Newspaper Article - Northland Age June

Are We Ready?

The Ministry of Education have a new initiative called ‘Communities of Schools.  You may have heard about ‘Communities of Schools’ (COS) where the focus is schools working collaboratively to lift and accelerate student achievement.  There are amazing teachers, strategies and resources in all of our schools in the Far North. The COS provides the resources so schools can share these.

It is very similar to the Muriwhenua Learning Change Network (LCN) where we have eight Far North schools working together.  Moving away from a competitive model to a collaborative model.  The big difference between the LCN and COS is that the COS is funded, substantial funding.  

But there are some issues around the funding. Some of the funding is for expert teachers who work outside their school for two days a week. For example your school may have an exceptionally skilled teacher who gets great results from the students. This teacher may apply to become an expert teacher to work at other schools in the COS cluster. The great thing is that this creates a new career pathway for our highly skilled teachers as they get more putea and responsibility for the job they love doing. They get to support other teachers and take an active role in improving learning environments.  The negative is that some parents may be upset that their child is not going to have the amazing Mrs. Z for two days of each week.  There are other positions within the COS which also pose the same challenges. The lead Principal has two days a week release from their school and there are other expert teacher roles (within their own school) who also require two days a week. The COS would employ quality teachers who would do the release for the Expert Teachers to ensure quality and consistent learning.I have seen ‘shared’ classrooms work exceptionally well and exceptionally badly. It is a matter of getting the right combination. We have a shared class at Mangonui and it is brilliant, totally an advantage to the students in this class to have the mix of teachers, although it is only one day a week.

It really is a case of weighing up the scales. If you had asked me 18 months ago I would have scoffed at the COS concept. However now having worked in a collaborative model (Muriwhenua LCN) I see huge advantages for all our students and teachers. Sharing our best teachers across our schools will lift student achievement in the Far North. But are we ready to move into this structure and take a new approach?

On a lighter note. Our senior school (100 students) travelled to Waitangi Treaty grounds last Thursday to celebrate Matariki. It was a top notch day, extremely well organised, cool activities (storytelling, weaving, kite making and traditional games) and lots of fun. Kia Ora to Derek Millar and his team for such a great event.