Transformative leadership, impact and sustainability: Raukura Rotorua Boys' High School
A best evidence in action exemplar
Introduction/Whakataki
01: Raukura - Best evidence
in action: Introduction
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The voices of those in a position to see the transformation gather momentum share their perspectives on key moments in this journey and the characteristics of leadership required.
02: Hirangatanga striving
for excellence
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A feature of the culture of Raukura is a strong sense of whānau whānui, being part of a collective that is bound together through familial-like relationships. From day one, everyone, peers and staff, support one another to be their best and most authentic self.
Students enjoy a sense of belonging and connection. They feel included, cared for, safe and secure.
They can be confident in their identity, language and culture. They feel valued and supported to succeed.
The school culture enables young men to excel and be the best they can be without having to compromise any aspect of their cultural identity.
03: A shift in mindset
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Individual and collective repositioning from deficit thinking (the problem is the students and their home communities); to personal and collective agency (we are responsible, we can and must contribute to social change) continues to be essential. Changing the cultural beliefs of the staff and community, as aspects of school functions and processes were restructured, involved challenges about power, race and privilege.
However, the focus on more inclusive and socially just learning outcomes for Māori and for all learners has endured over time. Believing in the Principal when he said: “the rest of us have always done well in this system,” and “all of us do better when Māori boys do better” has helped to inspire and sustain these shifts in mindset.
Today teachers and all staff continue to ask themselves:
- How can I do better?
- What do I know about my students?
- Who else needs to be a part of this?
- How will we do this?
04: Courageous leadership
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In a socially just society, every person matters. Achieving successful education outcomes in an education system that has not worked well for Māori requires courageous leadership, especially if the leaders are non-Māori.
Effective leaders are able to communicate their vision and expectations clearly. They are relentless and agentic in their pursuit of responsive education provision for every learner. The building of relational trust, effective collaboration and foundational relationships with iwi, whānau and the wider community are critical.
Successful leadership can recognise professional potential, identify the right professional opportunities and promote the development of professional capability.
Owning a strengths-based pathway to potential requires leaders who recognise a new vision for learners, lead by example, and take people with them. This requires time to recognise and enhance the skills of everyone to bring about the best in all and for all.
05: Elevation and Learning
of Te Reo Māori
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In 2012, when Raukura leadership moved to make te reo Māori a core subject for groups of their students, both Māori and non-Māori, they were at the cutting edge of what today is becoming a more nationally promoted and accepted reform.
Today, the school’s recognition of its shared bicultural heritage through the elevation and learning of te reo Māori is extended across the school community, Māori, non-Māori, learners, teachers and staff.
06: Relationships -
Rangatira mō apōpō
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The quality of the relationship between student and teacher and the relational environment within the school creates the context in which students experience success.
The expectation is that all young men who attend Raukura are valued for who they are, “respected for their background and prior knowledge” and in safe hands to be the “better them”.
Students recognise that the teachers want them to do well and encourage them to be the best they can be.
Māori boys flourish in an environment where they are valued for who they are and what they bring.
07: Evidence informing action
across the curriculum
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Participation in Te Kotahitanga shaped the school’s improvement journey in fundamental ways. The effects are evident in the organisationally coherent approach to using evidence to improve outcomes. The improvement journey begins with a focus on the learner and his learning.
The co-construction process enables staff to recognise the things that need to be done differently, and work collaboratively to ensure improvements are put in place.
This involves learning to disaggregate the data and asking the question “Is this good enough?” A compelling evidence narrative then drives the change.
To achieve change, leaders and teachers must work together in a disciplined way to examine the evidence and take action in the classroom and across the school to ensure that every student has the opportunity to learn.
Collaboration and co-construction enable teacher self-efficacy and agency.
08: Setting up for successful
learning: Attending to wellbeing
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There is a strong inter-relationship between students’ strengths, wellbeing and learning outcomes and how this is recognised. Ensuring every student is able to achieve their potential requires a focus on the whole young person and their whānau.
Raukura takes responsibility to ensure that issues of wellbeing are identified and managed proactively. The school’s provision of an early, healthy lunch for all students each day sets them up for better engagement, learning and success.
Wellbeing must be for all. Singling learners out because of their need, no matter how well intentioned, can undermine or belittle. Watch the video to see how this plays out.
09: Setting up for successful
learning: Feedback
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Each student brings with them a kete of knowledge and capabilities. Recognising what students bring to the learning context and responding to and building on their funds of knowledge sets them up for success.
