Meeting with fellow CoL teachers

This term I have had the opportunity to meet with Sandhya from GI primary and Scott from Tamaki College.

We met because we wanted to talanoa about our inquiries and gain ideas from each other. Sandhya said she needed anothers perspective on what her intervention ideas were. We spent a good hour sharing our inquiries to one another and even the barriers we came across this year.

Scott and I met because our inquiries were quite similar. I am looking at the transition of Y8 to Y9 and Scott is inquiring into the importance of learners being one with their culture, language and identity (something along these lines). Scott had a lightbulb moment when he came to our farewell assembly for our previous Tumuaki and saw how engaged the learners were (In Primary level) with their cultural background. He noticed that in High School, their main focus is on NCEA and teaching Reading, Writing and Maths. It's missing the sense of belonging and identity aspect. It was a very effective talanoa because we left agreeing that Scott will make a visit to GTS - to observe how it is in the classroom, the culture and group teaching we do and I left making plans of meeting with my Y9 students who will mentor my Y8 learners.

A great TALANOA indeed.