Farewell...

 

Wow! I'm so incredibly grateful
to have been part of

the Pt England School whanau

but... after 4 (and a bit)! years, 

it's time to say farewell.

I will leave with a 

heart full of many precious memories 

of my life at PES.

To the staff at PES
Thank you for your friendship, 

your willingness to share ideas,
 your passion for educating young people 

and plenty of good laughs!

To my students - past and present:)

I learnt so much from each of you -

thank you for being my teacher!

My deepest wish for each of you is

that you find a way

to step into your amazingness

(yes - this is now a word!)

and show up as

the best you can be!

Ka kite Pt England, 

Team 5 and Room 2 

- it's been a journey!

Arohanui,

Ms. Tapuke 

MIT2020 - My MIT Presentation

Here is a recording of my Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) presentation for 2020 and below are links to the digital tools I developed as part of my MIT journey to design a tool to support Year 8 students to be better self-managers who will transition with confidence to high school.

Taha Challenge - a digital tool to encourage Year 7 & 8 students to manage themselves during lockdown by completing a series of challenges based on the Māori health model, Te Whare Tapa Wha (April 2020)

Get Ready!  - a digital tool to guide and assist Year 8 students in their organisation and preparation for Leadership Camp in Term 3 (5th -8th August, 2020)

A huge thank you to Dorothy, Matt and each member of the 2020 MIT cohort for your advice and unflagging support throughout our design thinking adventure this year.

He rau ringa, e oti ai te mahi  

Many hands make light work! 

UPDATE: May 2021

Before leaving Pt England School at the end of 2020, I prepared a new  Get Ready! site with updated digital content all set to roll out for 2021. The school camp for Year 8 students at Pt England School went ahead in May (Term 2, 2021) and anecdotal feedback from students suggested that the updated site had (like the original version) been useful for both students and teachers in their preparation for the annual leadership camp.

Looking to the future, I'm now convinced that a digital tool based on the Get Ready! site could be modified to support the Year 9 transition and bring to fruition my original design thinking  The key component being the tuakana-teina  relationships between current and past students.  

I am now aware of successful student mentor programmes using older students such as  at Wellington East Girls High School (with Year 12/13s) and in the  MATES Junior programme  (with University students). Both of these initiatives involve regular face-to-face contact to build up close relationships over time.

My vision would be to offer a digital platform with current Year 9/10 students (tuakana) sharing their advice and experiences on how to cope in the first year of secondary school through a set of multi-media resources they create and feature in.  Incoming Year 8s (teina), their whānau and teachers could then access the tool anytime - not just within school hours - for guidance from their older peers on effective ways to cope with the first year of secondary school.

I anticipate that the main challenge will be convincing colleges and  feeder schools of the value in collaborating with each other to leverage the tuakana-teina  connections between the Year 9/10s and intermediate students from within their learning community. 

Ultimately, I believe the effort to get all schools on board will be worthwhile especially if this tool can  equip successive cohorts of Year 9 students to have a positive experience when starting secondary school and give them a toolkit of ideas and information to help them stay the distance and ideally finish their schooling, right through to Year 13.

So, who's ready to tag team and take up the challenge?

MIT2020 - Final Meetup/Reflections

Today my MIT journey for 2020 wrapped up as our crew gathered at KPMG for the last time. Given the year we have had, it was actually the first and only time that we were all present in person in Auckland. We took time to reflect on our projects, share next steps and offered up words of support and advice to each other. 

It seems a mighty long time since we are first gathered at Kuaotuna in late February that is 9 months and 2 lockdowns ago!

My next steps:

- Update content (videos, site pages) on Get Ready site for 2021 using feedback from colleagues and students
- Continue to reach out to the local high school and leverage the learning I have gained from designing Get Ready! site and attempt to bring my original achievement objective to fruition i.e. develop a digital tool to assist with Year 8 transition to high school

What could I have done differently?

Woulda (With 20/20 hindsight)

• Identified AND met with a larger group of key stakeholders at local high school from start of 2020;
• Done thorough inventory of the resources/programmes the local high school currently uses for Year 9 transition 
• Focused on Year 8s exclusively from the start of the year - for feedback
• Identify gaps/opportunities to develop resources further or create new tool from scratch

Shoulda (Woulda but circumstances made it challenging to do)

• Had better lead times for student surveys to get as much feedback as possible, 

Coulda (Should have but didn't!)

• Met with/interviewed Year 9 deans at other Manaiakalani High Schools  to find out how they handle Year 9 transition.

Thank you to Dorothy, Matt and Jenny for supporting us all through this MIT experience - what a journey for us especially in a year that COVID threw a spanner in the works many times over! Thanks for the opportunity to explore digital solutions to a range of issues that are impacting student achievement.

MIT2020 - Manaiakalani Outreach and Principals Wananga 2020

Today's wananga was a moment to come together at the end of what has been a challenging year and celebrate milestones in student achievement (thank you to Dr Aaron Wilson from Woolf-Fisher) and for our MIT 2020 cohort to present their design projects.