An environment that provides opportunities to engage, learn and build confidence through practice supports the development of critical thinkers and lifelong learners.
Processes, tools and targeted feedback can help set learners up to be more successful.
10: Aligning curriculum
to the learner
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Using local contexts for learning supports effective, culturally responsive pedagogy and promotes meaningful learning.
By working with authentic knowledge holders, teachers can bring the narratives of mana whenua to life to ensure local histories and narratives are part of the curriculum.
Student identities and whānau and community knowledge, language and culture are represented in curriculum materials and the enacted curriculum.
At Raukura the curriculum makes connections to learners’ lives, prior understandings, out-of-school experiences and real-world contexts.
11: Setting up for successful
learning: Targeted support
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Ensuring learner success means taking responsibility for knowing who our learners are and understanding their strengths and interests from the start in order to build their potential. This is particularly important when students transition from Māori to English medium.
Knowing the learner enables the provision of access to the right support and tools to accelerate learning and achievement. Providing focused, timely feedback also has a significant impact on outcomes.
12: Educationally powerful
connections and relationships
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The journey associated with participation in Te Kotahitanga and Rongohia te Hau provided the context for the school’s academic review process and led to the processes for involving parents and whānau in meaningful, learning-centred relationships.
“Parents and whānau are the primary and ongoing influence on the development, wellbeing and self-efficacy of their children. It is important that schools engage with them and involve them in school activities, particularly those that are focused on learning” (School Evaluation Indicators, 2016, p. 26).
Opportunity for regular, learning focused conversations with parents and whānau is critical. It shifts the focus from reporting on achievement to students’ progress in learning and learning behaviours.
Parents and whānau have a better understanding of how their boys are going and what they need to focus on. Teachers, parents and whānau can all work together to actively support learning and achieve better outcomes.
13: Evaluation for improvement:
Gathering perspectives
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The Rongohia te Hau process involves gathering the voices of students, their parents and whānau and teachers. Classroom walk-throughs enable the gathering of information to support the evaluation process.
This approach reflects the nature and aspirations of the school and its community. The evidence gathered is used to support and improve the decision making in shaping the curriculum and practices across the school.
Student voice and whānau voice are also gathered as part of subject and Faculty reviews.
These processes are key mechanisms for finding out what is working and not working and evaluating the quality and effectiveness of practice.
The evaluation process enables leaders and teachers to shape curriculum to support the learner and learning and improve professional practice.
14: Sustaining a
learning community
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An effective professional learning community “shares high, clear and equitable expectations for student learning, achievement, progress and wellbeing; gathers, analyses and uses evidence of student learning and outcomes to improve individual and collective practice; engages in systematic, evidence-informed professional inquiry to improve outcomes for students.” (School Evaluation Indicators, 2016, p. 38).
At Raukura all staff are actively involved in the professional learning community in order to become more competent in the kaupapa of the community with mutual benefits resulting for its participants.
The organisational structures, processes and practices that the school has developed over time enable and sustain collaborative learning. This ensures staff have regular access to one another’s expertise and builds capability for ongoing improvement and innovation.
The guiding principle is always “If Māori boys are doing well, everyone’s doing well.”
15: Building
cultural capability
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Building cultural capability required recognising both the need for, and potential of, such a focus and resourcing this with time, specialised expertise and support.
Positional leadership recognises the status and significance of the cultural leadership role. The cultural capacity portfolio enables the development of appropriate cultural practices across the school and increases opportunities for both individual and team capability building.
The development of the school’s cultural capacity over time has enabled the provision of a culturally safe and supportive learning environment where Māori can authentically enjoy and achieve success as Māori.
16: Decolonising to indigenise:
Understanding our place in the world
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Increased cultural capacity and awareness enables a greater understanding of the manifestation and effect of colonisation in Aotearoa New Zealand and in the school context.
Respecting mana whenua and the land on which the school stands means coming to critically understand the metaphors, narratives and ways of being that influence who we are.
Developing deeper understandings has enabled the school to better connect with and reflect the community in which it is located. This understanding has led to the revisiting of school conventions, names and processes (decolonise) and their replacement with more relevant ones from the community (indigenise).
For example, the school pepeha provided an authentic framework for articulating and developing the school whakapapa.
