My first lot of data came from a survey sent out to all the teachers. I asked how confident teachers are in using te reo in the classroom, out of the results I received, no one was very confident with most teachers sitting at a 7 and a few people seeming to feel uneasy sitting at a 1 or 2.
As this is compulsory in New Zealand, this is going to be my first focus and finding ways to support teachers in feeling more confident.
During the survey I asked what is something that you need support with and the majority of teachers want support in adapting resources for diverse learners. It is important to understand that at Sommerville we have a huge range of abilities and it is important to not just support their cultural diversity but also the diversity in their needs. Along with this I have seen a need for support in building a culturally inclusive classroom. This I found interesting as I am sure that teachers are sometimes not even aware that they are being culturally inclusive, they just don’t know it yet.
In this survey it was seen that there was a huge need to do more culturally inclusive activities in our school as well as PLD. This is going to be something that I look into and see how we can best support our learners to get them involved in different cultures though something like music, dance or food, not just once during our cultural festival but recurring for our learners, teachers and wider whanau.
This is only the start! Stay updated as next we are going to be exploring what we can do and are doing to support teachers.
