It is an exciting and invigorating time for the Kōtuitui Kāhui Ako in West Auckland. Both Across School leader and In School teacher roles have led to an increased level of collaborative practice between school leaders and teachers. There is an awareness that the quality of teacher collaboration positively influences teacher performance and student achievement.
The central vision for the Kōtuitui Kāhui Ako is to create a powerful educational research and development network, focused on meeting local learning needs. As educators, we must always be curious and engaged in the puzzle of what works best for learning. Personal, professional, and collective responsibility for continuous improvement is essential to our work.
Collaborating across the 12 schools in our community means a greater focus on the whole learning pathway of learners in our Kōtuitui community. It signals stronger bonds between educational contexts which will lead to greater long term support for our learners as they transition from one learning environment to the next.
At the end of four years, Kōtuitui collaboration has led to the following outcomes:
The Kōtuitui Achievement Challenge 2019-2022 has been successfully received by the Ministry of Education The inclusion of a number of our ECE learning centres to our Kōtuitui Kāhui Ako
Professional learning opportunities for Kōtuitui school leaders including coaching, school leadership development and the neuroscience of wellbeing
The establishment of strategic leadership teams with representative senior leaders from across our 12 schools. These collaborative forums allow for strategic priority planning and collaboration across our community of schools
Each Across-community leader facilitates the development of a workstream based on our Kōtuitui strategic priorities outlined below:
The development of our Kōtuitui research and development database which houses over 130 research inquiries from all 12 schools. These inquiries are all linked to the Kōtuitui strategic priorities outlined above thus creating a research hub for principals, leaders and teachers to access. This research and development database captures all the new learning that has occurred. The Kōtuitui database will soon be accessible to a broader range of stakeholders, allowing for further collaborative opportunities to emerge between leaders and teachers
Being motivated by a sense of community is central to the success of building a strongly connected educational research network. The vision of Kōtuitui is based on the desire to improve student outcomes by sharing what is working in each context. It is also about creating a smooth transition for our learners from early childhood to Year 13. It is clear that effective and focused collaboration between leaders, teachers and learners will reap many benefits for our broader community as a whole.
Kōtuitui Kāhui Ako continues to be a fantastic opportunity to both grow and challenge all professionals to reflect more deeply on how we can lift the achievement of all learners in our community.