Learnings from Te Whāriki

He puraora i ruia mai Rangiåtea e kore e ngaro.

A Seed sown in Rangiātea will never be lost.

Te Whāriki states that teachers, educators and kaiako work in partnership with whānau to realise the hopes and high expectations whānau and iwi have for each child. The vision underpinning Te Whāriki is that children are learners are nurtured like a precious seed, instilling in them an understanding of their own importance and their belonging within society. They are "Competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society." 

On the day lockdown began, I had started to write this blog post looking at te Whariki as a guiding document and how this interlinks with our focus on developing a foundation program for Juniors. As I began to write I reflected on the partnership between school and whānau and had a sinking feeling that it seems to often be an aspect of our teaching that can be surface level. By this I mean students are dropped at school by whānau and go home to them at the end of the day with a wave and quick hello, how are you, but really is there true partnership happening? Is it an equal power relationship where parents feel comfortable talking openly with their child's teacher? Does the teacher understand and value the hopes and aspirations each whānau has for their child? Do we take the time and make the effort to find out? Do whānau feel comfortable within our classrooms and know and have input into the learning that happens. Do we understand and value all the learning that happens at home?

Lockdowns have taught me that true relationships between whānau and teachers are powerful and can be a massive impact on student outcomes. 

I have made a mindset shift to purposefully form true relationships with whānau. This is not on a superficial level, this is valuing the contribution whānau brings to the learning of our tamariki. It's forming relationships that are nonjudgemental no matter what the situation is at home. It's listening to them, looking at things from their point of view, and working with them to help students learn in ways that are important and right for that family. 

For at least one of my students I strongly believe that the partnership his mum and I have, has changed his world in a significant way. The walls between school and home have come down, his whānau are helping him with his learning in their own beautiful way and he comes to school proud of the learning he is doing at home. He is able to make connections between this learning and the learning happening at school and build upon these connections. Learning is ubiquitous. The progress he is making is incredible. He has progressed from working at a developmental level of a 3 1/2 year-old, to being able to write a sentence, know all alphabet sounds, and read a sentence. I could have been judgemental when I learned about the challenges he and his whānau face, I can imagine many would. I could say that I have no control over what happens at home. But I do have control over my own beliefs, judgments, and the impact these have on others. By having understanding and true relationships based on trust and respect, there is no judgment. There is a partnership with a little learner (seed) at the center who is being nurtured by those around him and given optimal opportunities to grow. 

Lockdown for our Junior Team as with other deciles one schools allows us to see inside the homes of our whānau. We make phone calls, we do check-ins, google meets. Our parents become the teachers and we are one of their resources. They let us see into their worlds. we need to do this with uttermost respect and aroha. The relationships that are formed through this time are a true asset and like the story above brings down the walls between home and school. I can't help but feel this is what that sinking feeling that I had reading Te Whāriki referred to. These are the relationships that underpin Te Whāriki and that we need to treasure in our practice as teachers. 

In my early years of teaching I had relationships with families that I felt a connection towards but can I say I had strong relationships with those families that were more difficult to connect with... no I can't say I did...and how much of that came down to my own judgments and comfortableness. Probably more than I was willing to admit. 

I think it is important I don't let these learnings as an educator slip away. I look forward to continuing to weave the Te Whāriki aspect of Partnership through our junior school beliefs and practice and our school curriculum.

What Assessment Data Shows In Terms Of Oral Language Acquisition

I have the most amazing group of learners in my class. They love learning and are 100% engaged and excited about whatever exciting learning experience is in front of them. Already we have created a culture of writing to share our learning and ideas and thirst to want to learn. 

The feel in our class is one of happiness, positive relationships, and trust. The students were quick to form relationships with me and each other. 

The class is extremely inclusive of each other and happy to be at school each day. 

What a great position to start an inquiry into changing my practice to better meet the needs of these beautiful little learners that have incredible potential within and ahead of them. 

My target group consists of 9 Year 1 and 2 students. I sampled these 9 students based on my teacher judgment and assessment data of those students with the lowest levels of oral language and foundation skills. 

With a focus on developing foundation skills in our student's first few years at school, a key element is oral language.

To assess the areas of challenge students had in terms of oral language acquisition I used the Dr Jannie van Hees CombiList (2013). 

