COL Interview 2025...

What achievement challenge are you considering as an area of focus in 2025 and why? Include in your WHY both evidence and your own passion/expertise.

I would stay with Achievement Challenge 3 of lifting achievement in Reading for students in Years 1-13.

This is particularly relevant as we are all making the shift towards a structured literacy approach. For some of us this is a very real step into the unknown. When we meet our new classes we will meet a new array of learning challenges.

My belief is that one size does not fit all. I know personalising the instruction is vital to breaking down the barriers that prevent our tamariki from accessing their learning. There is a plethora of pre-made resources available but it is also vital that we do not lose sight of the need to plan purposefully so that the teaching aligns with the analysed data pictures of the learners in our individual classes.

What learnings from the 2017 - 2024 CoL teacher inquiries have informed or inspired your thinking.

Learning with and from my fellow CoL teachers has meant I have collected many ideas from others along the way that have become embedded in my practice. I really like the conversations and connections we make with eachother.

How would your work support Manaiakalani pedagogy and kaupapa?

The move from compliance to purpose in planning is a personal journey that needs to be guided and supported in bite sized chunks to make the growth meaningful. It's not about disregarding or undervaluing what individual teachers bring to the table, but rather helping them to see that one size does not fit all.

We need to take ownership of the focus of the lesson to ensure we are meeting the learning needs of the students we teach. Each class is different and each plan should reflect this difference.

No one wants to navigate these seas alone so a collaborative learning journey provides us with the shared focus needed to learn with and from each other. Our goal being to drive the 1.5 times shift by giving our learners the tools they need to find success in all learning opportunities. It's not just finding a 'how' but also about understanding the 'why'.

Which elements of the extensive Manaiakalani research findings inform or challenge you as you think about this?

The picture the data paints shows that our learners continue to struggle to grow and strengthen their connections to the academic literacy that allows them to access their learning. Teacher planning is crucial to the success of this. My inquiry this year has identified one of the biggest challenges leaders face, the challenge of shifting mindsets in planning.

How would you like to be supported in 2025 as you undertake this inquiry?

The support I would like in 2025 is to continue our collaborative inquiry approach as each year this has enabled us to build on and strengthen the processes we already have in place. I find the talanoa opportunities with both the Kahui Ako and the MET Research Team to be extremely valuable as I learn a lot from other's feedback and experiences.

How would you plan to support your colleagues in your school with their inquiries and/or teaching in the area you are exploring?

I have modelled my inquiry on my blog since 2017. All my inquiries are visible and honest. Not all have been a success, and I feel it is very important to reflect this openly as it's the tweaks that are made that we learn the most from.

Having held the Within School Kahui Ako role for the last seven years I believe the best support I can offer my colleagues with their inquiries is to guide them through the inquiry process term by term as this is both rewindable and manageable.

Several years ago I created our PBS Teacher Inquiry DLO, which is our version of a ‘how to’ process and is shared with staff in termly chunks. In term 4 we come together and have our own sharing session. Something I have driven as our PBS within school kahui ako is to ensure opportunities to focus and discuss our teacher inquiries are planned for, in order to keep the process alive throughout the year.

Bursts and Bubbles 2024...

My inquiry this year has had many twists and turns. Achieving accelerated shift in Literacy was identified as being one of the most important issues facing our Y4 - 8 team, this year, when the time point one data was analysed. What began as an inquiry into how learning gained from professional development was helping to strengthen teacher practice and student achievement in literacy, completely morphed into the one you can see on the screen behind me. Why? Because it simply wasn't working.

The effect of staff changes on PLD is something I hadn't initially taken into consideration and I found myself going round in circles. I began my journey by trying to ensure we were all on the same page. I knew consistency and a shared language of instruction would help our students to make the connections they need to be able to access their learning with confidence and understanding.

This wasn’t about disregarding what my team brought to the table, but rather about aligning our thinking. However, as we were all coming from such different places, both literally and in knowledge gained from recent PLD, I hit a wall I couldn’t get over.

