Professor Mere Berryman at Pukemokimoki Marae, Napier

Tim White explains that, for him as a leader, participating in the Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning ^[1] professional development, led by Professor Mere Berryman, was the ‘life changing’ opportunity that was critical to the transformative change that followed for him as a Pākehā principal and for his staff.

The blended learning process involves three wānanga for educators/leaders, two of which are held at the school’s or Kāhui Ako’s local marae. The other is held online where cohorts from throughout the country join to work together over a period of a week.

Back in their schools and centres those who attend wānanga fulfil the role of Kaiwhakaako (those who learn with and through others) by facilitating structured conversations with colleagues. Online modules with regular feedforward from Poutama Pounamu facilitators support both the Kaiwhakaako and their ākonga in this process. There are five online modules:

1. Agentic responses to the fabric of New Zealand society
2. Culture, language and identity
3. Cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy
4. Educationally powerful connections
5. Ako: Critical contexts for change

Learning more about our colonial heritage and its impact on education is, for many, new learning that is deeply unsettling.

Professor Mere Berryman explains:

‘We have to go back to te Ao Māori…those first understandings about the land, about the whenua, about Māori ways of understanding and viewing the world…if you know about this, these spaces, these places, we might have a different view of what is our responsibility, what is their responsibility to the Māori learners in their schools?

Setting up spaces that are not only culturally significant but culturally safe has been really important, so the first wānanga is always held on a marae…’

Tim White proactively took on both roles of learner and leader:

‘I do remember waking up that morning and feeling quite anxious about the thought of staying overnight on the marae…just wondering how was that going to contribute to the learning opportunity for me?’

Mere Berryman describes how the marae can be an enabling space for both Māori and non-Māori:

‘For a lot of people the marae has been a place that they’ve never been to, they’ve certainly never had a professional development day on the marae. But they’ve also never seen Māori from a perspective of actually, this is amazing. This is an incredible space. This is a place where we can learn and actually more so. It is a space where I, where they, can feel really really comfortable…they were safe, I was safe, but just as importantly, the kaupapa was safe...we could start thinking about how do we honour the Treaty of Waitangi.’

The impact of the Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning professional development depends upon the engagement of both educational leaders and staff. Frimley Primary School exemplified the impact of this commitment from both leaders and staff.

One follow-up study of Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning participants found that:

‘Without leadership’s active participation in and promotion of the Blended Learning kaupapa, the remaining participants came to recognise that changes beyond the classroom practices of their ākonga group were unlikely.’^[2]

The largest impact (d = 0.84) on valued student outcomes of any of the leadership practices identified in the School leadership and student outcomes |Hei Kura Rangatira Best evidence synthesis is ‘Promoting and participating in teacher learning and development’. Analyses across the evidence concluded that for optimal impact: ‘The leader doesn’t stop at supporting or sponsoring their staff in their learning: they actually participate in the learning themselves – as a leader, learner, or both’.

Tim White asked seven senior staff to join him in the Blended Learning as Kaiwhakaako to support other staff in ākonga groups to engage in the Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning process. He modelled this approach himself. In this way the learning reached across 35 teaching staff and up to 15 learning assistants. The wider Kāhui Ako also engaged.

In 2023, Frimley staff reflected back on the impact of the Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning:

‘Lots of anxiety around that new learning…being confronted by some of those unconscious biases that I’ve had through generations…but feeling now that I’m on a journey, a long way to go but it empowers me as a teacher to have that knowledge.’

Tessa Arcus, Frimley Primary School, Learning Community Leader^[3]

‘…to be part of that rōpū with a real mixture of everybody bringing different walks of life, different experiences, different understandings was challenging, positively challenging, but also in a real mana enhancing way where we could have open and courageous conversations.’

Tania Henare, Frimley Primary School, Deputy Principal

The Poutama Pounamu processes built relational trust for leaders and staff. Trust matters for transformative change. Chapter 8 of the School leadership and student outcomes |Hei Kura Rangatira Best evidence synthesis explains: ‘No matter how sound a leader’s pedagogical knowledge and problem-solving ability may be, their impact will be limited if relationships in the school are characterised by an absence of trust.’