The hui opened with a performance from Manaia ki te rangi - the senior kapa haka group from Pt England School and opening remarks from Russell Burt (Convenor of the Manaiakalani schools cluster, Principal of Pt. England ) and Pat Sneddon (Chairman, Manaiakalani Education Trust). 

L to R: Manaia ki te rangi (Kapa haka roopu), Russell Burt

MIT 2020 - Break time!

It was quite an experience to be speaking in front of a room full of 150 school leaders and educators. The time limit (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide )was both a blessing and a curse - each of us presenting, needed to be ruthless with what we included and culled to keep to the timeframes; I chose 'old skool' styles and went with my printed notes - it gave me much comfort to have sheets of paper in my hands!

I'd like to extend a huge pakipaki and congratulations to Sarah, Alethea, Tanya, Angela, Kerianna, Sonali and Jo - my fellow MITers - so very proud of all of you!

MIT2020 - Wananga Preparation

Presentation challenge:  I need to distill my MIT design project journey into a presentation using the Pecha Kucha format - 20 slides, each slide visible for 20 seconds -ready for the Manaiakalani Outreach and Principals Wananga next week on October 22nd - watch this space!

MIT2020 - Launch Day - Get Ready! Kia Rite! Nofo Sauni!

Last day of the term and one month exactly before the Year 8s go to camp! Today is launch day for the Get Ready! site. It will be linked off the main learning site for all intermediate students. Below are screenshots of the landing page - click here to see the published site which includes:

- the Get Ready! Kia Rite! Nofo sauni! banner - translations in Te Reo Māori and Samoan

- key dates/deadlines, location map and a photo gallery

- a questionnaire for all camp related queries, 

-  Four student videos

- key Mindset slogans

- Karakia 

GOOGLE Analytics has been activated to monitor usage of the site.  By the end of Day 1, 22 users had accessed the site - a promising start!

MIT 2020 - Tuakana-teina: Year 9s in action!

I got in touch with Year 9 students at the local high school last week to see if they would be keen to be part of the GET READY! project. Many were keen but in the end was happy to reconnect with two ex-Pt Englanders - Charlese was in my home class from last year and in school to help out with the weekly Riverside Club as student leader and Troy, was super keen to help out and ended up being very generous with his time,- I ended up filming bulk of videos with him!

Their input seemed like a positive way to build the tuakana-teina connection. Reaching out (via video). Being older/recent peers of the current batch of Year 8s the tips/advice they had to offer were likely to resonate more effectively than if the same information was coming from a well-meaning teacher!

Here are two examples of the videos we filmed:

PAPERWORK

GEAR LIST

MIT 2020: The latest iteration!

In today's GOOGLE HANGOUT  I got to share the latest iteration (draft version!) of my digital tool - named Get Ready! Kia Rite! Nofo Sauni! - my latest attempt to create a one stop site that  would be engaging and will support students' preparation for the upcoming Year 8 camp.

I started with all the practical elements for students and Team 5 staff going to the Year 8 Leadership camp e.g. key dates (camp and our annual fundraiser), permission slips, and the gear list as well as a map and a photo gallery with highlights from camp in 2019.

To get some benchmark data, I asked all Year 8 students to fill out a survey form - a self-assessment of their organisation skills and a set of questions to gauge their interest, excitement and concerns about Year 8 camp.

Survey responses provide valuable feedback for further site content. There were common themes in the concerns that student's had about their camp experience e.g. nerves around having to say a karakia at meal times, not having friends in their camp groups, feeling homesick and the possibility of getting hurt!

Using the template of the TAHA CHALLENGE site, I wanted to incorporate student videos into the site as way to deliver key messages. 

We are blessed with a rich diversity of languages amongst our Year 8 cohort. To celebrate this living resource and bring forth students who are not the regular student leaders, a group of Year 8s have been recorded reciting prayers in their mother languages.

Karakia - Cook Island Māori

   

Overall, I am feeling pretty confident about how I am tracking but still need to complete the student videos for the site and have it ready to launch by end of this term.

I really appreciate the feedback I received from MITers in my hangout session:

Sonali: Great archive for siblings of senior students as they come through to the intermediate block and see their older brothers/sisters/cousins 

Angela: Consider how to work in with local college and see if can link to Graduate Profile

Dorothy: Get in touch with Hinearau, COL Across Schools Support based at Tamaki College to see how this tool could be developed further into resource to support the Year 9 transition

MIT2020 - Research: What is self-management?

Reading through the literature, the importance of being a competent self-management should not be underestimated. Studies show that strong self-management skills in students leads to better life outcomes, better performance in school and lower school dropout rates.

It is clear that being a successful self-manager requires a person to be competent across a number of areas including a person's skillset for organisation, planning, time management, stress management and self-motivation.

For the purposes of my design project, I will focus on the ORGANISATION component. My aim is to design a tool that will support Year 8 students to get ready for their leadership camp in the first week of Term 3.

MIT2020 - Google Meet (May 25th) - Getting back on track!

Today another Google Meet with the MIT2020 mentors and crew- a chance to check in and see how everyone is after lockdown and how our projects are tracking.