Only two out of the nine students showed competence in any of the factors of language development described in the combilist. The other 7 students all only demonstrated these factors sometimes or not at all. 

The greatest areas of the challenge were: 

-Giving elaborate responses to open-ended questions from the teacher.

Open ended questions are met with shoulder-shrugging, "I dunno." or silience. Students look uncomfortable and at times will freeze rather than give a response. It is hard to know if they don't understand, don't have the words, are not used to thinking at a more critical level, or are not confident speaking.

-Sustaining expression of their meaning, ideas, and intentions.

One or two words are shared when expressing their thoughts. The vocabulary is low-level and directly linked to their own direct experiences with very few content-driven vocabulary. Sentence structures short and missing structural words. Ideas are not elaborate and very few details are given.

Video snap snots of students show that some students use one or two-word utterances in play situations with the use of very little concept vocabulary.

Two boys playing with dinosaurs showed them hitting the dinosaurs together shouting "arggggggh, arggggggh, die, die, argggggh, argggggh" with no other vocabulary used.

-Thinking before they speak so as to express at a higher cognitive level.

My hunch is that thinking before they speak ties in with low impulse control, saying the first thing that comes into their head or repeating something someone else has called out. These students also have difficulties with impulse control in the physical sense. They quickly 'do' without stopping and thinking. Would improving the physical improve the verbal aspect of impulse control or vice versa? 

-Continuing their meaning and intentions, and picking up and using teacher examples and models.

The difficulty students have listening to the teacher or each other is obvious through their body language and questing them as a response to what has been shared verbally. Also, 4 of the nine students lack confidence speaking if they feel they may get it wrong and have moments of shutting down. 

-Talking to others, not only the teacher.

I have observed the reluctance of students to speak in group situations during mat time e.g. group discussions. It is common for them to sit back and let the more confident students speak. This, however, isn't the case when they have physical activities to do as they seem engaged in the doing and talking comes more naturally.

All students are reading at Level 1 or Pre Level 1 and Writing at Pre Level 1 of the New Zealand curriculum. and writing at pre 1B. 

Analysis of Student's Writing Samples

I have used an analysis of my student's writing samples as baseline data to measure progress over the course of my inquiry. This analysis also includes the picture plan which gives clues to the developmental stages in terms of body awareness (drawing of people), fine motor skill development, and spatial awareness. 

The student understands that marks on a page represent writing and is beginning to form some letter shapes, however, is unable to retell their story. The people in the picture have separate heads and bodies and the drawing of a cat is discernable.

They use strings of letters to tell a story. They could say the sentence that they wanted to write. With support could record 3 letter sounds. This was with prompting and support from the teacher to find the sound on their ABC card. Drawing of people shows arms and legs coming out from the head with no separate body. This type of picture is common in children between 3-4 years of age. 

This student uses the picture box for text and picture. Marks on the page are beginning to look like letters (symbolic mock letters). Although the 3 people in their picture are basic each looks different. They are able to retell their story to the teacher. 

They were unable to hold their pencil correctly and the picture and text resembled scribbles without the fine motor skill control to create a discernable shape (The circle was drawn by the teacher). This includes a scribble for the picture of themselves inside the bubble. This may indicate a lack of body awareness. This stage is called controlled scribbling and is usually seen in children between 2-3 years of age. This student without prompting will use a cylindrical grasp of the pencil (developmental stage 1-2 years)

Spatial awareness is challenging for this student. Even with prompting and modeling from the teacher is unable to draw the picture in the box. Arms and legs come out from the head however, hands do have five fingers. Is able to articulate a simple sentence and with support from the teacher can find some basic words on the word card and copy them. This student has an understanding of the directionality of print.

These students are all within their first year at school. So what does the above data look like in terms of the Literacy Learning Progressions?

According to the literacy progressions at school entry children enjoy writing for a variety of purposes and can hold a story in their heads long enough to retell it. They may write marks on the page that represent letters or words. We also expect some children to be able to write their names, form some letters correctly and hold a pencil correctly. These student's writing shows some of these features, however, it also indicates some features of earlier developmental stages.

The progressions also indicate that from this 'entry point' there is then a high level of scaffolding by teachers to help students to develop the ability to: 

• hold an idea in their heads long enough to write it down (oral language/memory)
• say, hear and record the dominant sounds in words (phonological awareness), 
• write from left to right, leaving spaces between words (directionality, spatial awareness, concepts about print)
• form letters correctly (fine motor skill, directionality). 

