Week 26:My Professional Context: The Key to Engaging My Community

Retrieved from  http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/06/67/2066799_3cb5cef7.jpg.

For the last eight years I have been teaching in a state-integrated Decile 6 Catholic primary school. It has a maximum roll of 450 students.  Currently 445 students from across the city seek a Catholic values-based education with us.  Our students and their families represent a diverse range of cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds.  The community is currently identified as 45% NZ European, 21% Māori, 9% Pasifika, 21 % Asian (including Indian and Filipino) and 3% Other.  Our families are represented across all levels of the socioeconomic status (SES) scale.  

“Children from low SES families tend to have significantly lower levels of school success in terms of academic achievement than children from middle and high SES families” (Ball 2000, as cited in Thrupp, 2006, p.2).  Salvatore Gargiulo (2014) illuminates the issue of child poverty in NZ in his report.  The sobering statistic is, that one in four children living in New Zealand lives in poverty and most will remain there permanently.  

It is difficult to know if this statistic tells the story of the students at our school.  Regardless, it is important to understand and consider some of the issues facing our students and their families and the effect these may or may not have in terms of their education.  For example, many of our Filipino and Indian families are new migrants to NZ.  They have few family members in NZ to use as support and many families have one parent in full or part-time study.

For example, this may impact why some parents do not come to traditional parent interviews. Barriers to engaging our community may include work and schooling commitments, childcare arrangements, language barriers, and transportation (as our families tend not to live near the school). Solutions are possible if we value the input of our families in the process of academic achievement.

Our school strives to reach out to our community.  Our Board of Trustees reflects the diversity of cultures and ethnicities of our school.  We also have a Whānau Rōpū, Pasifika Fono Group and Filipino Group who each bring together all that is relevant and important to their respective communities. Student led conferences, class blogs, individual student blogs (e-portfolios), the Reading Together programme and Homework Club are a few of the many ideas our staff and parents have implemented to come together.  “It is important to establish strong home-school partnerships where parents, whānau and communities are involved and supported in students learning” (Ministry of Education, n.d., para.2).

So what makes Catholic schools different? It is our special character.  It is the glue that holds it (us) all together.  “The culture of a Catholic school expresses the core beliefs, values, traditions and symbols which provide meaning to the school community and which help shape the the lives of students, teachers and parents” (Bell 1996, as cited in O’Donnell  2000).  Christian values are modelled and celebrated in classrooms, the playground, assembly and Mass. Caring for and supporting our students and their families is a very important part of our history and culture of our school.  It aptly describes who we are.
 

Lately it seems that transition is the only constant in education.  So now more than ever having a well thought out school culture that supports and embraces 21st century education is imperative.  This is not just a figurative insight.  Literally, we have had a number of physical changes happening at the school to create more flexible and open learning spaces.  “Where inquiries are shared, interventions devised collaboratively and reflections based on both self and peer observations, can lead to the development of a robust, continuously improving community of practice” (Osborne, 2013, p.2).

Like many schools, we have been working for seven years to improve our teaching pedagogy and become more effective teachers .  I won’t lie...there were tears and a few teachers moved on. (I wasn’t the only one making possible career list changes during staff meetings - see blog post one).  It has been a 180 degree shift: from a school that Stoll (1998)  would describe as primarily engaging in individualism, where we worked on our own in isolation - to a staff trying our best to engage in an authentic collaborative culture with the goal of ultimately improving students’ learning.  

Lesson learned? Changing a school's culture takes time, trust and communication.  Every school needs to take stock and look at the difference between where they are, and where they want to be.

References:

Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Leadership-development/Professional-information/Principals-sabbatical-reports/Report-archives-for-2007-2014/Secondary-award-recipients-2014/Gargiulo-Salvatore

Ministry of Education.(n.d.).New Zealand Curriculum Online.  Community Engagement  Retrieved from http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Principles/Community-engagement

O’Donnell, S. (2000). The Phenomenon of Special Character in New Zealand State Integrated Schools: A naturalistic study of two Catholic secondary schools. Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. Retrieved from: http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/2274/02_whole.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Osborne, M. (2013). Modern Learning Environments. The CORE education blog.  Retrieved from http://core-ed.org/blog/2013/03/modern-learningenvironment

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

Thrupp, M. (2006). Improving the schooling chances of New Zealand’s poorest children: Policy and Community Challenges. University of Waikato, New Zealand.  Retrieved from http://www.cpag.org.nz/assets/Presentations/Improving%20schooling.pdf