We are all at very different stages with our projects - some progress, some success and some stuckness. Despite my recent revelations, I am definitely feeling firmly in the 'stuck' camp and took advantage of the opportunity to meet one on one with Matt. 

Exploring how to support Year 8 students to confidently manage the transition from the primary to secondary school learning environment is a too broad and was causing me a degree of overwhelm! Matt  advised me to narrow the scope of my project to just one aspect of self-management skills and Matt also suggested to make it practical for the students by linking it to a single even in their lives  e.g. the annual Year 8 Graduation in Term 4.

Taking has advice on board, my next steps are to:

• Research the literature on self-management skill sets (e.g time management and organisation skills)
• Link the Year 8s self-management skills to their preparation for the upcoming Year 8 Camp (scheduled for the start of Term 3).

Reaffirming my MIT 2020 Challenge

Reflecting back to the challenge statement (v2) from March - to provide a 'one-stop' shot for students, teachers and whanau to access a toolkit for self-management and staying connected that is based on Te Whare Tapa Wha - the Taha Challenge site was my attempt to meet this brief. 

I was not convinced that this tool completely hit the mark in terms of connecting students in a meaningful way so I decided to park my first prototype and explore other possibilities.

One suggestion was the PATH (Planning Alternative Tomorrows with Hope), programme brought from Canada to Aotearoa/NZ by  Katarina Pipi  over a decade ago. The idea is to tap into the dreams and aspirations of a person or organisation and with the help of a faciliator, create a plan of what they will need to do to/overcome to achieve their goal/s. Pipi has used PATH successfully with youth, whanau, hapu and iwi throughout the country.

 

I also came across the Te Rito Toi project, set up to support teachers to work with children when they first return to school following major traumatic or life changing events such as the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes but has since been used following the Christchurch mosque attacks and more recently COVID 19. This initiative inspired me to support students to build stronger connections between them and their whanau  (both immediate and extended) to record family stories/histories/events of importance to them.

In the end - I felt I was going off in too many tangents and I desperately needed to refocus! 

I am convinced the way forward to successful transition to high school is to figure out how to best support our intermediate students to manage themselves. With this in mind,  I found my way back to my original (pre-COVID) challenge statement!

Year 8 students need self-management skills to confidently manage the transition from the primary to secondary school learning environment.

The next iteration of my design project is to find a tool that will support Year 8 students to develop their personal capacity to manage themselves independently.

MIT2020 - Meeting May 7th - Impact on my thinking/planning

I was really looking forward to this meeting - a great opportunity to catch up with fellow MITers and hear where they were at with their design projects AND to get some much needed feedback to guide the next steps for my own project.

REFLECTIONS:  During COVID lockdown, I got to see my prototype in action and embrace the mantra, Fail Fast, Fail Forward!  Over the month of April, I got to road test a digital tool designed to help students build and maintain connections with each other during a period where there would be no face to face contact with teachers or their peers. 

My experiment has run its course and now,  I am left with lots of questions - what exactly was the connection, if any, that students achieved during the Taha Challenge experience? Is this 'connection' to their peers what I need to be focusing on to prepare? Should I be focussing more on developing the 'self-management' part of the toolkit of my project challenge?

NEXT STEPS: I need to go back to the drawing board - do some more ruminating - connect with my support team and figure out how to progress.

MIT2020 - Taha Challenge is Complete!

In the midst of COVID Lockdown, Easter and ANZAC Day, the Taha Challenge is ran its course and is now complete! For the month of April 2020, a team of seven students collaborated from their bubbles to create video and blog content for 15 taha challenges. Each challenge was based on the four elements of the the Māori health model, Te Whare Tapa Wha:  Taha Tinana (Healthy Body) - 5 challenges;  Taha Wairua (Healthy Spirit), - 4 challenges; Taha Whanau (Healthy Family, Relationships) - 3 challenges and Taha Hinengaro (Healthy mindset) - 3 challenges. 

Using GOOGLE Forms to track the blogging and commenting, here are a few interesting stats:

• 17 unique Taha Challengers (that included 14 Students; 3 teachers)
• 51 Blog Posts in total
• 23 Blog Comments in total
• One student completed 13 challenges - check out her blog posts here:  Taha Whanau, Taha Hinengaro, Taha Tinana and Taha Wairua

The majority (44) who used GOOGLE Forms to add their Taha Challenge posts enjoyed themselves!

REFLECTIONS: It was exciting to see that all bar one of the 14 students who took part, completed at least two challenges. As already mentioned, one student completed 13 challenges but seven others completed between 3 - 5 challenges each! 

I was hoping to have more students involved but it is quite possible that the uptake may have been higher as blog links and/or blog comments about challenges may not have been updated in the Google Forms I set up. Tracking 160+ year 7 & 8 student blogs would have given more accurate data but not sustainable over the one month that the Taha Challenge ran.

Now that the Taha Challenge is officially over, I do wonder what, if any, kind of  'connection' was created/maintained between the students who took part and whether this site was the best way to create a connection in the first place! Plenty of food for thought as I think about what my next steps might be.