My wondering is that is it possible to work on pre-literacy developmental stages whilst still teaching the progressions that are expected within a child's first year at school? Can we strengthen those foundation skills alongside exposure to the skills other students at the same age are developing? 

Tools, Measures and Approaches To Gain A Detailed and Accurate Profile Of My Student's Learning

In this blog post, I will outline the tools, measures, and approaches I will use to gain an accurate and detailed profile of my students' learning in relation to their 'school-readiness as I begin and move through my inquiry.

There are such a vast array of skills needed to acquire to be school-ready and students will have varying strengths and skill development needs. Therefore, adopting a vast range of methods will hopefully allow me to measure progress and give me a more detailed profile of my learners across all the foundation skill domains. The skills children needed to acquire in the early years in order to build formal learning upon are; reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills.

I have chosen the following tools/measures and approaches to gain a detailed and accurate profile of my students' learning in relation to the challenge of the acquisition of developmental skills needed for school readiness.

Data will be analyzed from the assessments that we already do within our school:

Running Records- Providing a score for word reading accuracy, analysis of readers' errors and self-corrections, and reading strategies used. This assessment is a requirement of all junior students and is used to formative inform teacher practice. This assessment measures the progress of students once they start reading.

Concepts About Print- This assessment is used to assess students' acquisition of the knowledge of the conventions of print. This assessment is conducted on entry to school and again at age six.

E-asTTle- Writing assessment used in Term 1 and Term 4, moderated within the school and across Manaiakalani schools.

Engage/Leap Assessment; SDQR Self Regulation Assessment Form- Our school is taking part in the ENGAGE/Leap initiative to help students develop self-regulation skills through 30-minute game playing daily. This assessment is used for those students whose whānau have agreed to take part in the program.

In addition to these assessments, I will be using

Dr Jannie van Hees CombiList (Dr Jannie van Hees © 2013)- This is an oral language acquisition assessment tool. This tool measures the learner's willingness to communicate, communication with adults, participation in discourse, contribution to discussion, and benefits from feedback. From my previous inquiry in oral language acquisition, this tool gave a clear picture of areas of challenge, and the progress of learners is broken down into specific areas.

A Foundation Skills Assessment- Measuring reflexes, senses, motor development, language skills, auditory skills, and visual skills. This will be a tick sheet to record students' progress in acquiring these skills within the daily program.

Phonological Awareness Assessment- Yolanda Soryl phonological awareness assessment. As teaching phonics is a part of my program I will be continuing to do daily I think it is important to track its effectiveness as part of a wider foundation skill program.

Student Voice and Whanau Voice- Gathering student voice through creating student profiles will give me an understanding of student's preferred ways of learning, it will give students an opportunity to express who they are, have a say about what goes on for them at school, and in their learning. Talking with whānau gives whānau the important opportunity to partner with whānau to build on strategies at home, value the knowledge of the whānau and utilize parents expertise.

I will assess my whole class and from here take a focus group of students with the greatest need for developing foundation skills. These students I will track throughout the inquiry process to measure progress. This information will allow me to formative adapt my program to meet my student's needs.

Preliminary Findings About The Nature and Extent of The Student Challenge

How important are gross and fine motor skills in relation to our cognitive processing? 

On a personal level, I realised the importance while doing 'boot camp. As I struggled to do a new 'activity modelled by the instructor that involved swinging a kettlebell around my body, crossing over arms and swinging it back the other way. Such activities take all my cognitive capacity to master. Is it just a coincidence that I have extreme difficulty in doing such activities when my peers can do it the first time, and that I struggle with sequencing letters within a word, words within a sentence or numbers within a string of numerals like phone numbers? How are gross motor skills related to cognitive functioning? 

Anecdotal observations of my students doing physical activity

As part of our schools work with Sport Auckland we had the opportunity to see our facilitator James model a series of physical games whereby I got the opportunity to take a step back and observe the students in my class move and work together in various ways.

There were two simple activities:

1. moving in different ways inside a space then getting into groups of a given number.

2. throwing bean bags to hit a cone in a relay-style activity.

These activities proved challenging for many of my students. Not surprisingly the students that found these activities challenging correlated with those students that were finding learning in the classroom difficult. 

