Overview

The teachers wanted to investigate ways to develop more collaborative and student-centred practices and to inquire more deeply into how these approaches might enhance educational outcomes for their Māori learners. Would it have a positive impact on Māori students’ achievement if they incorporated tuakana-teina relationships and ako with the principles of El Sistema? How might their findings inform the wider curriculum?

This project has revealed to me that the teacher does not always have to be in the driving seat of teaching and learning; transformational change in students’ learning and their attitudes to learning can shift more dramatically and more effectively in a collaborative environment.

Whangarei Girls’ High School music teacher

After 18 months, the teachers found that students’ self-assessments and academic achievement increased, along with the number of students choosing music in Year 10. The teachers no longer saw achievement solely in terms of academic results. They realised that they did not always have to be the expert and the driver of teaching and learning, and they could apply different forms of leadership to different situations.

The inquiry story

The inquiry involved two music teachers from Whangarei Girls’ High School, the school’s itinerant music teacher, Year 9 Whangarei Girls’ High School students, a teacher and Year 3 and 4 students from Ngunguru School, and community members from Sistema Whangarei. It took place over 18 months from the fourth term in 2017 and the first term of 2019.

What was the focus?

The teachers wanted to give students the opportunity to take on all the roles in the programme, so both learning and teaching was truly collaborative for teachers and students. The inquiry questions the teachers wanted to answer were:

• How can our teachers utilise the concepts of ako and tuakana-teina with the principles of El Sistema to raise educational outcomes for Māori learners?
• How can those concepts be used to develop teachers’ own skills in collaborative, student-centred learning and cultural responsiveness?
• What specific teaching methods will help students to develop transferable creative-thinking and problem-solving skills?
• What effect will the acquisition of those skills have on raising achievement, especially for our Maori ākonga?

What did the teachers try?

In this inquiry, the teachers trialled new approaches within their existing El Sistema-based music programme. They developed a framework consisting of four main roles that both teacher and student could assume at any appropriate point in the process of collaborating towards common goals. These roles — leader, player, sweeper, and tutor — are interchangeable. They depend on students acquiring certain skills, which the teacher facilitates along the way.

The inquiry incorporated several innovative approaches:

1. Tuakana-teina relationships: The Year 9 students helped deliver music lessons to younger children (Years 3 and 4) from the local primary school. This gave them an opportunity to demonstrate their skills as tuakana by teaching the younger children how to play stringed instruments in an orchestral setting. The Year 9 students supported the primary school students with advice and constructive feedback through the Padlet online channel.
2. Student as ‘sweeper’: This role was taken by senior students who had been through the Year 9 Sistema-inspired programme and had the instrumental and support skills to become tutors and sweepers within the Year 9 programme. Sweepers move around the learning space, making sure the other students are engaged, are positioning their body appropriately while holding the instrument correctly, and dealing with any barriers to learning. They are a link between the teacher and the learners and their skills in empathy, spatial awareness, and sensitivity are more important than their musical or instrumental skills.
3. Student as tutor or leader: Students had the opportunity to teach peers in their group other instrumental skills, and to lead activities or groups. The teachers incorporated reciprocal teaching and learning between peers, and between teachers and students, to further engage, extend, and respond to the needs of learners.
4. Progression and vocational pathways: Students who had been trained within school as sweepers, tutors or leaders/facilitators could volunteer in the community Sistema programme and eventually be paid to work with younger children in the programme. The school programme gave them opportunities to learn essential social and creative thinking skills in a safe, collaborative environment and provided them with a pathway to become positive leaders and role models to younger children in their community.
5. Teachers established a student advisory group who they consulted on the development and approach of their teaching practice.
6. The Year 9 and Year 3 and 4 students performed for their whānau at an end-of-term evening, where they also passed on their new skills to their whānau.

What happened?

The Year 9 and Years 3 and 4 students did self-evaluations of how well they were collaborating, problem solving, thinking creatively and their musical skills. Across all the cohorts in Year 9 their ratings improved in all these areas. There was a noticeable jump for the Year 9 students in the middle of the term following the session with the primary school children, with another lift after the end-of-term whānau event. Academic results increased in each subsequent cohort with more students achieving excellence in the later groups. Likewise, the number of Year 9 students who took Year 10 music also increased with each subsequent cohort.

The teachers took an iterative approach to delivering the programme to the Year 9 students, making changes to the delivery and shifting the focus informed by their reflections during the project. For instance, they modified their programme to increase the amount of contact between the Year 9 and Year 3 and 4 students and moved the Year 9 students more quickly along the path of progress in the programme through spending less time on warmup activities.

What did they learn?

The teachers have drawn a number of lessons from the changes they made to Connecting the dots, relating to both teacher practice and its impact on students.

1. It seems that a combination of external support from teachers, peers, whānau and the wider community, as well as a robust learning framework, is what is needed for a student to progress and achieve in a positive way.
2. The teachers saw that the principles of El Sistema aligned with the Tātaiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners.^[1] They feel very strongly that their approach not only addresses and meets the needs of the individual student in this respect but also has a strong impact on developing the capabilities and professional criteria of their teaching practice.
3. They no longer see achievement exclusively in terms of academic results but in terms of a students’ sense of worth, their feeling of having a place and purpose within a social group, their sense of self-efficacy, and their skills in self-regulation.
4. Handing more power over to the students and having them perform more roles than just that of learner seemed to enhance their learning.
5. The teachers made a significant shift in their leadership capabilities by being able to explore and use different styles of leadership while working in this collaboration.

Inquiry team

The inquiry team consisted of Whangarei Girls’ High School music teachers, with support for others:

• Nicholas Grew — Project lead and Whangarei Girls’ High School music teacher
• Natalie Payton — Whangarei Girls’ High School music teacher
• Sam Winterton — Itinerant music teacher/Sistema Whangarei

They were supported and advised by:

• Fiona Douglas — Director of Sistema Whangarei
• Kim Rogers — Whangarei Girls’ High School Deputy Principal
• Ngawai Haitana-Tuhoro — Te Reo Māori teacher at Whangarei Girls’ High School
• Megan Peterson — Evaluation Associates PLD facilitator

For further information

If you would like to learn more about this project, please contact the project leader Nicholas Grew at nicholas.grew@wghs.school.nz.

Footnote

1. Ministry of Education / New Zealand Teachers Council. (2011). Tātaiako: cultural competencies for teachers of Māori learners. Wellington: Ministry of Education.