In this Part, we discuss schools’ views on aspects of their relationships with Māori students and whānau. We also discuss schools’ responses to survey questions 19-35 (see Appendix 2).15
Do schools think relationships are effective?
Ninety-four percent of schools agreed that they have effective relationships with whānau, and the same proportion of schools agreed that they have effective relationships with Māori students.
How well do schools communicate school rules, policies, plans, and targets?
Communicating with whānau
We asked schools whether they do a good job of letting whānau know about school rules and policies – 79% of schools agreed that they did.
We asked whānau whether they had read about the schools’ policies, plans, and targets for improving Māori student’s achievement. Of the 1920 responses to this question, 53% said yes, 36% said no, and 11% did not know.
In both low-decile schools and schools with a high proportion of Māori students, about 67% of whānau with children at the school answered yes. In both high-decile schools and schools with a low proportion of Māori students, about 44% of whānau with children at the school answered no.
Consulting with whānau
We also asked schools how often they consult whānau about community policies, plans, and targets for improving Māori students’ achievement and how often they engage with whānau when establishing and reviewing rules and policies. Figure 4 shows that more than half of schools said that they had done so at least once in the last year.
How often schools say they consult with whānau on policies, plans, targets, and rules
Our school: | Once so far this year | About monthly | Never | Other |
consults with whānau about community policies, plans, and target for improving Māori students’ achievement. | 64% | 21% | 6% | 9% |
engages with whānau in a process for reviewing and establishing rules and policies. | 57% | 17% | 16% | 10% |
Do schools have policies to build relationships with whānau?
We asked schools whether they have policies to build relationships with whānau – 50% of schools answered yes, 44% answered no, and 5% did not know.
We asked schools that did not currently have such a policy whether they were preparing a specific policy to build relationships with whānau – 56% said yes, 32% said no, and 12% did not know.
Do schools encourage whānau to help out in school?
We asked schools whether they did a good job of letting whānau know about ways they could help out in school, such as being in the classroom, helping out with school activities, and providing cultural leadership in the school – 84% agreed that they did.
Do schools think they communicate well with whānau about their child?
We asked schools four questions about how well they communicate with whānau about their child. Figure 5 shows that schools consider they do a good job. The proportion of schools that agreed they contact whānau promptly about good news about their child is the lowest by at least 17%. This is significantly lower than the schools’ responses to the other questions.
The proportion of schools that agreed they communicate well with whānau about their child
Our school: | Agreed | Agreed to some extent |
does a good job of letting whānau know about ways they can help their child(ren) at home. | 89% | 97% |
staff contact whānau promptly about any problems involving their child(ren). | 95% | 100% |
staff contact whānau promptly about any good news to do with their child(ren). | 72% | 95% |
helps whānau understand their child(ren)’s progress and achievement. | 92% | 98% |
Five of the 15 schools we visited said that telling whānau positive stories about their child had helped the school to engage with whānau and build effective relationships. We consider that schools wanting to improve their relationships with whānau should take an even-handed approach to communicating good news and problems involving Māori students.
We examined the results for these questions by decile and proportion of Māori students. The results were the same or very close, except for whether schools do a good job of contacting whānau promptly about good news involving their child. Low-decile schools and schools with a high proportion of Māori students were more likely to say that they contact whānau promptly about good news involving their child. Figure 6 shows the differences. The gap between low-decile schools and high-decile schools is 14%, and the gap between schools with a high proportion of Māori students and those with a low proportion is 18%.
The proportion of schools that contact whānau promptly about good news involving their child, by decile and proportion of Māori students
We sorted the survey responses into two groups, those who agreed and those who agreed to some extent. Appendix 5 shows the data for each response by decile for schools that agreed and agreed to some extent to questions 19-27. Appendix 6 shows the data for each response to questions 19-27 by the proportion of Māori students.
Most schools tended to rate their relationships with whānau more highly than whānau did. Eighty-nine percent of schools agreed that they have an effective relationship, as opposed to 66% of whānau. A small percentage of whānau agreed that their relationship with their child’s school was effective when the school did not.
The views of low-decile schools and schools with a high proportion of Māori students were more closely aligned with whānau who had children attending those schools. In contrast, the difference was greater between the views of whānau with children attending high-decile schools and schools with a low proportion of Māori students and the views of those schools.
There is a risk that schools could become complacent because they think that they have better relationships with whānau than whānau think they do. We consider that the wider the gap in opinions, the more likely schools will find it harder to have effective relationships with whānau. Therefore, this risk is likely to be greater for high-decile schools and schools with a low proportion of Māori students.
In our view, schools should periodically assess the quality of their relationships with all families, not only whānau. This will help schools check whether their opinion of the quality of the relationship matches families’ opinions. It might show schools where they are doing well and where they can improve.
It would help if schools could compare their self-review results against best practices and provide more understanding about the relative position of the relationship. The Ministry could describe a range of relationships and suggest an optimal set of characteristics of an effective relationship. With their overall view of the school system, the Ministry could assist schools to progress their relationships, providing suggestions about what it has seen work in similar schools.
15: We asked schools whether they were aware of the Ministry of Education’s advice on building “educationally powerful” partnerships with whānau (question 32): 82% of schools said yes, 12% said no, and 6% did not know.