I observed some students found gross motor skills such as marching, skipping, jumping with both feet, and throwing extremely difficult, for others it was working with others and problem-solving, and for two students it was joining in at all and they completely shut down and refused to participate. From the outside, it kind of looked like chaos. 

I hadn't anticipated these 'fun' activities would be such a challenge for my students and 'the wheels falling off' made me realise that I had been avoiding such activities, due to the 'difficulties it caused'. In my teacher management role of controlling the learning environment, I was doing my students an injustice by sheltering them and withholding vital opportunities to learn from doing. The limited PE opportunities I had been giving my students had not made me realise the skills my students needed in their development and how this correlated to their learning. 

In similar ways, my observations within the classroom show many of my students lack fine motor skills. For some using scissors to cut is extremely challenging, students are gripping crayons pencils and pens with their fists and just scribbling, people are drawn with a round body shape with sticks coming out for arms and legs with no head just dots for eyes and a line for a mouth within the body. 

Communication between students is also limited with some students using a few word utterances and not having the vocabulary to explain their understanding or how they are feeling. 

What is the significance of this in relation to the challenge of accelerating the development of the skills students need to be 'school-ready' within their first year of school?

If we are expecting our students to be 'school ready' we then need to be giving students the opportunity to develop the skills that are needed to be school-ready. How much of this am I currently doing in my day to address this need? What data can I gather to assess students developmental stages and measure progress? What can I do differently? 

Bilingual Approaches Open Linguistic Spaces

Below is an article published in the Education Gazette featuring Room 2's teaching and learning through a bilingual approach in an open linguistic space.

Incorporating the PELP programme into my everyday teaching practice is something I have been exploring as part of my CoL Inquiry into developing an intensive oral language acquisition programme to raise student achievement in literacy. The below whānau and student voice describes the effectiveness of the PELP programme for my learners.

Bilingual Approaches Open Linguistic Spaces

Tamaki Primary School whānau kōrero

Tamariki Q&A

Q: What do you like the most about reading stories in your first language?

A: Because it is my language. I have to speak more so I can be a Tongan person and know people that have passed away. It makes me happy to read books. It is hard to think about the story if you get stuck on it in English. Toko, 7

A: They make me smart. The books have stories and pictures, some are easy and some are hard. Virginia, 7

Q: What do you like the most about speaking your own language at school?

A: You get to teach people different languages and you get to see if anyone else knows your language. I don’t really know much about Niuean and I get to learn about it. Saryah, 6

A: I can teach the teachers how to speak in Tongan. I can speak in Tongan to my friends. Epalahame, 7

Whānau Q&A

Q: Has the Pasifika Early Literacy Project (PELP) helped your child?

A: YES, it has helped my child learn more about our language and culture and it has encouraged our family to speak more of our language at home.

Q: What do you like the most about the dual-language books?

A: The fact that the books have both English and Tongan versions; that way our children can understand what they are reading about and make connections to their culture.

Q: What difference does it make for you (and your child) that they can do some classroom learning in their own language?

A: It makes a huge difference, especially in today’s world. My children are encouraged in the classroom to use their language and it’s amazing for me as a mother, to hear them speak and understand. My child has also taken on the role of sharing and helping other students and teachers to speak our language and he shows great pride in sharing our Lea-fakatonga.

Q: Why do you think this is important?

A: It is significant that my children learn our Lea-fakatonga and to do that in the classroom is amazing. This is a part of their identity as a person and I believe that all our tamariki need to have access to learn their language and about their culture in order for our culture to thrive. This will also teach them how sacred all cultures are no matter the differences and beliefs; we are fortunate to live in Aotearoa as a country that encourages diversity. Jade Fonua

Inquiring Into Specific Aspects Of My Current Teaching Practice

Main Learning About My Teaching and My Next Steps

To be reflective is uncomfortable. I'm a firm believer in those aspects of your teaching that you become defensive about are probably the aspects that most need changing.

I have observed three aspects relating to my teaching where that uncomfortable feeling rose from my gut. Indicating an area that I need to reflect on. Below is a description of those moments and what it has meant to me in regards to areas I can make changes to my practices.

Situation 1

During an observation of behaviours of students within my class, my DP observed two students rushing through their writing. We had a great reflective discussion regarding the possible expectations I have of these students. 

