Factors that make a difference for Maori students achievement in our schools

1. What are Māori parents
looking for?

2. Report to the Ministry of Education [2003]
R. Bishop, M. Berryman, S. Tiakiwai and C. Richardson
The Experiences of Year 9 and 10 Māori
Students in Mainstream Classrooms
Responses from Maori Parents in the schools

3. Discourse of relationships
• A better relationship between school and home
• Relationship between child and teacher
• Being Mäori matters
• Caregivers feeling comfortable
• Secondary schools unwelcoming to parents
• Teachers need to have a greater understanding of
things Mäori

4. • Teachers need to know who the children are
• Teachers need to respect cultural preferences
for learning
• Cultural tokenism
• School relationship with parents – non-
existent unless there is trouble
• Relationship between child and parents is
important
• The need to achieve as Mäori is important
• Face to face contact

5. • Parents also identified the importance of
having a good relationship between
themselves and the school.
• The parents noted how difficult this was
particularly given the way the whole system
did not value Mäori culture and knowledge.
• Furthermore, many of the parents did not
have positive experiences of schooling and
therefore found the idea of establishing
relationships with the school as being
intimidating and beyond their grasp:

6. • It is about respect and relationships. Respect
and relationships between the staff of the
school and the families whose children come
here.
• Our children are expected to learn in a school
system that has hardly changed from the
1850s, when Mäori were given an education
based on schools in England…
• Secondary schools have done hardly anything
to involve parents… because the secondary
schools think they know what is best for the
education of the children there.

7. What does ERO say about engaging
with parents & whanau?
• Research suggests that effective school-home
partnerships can enhance children’s learning
at both home and school.
• Strong school-home links are of particular
importance for children whose social class,
culture, and/or ethnicity and cultural
heritages differ from those predominant in
the school.

8. The Mäori cultural concept of
kanohi ki te kanohi (face-to-face)
was seen by the parents as being
important in their relationship with
their children’s teachers.
Consider this in relation to our
‘Learning for Success’ Meetings

9. Consider this as we plan our
journey!
Parents also emphasised how important it was
for the children to be able to achieve as Mäori,
that is, that their Mäori culture and knowledge
could be valued and respected in a learning
context.
Parents were strong in their belief that their
cultural identity and the cultural identity of their
children as Mäori were important and should be
affirmed within the school and the classroom.

10. Some have poor self-esteem about who they are,
they fail academically and then schools give the
message that Mäori only do well in kapa haka and
some sports. Some other examples of this mentality
are that the kapa haka group is good enough to be
pulled out for visitors, for prize giving but not good
enough to be part of the curriculum…
What does that say about the importance of
Mäori? What are the real signs that being Mäori
matters at this college? What about next year’s
curriculum?

11. How can we capture this in our
‘Learning for Success’ Meetings?
Parents identified that it was important to them
that their children’s achievements as Mäori be
acknowledged.
This point specifically referred to the need for
the school to acknowledge that their children
were Mäori, in order for their children to be able
to stand proudly as Mäori and to achieve as
Mäori:

12. How can we capture this in
our classrooms?
Knowing who you are makes you proud and
makes you stand up. But once we know who we
were and how beautiful our culture is – you
know – you were proud to stand up and
achieve… to start looking at who they are and
starting to see how it’s beautiful to be a Mäori
person.

13. Should we make this part of our
Professional Learning Programme?
Part of our development of the site?
Parents highlighted the need for teachers and
schools to have a greater understanding of Mäori
culture, language and customs. In particular,
parents were concerned that schools were too
monocultural and focussed on learning from a non-
Mäori perspective. Parents believed that, by not
acknowledging their children’s Mäori culture,
teachers and schools were then marginalising their
culture and in turn devaluing them as Mäori
children.

14. What does it mean to be and
feel Māori?
Parents identified that group work was a
culturally preferred way of learning and should
be viewed by teachers as a positive strategy for
teaching Mäori children.
I’m Mäori and I don’t feel comfortable making
an individual decision about most things. I like
to talk it over with others… I’m in it with other
people.