Midway through the year I spoke to Naomi Rosedale to get her advice on why this wasn’t coming together for me. To be honest, by this time I had pretty much lost interest as I was going round in circles. It’s amazing the power one conversation can have. I left totally reinspired with a completely new inquiry focus and my new best friend, the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice sitting comfortably in my Google drive. Aligning what I was looking for with the Pillars of Practice was the lightbulb moment I needed. In Term 3 I used the pillars to look closely at what and how we, that is my team and I, were actually teaching the tamariki in front of us, in our reading lessons. Time point one data analysis helped me gauge whether or not the learning planned met the learning needs. To allow for consistency, I took the stance that if it wasn't in the planning it wasn't happening. The follow up discussions were both rich and gave all of us the clarity we needed to help us move forward in our quests to meet the learning needs of our individual classes. This process was repeated in Term 4 and Time point 2 data analysed alongside it. What I noticed was with a shared understanding and stronger knowledge of why we need to make changes, changes had been made. These findings and the student shift we are celebrating are all explained in detail on my blog. Changing my inquiry focus has allowed me to introduce change in a manageable and achievable way. Mindsets where planning is concerned, have moved from compliance to purpose, something I struggled to initially get buy in from. I feel that looking closely at my own planning put us all on an even playing field. Having a framework allowed us to all learn together but at our own pace. The big message I want to share here is that change is good, it should be embraced and we should not be afraid to walk in a different direction if what we have tried is not working.

Exploring Quantitative Data...

To measure the difference our syndicate focus on effective reading planning has made, I have analysed the achievement shifts of our students who achieved 'below' in the PAT Panui / Reading comprehension assessments at Time Point 1 (TP1), and were present for the Time Point 2 (TP2) assessments. The graphs show a decrease in 'below' levels across the syndicate. These shifts across the year groups are illustrated in the graphs in the DLO above. To unpack this further I have analysed the GAP analysis completed by each class teacher. Due to the need to maintain privacy I will not be sharing these docs as students and teachers are easily identifiable. 

Possible reasons for students with no shift or a shift backwards:

• IEP
• Erratic attendance
• Behaviour
• Limited connections to the learning
• ESOL funded
• Disconnect with language of questioning
• Low level text comprehension
• Low self efficacy
• Overthinking the challenge

Continued absence from school prevents strong connections to the learning being made. These students are still learning to read and a lack of continuity means their cognitive load has increased as the gaps in their learning have widened and they have not been able to capitalise on the supports put in place for them. 

A lack of focus during learning time often results in learning has been impacted. Students who are off-task are not engaged in their learning tend to fall even further behind as the gap widens, causing already low levels of self efficacy to become an even bigger hurdle to get over. Low self efficacy also brings about the fear of failure, something often masked with a reluctance to participate and engage in the learning. 

Students with an IEP, or who are ESOL funded, often have disconnects with the language of questioning and low level text comprehension due to their limitations in gaining meaning from text at a higher than normal level. Removal of additional learning support or the opportunity to collaborate in testing situations, are also factors to be considered here as the reality of having to rely on the underdeveloped independent working skills leads to self doubt. In turn this leads to overthinking and/or not knowing how to access and apply the strategies needed to gain meaning. 

Possible reasons for no shift or a shift backwards linked to teacher practice:

• Students not being taught at the right level
• Teacher content knowledge not a strength
• Limited opportunities for differentiation
• Links to writing not planned for
• Learning Intentions and Success Criteria not being unpacked or linked directly to the learning
• Text choice
• Limited opportunities for discussion
• Create opportunities too limited
• Reading To missing
• Shared Reading missing
• Reliance on 'safe' and 'known' comprehension strategies
• No opportunities to reflect on own fluency
• Multimodal opportunities present in only some classes
• Syndicate created comprehension scaffolds used and displayed in some classes

 

Year Group	Shift backwards	No shift	Shift
4	13.3%	26.6%	0
5	6.5%	13%	6.5%
6	0	6.3%	9.4%
7	0	7%	14%
8	0	7%	14%

Time Point 1 achievement data was the catalyst behind the introduction of the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice (MRPP) as a framework to align our reading planning with. Through observations, appraisal discussions and planning feedback I noticed areas in our practice that were strong and the areas that needed strengthening. These are illustrated below in the TP1/TP2 reading planning analysis. After the TP1 planning analysis had been discussed both with the team and individually we set ourselves both syndicate and individual focuses. As with the data above, anonymity has been respected so classes and teachers have not been identified.

Shift in effective teacher practice between TP1 and TP2:

• Data analysed effectively to support group learning needs
• Teacher content knowledge strengthening
• Text choice strengthened
• Text structure and vocabulary focus introduced in all classes
• LI/SC align with syndicate co-created LI/SC to promote shared language of instruction
• A wider variety of reading comprehension strategies being explicitly planned for
• Multimodal opportunities present in 4/5 classes
• Explicit links between student achievement data, long term plans and guided reading plans
• Wide variety of questioning being used
• Questioning linked to comprehension strategies
• Syndicate created comprehension scaffolds used and displayed in all classes
• Planning is moving from being done for compliance to be done for a purpose.