Some questions I reflected on:

Do I have lower expectations of these boys who find it difficult to stay focused and complete tasks to the same level as other students? Thinking back to lockdown these were the boys who refused to do online learning when their parents asked them too. What is causing this divergence? If I up my expectation of these students will they persevere more with their learning?  One of these boys is a fidgeter and struggles writing his letters in sequence. Does observing these tendencies lower my expectation of writing output? What would happen if I lifted the bar? How can I motivate them to write more, for longer periods? How can I use self-directed learning and student agency to accelerate progress with these students?

Situation 2

Every now and then we come across a difficult situation that takes us by surprise and makes us evaluate how we see the world. My second reflection on my teaching practice is not actually directly related to my teaching. It was a cultural misunderstanding by me that made me reflect on the value of Whanaungatanga and my understanding of what this means. 

My instant reaction to a conflicting situation that arose was to stand my ground in what I believed in, but I was wrong to do this. I needed instead to look at how others see the situation to truly learn from the experience. The situation that arose (without going into details) could easily put down to miscommunication, however, I believe the real problem was my own lack of knowledge of Māori culture, values, and the Tikanga of Whanaungatanga. I am on a personal journey to grow my understanding of Te Ao Māori and this highlighted important new learning for me.

The situation made me reflect on how I have been brought up. I have grown up in an English family who are insular in our ways. We are not part of a large community, we don't go to church or have large family gatherings, I didn't play team sports and although I will do anything to help I often need to be told what to do. Whanaungatanga is something I am having to learn.

How much do my Pakeha beliefs and values come into my daily teaching practice that I am not even aware of? Of course, they are going to, but I truly believe I need to acknowledge my culture and put it to one-side and embrace Māori and Pasifika culture, to teach Māori as Māori and Pasifika as Pasifika in culturally responsive ways. I'm sure I will not be successful all the time and I will make cultural mistakes (as indicated above) but if we are putting students in the centre of teaching and learning, then expecting them to assimilate to Pakeha culture is not the way, it is putting us in the centre instead.

Situation 3

The third learning about my teaching is how easy it is to revert back to the comfortable, the well-established ways of teaching. Looking at my learning site during lockdown is an example of this...

There were great things I was doing on my site to engage learners, make learning accessible for those students that were working independently without adult help and continuing with ways to accelerate language acquisition through our work with Dr Jannie Van Hees. However, the one thing that slipped away was culturally responsive teaching. This tells me that that I have a long way still to go until culturally responsive teaching practice is a natural way of teaching and a part of all that I do. When the hugeness of lockdown happened and we had to change how we taught and students learned in many ways. That is the one thing that dropped off. This tells me that there is so much more work, learning, changes to my everyday practice that I need to make to ensure culturally responsive teaching is at the forefront of my practice.

Summary

• High expectations for all students. Student agency and self-directed learning to engage, motivate and encourage perseverance amongst the boys in my class.
• Acknowledgement of my own culture and putting my culture perspectives aside to truly learn about and experience Te Ao Māori and increase my cultural responsiveness.
• Keep the changes I am making to my practice in terms of PELP and culturally responsive practice at the forefront, even when times are challenging and you feel yourself reverting back to past ways of teaching.

TAI20 The Nature and Extent of the Student Challenge: Whānau Voice

I have been collecting parent voice through the method of Talanoa. This method allows whānau to speak openly without the expectation to answer questions in a forced and directed way. These conversations are a way to listen to whānau and the messages they are sharing in a comfortable natural way.
All three pieces of whānau voice were collected through long comfortable conversations in natural environments with other whānau members present. This information was given by them without prompting or questioning. 

One mum talked about the impact of helping her children do their learning during the lockdown:
"I wasn't aware of the impact of what was going on at home was having on the children's achievement. They didn't use to be like this. (This is referring to an extremely difficult situation the family has been through).

They are at a 5-year-old level. I don't want them falling further behind. It wasn't only me it was the older siblings helping them.

I'm glad all the growling at them to do their work has paid off. It was hard work.

I have noticed they have changed. They are happy kids. They come home from school all talking at once wanting to tell me about their day."

Another mum discussed how she loved working with her daughter during the lockdown: 

"I want to keep working with her. I can see the progress she is making. We don't do the projects as we don't have the things you need but we do reading, writing and maths. I haven't paid much attention to their leaning before but now I'm reading and doing things with my younger children too."

