Māwhera Kāhui Ako (community of learning) is a cluster of 13 schools from the Grey District, West Coast, New Zealand. The Māwhera Kāhui Ako is built on a strong foundation of trust, as members have previously worked together in a school improvement initiative, then a Learning Change Network cluster.
Ten of our 13 schools are also part of the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme, so the Kāhui Ako has provided a vehicle to accelerate progress. The Woolf Fisher Research Centre is collecting and analysing our data, which includes teacher observations, parent/child surveys, robust moderation practices and feed-forward.
Our first priority was to strengthen and align Teacher Inquiry in all 13 schools, modelled on the Spirals of Inquiry, so all 150 teachers could inquire into their practice and reflect on their teaching. Secondly, consistency of Overall Teacher Judgements (OTJs) was explored, leading to our decision to use the PaCT tool.
Raising achievement in writing is a focus for our Kāhui Ako and moderation of writing has been held twice yearly for all kaiako across both sectors. In 2016, the schools involved in the Manaiakalani Outreach Programme made accelerated progress in writing.
This year, we successfully applied for PLD hours and have worked with our facilitators to design a programme to cater for the needs of our low literacy learners, particularly our boys. The facilitators will work alongside classroom practitioners to co-plan and co-teach priority learners.
Our expert partner is challenging our thinking around partnerships and working with us around cultural responsiveness.