Musings of a Deputy Principal

Recently I watched a clip on youtube by Dr Anne Milne.  Milne discusses how mainstream schooling is in fact whitestream schooling.  That when Europeans came to New Zealand, we took on their education system and essentially made Māori fit into the European mold.  New Zealand is renowned for having a world class education system. But do we really? When soo many of our Māori and Pasifika students are underachieving.  Is the focus on Literacy and Numeracy really working for our students? One of the key parts of Milne’s (2017) clip that has stuck with me is when she touches on three aspects of Critical Pedagogy.  These being, empowered cultural identity, academic achievement and action for social change. The majority of schools focus mainly on academic achievement with little to no emphasis on cultural identity and social change.  Milne (2017) examined how by empowering students through knowledge of their identity and providing them with opportunities t...

As a deputy principal considering principalship as my next step I have been clarifying my thoughts around what is important to me as a leader.  One of the first things I think about is the importance of relationships with various stakeholders. Barth (2006) stated that “The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything else” (P.8).  But why is this important? How can I increase the effectiveness of relationships? At the core of the Educational Leadership Model (MOE, 2012) are relationships.  This means that relationships are central to everything that happens within a school environment.  There are a range of stakeholders that leaders have relationships with including, staff, students, parents, whanau and the wider community.  Trust is an important aspect of developing and maintaining relationships and there are many ways in which trus...