Discussion during a home visit with Samoan whānau: 
"We don't feel safe coming back to school yet. We are learning through our bible studies and the church band. We are doing things together as a small family group. I am teaching them about God's ways. The children use my hotspot to go on their site in the evening after they have done their jobs." As we were talking the children were playing doctors with a toy medical kit.

My reflection of whānau voice is 

• The impact high levels of stress in the home setting has on students self-regulation and uptake of new learning at school. As illustrated above whānau may not be aware of the impact stressful home situations have on children's learning. Once made aware of this whanau made changes to their family interactions and gave more support with their children's learning.
• Families have limited resources at home however during the lockdown, having learning visible on the class site allowed whānau to become more involved in their child's learning and they could see the progress their child was making. This was a motivating factor for some whānau and they wanted to continue helping their child with their learning after the lockdown.
• It is easy to look at education and views of success through a Pakeha lense. However, it is important to step out of our cultural world view into the world views of our students. I need to gain a deeper understanding of  Māori and Pasifika beliefs of success, values and education if I am to truly look at achievement and what we measure as success. 

TAI2020 'Say And Do Activities' In An Online Learning Environment

How does 'saying and doing' look learning online?

My inquiry over the last two years has been to grow student's oral language through an intensive oral language programme implemented across our junior school. 

One of the main changes to our teaching has been 'hands-on tasks' whereby the students talk about what they are doing as they do it, using vocabulary and phrases modelled by the teacher.

Moving into lockdown has made me and my team think about how this could look using a digital platform.

Some other challenges we were facing:

• Engaging students in their learning, with feedback from parents that they were finding it hard to get their children to focus on their learning at home.  
• The age of the students as they are too young to follow written instructions, we needed learning activities to be easy for them to understand, independently, without needing help from an adult.
• Not knowing if students were connecting with the leaning site at home as it has been hard to contact some families.

Evidence of Learning

• Videos shared with me via email, often through older siblings show engagement and connecting with learning online.
• Videos show children talking about what they are doing.
• They have understood the instructions and learning about concepts and contexts outside of their daily worlds.
• Use of correct sentence structures as they teach others how to do the activity.

Here are some examples of moving our intensive oral language acquisition programme online...

CoL: Evaluation Of My Intervention After The First Year

This Evaluation looks at the different parts of our inquiry into creating a culturally responsive intensive oral language programme across the Junior School. It reflects on the three hypotheses developed at the beginning of this inquiry. 

Utilising the student's strengths in their first language, working in bilingual and multilingual ways, creating Talanoa, and working in partnership with families will help build students English language and literacy.

Developing oral language through short high-interest topics and real-life experiences, with a focus on intensive oral language acquisition, will create an environment of language in abundance.

A collaborative inquiry across the junior school (Years 1-3) will grow professional capital across the school. The shared inquiry will allow all students across the junior school to benefit from the effectiveness of changed practice and allow teachers to learn from and with each other. It will hopefully also enable an effective changed practice to become sustainable.

Student Voice

Student voice shows that there has been a shift in students feeling comfortable using their first language at school and that the target students see their heritage language as a way to communicate effectively with their peers and family and value themselves as experts when it comes to teaching their teachers their first language. Whereas previously the target students said that they just spoke their first language at home and with friends. They also see changes in my teaching practice such as collaborative learning opportunities, turn taking when talking and using language acquisition activities as ways in which they learn best.

Comparison of student voice survey Term 1-4 

Pasifika Early Intervention Programme (PELP)

After one Term of the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme (PELP) our Target Students made significant progress in the number of words spoken during the PELP oral language assessment, with the exception of Student 3 who already had a higher English oral language level than the other students. Student 4 didn't speak their heritage language at home which accounts for there low level of heritage language pre and post intervention.

This data shows the increase of students confidence speaking their first language at school alongside the increased acquisition of English within that one term.

The above graph shows the average amount of words spoken during the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme language test pre PELP intervention and post intervention (one school term).

The graph indicates that on average Junior students increased their oral language after one term of PELP. During this time we changed our teaching practice to incorporate students first language into our teaching programmes, encouraged students to use their first language, used dual language books in class and at home, and connected with families about the importance of students using and learning their first language.

