What are we doing?

We need to continue to be proactive in developing culturally responsive relationships for our teaching, learning and achievement to flourish. Strategically we are building a plan that covers and includes three dimensions including;

• Whole School Level; policies and procedures

• At Personal level: teachers are proactive in learning about cultures

• At Instructional level: Teachers becoming more culturally responsive with their teaching in response to what they know about how different cultures respond best to learning

• At APS we are continuing on a journey of discovery, exploration, learning about cultures and responding appropriately, so that our teaching and learning programmes are effective and authentic for all children. 

In 2020 we established a Te Tiriti Waitangi specific annual goal for all staff. This is to:

1. Enrich cultural effectiveness through collaboration and a focus on shifting pedagogical practice; reflecting understanding (and true partnership) of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (all three articles), and being Culturally Responsive for all staff, students and their families. 

2. To develop Teacher and Staff Effectiveness through understanding histories, heritages, languages and cultures of all partners to Te Tiriti o Waitangi (celebrating our place Ōkahukura - Albany, respecting bicultural NZ and connecting with the rich history that embodies Aotearoa). 

3. To enrich Teacher and Staff Effectiveness by developing the use of te reo and tikanga Māori

4. To engage with teachers, parents, whanau and iwi in a collaborative way to: 

(i) understand the aspirations that our communities have for our tamariki

(ii) explore hauora and hautū as they underpin the unique culture of our school

(iii) and to establish High Expectations for all tamariki to reach their full potential

We continue to be proactive in our responses to children / families from other cultures and these are listed below as a reference point. We are hoping to extend these as our understanding of diversity and inclusivity.

Ideas that have been used in our classrooms include:

• Pairing new students up with students of the same culture and language to help settle them in.

• Empowering students to talk and share openly about their overseas lives and backgrounds.

• Responded to a Hebrew speaking student by giving written feedback in English and in Hebrew.

• Learning how greet and interact briefly with learners in different languages to bring attention and focus to the importance of their personal identity.

• Taking the time to get to know each learner, trying to show true connections with their tradition or significant cultural events when activating prior knowledge and to bring their families on board with how important their first language/culture and history is.

• ‘Teach Me Challenges’ have been used as an opportunity for children to share their cultures and language creating discussion about similarities as well as differences between groups of people. (Chinese Flag, Korean, Russian, sushi being made, teaching Korean language.)

•  Allowing children to write in their own language and have it translated by other children (guided writing).

• Parent help in classroom – translating within the classroom e.g. reading a story in Chinese and then in English to Chinese students. Both child and parent are learning language from each other.

• Knowing and using a range of greetings in different languages.

Examples of learning resources