Kia ora e te whānau

Waiho i te toipoto, kaua it te toiroa
Let us keep close together, not wide apart

Tēnā koe e hoa

When we signed up to be a principal, most of us expected that leading teaching and learning would be the main job.  For the last two years, across Aotearoa, COVID has radically stretched the job description.  As well as being leaders of learning, we have become community leaders and crisis leaders. 

We have been challenged to respond to our communities, to advocate on their behalf, to coordinate support systems, to continually adapt school logistics and to be ‘Communications Central’.  I acknowledge those of you who are already managing an Omicron outbreak in your school community.  COVID has been and still is, intense work. 

Leading learning – building relationships

On becoming a senior leader, I had the opportunity to attend a leadership conference. One of the key-note speakers was Dr. Pita Sharples.  Dr. Sharples shared with us twenty years of national statistics on Māori health, life expectency, poverty, housing, justice and education.  It was confronting.  He told us that despite not having the blessing of the Ministry, he and his supporters planned to build the first intertribal urban marae in New Zealand, complete with Kōhunga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori and Whare Kura.  And they did.

One of the foundation principles of this school was that kura leaders, kaiako and whānau would co-construct and teach a localized curriculum, in Te Reo. Parents and teachers decided what would be taught and clear, shared goals were pursued at school and at home. 

As leaders of learning, these pioneers of the global Indigenous School network redefined school leadership.  As community leaders and educators, they built close relationships with students and whānau, to support ‘Māori achieving success as Māori’.  In 2019, the Hoani Waititi Kura won the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Education Excellence Award.

I tell this story because, through this pandemic we too have partnered with parents and set clear learning goals to pursue both at school and at home. We’ve built strong relationships with parents to support home-based learning and in turn parents have looked to us for resources, on-line lessons, advice and information.  

As community leaders, many of us have reached beyond our traditional school leadership roles, responding to families experiencing food insecurity, material poverty, job insecurity, financial hardship and mental and physical health needs.  For some, community leadership has always been a dimension of principalship.  For others, the pandemic has brought social and school inequities to the surface and we can see how they impact on learning.

Leadership learning – we are in it

Right now, our priority as education leaders and community leaders, is to support our tamariki and whānau in school-based, home-based learning contexts, virtually and face-to-face.  The relationship building we have done with tamariki and whānau to achieve this education partnership, creates an opportunity for a new way of educating in a Post-Pandemic era.  Some exemplary role models are emerging and we can use these to redefine our own roles as leaders and potentially change lives.

Leadership learning – a process best done together  

In January this year, the NZPF Executive met for two and a half days in Auckland, and via ZOOM. We reviewed work streams from 2021 and identifed goals for 2022.  It was energizing and inspiring, to be part of a collaborative planning process that was ambitious, pragmatic, broad in scope yet also focused.   

The work-streams include Leadership, Curriculum, Principal Hauora and Well-being, and Policy.  Interwoven into each workstream is advocacy, partnering with Māori and Pasifika and strengthening connections with princpals – regionally, nationally and internationally. 

The ‘heavy lifting’ we are doing to support our communities through this time, is also easier done together.  Take care.  Stay connected.  Make time to contact a colleague.  Chances are you will make their day.

Wondering of the Week:

Results of last week’s poll
How are we feeling as we start the 2022 school year?

Ngā manaakitanga

Cherie Taylor-Patel

cherie.taylor-patel@nzpf.ac.nz