Activity 4

Activity 4

My professional community

The domain of my community of practice is the hard work my colleagues and I do for our students in order for them to be achieve academically in 2016 and at the same time transition successfully from Aranui High School into their new school, Haeata, in 2017.

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

― Haruki Murakami.

The practice is my colleagues in all four closing schools discussing, learning and implementing to the best of our ability, a taste of 21st century learning pedagogy to ensure that all students, staff and families are not left behind when the the transition is complete.  We have learned that you don't have to have a Modern Learning Environment to implement modern learning practice!

The community is the way that we interact.  Depending on the group of teachers interacting this could be through classroom observations or collaborative teaching opportunities. Collaboration will also occur across the 4 closing schools as students and newly appointed Haeata teachers begin to share similar experiences from the start of term three. 

CURRENT ISSUES IN MY COMMUNITY?  

The biggest issue in the community right now is the transition.  The transition is most visible in the new buildings and facilities that are being built.  Initially vibrations, noise and dust were an issue for staff and students alike, so I organised a group of staff across the school to be the depository for "transition issues" raised by staff members.  Any staff member could submit an issue to the group, who met once a fortnight to discuss action or outcomes. The outcomes were shared across the school to management, BOT and PPTA, creating a climate open communication about the issue.  In the first week the outcome was to shift the contractor's ground vibrations to before 9am and after 3pm - a great solution for our community.  The transition of students is not as visible because they are all still operating on the 4 closing schools, which means that interaction between groups of students have to be "engineered".  Design Thinking opportunities and sports days have been held with mixed groups of students which is to be ongoing until the end of the year.

THE CORE VALUES THAT UNDERPIN MY PROFESSION ARE RESPECT, AKO AND SERVICE.

I would not be a successful practitioner without respect for my students and colleagues. This means that I "walk the talk" when it comes to statements such as "if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say it!"  Recognising the point at which people are at in their learning journeys; whether that be as a student, a new teacher or a teacher at the end of their career, underpins the relationships I have and the level of care and attention I give to each person in that relationship.  

Ako refers to me as a learner and without my community I could not continue to learn. Commencing post-graduate study has been a real privilege as I was able to meet with and interact with primary school, like-minded, teachers who invigorated and sustained my thirst for learning.  Staff at school are also supporting my learning as I take on a new role in the school, especially those whose roles I am picking up.  Being on the other end of the relief phone for the first time in my professional life has been an education!

Service for the school has been a huge part of my recent life at school and the enduring community supporting this value has been the gardening group.  Slow to start, however an awesome bunch of hardworking people who have just stuck with the kaupapa to create a beautiful school garden which we are now able to enjoy in our ultimate year. The community has evolved itself from a group of students who were shoulder tapped, to include the Service Academy students (they who must be supervised - note to self), students doing community service for a mild misdemeanor and self-selected student "nerds" who like the space and wanted to help enhance it. 

Aranui High School Community Garden  - the workers!

Teachers in the community have likewise evolved into a core group who love to talk gardening and plan big things to come... For Matariki the group has been planning to serve up a feast from the garden and for the creche the group has been asked to show them how to plant seedlings.  

CHANGES OCCURRING IN THE CONTEXT OF MY PROFESSION:  The single biggest change has been a huge shift towards Innovative Learning Practice.  School buildings are physically changing to suit the needs of the new pedagogy and staff and students will follow by the end of this year.  My community of practice are practical and alongside grief associated with our own school closure has been an urgency to prepare for employment in the new school.  The community has been supported in this need, on-site, by service providers such as Core Education who are adept in upskilling teachers in the finer points of google docs, forms, sites, hapara, you tube etc.  Our students, for the last two years have been our 'guinea pigs' with a community of practice focus on new ways of learning whilst keeping sane.  A great example of how this all rolls, was a whole school collaborative learning day led by the English Department, across all subjects and levels.  Students viewed a movie then interacted with students (not known to them prior to the day) on collaborative learning tasks which were creative and designed to be goal specific. Students appreciated the opportunity to work across levels and due to the structure of the day (a 'pop-up' lesson?) some students didn't believe that they had just participated in a formal lesson at all.   My community of practice is awesome because despite all the issues we have had to face they still choose to initiate and engage in risk-taking (moving out of their comfort zone) to address this latest change to practice in the landscape of school closure.