne tackled both the issue of inequity and the opportunity inherent in our current situation. Always challenging – she talked about the pandemic of the Pakeha perspective that infects our schooling system and challenged educators to take this opportunity to audit both the physical and online educational spaces to ask ourselves whether Māori perspectives are present and valued. She offered an audit tool to assist us in doing so which can be found on her website.

In today’s Zui, we reflected on this whakatauki and learned that the Māori word for leader comes from the words ‘ranga’ to weave and ‘tira’ group. As we listen to the kōrero of those around us, I hope that we consider how to take what we have all learned to weave our learning communities together more strongly and effectively moving forward.

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 conversation.

What is the cost of conflict at school?

Support student led pastoral care that reduces teacher workload and stress.

Empower students to take responsibility for behaviour management without teacher intervention.

Conflict resolution programmes improve the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and students within the school community.

Research has demonstrated positive results in all participating schools.

Leadership through Peer Mediation (LtPM)

Cool Schools Peer Mediation Programme

for Secondary Schools (Years 11 – 13)

for Primary Schools (Years 1 – 8)

These programmes are available FREE to schools.

Funding provides training and resources, including revisits.

For more information: The Peace Foundation www.peace.net.nz christina@peacefoundation.org.nz Ph (09) 373 2379

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NZ Principal | June 2 0 2 0

ThePeaceFoundationNZ ThePeaceFoundationNZ

g n i c u d Intro new our tool InterLEAD is pleased to announce the newest tool in the InterLEAD Suite...

SLEUTH SLEUTH™ is a developmental tool.

It allows teachers to identify their pedagogical strengths and weaknesses and provides solutions to implement and track progress to improve the identified pedagogical areas.

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!

If you are an InterLEAD Connector customer you will get access to SLEUTH™ as part of your subscription, or alternatively your school will be able to subscribe to SLEUTH™ plus get access to InterLEAD Connector free of charge… Win Win

History shows us that Schools focus on Assessment and Curriculum because it’s easier and it’s in their face on a daily basis. Teachers are drowning in assessment data - it finds them.

Curriculum is also easy because it is what teachers are required to teach, it’s found online, in books and in school documentation.

You can understand why focusing on these areas has been the path of least resistance and currently occupies teachers’ and leaders’ time and energy.

The unfortunate truth is that Pedagogy is the most important and significant factor influencing student learning over which teachers have influence (it accounts for around 30% of variation in student achievement - students’ ability is the biggest at around 50%), but improving pedagogy can be challenging and until now it has been an arduous and time consuming process as schools don’t have systems that capture the school’s expertise in these areas.

Pedagogy

Curriculum

Assessment

(How teachers teach)

(What teachers teach)

(The result)

SLEUTH™ - (Version 1) aims to change this by matching pedagogical capabilities within your school, by surveying and collecting valuable pedagogical skills data to identify those that can offer help in an area with those who need help - using your Internal Capabilities - ultimately to grow the pedagogy in your school.

In a nutshell SLEUTH™ is designed to help teachers grow their pedagogy and ultimately advance the progress of their students.

If you would like to know more about SLEUTH™ please contact either Tony / Andrew or any of the team as they will be more than happy to provide further details.

Tony Burkin

021 729 008 t.burkin@interlead.co.nz

Andrew Ormsby

+64 3 420 2800 ext1 a.ormsby@interlead.co.nz

2020

connect with technology

The importance of the Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko curriculum

has never been clearer

Creative solutions enabled by digital technology are critical to our new everyday lives.

Now is the time to take your technology knowledge to the next level. Use our kete of supports and your DT & HM content to enrich learning.

Support is here • Online courses to build teacher and student skills, tailored to your needs.

Innovative, fun and available in both English and Māori mediums.

Raranga Matihiko/Weaving Digital Futures – rarangamatihiko.com Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko /National Digital Readiness – kiatakatu.ac.nz • The Digital Technologies Implementation support tool helps you manage the change at your school. The tool, and the full kete of support, information and resources is available on Technology Online – technology.tki.org.nz • Find information and curriculum support resources for understanding and implementing Hangarau Matihiko as part of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa.

EducationGovtNZ

@educationnz