The graph also shows that those students who were also in the Target Group, participating in small group oral language acquisition activities  (Dr Jannie Van Hees) went from having a below average oral language level below level to an above average level. These students participated in all Dr Van Hees modelling sessions and classroom sessions lead by the teachers exploring hands on oral language activities, insisting on use of new oral language, picture talk and shared writing sessions using new vocabulary. This shift is far greater than those students not participating in the programme.

It is therefore my conclusion that although we would probably see shift in students oral language through the use of PELP alone we see a far greater shift when we combine this programme with the teaching strategies that make up the Oral Language Intervention Programme designed by Dr Jannie Van Hees.

Combilist Data

The Combilist was used to measure language development factors of all students within my class.
Factors important in language development are rated below using the scale Yes/Sometimes/No.

C1-2 indicates willingness to communicate
C3-4 indicates communication with teacher/adults
C5-9 indicates participation in discourse
C10-13 indicates contribution to the discussion or discourse
C14-16 indicates benefits from feedback

Areas that target students made the most gains where: 

C2 Keen to express meaningfully and well.

C4 Expresses responses as clearly as he/she can.

C5 Takes the opportunity to speak.

C8 Gives elaborate responses to open-ended questions from the teacher/adult

C9 Reacts and responds spontaneously and on own initiative to teacher.

C12 Thinks before he/she speaks so as to express at a higher cognitive level.

C14 Continues his/her meaning and intentions, and picks up and uses teacher examples and models later.

Areas for continued development are:

C10 Sustains expression of his/her meaning, ideas and intentions.

C15 Meanings and ideas logically developed and expressed.

The rest of the class still struggle with giving elaborate responses and thinking before they speak to express at a higher cognitive level. The gains the target group made in this areas I feel is reflective of my change in practice, pushing students to use more words, new vocabulary, modelling responses and to think before they speak. The graphs show that those students that were 'No' in many categories all shifted to 'Sometimes'. This was not the case for many of the other students within the class that made comparatively little gain in these areas.

These results show that Dr Jannie Van Hees programme does have a substantial impact on oral language acquisition and using Dr Van Hees teaching strategies across the Junior school would benefit all students.

Transference Into Reading

The below graphs show the little progress students made within their first year at school (40 weeks). The graph also shows the progress that was made during the last 20 weeks of which these interventions took place. Although three of the students are working well below the expected level, all have made progress. However, it is hard to say whether this progress would have been made due to changed oral language programme or whether it is due to the normal classroom reading programme.  

Student 1

Student 2

Student 3

Student 4

Collaborative Inquiry Into Changed Practice Across The Junior School

The collaborative nature of this inquiry is harder to evaluate however a survey completed by the Junior teachers showed that they all had a clear understanding of the 'why' behind the change in practice and held a shared vision. As a team, we have undertaken a vast amount of PLD this year with DR Jannie Van Hees, the Pasifika Early Literacy Programme and ENGAGE, and shared our new learning with the rest of the school Staff meeting slide deck. 

We soon realised that creating changed practice across the Junior school would take longer than anticipated and extended the length of the inquiry from 1 year to 2 years, dedicating the first year to professional development and exploring changes in teaching practice. Teachers were at differing stages of uptake of this new learning due to two teachers being beginning teachers and experiencing all the new learning that comes with teaching your first class. What was important to me was the openness all teachers had to the PLD and that all teachers tried some of the teaching strategies learned.

We began collecting data on all junior students but then realised that it would be more significant to focus on a target group that would participate in all small group intensive oral language activities  (Dr Van Hees), PELP and ENGAGE taught by me. Next year as we all implement the new learning we will take data across the Junior School.

During the second year,  the aim is for all Junior teachers to fully implement the changes to practice, creating a Junior curriculum that focuses on a culturally responsive intensive oral language acquisition programme.

The Introduction Of ENGAGE

One of the factors that became apparent throughout the inquiry was the impact students low levels of regulation had on students ability to uptake new oral language. 

ENGAGE seemed to be the missing piece and when offered the opportunity to participate in the programme starting Term 4 we as a team jumped at the chance. 

It is hoped that through the games based programme students will develop self-regulation skills that will help them to uptake new learning. 

Data will be used from this programme to support our inquiry moving into its second year. 

