The following tables encapsulate the changes across structures, culture and outcomes for learners at the three points in time evidenced in this thesis. The first point in time is 2011, when myself and the principal first arrived at the school. We found the structure, culture and outcomes for learners as represented in Table 5.
Table 5: Pre-2012 Hierarchical, colonised leadership structures
Structure Culture Outcomes for Learners
● Leader largely absolving responsibility for engaging with:
● Deficit theorising ● Transmission
teaching
● Poor achievement especially for Māori students
● teaching, ● learning and
achievement,
● students and whānau, ● PLD.
● Staff meetings reinforced the current school
structures.
● Identifying the barriers to learning reinforced a deficit view of Māori ● PLD by external experts using a transmission model of andragogy. ● Classrooms as privatised spaces ● Pākehā culture dominated
● Māori culture was not visible
● School not affirming culture of all learners ● Community not
engaging with school or learning
Impositional, top-down power relations
Table Five presents the dominant, colonised leadership structures that were perpetuated from the top and in turn influenced the school structure, culture and outcomes for learners. Teaching and learning at the time was probably more random than determined by sound theory and research, and as such it remained privitased. The outcomes for learners showed the disparity evidenced in the 2011 E.R.O report, this disparity was especially so for Māori learners. This aligns with the ongoing evidence of inequitable achievement results for Māori learners (Secretary of the O.E.C.D, 2015 ). At this point in time teachers were acting largely on their own and for themselves. The needs and wants of the adults were at the forefront. Leadership was fractured, based on directives and transactions which could swing from one theoretical underpinning to another. As a result, teachers felt unsafe. Deficit theorising was pervasive across all spaces in the school. Whānau were not genuinely engaged and had little to no communication about their children’s progress and learning. The school lacked a coherent vision and curriculum planning was not in place. The PLD model was transmission delivery via external experts and attestation via the MoE. There was a Student Achievement Facilitator (S.A.F) in place; experts employed by the MoE and sent into schools where achievement was of concern. It was reported that there was a culture of staff bullying and many staff members felt disempowered and afraid to voice opinions, ask questions or share concerns.
Connecting this point in time to the metaphor of weaving the rau (leaves) of the harakeke were not healthy enough to be harvested and woven. The growth was sporadic and some leaves were damaged.
Figure 4: Damaged harakeke plant
Source: Landcare Research, n.d.
Like the structural shifts in the school, leadership, time, evidence and
curriculum, what was needed was a shared purpose of improving the health of the plant in order to bring the pieces together. This meant that the structures around the plant needed to change to let the sunlight in. The culture around how the plant was treated had to change, which opened up the way for cultural shifts through Maōri metaphors, supported in an ako relationship with a more expert other, our kaumātua. Some of these emerging changes from the school structure to the school culture and outcomes for learners are presented in Table 6 below.
Table 6: 2015 - Professional learning community in place
Structure Culture Outcomes for Learners
● Some distributed leadership
● Leaders involved in PLD
● Teachers and whānau meeting regularly
● Evidence informing teaching and learning ● Shared teaching practices ● Co-constructed curriculum ● Kaumātua leadership ● Parents began to engage regularly ● 85-90% of students achieving at or above expectations ● School culture beginning to reflect
● Time set aside for connected PLD and whanaungatanga
Te Ao Maōri
Power relations beginning to be more participatory
In Table Six, changes are evident across the three domains. The Professional Learning Community was in place and the school principal actively participated in PLD along with all other school leaders. This aligns with one of the big findings of the Leadership BES that identified when the school principal promoted and/or participated in effective teacher professional learning, this had twice the impact on student outcomes across a school than any other leadership activity (Robinson, et al. 2009). The
engagement of teachers and leaders with evidenced-based, co-constructed PLD and the resulting changes in curriculum promoted increased positive outcomes for students. Time was prioritised and committed to what needed to be done in order to make those changes. Kaumātua leadership had been in place for several years and the resulting cultural shifts had impacted positively on whānau engagement and improved
community relationships. Teachers were beginning to take collective responsibility for the mauri ora of all students, which informed a shared sense of commitment to a kaupapa.
The school was working as a Professional Learning Community through whanaungatanga relationships, focused on rejecting deficit theorising and developing agency and adaptive expertise through critical consciousness and discursive
repositioning. The participants had been learning from kaumātua for several years, and also were beginning to understand and enact the reciprocal nature of Māori models of learning, responding to the responsibility to give as well as receive. The student achievement and engagement had improved and the school was now on a three yearly E.R.O cycle of review, no longer requiring a S.A.F. The change from a Professional Learning Community to a whānau-of-interest is captured in Table 7.
Table 7: 2018 - Whānau-of-interest
● Whānau-of-interest ● Coherence across values, expectations and curriculum ● Shared and distributed leadership involving teachers, students and whānau
● Dialogic pedagogy ● Cultural relationships
evident
● Reflexive leadership and teaching praxis ● Evidence informing
teaching and learning- shared decision making based on evidence with students and whānau ● Shared, co-
constructed school vision
● Students designing and leading learning; ● Sustainable achievement- 95- 100% of learners at or above the expectation, especially Maōri learners ● Whānau engaged in ako with teachers, leaders and students
Shared power relations across the school community
In Table Seven, by 2018, the shifts in power relations were clear. Teachers, whānau and students were contributing to leading and designing the learning. The school leaders were a part of the PLD and were supporting the weaving together of cultural change and structural shifts making decisions grounded in dialogue with all stakeholders; as well as professional knowledge, kaupapa and mandated requirements. More expert others were engaged within ako relationships based firmly on the shared and co-constructed school vision. Self determination was evident in the relationships across and between all stakeholders.