Where am I headed this year?

Throughout my few years at Somerville I have become interested in cultural capabilities and how to better support teachers around this. Last year I became the curriculum leader in learning languages and our team supported the school during language weeks to support classes with resources for everyone to learn about that culture. With the support of one of the speech and language therapist I have made bi-lingual visuals for every class to support our school and the learners, focusing on english (with coreboard visuals), te reo and NZSL. 

 Because of all of this the question I have chosen is: How can we strengthen practices among our staff to build confidence in developing our cultural capabilities? I chose this inquiry because I have a theory that many teachers are not confident in teaching and celebrating cultural diversity in classes. We have a few overseas trained teachers so they do not yet know te reo and NZSL and as these are important in New Zealand we want everyone to be confident in teaching basics in our school. I think it is important to provide teachers with resources to support their own learning and their students learning. 

 First off I am collecting data on how confident our teachers are at the start of the school year and where we think our next steps are for supporting culturally capable teachers in our school. 

 Watch this space.