“We know that even with best intentions sometimes what is intended is not what the experience is.”

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

Rongohia te Hau: Listening to the winds of change

“Rongohia te Hau began with what the students told us.”

Professor Mere Berryman
Director, Poutama Pounamu, Te Wānanga Toi Tangata Division of Education, University of Waikato.

Rongohia te Hau uses survey responses from learners, whānau and teachers, and observations of teaching, to inform and develop culturally responsive pedagogy. It builds on relationships with mana whenua and iwi and is a practical way of enabling responsive consultation with mana whenua and communities.

Feedback on teaching

Through this systematic and collaborative process, educators listen and rapidly respond to whānau and Māori student voice.

“…it was really trying to get that triangulation across those three key groups to understand what the everyday pedagogy feels like for learners, for teachers, for whānau.

And then using one other measure to say: ‘OK, if that’s what it feels like, what does it actually look like in practice? If I take in some other teachers into the classrooms of the schools, what does that actually look like from a professional to a professional perspective?’”

Professor Mere Berryman
Director, Poutama Pounamu

The data are analysed and used to inform leadership co-construction, goal setting, action planning and ongoing improvement.

Rongohia te Hau demonstrates:

• an ethical and responsive strategy for listening and responding to students
• a respectful approach to productive partnerships between educators, leaders, and whānau and iwi in education
• challenging professional learning that is designed to make transformative change safe for students, whānau, teachers, leaders and others in the school community.

Digital evolution

Through digital access, systematic feedback loops drive rapid responsiveness and improvement.

Practical strategies are used to address issues of whānau digital access. Devices are made available at the school, for example, for whānau who may need them to respond to the Rongohia te Hau survey.

Poutama Pounamu has developed a new user-friendly iteration of Rongohia te Hau that is accessible and mobile compatible with provision for analysis and collation by the University of Waikato. Collated, anonymised data is returned to educator and community groups to enable further analysis and build shared understandings of survey data and feedback.

Find out more

Berryman, M. (2013). Leaders’ use of classroom evidence to understand, evaluate and reform schooling for indigenous students. In M. Lai, & S. Kushner (Eds.), A Developmental Approach to School Self-Evaluation, Advances in Program Evaluation 14, pp. 147-161. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Berryman & Eley (2018). Gathering and listening to the voices of Māori youth: what are the system responses? In Bourke. R. and Loveridge, J. (Eds.) Radical Collegiality through student voice. Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Berryman, M., Ford, T., & Egan, M. (2015).     Developing collaborative connections between schools and Māori communities (pdf 223kB). SET Research Information for Teachers No. 3, 18-25.

Berryman, M., & Macfarlane, S. (2017). Hopes for the future: Indigenous knowledge as an enabler of potential. The American Journal of Indigenous Studies, Special Issue, 9-27.

Ford, T. (2020). Manaaki Whenua. Manaaki Tangata: Care for the land, care for the people. Leading critical school reform with mana whenua and whānau Māori. (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Hamilton: The University of Waikato.

Education Review Office. (2016).     School Evaluation Indicators: Effective practice for improvement and learner success (pdf 1.7mB).  Wellington: Education Review Office.
See links to School Evaluation Indicators: Domain 4: Responsive curriculum, effective teaching and opportunity to learn. pp. 29 – 35.

Joyce, C. I. (2012).     Relational responsive pedagogy, teachers and Māori students listening and learning from each other. (Unpublished master’s thesis). Hamilton: The University of Waikato.