Tēnā koutou katoa, Mālō e lelei,

As the end of my second year as principal comes to a close and we host our first ERO Review since my appointment, I felt it timely to reflect on what we are consistently working towards at Katikati College and all the improvements that we have undertaken in the last two years to support our desired outcomes.

Overall we want our learners to pursue personal excellence and success. We want them to develop resilience, adaptability, confidence, be innovative and creative, (#8 wire mindset), community focused citizens who uphold our college values in a positive, predictable, consistent and safe learning environment.

By upholding our college values of Manaakitanga, Ako, Rangatiratanga and Kotahitanga our learners will demonstrate caring, inclusiveness, leadership of their own learning and support of the learning of others. They will show initiative, take responsibility and be collaborative and connected learners for life.

Our learners are expected to be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. That means they are ready to learn, take action, do their best and be part of the TEAM. We want our students to have the confidence to write their own stories, be proud of who they are, where they come from and where they want to go. They will be individuals with village hearts and global minds, ready to make their MARK in the world.

Achievement is the end point and not the best indicator of success for all of our learners. Our concerns are that we focus too much on what achievement looks like to us in education, NCEA, writing, reading and maths. We want to focus on the process of learning (seven principles of learning) and learner engagement in that process and have personalised pathways that enable individual and collective success to be experienced and celebrated by all students. We are achieving this through our:

● Improved services from our Learning Centre - Whare Ako

● Academic mentoring and robust pastoral systems

● Responsive senior curriculum and timetable - emerging curriculum innovation

● Our point of difference - Innovative Hort

● Learning culture emerging - innovative way to make learning visible, success inevitable

● Relationship with Mana Whenua and evolution of place based curriculum

● A culturally responsive and relational culture and positive community partnerships with a range of stakeholders

● Long term strategic planning and outlook - playing the long game

Wellbeing is the key focus for all learners, staff and students. We are encouraging our students to believe in themselves and those around them, take risks, be creative and innovative in their thinking, be good citizens and treat others as they wish to be treated. The emphasis on quality not quantity is the message we want to send.

Some of the improvements over the last two years:

● New pastoral team which includes our Year Level Deans and our Pou Whare (House Leaders). Our Pou Whare positions were created and established to support student achievement, attendance and house spirit. They provide students in their house with academic mentoring and improved attendance tracking. Consequently, our Deans are able to do more real deaning, not chasing attendance. We have also seen an improvement in house spirit. This has all resulted in more consistency, clarity, cohesion and support to ensure learners are ready for learning and our college is moving towards a more restorative culture (5 Year plan).

● Our Learning Centre (Whare Ako), which includes Waimarino, has undergone a review and restructure. This has resulted in significant improvement in the identification of student learning needs and applications for the relevant resourcing to ensure their success.

● Restructure of our Senior Leadership Team (SLT). Our SLT and Principal are all teaching more, hence they are more visible in our classrooms. This has allowed us to increase the size of the leadership team to include fixed term positions which allow for leadership growth, project leadership and building internal capacity and capabilities.

● We completed a Curriculum and Timetable Review in 2018 and 2019 changed to a five day timetable, with three Semesters A, B and C. We also now offer integrated courses, Year 11 Coasties Course and Innovative Hort for example, Term 4 Junior Projects, Senior Tutorials and more! We will soon begin our next round of reviews and seek community consultation about how these changes can be further improved.

● The formation of our Pou Arahi Rōpū (Iwi Advisory Committee). This group is made up of representatives from our Mana Whenua (local original Māori) three Marae; Te Rereatukahia Marae; Otawhiwhi Marae and Tuapiro Marae; a representative from Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngareta Timutimu; two Board of Trustee representatives; and College representatives; Pou Matua Joe Manukau and Principal Carolyn Pentecost.

● There has been review and evolution of our College Values from ARC to MARK (Aspiration, Responsibility, Citizenship to Manaakitanga, Ako, Rangatiratanga, Kotahitanga) and our students are encouraged to ‘Make their MARK’.

● Strategic Plan and Vision, we are about to begin community consultation to support our strategic planning for 2020 - 2040.

● Celebrating success. We now have full school assemblies every four weeks. This is a time for the whole College to come together to acknowledge student achievements and have our students perform, so they can share their talents with the whole school. We also acknowledge those junior and senior students demonstrating our Kotahitanga values by awarding weekly Kotahitanga Awards.

● Matariki Awards are an opportunity to celebrate our rising stars and the cultural diversity at our College. This event is led by our Pou Arahi.

● Student Leadership - fortnightly meetings with Junior and Senior Leadership Teams provide valuable suggestions and solutions for school improvement and lead many school events.

● Te Ao Maori and Digital Citizenship has been added to all Year 9 and 10 programme for learning.

● We have a Memorandum of Understanding with Te Runanga o Ngaitamawhariua (TRON) Runanga to have a social worker and/ or youth worker on site at the college Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

● Formation of committees amongst our staff to share decision making and expertise. This builds capacity for leadership from within, forming a distributive leadership model.

● Increased professional development for staff. (Thursday morning 8.10 - 9.10, previously 8.10 - 8.50). The focus is on personalised learning, as with students and individual teachers select the area of focus as part of their professional Inquiries.

● Languages and Literacies Faculty are now offering Lea Faka Tonga and Pasifika studies.

● We are a BYOD school for Year 10 - 13. m-AKO (mobile learning) is used effectively to provide ‘blended learning’ by most teachers.

● Our decile rating changed from a 6 - 5. This has resulted in more funding.

● More cost-effective resourcing including a new bus provider and new uniforms in 2020 for Year 7 and Year 11 students. In 2021 will include Year 8 and Year 12 and by 2022 all students will be in our new uniform.

What are our continuing and/or next big areas for development and improvement?

● Complete consultation for our new strategic plan - 2020- 2040

● Kaupapa Maori Strategic Plan - Whanau Pumanawa Review (led/ supported by our Mana Whenua, Pou Arahi) engaging all areas of our community in the consultation and encouraging commitment, so there is a cohesive and shared responsibility for the success of all learners.

● Personalised pathways and success that reflect our college diversity, including personalised learning programmes like our Innovative Hort, Trades, acceleration strategies and equitable success.

● Curriculum design - NCEA aligned to contextualised curriculum, including our semesters, integrated courses, learner passions and strengths, to enable students to have access to responsive, personalised learning programmes.

● Development of a restorative culture - all learners in the right place at the right time doing the right thing, not because they have to, but because they want to!

● Continued dedication to developing more effective, relational and responsive teaching practices and forming community partnerships to provide more authentic learning opportunities and equitable outcomes.

We are really looking forward to our second Matariki Awards evening where our rising stars get to shine brightly and we celebrate alongside our mana whenua the success of our rangatahi.

Best wishes for the rest of Term 2.

Nāku noa na

Carolyn Pentecost

PRINCIPAL