Rangiora High School | Te Kura Tuarua o Rangiora - Enabling ākonga and kaiako agency

When the opportunity arose to design āhuatanga, kaiako aligned The New Zealand Curriculum Key Competencies with Rangiora High School’s Lighthouse values, and 15 learning dispositions.

Āhuatanga provides a shared language for kaiako. Kaiako align curriculum levels with āhuatanga and learning dispositions are woven across teaching, learning, and pastoral programmes. There has been a noticeable increase in consistency across the learning community.

The wānanga programme is a pastoral and advisory space where ākonga voice is valued. Ākonga take ownership of the learning dispositions, track their own growth, and share their success with whānau. Ākonga are included in reporting to whānau alongside kaiako.

Regardless of where ākonga are at in their learning dispositions, through wānanga, kaiako support ākonga to move forward with a strengths based approach.

“...it’s about honouring teachers as teachers and honouring students as students.” 

Chloe DeBoo, Assistant Leader of Learning and English teacher

Kaiako and ākonga value wānanga as critical to building deeper connections and mutual trust. Ākonga feel supported and seen. This has been an exciting step forward in strengthening ākonga agency.

The building of new, flexible learning spaces prompted kaiako to connect curriculum areas through Ako and develop collaborative practice. 

Ako is where curriculum areas e.g. English and Social Studies actively collaborate and connect learning across curriculum areas.

“ … the whole thing [with] the connected curriculum in the junior school, is the students should be able to see the connections that exist across curriculum areas”

Alison Cleary, Deputy Principal - Dynamic Curriculum

A useful starting point for connecting curriculum areas was āhuatanga. Within curriculum areas, kaiako aligned rubrics to learning dispositions. By doing this, kaiako acknowledge that collaborative practice started to emerge. 

“When we talk about things to other teachers they know what we mean. So it’s that kind of a sharing of common knowledge.” 

David Newsham West, Leader of Learning, Science

The Kāhui Ako Within School Teacher support kaiako by creating connected curriculum units. 

“Results have remained consistent through all the changes, including a nice, steady increase in achievement for Māori students.” 

Chloe DeBoo, Assistant Leader of Learning and English teacher

Kaiako also look for opportunities to increase breath and depth of learning. Specialised modules, which run alongside the connected curriculum, are recognised as opportunities to benefit ākonga.  

“ … kids have bought into it because they own the learning. They're not just put in the course. They actually really want to do it. And so they've got a vested interest to start with. You can really get some depth going in there.”

David Newsham West, Leader of Learning, Science

Ākonga choose to opt into specialised modules; these are smaller classes with a specialised teacher in a specialised classroom. 

“[It] has been really positive… having choice about what sort of English they did”

Alison Cleary, Deputy Principal - Dynamic Curriculum

While the framework of āhuatanga and successful kaiako collaboration has led to benefits for ākonga, David Newsham West sees the future opportunity of “getting a common language that is understood universally from year 8 to parents to employers.”

Kaiako from Rangiora High school share their top tips to strengthen ākonga agency, connect curriculum areas, and develop collaborative practice:

• Plan the change management process carefully. 
• Visualise the change process: what will change look like, sound like, feel like?
• Think carefully about the professional learning and support that will be needed.