Introduction

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Transformative leadership

According to Shields (2010), transformative leadership “takes seriously the personal and the public responsibility to use power, privilege, and position in the context to promote social justice and enlightenment for the benefit, not only of individuals, but of society as a whole. Such leadership practice requires attending to the needs and aspirations of the wider community in which one serves” (Berryman et al., 2014, p.13). This aspect of leadership aligns with the work of critical leaders.

Critical Leaders begin to understand and question how inequality is playing out and what it would look like in their school or centre if a more equitable response were to be achieved. This requires leaders who deeply understand what is happening for learners and the contexts for change within which tamariki and rangatahi can be better supported to learn and achieve. These understandings provide a pathway for all learners and their families.

Mauri ora - Impact and sustainability

Reforming both the culture and structures at Raukura Rotorua Boys’ High School, in order for the mauri of all to be vibrant and alive, has been a dynamic and evolving process over time. This process has emanated from the school’s classrooms to the entire school, and into students’ home communities. The culture has been further strengthened by the school’s longstanding links to Mana Whenua and the wider community. Staff members are an integral part of the school’s wider community, and the community is an integral part of the school.

The school’s engagement with Te Kotahitanga Phase 5 highlighted for Principal Chris Grinter the critical need to challenge the status quo related to the systemic under-serving of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand. This challenge focused on changing the relationships and pedagogy that teachers were using in classrooms and continuing to challenge or affirm these changes through the regular and ongoing disaggregation of data. The school was clear that data included cultural and sporting success as well as academic success. Cultural and structural reforms have resulted in the fundamental repositioning of staff, learners, whānau and the wider community so that ‘mauri ora’ becomes a vibrant reality in this school and its community.

Cultural change and structural shift

Te Kotahitanga challenged teachers to critically reflect on their own positioning in relation to Māori learners. Where necessary, teachers were supported to critically evaluate where they were discursively positioned^[1] within their own classroom practices in order to construct more inclusive beliefs about their learners and more dialogic pedagogies for teaching and learning.

In order to sustain these new beliefs and practices, changes in classrooms simultaneously began to drive structural changes across the school. Regular meetings, by specific groups of teachers, to discuss evidence of the learning outcomes of common groups of learners is one such example. These co-construction meetings drove structural shifts that helped to ensure that evidence of the cultural changes in classroom practices with students and whānau were being iteratively used to manage the reform going forward. The alignment of cultural change and structural shifts reflect Bishop et al., (2010) who warn, “If the reform and its associated meetings and commitments are peripheral to everyday school life, then the project will never be sustainable” (p.81).

Cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy

Cultural relationships between learners and their teachers are foundational to responsive teaching and learning. When learners respect and trust their teachers and this is reciprocated by teachers, then the prior knowledge and cultural experiences of all learners is welcomed, valued and accepted as the basis for new learning. By believing in the potential of learners, agentic teachers are able to create more effective conditions for engaging with learning across the curriculum.

Rather than depending solely on the transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner, effective teaching and learning, as with ako, is reciprocal, dynamic and ongoing. Learning is relevant to learners’ lives, their specific interests, readiness and aspirations for the future. Teachers and learners learn with and from each other. These relationships for engagement with learning are further strengthened when home communities are also able to contribute.

Powerful educational connections

The school and its home communities have become an extended whānau where everyone is committed to go above and beyond to secure success for all. Whanaungatanga, the process of actively making connections to build relationships and understanding, is the basis of what can now be observed at Raukura - whānautanga - close familial and reciprocal relationships developed through shared experiences and working together. This has often been described as a whānau-of-interest, in this case the collective interest being the mauri ora of the young men of Raukura, their whānau and the wider community. Within this whānau everyone has the responsibility and power to be agentic.

The strength of whānautanga is evidenced in the testimony of students and staff and also in the consistency of this school’s outstanding outcomes data - a trend that has resisted the negative impacts of Covid related disruption to schooling.

Evidence and adaptive expertise

At Raukura the ongoing and iterative use of evidence is helping to explore and define a range of alternative options for curriculum and learning. Leadership has taken a measured approach, driving improvement with a willingness to mediate and facilitate sensemaking so that the best solutions are scrutinised before implementation and review. This iterative attention to the evidence ensures the school continues to build coherence and alignment in its approach to education provision and that the changes made are sustainable.

Leadership at Raukura continues to ensure that the three critical contexts for change that generate ‘mauri ora’:

• cultural relationships for responsive pedagogy
• home, school and community collaborations
• adaptive expertise driving deliberate professional acts

do not operate in a separate or linear fashion. Rather they work together to ensure the reform is aligned and coherent so that it is sustainable. Everyone has agency to participate and to contribute to leadership. This agency extends beyond those recognised as ‘leaders’ in a traditional/colonial sense. Leadership has moved across the school, to the young men who see themselves as responsible for their own success as well as the success of their peers. This collaborative leadership intent continues to flow out into the school’s home and wider communities.

(See Ako: Critical contexts for change - Poutama Pounamu)