Interventions: Part 2

Introducing multilingual visuals, cultural practices, and inclusive resources is only the first step in the implementation their impact is just as important. In our school, we do this through a combination of classroom observations, participation tracking, and teacher feedback. Observations from team leaders help us see how students engage with visuals, Te Reo Māori, and New Zealand Sign Language, while tracking participation shows who is involved and who might need a little extra support and if they are valuable to learning.

Teacher feedback plays a key role too. Our staff are encouraged share what strategies are working well and highlight any challenges they notice, giving us a clear picture of what’s effective in real classroom settings. This will be more present and the end of the year when another survey is sent out. 

To keep everything fresh and meaningful, I have tried to review our resources and routines, ensuring materials remain accessible and engaging for learners. Reflective meetings and brief reports help us celebrate successes, address any gaps, and plan next steps. This ongoing process ensures that our focus on cultural capabilities isn’t just a one-off initiative or tokenistic, it's a sustainable, evolving part of school life. 

We will see how this goes and I will make adjustments if needed as the year progresses.

Causal Chain

 

My causal chain focus on the thought process behind creating my inquiry focus and what my interventions are going to be.  

Barriers we face

In New Zealand special schools, there are several barriers to building strong cultural capabilities. One main challenge is a lack of cultural understanding among staff. Some teachers may not be confident in using Māori language (te reo Māori) or following Māori customs (tikanga), which are important in New Zealand's education system. Without training and support, it can be hard for staff to include cultural practices in everyday learning.

Another barrier is communication. Students in special schools often have diverse needs, and it can be difficult to match teaching methods with both their learning needs and cultural background. Some students come from Māori or Pacific Island families, and their cultural values may be different from what schools usually focus on.

Lastly, resources can be a problem. We do not have enough staff, time, or cultural materials to fully support every student's identity.

To improve, we need more training, support, and strong partnerships with local communities. This will help create a learning environment where all cultures are welcomed and respected, this is trying to happen at Sommerville but it is a big job. 

Looking at these barriers I have come up with 3 hypotheses/ hunches;

They are, if I can support oversea trained teachers to gain more knowledge in te reo then they will be more confident in using it in their classes. If we are collaborative in our cultural practices it will create more engagement with our learners and if I create plans for teachers it will increase confidence for teachers to teach te reo and NZSL. We are wanting to create an inclusive and cohesive cultural school and this can only be done if all adults are on the same page, this is why my hunches are so. 

Next I am going to be looking into what the research says and how through this I can create an intervention for our school. 

 

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.

Teaching as Inquiry 2025

“Recognising and spreading sophisticated pedagogical practice across our community so that students learn in better and more powerful ways...”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning.

In 2025 for my inquiry I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge 

#5. Improve the achievement of students with additional needs in the learning areas of English/key competency using language symbols and texts

The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2025 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Labels:

LEvidence, LScan, LTrend, LHypothesise, LResearch, LReflect,

 CPlan, CTry, CInnovate, CImplement, CReflect,

SPublish, SCoteach, SModel, SGuide, SFback, SReflect

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect