Activity 4:Professional Community

1: Who is the Gisborne Intermediate community?

• Decile 4 (ranked from 1-10, with 10 being highest in socio economic factors)
• A fair representation of the Gisborne community as our school intake includes the country and city students from varying socio economic and cultural backgrounds.
• 54% are Maori 
• 44 % are European and/or other

Our People

• Intermediate School from Year 7 – 8 (10 – 13 yrs)

• Approx 650 students
• Principal
• Deputy Principal
• Associate Principal
• 21 classroom teachers
• 5 Tech Art Specialist teachers (Art, Music, Drama, Cooking, Woodwork)
• 1 Special Needs Teacher
• Support Staff (Teacher Aides, Caretakers, Office Staff, Cafe Lady)
• Our school whanau (parents and caregivers)
• Our BOT
• Local Iwi (Rongowhakaata, Ngai Tamanuhiri, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Ngati Porou)

These key stakeholders influence my practice in many ways. One of the best features about the character of our school is that it is a true reflection of the Gisborne Community. With our school recently moving to 1-1 devices through the use of Chromebooks and increased ICT being taught at primary schools it was imperative that myself and the rest of the staff at our school upskilled to give our children the best 21st century learning opportunities possible. One of our BOT members is the Chairperson of the ECT (Eastland Community Trust) who were instrumental in offering the Mindlab scholarships to teachers in our region. Our school whanau and BOT have made significant investment into purchasing Chromebooks for our students so that is a huge influencing factor in ensuring that my practise is up to scratch to justify these investments. As the HOD of our schools Ka Hikitia team who are responsible for looking at ways to increase Maori students achievement our school whanau and local iwi are key stakeholders too because we want to address the on going underachievement by many of our Maori students. I owe it to every single one of these stakeholders to ensure I am either teaching them to the best of my ability and providing them with support in my different roles that I have at school.

2) Community Issues

An ongoing issue right across New Zealand is that of underachievement with our Maori students. Being of Maori heritage myself as well as the HOD of our school Ka Hikitia Team and member of the school lead team for this role I feel a huge responsibility to investigate and find new ways of addressing the negative statistics. 

 Another issue for our community if upskilling our students as 21st Century learners. Through my study on the Mindlab Course as well as in my role as a member of our school ICT team I have been able to provide more engaging and relevant lessons for my students, better means of communicating with students (Google Drive, Blogs, Email clusters), whanau (Class Blog with class info but also links to each individual student's blog that contains regular reflections on learning and work) and our school community (I am one of the admin for our school Facebook Page Gisborne Intermediate School Facebook). 

3) Purpose and Function of Practice

With my students and their whanau

My role is to deliver the best education that I can and to inspire students to believe in themselves and take new risks, to work to the best of their ability through setting high standards and to believe that even though they come from a little place they can still achieve what they wish. I want to equip them with the skills necessary to function effectively in the 21st century and to hopefully build some resilience in an unpredictable world. I see my role with their whanau as being a great communicator and sharing what we do in class with them as much as possible which I do through regular posts on our classroom blog 22@Gisint Blog. 

With the staff 

I enjoy helping other staff with the demands of the job and am happy to help out whenever others need assistance and guidance. I do this not only through my role as HOD of Ka Hikitia and member of the lead team but also as 2iC of our syndicate and one of the longest serving staff members currently on staff. As HOD of Ka Hikitia it is important that I provide Professional Development opportunities for the staff that will increase their confidence, and help them to communicate more effectively with whanau as well as achieving our shared goal of improving underachievement. 

4) Specialist Area of Practice

My specialist area of practice at our school is in relation to te reo, ICT and Raising Maori student achievement. 

All of my specialist areas of practice relate to the broader professional context because they are all key foci in the New Zealand Curriculum as well as in The Teacher Registration Criteria, Tataiako Cultural Competencies and Ka Hikitia Accelerating Success 2013-2017 principles  all relate to the above areas of practice. Teachers are expected to be  preparing students for the 21st century using digital technologies as well as addressing the ongoing gap between Maori and Non Maori as outlined in these documents. 

5) Challenges in Practice

There are a number of challenges that I face in my practice as outlined below.

1: Resourcing

There never seems to be enough money to go around and whilst we want to give our students and staff access to the best tools one of the biggest hurdles is money. 

2: Resistance to change

Through my role of HOD of Ka Hikitia who has been responsible with implementing whole school change over the past five years one of the biggest challenges is dealing with people who are resistance to change. As a member of the school ICT team who has also led significant schoolwide change over the last year and a half I have seen this occur again. Fortunately my experience with Ka Hikitia proved to be highly valuable on a number of occasions for keeping the momentum rolling. 

3: Inadequate Professional Development

Due to lack of money, isolation, lack of relieving funding available, time constraints. 

4: Time

There never seems to be enough time to fit everything into the day and the demands of our job mean that work life is constantly encroaching on home life. Finding balance with these things is definitely a challenge.