*Activities 14: Evaluations of the cultural responsiveness in practice

*Activities 14: Evaluations of the cultural responsiveness in practice

Introduction

The school that I currently teach in is a small-multicultural in Auckland. Over the past three years we have steadily increased the way that we engaged with our community and I believe that the positive response we have had is indicative of our responsiveness to make a change and engage our community in ways representative of their community.

Historical communication Methods

Communication with, and the engagement of the community within our school has been a major focus since our school had a change of principal in 2012. As an organisation, we have reviewed the way we engage with parents as as part of this we have modified the way we communicate with the community to ensure maximum participation. Before the change our school communication was predominantly via newsletter or at meetings where we focused on a curriculum area on a open curriculum nights. I would suggest that our participation was fairly good but mostly on our terms.

Culturally responsive community communication

As part of the change we have looked at using different ways to engage communities, particularly Maori and Pasifika families which generally had smaller attendance and contribution rates at these meetings.As documented in our most recent ero report, Maori students made up 12% of our school roll and students that link to pacific origins match to 31% as a proportion of our school roll. We have explored a variety of different engagement methods to communicate with parents which I think has had an effect and reflects more cultural responsiveness and awareness. Our main method of communication is still newsletter. We have modified our approach towards parent teacher interviews, initiating a three way conference method, which students are beginning to facilitate their learning discussion with their teacher and their parents. We have utilised meeting formats seen in different cultures, holding a hui to engage Maori parents and a fono to communicate with our pasifika parents. A major component of both of these meetings has been shared food.

Culturally responsive Planning and Assessment

I feel that the planning process adopted at our school is an example of cultural responsiveness. Part of the development of this is facilitated by the fact that we are a relatively small school and our planning meetings involve us coming together and planning in a holistic and organic way.  Each year we focus on an overarching theme - which is then broken down and interwoven across the different curriculum levels. Each plan links back to this theme in some way and as such students continue to contribute their learning using different aspects, the learning continues to contribute to a wider body of growing knowledge for us as a school community and the understanding of the students continues to contribute to our body of knowledge. We are continuing to evolve this and our assessment is beginning to become more open ended and student directed which is facilitated by the extra use of technology to celebrate the different ways that students can share their growing understanding. At an individual level I have been looking at consulting students for more of their ideas and the things that they have enjoyed and would like to consider to pursue.

Culturally responsive Learning Activities

As part of our pasifika fono and Maori hui the ideas around relevant learning experiences for students were also discussed. This was of particular interest as our Maori families shared that some of the learning that we were engaging in was not necessarily relevant for the students as the songs we were looking at were part of different tribal areas. As a response to this and through shared consultation we are investigating the local area of Maori relevant to school and the songs that are relevant to this place so students have an understanding of where they come from and also the area that they are learning in. Face to face and meetings of shared understanding are something that we have looked at. Having the tuakana-teina relationship where students are the teachers and guide their parents through their learning are also an example of culturally responsive learning. When planning our learning activities it is important to us as a school to draw on the expertise that we have in our parent community to share relevant learning and understanding.  On a personal note, last year I made it a focus to provide a service for our parent community and facilitated the ‘computers in homes’ programme. This helps parents to gain basic computer skills and at the end of this the family receives a refurbished computer and cheap access to the internet. This was an example of tuakana-teina relationships in action as some of the students also helped their parents.

References:

Education Review Office (2014) Waikowhai School retrieved from http://www.ero.govt.nz/Early-Childhood-School-Reports/School-Reports/Waikowhai-School-22-12-2014/School-Statistics