The names of the school houses now represent the different local landmarks – Ngongotahā (the mountain), Rotorua-nui-a-kahumatamomoe (the lake), Utuhina (the stream) and Te Akitu (the land gifted to the school by Ngāti Whakaue) – contributing to a strong sense of place, connection and belonging.
The school community recognises and evaluates its place in the school and in the world.
17: Raukura –
Te Hokinga Mai
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Source: https://poutamapounamu.org.nz/hui-taumata Chris Grinter Principal 0-16.49
Principal Chris Grinter commences his speech with the Raukura Pepeha. Raukura was the name gifted to Rotorua Boys’ High School by Ngāti Whakaue.
Chris Grinter illustrates ways in which Raukura has worked with mana whenua to give effect to a decolonising transformation across the school environment.
He explains the Prime Minister’s Supreme Education Excellence Award in 2019 as a culmination of a ten-year process of school-changing work. He acknowledges the early Te Kotahitanga journey, Professor Mere Berryman, Professor Russell Bishop, David Copeland, and the Poutama Pounamu team.
But for Principal, Chris Grinter, his burning question is how to continue and sustain the improvement journey.
‘How a school that has been through a well-supported process of responsiveness, growth and change can, when independent of that support, continue to make positive change and continued improvements in the same kaupapa? Too often innovation cannot be continued or sustained in this post intervention space.’ (Personal communication, 28 February 2021)
The leadership team at Raukura have found helpful the reflections on impact and sustainability of Te Kotahitanga published by Professor Russell Bishop in 2019: Teaching to the North-East: Relationship-based learning in practice. In particular, Russell Bishop has identified the problem that too often the change process focusses on the teaching or the relationships but not both.
Chris Grinter explains the Raukura refresh in progress in the two years following the award as affording priority to relationships and teaching skills – ‘Rawhiti mā raki’.
Raukura is calling the next stage of their improvement journey He Ngāhurutanga Hōu. Their vision is for a learning environment where Māori and all students thrive and grow, and where all teachers thrive and grow. The model highlights agentic theorising, the language of potentiality, the language of possibility, whanaungatanga, and whānau whānui. The approach is attendance positive, engagement positive, achievement positive and power sharing.
Then Chris Grinter hands over the presentation to Rie Morris, Tumuaki Tuarua Āheinga Ahurea (Deputy Principal, Cultural Capacity) to explain the way Raukura is giving effect to the next stage of transformative and sustainable educational change.
18: Ko Te Waka Mātauranga,
He Waka Eke Noa
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https://poutamapounamu.org.nz/hui-taumata [Rie Morris 0-16.50 – 39.01]
Deputy Principal, Cultural Capacity: Tumuaki Tuarua Āheinga Ahurea
Throughout the videos in this feature we have heard from Mana Whenua, Board members, leaders, teachers, whānau and Raukura boys about how much they value the learning relationships in this multiple award-winning school.
Deputy Principal, Rie Morris, explains the transformative strategies that have made such a difference to equity, excellence, belonging and wellbeing at Raukura. The video shows the whole school staff celebrating te Ao Māori with a waiata-ā-ringa in front of all students. Priority has been afforded to te reo Māori in this mainstream high school. Six Kaiako are fluent speakers and all staff are supported to develop their te reo Māori.
Along with Principal, Chris Grinter, Rie Morris speaks to the impact of Professor Russell Bishop’s (2019) publication: Teaching to the North-East: Relationship-based learning in practice. From the lessons learned in Te Kotahitanga the most difference is made when both relationships and pedagogical expertise are prioritised.
The evidence of what makes a bigger difference in education in Professor John Hattie’s Visible Learning meta-analyses has also informed staff development.
Rie Morris highlights the way leadership have given effect to the evidence across a wide range of practices designed to build collective efficacy: staff professional learning at the marae, robust co-construction processes at all staff levels, the use of Rongohia te Hau, pedagogical development, digital development, frequent reporting processes and engagement with whānau, scaffolded support and innovative review.
Development and implementation are underpinned by the guiding principles:
- Whanaungatanga
- Manaakitanga
- Mana Motuhake
- Whakapriringatanga
A key finding of the School leadership and student outcomes Best Evidence Synthesis | He kura rangatira; He kura ākonga was that the highest impact of any leadership activity on valued ākonga outcomes was leadership promotion of, and participation in, teacher learning and development. Raukura leadership give effect to such learning.
Whaia te iti kahurangi!