Comparison of Student Voice Responses Term 1-Term 4

In order to get a deeper understanding of how students perceived both themselves as learners and the effectiveness of my teaching practice. I conducted a student voice survey in Term 1 and Term 4.

Term 1 Responses	Term 2 Responses	Reflection
I am good at reading/ writing - yes/sometimes/no?
S3- ”Sometimes I don’t do well because I'm tired.” S1-” I’m good I write on the word.” S4 - "I write my sister’s names.” S1- “I can write it good, my pirate one. I could write so many words.” S4- “I need the word card.”	S4- "No I don't write properly and then I fix it. My sister helps me.  S1- "Yes I'm good. I know all the words." S4- "Yes I sound out the words." S2- "No I suck, I don't know how to spell ...my family say it."	This tells me that some of my target students have low self-esteem when it comes to writing. This is something I need to address within my teaching moving forward.
When I can't do something it is easy to ask my teacher for help- yes/sometimes/no?
S1- “Ask 3 people before the teacher, ask your friend then you go ask the teacher.” “Ask your friend (repeated by all 4)”	S1- "No you have to ask 3 people before you."	Is my classroom management system of students asking 3 peers for help before approaching the teacher while she is taking a small group impacting them feeling they are able to gain the help they needed at other times of the day? I will need to explore this further as it is interesting they gave the same response twice.
My teacher listens to my ideas - yes/sometimes/no?
S2- “Everyone always talking, she picks the people who are listening, who get to talking.”	S4- “Yes” S1- “Yes: S2- "No, you don't listen during mat time."	This child constantly calls out during mat time and talks over other students. Interesting to see that he feels like he isn't being listened to.  How can I address this issue so that he feels that he has a voice and that he is listened to?
Do you feel okay to talk in your own language at school? Why or why not?
S2- “No I want to practice my language at home, I have to learn it from my mum. It is hard to write in Tongan. I would like to talk more in Tongan at school.” S1-"No because people are Maori. People keep saying Maori to me.” S3- “I speak Samoan with my friends.”	S2- “Yes, so teachers can speak in Tongan. She (pointing to me and laughing to his friends) is a bit good. The Tongan kids are her teachers.” S1- “I like to talk, yes. All the Tongan students can listen and my Dad.” It’s cool speaking at school. When I speak to H (a Tongan girl from the class) she talks to me in Tongan. We play together.	This was a significant shift in students responses from not feeling like they could speak their first language at school to feeling comfortable speaking it. They talk of teaching their teachers and of being able to communicate with friends and family. These responses show the success of having a more culturally responsive classroom and using PELP to change teacher practice.
What do you want your teachers to know about you and how you learn best?
S2- “Tell my teacher about at writing, about pirates” S4- “I like maths, soccer, cooking.” S3- "Bikes” S1- "I like to cut coconuts.”	S2- :I can go outside and speak in Tongan.” S4- “We both take turns to talk”. S3- I work with my buddy- say the sentence and write it.” S1- I like the Tongan game putting the words with the pictures. I do it at home.”	This time students could articulate the emphasis they put on working collaboratively as well as the importance of learning in their first language. S1 is referring to a sequencing game whereby they had to sequence the pictures from a dual language book and match it to the text. This was an activity they got to take home to do with their families.

This data shows the areas I still need to work on, evident within the responses to the first three questions. These will help to guide changes to my teaching practice moving forward from here.

• developing students self efficacy in writing.
• ensuring all students can gain the help they need from me when they need it, being clearer about using terms like 'see 3 before me' during small group teaching, so that they don't interpret that as being all times of the day. 
• finding ways to ensure that all students are listened to while at the same time helping them develop turn taking while speaking. 

This data shows strengths in the areas of

• creating a culturally responsive learning environment whereby students feel confident using their first language.
• the use of collaborative learning, students taking turns to speak and students working with buddies. 
• The use of resources that encourage literacy in students first language, and the power of having these resources available to go home with the students for home learning with families.

These three areas I see as evidence of the effectiveness of changed practice moving from relatively non-culturally responsive teaching practice to a creating a culturally responsive classroom that embraces the use of student's first languages so they can learn in their first language and make connections between their first language and English. Collaborative learning and students turn-taking when talking are mentioned as ways students learn best, therefore me changing my practice to incorporate these aspects into my teaching has had a positive influence on student learning.