                                      

Adopting the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice as a guiding framework has directly benefited our students by empowering our team of teachers with the knowledge and tools to improve instruction. This shared understanding has facilitated our collaborative learning journey, and highlighted the importance of using data to inform our planning to help us meet the learning needs of the students in our classes.

Exploring Qualitative Data...

This qualitative evaluation explores the impact of the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice (MRPP) on reading planning, teacher practice and capability, and student achievement within our school context. Capability, defined as the ability to effectively apply knowledge and skills to achieve desired outcomes. By aligning our planning to the MRPP has helped strengthen teacher capability and enhance reading instruction for our Year 4-8 teachers. In turn this has helped accelerate shift in student achievement in Reading.

To do this I analysed both long term planning and guided reading lesson plans with the time point 1 student achievement data in mind. Learning conversations with teachers allowed us both to explore their perceptions of what was needed to help all our students find success in reading. This process fostered a shared understanding of effective reading instruction within our team and promoted a cohesive approach where our thinking is more aligned. It allowed us to introduce mini PLD sessions that explored and unpacked comprehension strategies and the need for an aligned shared language of instruction in our team meetings. We co-constructed learning intentions, scaffolds and group norms. Using these resources helped us strengthen the questions we asked to ensure we were introducing our students to a wider variety of comprehension skills and providing them with increased opportunities to apply these skills in context both independently and collaboratively through discussion.

The MRPP has provided a clear framework for aligning long-term and short-term planning with evidence-based practices. The use of student achievement data alongside this has facilitated a shift from compliance-based planning to purposeful instruction. This shift has resulted in teachers moving away from simply falling back on the known to actively considering the specific needs of their students and tailoring instruction accordingly. 

                                                               

This process has introduced opportunities for rich professional conversations to take place. Additionally it had provided opportunities for best practices to be shared and both syndicate wide and individual areas that need strengthening to be identified. Using the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice has provided us with a clear framework for planning and instruction. This has as previously mentioned, reduced ambiguity, strengthening teacher confidence and has helped to put us all on the same page. From a leadership perspective this process has been the stepping stone we needed to engage in rich professional conversations where both successes can be identified, hard messages given and clarity of where to next co-constructed.

Use of a gap analysis has helped us to tailor instruction to meet individual learning needs of the tamariki in our own classes. Embracing change by beginning to multimodal text sets has provided our students with more opportunities to engage with and unpack the texts in front of them. We still are still on a journey but with a stable staff going forward we have the advantage of having already taken the first steps towards change.

The implementation of aligning our planning with the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice has had a positive impact on teacher capability and student achievement. It has provided us with the common ground needed for professional collaboration, and has highlighted the importance of implementing the data-driven planning decisions around our syndicate wide focus on the comprehension strategies. 

Describe and Explain the changes/tweaks you have made in your practice along the way...

My inquiry this year has had many twists and turns. Achieving accelerated shift in Literacy was identified as being one of the most important and catalytic issues of learning facing our students in Y4 - 8, this year, when the time point one data was analysed. Exploring how learning gained from professional development is helping to strengthen teacher practice and achievement in literacy is something I haven't looked at before so I began with one idea which over the course of the year has completely morphed into another. Not because as I mentioned in an earlier post, because it was unachievable, but because my initial idea simply wasn't working. The effect of staff changes on PLD is something I hadn't initially taken into consideration. What began as an inquiry into how we (PBS) are using PLD to accelerate shift across our school' and over the course of the year required a change of tact to inquiring into how are we building and strengthening our capability in raising student achievement outcomes in Reading for years 4-8 at PBS.

I began my journey by trying to ensure we were all on the same page. Consistency and a shared language of instruction help our students to make the connections they need to be able to access their learning with confidence and understanding. At the start this wasn't about paying no regard to the skills and knowledge my team brought to the table but rather to align our thinking. This is explained in detail with examples in an earlier blog post. This wasn't as successful as I hoped as we were all coming from such different places both literally and in knowledge gained from recent PLD, so it was back to the drawing board.

