Tuesday 7 July 2015

Activity 14

Activity 14

Communication method -
At the start of each year we have a whanau hui (Parent Night). But not just 1 we have 5. One night is Samoan, Tongan, Cook Island, Maori and European and other. This way each main culture of our school is valued and they discuss issues that relate to their values and opinions. This empowers them as members of the school community as they are not just lumped into 'PACIFIKA'. We do this as we believe each culture is different. We get in interpreters and translate any paperwork we hand out into their native tongue.

We also do much of our communication via our school Facebook page as we noted the social media shift. News Letters and notes were getting lost in translation and a quick post on Facebook reached a over 70% of our families instantly. We found that parents responded back via Facebook and communication grew. This may not be ethnicity responsive but socially responsive.

Goals-
When we set goals at school we set two. We set our team goals with a percentage of students achieving over National Standards then we set our goals for our Maori learners. We set in place professional development in order to target our Maori learners and reflect on that every term. We report to teh Board of Trustees on Maori engagement.

School-wide Activities-
In order to celebrate all cultures of our community language weeks have become apart of our school make up. Say for Somoan Language Week we have a challenge per day that each class must complete using dance and language from that culture. We then learnt a school wide sasa that we all performed at assembly. We then invited schools in the wider community to come and celebrate with dances from Samoa. We then had a Fiafia where our children preformed traditional samoan dance and we sold a traditional dinner plate. These types of school-wide activities are done for all relevant language weeks through the year, ie, Maori, Cook Island, Tongan and Dwalli. These types of school-wide activities are culturally responsive to what the community wants and enjoys.

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