15. Parents were clear in their expectations that
teachers should learn about the children who
were in their class. For example, this included
learning about the child, where they came from,
what their experiences were and what their
culture and language was. The parents view was
that this type of knowledge would help the
teacher learn more about how best to teach
their students.
Our ‘Learning for Success’ Meetings
are an opportunity to build this
knowledge.

16. How do you show this?
If the teacher demonstrates cultural knowledge
it has an effect on the children. They see the
teacher as an individual who respects them and
knows where they are coming from. The
children see those teachers who have made an
attempt to try and get on the same thought
patterns, wave-length as them.

17. What else are we simply
blind to?
When I looked at the Science book I
could have cried. They did some work
on tides. It was all about the moon and
the sun and the earth. Mäori ideas
about tides would easily have fitted
in… All our Mäori tikanga would fit in
there

18. Academic Counselling as one way
to engage with whānau
• Effective schools listen to the aspirations that
parents and whānau have for their children.
• Effective schools ensure that all their
communities have a voice and a sense of
identification with the school and its goals.
• Schools willingly share ideas and strategies
that parents and whānau can use at home to
support children’s learning.

19. ‘there is support for parents to be talking to
their children about learning and schooling and
having high expectations of them and their
future in learning, especially for lower achieving
students’.
New Zealand students' perceptions of
parental involvement in learning and
schooling
Janet Clinton a & John Hattie (2013)

20. Barriers to parental involvement in education: an explanatory
model
Garry Hornby* and Rayleen Lafaele
…………it can come from them having had negative experiences
with their children’s previous schools, or through them
experiencing either learning or behavioural difficulties during
their own schooling.
Lack of confidence may also come from parents taking the view
that they have not developed sufficient academic competence
to effectively help their children.
This view is more apparent as students progress through
secondary schools and their academic work becomes more
advanced
(Eccles and Harold 1993).

21. We have to support whānau to change their
discourse too at times if they deficit theorise!
Parents who believe children’s intelligence is fixed
and that school achievement is mainly due to
children being lucky enough to have high ability will
not see the point in getting too involved in their
children’s education.
They believe that children’s innate ability will set a
limit on their achievement so that such things as
encouraging children to do their homework or
attending parent–teacher meetings at school are
viewed as a waste of time.

22. Parent-teacher factors for us to
consider in our meeting with whānau:
• Different goals and
agendas
• Different attitudes
• Differing language used
So this calls us to:
Listen
Take on board different
views to ours
Check our
understanding

23. Academic Counselling
Involves us as professionals in
reappraising how we relate as
both to students and to parents
and whānau.
We have to be prepared to
support both students and
parents to be actively involved in
setting educational goals and not
simply giving the answers,
expecting students to respond.

24. REMEMBER: Central to the success of
academic counselling is what we do
after the meeting!
• tracking
• target Group Interventions
• extra Tutorials
• using evidence to underpin
practice
• taking a proactive and
planned approach with
assessments and exams
such as NCEA
• building positive
relationships across the
school
• establishing high and clear
expectations
• challenging departments
and teachers to take
responsibility for Māori
students academic
achievement
• developing a shared vision
and taking responsibility
across the school
• working interdependently
from the SLT to teachers
and Māori students.
VIDEO WATCH: http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/School-stories/Ngaruawahia-
High-School

25. http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos
/Interviews/Student-voices
Māori students leaving Te Kotahitanga schools at
year thirteen, reflect on their experiences in
these schools since year nine. They highlight
their experiences in these schools and
communities that have supported them to
embark on tertiary study.
VIDEO CLIP WATCH

26. The Effective Teaching Profile
Culturally appropriate and responsive teachers demonstrate
the following understandings:
a) They positively reject deficit theorising
b) They know and understand how to bring about change in
Māori students’ educational experience and are professionally
committed to doing so in the following ways:
 Caring for Māori students as culturally located individuals
 Caring for the participation and achievement of Māori students
 Creating a secure, well-managed learning environment
 Engaging in effective teaching interactions
 Using a range of teaching strategies to promote change
 Promoting, monitoring and sharing outcomes for and with
Māori students

27. Building
on
Success
PB4L
Academic Counselling is one vehicle not the answer
The Effective Teaching Profile will provide a tool for wider systemic
change through classroom practice
Focusforourongoingprofessional
learningthrough2014andbeyond