“We think that the tool’s great but what’s even better is the conversation that’s happening around it. So, the kōrero, the kōrero, the kōrero – that’s what’s more powerful.”

Tātai Takuira-Mita
Kaihautu Kaiwhakaako Kura Auraki, Fairhaven School
Te Kāhui Ako ō Te Puke, Across-school teacher

In this video, the Poutama Pounamu experts and the school leaders review their Continuum of Practice scale.

Progression in culturally responsive teaching

The Continuum of Practice scale enables teaching to be classified according to the observed evidence of cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy. The continuum extends through five categories from basic to integrating informed by observational findings and the Rongohia te Hau data.

Power of the kōrero

Tātai Takuira-Mita explains that while the tool is a great resource, it is the power of the kōrero – the questions and the structured discussion that follow – that drives the learning and change.

The importance of such external expertise to guide and model constructive problem talk using real time data is highlighted in best evidence synthesis findings.

Evidence shows that without such intervention ‘a collegial community will often end up merely entrenching existing practice and the assumptions on which it is based’.

“We’re learning, through undertaking the process, more about cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy. We’re learning more about the principles and the interactions that enact those principles in practice…we’re also deeply engaged in the process of learning together. Learning and building the collective kete of knowledge around this way of teaching.”

Therese Ford
Expert Partner, Poutama Pounamu

Dissonance drives change

Rongohia te Hau and the intensive observational data provide dissonant evidence to disrupt business-as-usual and to drive new learning. The relationships built, the commitment to equity, and the quality of the kōrero become critical for deep change.

“We can have some very deep and very critical conversations about practice at the other end of the continuum as well, which are still very intently focused on some things that we may have seen that are not acceptable.”

Therese Ford
Expert Partner, Poutama Pounamu

“That learning can open your eyes to new possibilities, but also open your eyes to really stupid things that you might have done in the past. That’s unlearning.

Relearning of pedagogy through a tool such as Rongohia te Hau is a really important aspect of taking something quite summative – I’m talking about the observation – and then moving into the formative process.”

Professor Mere Berryman
Director, Poutama Pounamu

Theory-based practice for ongoing improvement

When teachers can build a theoretical understanding of what works for culturally responsive pedagogy, they are then equipped to start applying this new understanding across their teaching. This means teachers and leaders develop adaptive expertise. With collegial support they can drive deeper and far-reaching improvement in their teaching.

Professor Mere Berryman calls this ‘transformative praxis – theory based practice that transforms the status quo for more equitable outcomes’.

Teachers can regularly review their progress by using Rongohia te Hau survey results, observations and other tools, to check how learners and whānau are experiencing developments. The collaborative process is on an ongoing improvement trajectory.

‘The opposite of racism’

Teachers are learning to be responsive to the diversity of Māori and other learners in their class. As the feedback from Rongohia te Hau and the observational journey shifts their teaching practices, teachers and others working in schools are not ‘allocating identities’; they are responding to students’ identities, and their responsiveness is strengthened through connections to whānau.

The impact of interventions that use these strategies have been demonstrated in quantitative and qualitative data from Te Kotahitanga Phase 5.

Māori students at William Colenso College explained:

“It’s like the opposite of racism in this school.”

“You feel way more comfortable around the teachers to learn.”

“It’s a real good feeling being Māori.”

Uplifting for educational leaders

Culturally responsive pedagogical practice delivers for students, teachers, and leaders.

“I know personally that after I’ve just walked through a fantastic lesson with a teacher who is highly responsive, that has relationships with their children. It’s uplifting. It fills my kete. It’s definitely a buzz.”

Tātai Takuira-Mita
Kaihautu Kaiwhakaako Kura Auraki, Fairhaven School
Te Kāhui Ako ō Te Puke, Across-school teacher

Belonging and wellbeing in changing times

Regular and responsive use of Rongohia te Hau enables the process to work for each new cohort of learners and to enable greater responsiveness in changing times.

This relational approach to culturally responsive teaching is a living process that can benefit students, tamariki, rangatahi, teachers, teacher aides, whanau and leaders. Effective and practical ways of enabling and sustaining educationally powerful connections with whānau can matter even more during times of rapid change and challenge such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Find out more

Education Review Office. (2016). School Evaluation Indicators: Effective practice for improvement and learner success. Wellington: Education Review Office.
See links to School Evaluation Indicators: Domain 6 Evaluation, inquiry and knowledge building for improvement and innovation. pp. 40 – 41.

Timperley, H., Wilson, A., Barrar, H., & Fung. I. (2007). BES Case 7: Establish culturally responsive relationships with students to reduce educational disparities and raise achievement. In Teacher professional learning and development: Best evidence synthesis iteration (pp. 259-264). Wellington: Ministry of Education.