Moving from why change to how do we change

‘Let’s raise people’s critical consciousness about what we can understand about our system and how Māori have not fared well in that system…and then moving to the research…‘What can we do about it?’… there is a process for leaders, there’s a theory of change, there are some processes of work that can be undertaken by schools, by early childhood services to help them actually begin to turn the tide on the disparities that the system is still producing for Māori.’

Professor Mere Berryman, Poutama Pounamu

For Frimley staff, using the evidence for change became the focus. ‘Mana enhancing processes’ became the enablers.

‘…I was in that unconsciously unaware state…it became front and centre for me that oh, my goodness. This is what I’ve been doing as a teacher and that’s the impact, I didn’t even realise that I could do it better…We did the Poutama Pounamu course and then we became the tuakana...I think that power sharing is one of the most powerful tools that we have brought into Frimley.’

Kath Winnie, Frimley Primary School, Learning Community Leader

Tim White’s questions as a leader were:

‘How do you sew together the blended learning with other learning that’s going on in this school?’

‘How do you link that to your strategic plan and your annual plan?’

Ngā Hau e Whā Kāhui Ako, Hastings West Learning Community: Improvement Plan

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi engari he toa takitini

My strength is not mine alone but that of the multitudes

In July 2016, Tim White became the lead Principal for Ngā Hau e Whā Kāhui Ako, Hastings West Learning Community (with nine schools and nine kindergartens) partnering with Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated to develop their Culturally Responsive workstream by the end of 2017.

The 2019 Improvement Plan for the Kāhui Ako ^[4] summarised their early journey, provided an analysis of the evidence, and identified three key levers for change in their achievement challenges for 2020+:

Lever 1: Cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy

Lever 2: Place-based curriculum

Lever 3: Educationally powerful partnerships

By the end of 2019, 258 staff across the Kāhui Ako had been involved as ākonga in Poutama Pounamu with 57 of those taking roles as Kaiwhakaako.

The number of Māori teachers across the Kāhui Ako had increased from 13 to 23, and Māori in leadership positions had increased from two to six.

The use of the Poutama Pounamu evidence-gathering tool, Rongohia te Hau^[5], revealed significant movement in the level of Culturally Responsive practice from the perspectives of ākonga and whānau.

The sections that follow focus on developments at Frimley Primary School that enabled deep change and led to external recognition through the Prime Minister’s Educational Excellence Awards.

Footnotes

1. About Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning - Poutama Pounamu The range of development opportunities includes access to further evidence to accelerate reform and strengthen culturally responsive teaching and school leadership e.g. eBook: Sustaining and Spreading Education Reform: including marginalised students. Educators can choose to undertake assignments that enable recognition of prior learning. Poutama Pounamu also provides pathways for postgraduate qualifications to continue to build the evidence-base about the ‘how’ of transformative change. For further information about one of the Poutama Pounamu Rongohia te Hau observational smart tools see: Rongohia te Hau: Effective support for culturally responsive teaching | Education Counts.
2. Maisey, C. (2022). Changing hearts and minds: Investigating Transformative Praxis from participating in the Poutama Pounamu Blended Learning. Hamilton: University of Waikato.
3. As part of the change process, Frimley Primary School grouped learners into Learning Communities. Each Learning Community has four to seven classrooms. Learning Communities are made up of students who are the same age groups, and they will often organise trips, sporting and cultural events and plan their learning together.
4. Full title: Ngā Hau e Whā Kāhui Ako Hastings West Learning Community (99159) Achievement Challenge 2020+
5. Find out more about the Poutama Pounamu Rongohia te Hau strategy for enabling evidence from teachers, whānau and ākonga to inform culturally responsive teaching: Rongohia te Hau: Effective support for culturally responsive teaching | Education Counts