After speaking with Naomi Rosedale, I realised I needed a new pathway forward, a pathway that included a framework that would bring everything together and provide clarity. Aligning what I was looking for with the Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice (MRPP) was the lightbulb moment I needed. In Term 3 I used the MRPP to look closely at what and how we, my team and I, were actually teaching the tauira in front of us in our reading lessons. I looked at the data and used the initial gap analysis to help me gauge whether or not the learning planned matched the student needs. To allow for consistency I stood by my decision that if it wasn't in the planning it wasn't there. The follow up discussions were both rich and gave all of us the clarity we needed to help us meet the learning needs of our individual classes.

This process was repeated in Term 4. I am yet to complete all my follow up discussions but have them timetabled for later in the week. What I noticed was with a shared understanding and stronger knowledge of why we need to make the changes. All my team have now included multimodal text sets, are looking at the structure and language in the different text types and have put a lot of thought into the questions they are asking. There is definitely a growth in the use of our shared language of instruction, a wider variety of comprehension skills being accessed. 

Changing my inquiry focus has allowed me to introduce change in a manageable and achievable way. Mindsets where planning is concerned has moved from compliance to purpose, something I struggled to initially get buy in from. I feel that looking closely at my own planning has added the 'teacher model' element to the learning. By using the MRPP it has allowed us to all learn together but at our own pace. Sharing people's successes and valuing their ideas has afforded us opportunities to learn with and from each other. 

The big message I want to share here is that change is good, it should be embraced and we should not be afraid to walk in a different direction if what we have tried is not working. 

You can't help yourself if you can't see yourself...

Once again I'm tapping back to Jason Borland's thinking in our 2015 Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher's PLG where he stated that "You can't help yourself if you can't see yourself." This thinking resonated with me when I first heard it, and after following Jason's inquiry I have often repurposed this idea in the classroom but know it has reaches much further and wider than only our learners.

At the start of this term I asked my team to video themselves teaching a guided reading lesson. The idea was to help everyone to see what they were doing well and what they felt they could do in a different way. I made it clear this was for personal use only, I didn't want to see it and I definitely didn't want a written analysis of it. The only video I wanted to see was my own because I do the same as I ask my team to do. It also gives me a video to use as a resource if I need to model the process. All wanted was for everyone to take a moment to reflect on what they do in the classroom to help their learners connect to the learning. 

Initially this challenge was seen as something my team needed to do for me. However, this recording definitely wasn't for me, it was for them. Falling back on the phrase 'you can't help yourself if you can't see yourself,' was the game changer. Through observation opportunities I have been able to see each room first hand. I often record these observations for this purpose but after watching some parts together I imagine time plays a huge part in the decision to continue watching it in entirety or not. When challenged to watch and reflect in a safe way, the table below identifies areas from our team discussion that we need to strengthen. 

This picture is real and as is it co-constructed there is an element of ownership that we can all capitalise on to make the changes needed in our practice that will help accelerate student achievement.

Where am I at and how will I measure this?...

As my inquiry has now taken a new direction I needed to collect an additional set of time point 1 (TP1) data that can be used at the end of the year to provide evidence of shifts in teaching. As this is for inquiry purposes the information needed to be formative. It needed to identify our current strengths as well a identifying our areas for development. The Manaiakalani Reading Pillars of Practice (MRPP) matrix has helped me do exactly that.

After analysing my reading planning against the MRPP with Toreka, the next step was to work together to analyse her reading planning. On this occasion I took the lead but asked her to step in if I needed to relook at something. Again a rich conversation was had and a clear picture of where she is at captured. I then repeated this process with the rest of my team.

                                        

The feedback was really positive and discussions had were rich and honest. I think the high levels of trust play a huge part in this process and I want to thank my team for their parts in these conversations. This process fully was transparent and I openly shared my matrix with my gaps clearly identified. I think this helped in strengthening the buy in as it wasn't about finding out right and wrong but rather finding out where our areas of strength and areas to strengthen were. The latter have since become part of our co-constructed team PLD plan going forward.

The matrix for all initial discussions was very much a working document (see image above). This gave me an opportunity to identify what I saw in the planning and my team to talk to it. Sticking firmly to the idea that 'if it wasn't in the planning it wasn't there', allowed for consistency across the board but it didn't mean I didn't listen. Using pen and paper on this occasion meant any adaptations made were clearly visible to both of us. The part of this process that I really liked was being able to celebrate and sometimes point out, people's successes. I found that by doing this first the door was opened for those more challenging conversations to take place. 

The presentation below is the formalised version of these conversations. Each teacher has their own digital copy that identifies areas of strength, areas to strengthen and next steps.

From the perspective of team leader, I now have a clear and visual picture of where we are at and what it is we need to do to help accelerate shifts in student achievement in reading.