Wananga 2020

The following are notes taken from the Wananga 2020 by the AkoHiko cluster (as a group) as the events occurred during the day. My presentation was first up after Morning Tea.

Pat Snedden

1. Encouraged every cluster to go out and get another school into your cluster

2. Want to get all homes with connectivity & devices - seeking money from government for this

Aaron Wilson - WFRC

Aaron's slides

(Slide 3)  Maths - Need to get students over the middle line into top quadrants

(Slide 4) Reading - our worst subject (the whole outreach) - “We need to be relentless about reading.”

• Pattern of low achievement and low rates of progress 

(Slide 5)  Pattern of the gradient tapering off as you go up through the year levels

(Slide 6)  Basic Literacy: letter identification, phonetic sounds, etc

Intermediate Literacy - General reading comprehension, conventions of different text, etc

Disciplinary Literacy - subject specialised (similar to high school text) - when basic literacy is not

enough

(Slide 7)  Need more High Level Practices in everyday classroom practice

• Learning from authentic text

• Sharing ideas in discussion

• Thinking Critically & developing strategies

• Collaboration & making choices in L, C, S

(Slide 8) - NEW SLIDE FOR JUNIORS

Online Observations - (Even though this scope was done when we were dealing with well being, this is still

a real picture of what was happening at this time) gives a wider view of what’s happening in a classroom

and the quality of teacher’s planning (e.g. panning for discussions)

•  Are the High Level Practices happening - can they be seen in the planning?

(Slide 12)  Years 3 +  Mainly information text - not balanced

(Slide 13)  Positive:  Lots of linked text

(Slide 16)  Maori - note - this was done during Matariki… is this why Pasifika text was so low.  2nd Note: 

No Māori text in High Schools  / 

(Slide 18) Shows that students do see text reflecting their world

• Mirror Text -  Text that relates to me 

• Window Text - Texts that relates to people outside my culture - Need a balance -

• challenge is to make all texts mirror and window by scaffolding

(Slide 23)  Positive - what you would expect

(Slide 32)  Critical thinking needs to be actually planned for - explicit teaching requires explicit planning

Discussion Points

Whole TMP Slides

Ako Hiko report

Discussion Point One: Text	Nigel was told by the high school to focus on non-fiction as that’s what all subjects (except English) are based on at high school. Multiple texts and non-fiction strong this time round - they were our work ons last year.
Discussion Point Two: Instructional foci	Metacognition: Are students thinking hard but still literally (i.e. are they having to work hard on the literal questions so they are seen as thinking hard but not at higher levels) Increase in blogging will increase opportunities to discuss audience and purpose.
Discussion Point Three:	Rewind-ability: Dorothy mentioned that rewind ability is happening in schools but that it was not captured in the snapshots of OLO. Choice: At the last sensemaking session we talked about students having more choice about what they write about. WaPS have a choice board up every week

Innovative Teachers 1 

(links to presentations on the agenda)

Sarah Daly (Yr 5 & 6 Waikowhai):  Reading Comprehension Through Questioning

Alethea Dejong  (Yr 6 Hornby Pri Sch)  Teaching chn to listen to each other in independent groups /

Tanya Mundy (Yr 4 & 5 Redhill School - Papakura) Creating Writers  /  Genuine context / Add to the

experience using Google Earth, Youtube, NZ Schoolkits / introductory tasks / how to address spelling

& punctuation 

Device Procurement - Russell & Dave

• New Bag has 6 year warranty

• Price has gone up $3

• New model of IPAD  /  Leasing has gone down

• We can collect parts of old CBs to be recycled/reused in other devices?

Innovative Teachers 2

(links to presentations on the agenda)

Kiriwai Tapuke (Yr 7 & 8 Pt England):  Building Digital Tool  to help transition Year 8’s to Sec Sch  / 

Managing Self

Angela Seyb (Greymouth High School) :  Algebra to Senior Maths   

Kerianna Stirling   (Yr 4, 5, & 6  Otaki School)  Oral Language Website  - talking, thinking & learning

Dorothy Burt - Reflections & Moving into 2021

• 2020: The year the theory of the Manaiakalani Programme became a reality

• Future focused learning - connected communities

• Foundation:  Connected, Ubiquitous, Visible, Empowered

• Structure: Learn, Create, Share

• CyberSmart Curriculum is so important - like the roof over the head of a building -

• Safety:  We do Lockdown drills, Shake Out.  Need to practice “Meet Up”. Practise Distance Learning

• DFI 2021 :  One to Face to Face (Term Two - Fridays)  / Three Online (term 1 will be Wednesday)

• Research 2021 :  Data Gathering,  Writing Moderation, Cost Contribution

• Would like Data this year as it will show a different picture…. Which we can use (with government

• discussions)

• Summer Learning Journey - facilitators are planning this for this year

• 2021 Virtual Cluster starting  :  Trialling this for individual schools across New Zealand

Innovative Teachers 3

(links to presentations on the agenda)

Sonali Carter ( Yr 2 Pt England) Engage Programme -  Self regulation  /  

Jo Gormly (  Tamaki Primary) Engage Programme -  Partnering with Whanau to implement

Engage Programs at home via a digital portal / has incorporated different languages 

The Challenge/Provocation

Aaron WFRC

• Relentless focus on Reading  /  Pattern of achievement & progress (plus teacher practice) has

• stayed the same for past 4 - 6 years

• Same practice means same result

• T-Shaped Literacy integrates Reading & Writing

• Reading:  Need a balance of ‘windows’ & ‘mirrors’  /  Need to look at using texts that represent our

• students ethnic groups / Māori text should not just be used during Matariki 

• Need PLD for teachers 

Ako Hiko Ideas:

T- Shaped Literacy - this year slowed right down with Covid (authentic text, sharing ideas in discussion /

thinking critically)

Collaboration & making choices in L, C, S 

Visit to Kaikohekohe cluster next week 

Sunshine Decodables - suit ethnic groups in low decile schools - great illustrations - great content 

More choices in Reading - We have an innovative teacher in Sarah in our cluster

Look at a break down of ethnicity in our school and see if are we covering the windows and mirrors

Our next steps to feedback:

T-shaped will continue to be our focus and a vehicle we can use to address some other challenges we have discussed today, including:

-making sure the cultures of our students are represented in the texts we select (window and mirror texts - or ideally all texts are windows and mirrors) 

-offer more choice of texts that are read and activities/creations that come before or after the reading.

The next steps links nicely with my presentation - being a reading focused goal with the aim of raising achievement in Reading.