Tena koutou katoa.

It feels that the last 12 months have gone by so quicky as we find ourselves already about to celebrate Ko Taku Reo’s one year anniversary in July. It has been an exciting journey as the school looks to consolidate its new national identity and grow and develop for the benefit of our learners. In some areas this has required some significant change which sometimes isn’t always easy. I would like to thank all our staff up and down the country for the work they do and continue to look forward to our progress as a new national school.

Ruaumoko Marae Development 

Over the last few months interest and use of the Ruaumoko Marae, based at our campus in Kelston, as a meeting and learning centre has increased. The marae has a significant role in both supporting and representing Turi Māori in our organisation as well as being a place for educational and other groups to meet and learn. As a result, we are looking to support this growth by making some significant improvements to our marae buildings. The Marae Komiti has been involved in consultation with our Turi community in working on some new plans for developing the wharekai at the marae. The team has been working with architects to redesign Matai House to create a better fit for purpose wharekai to service the growing needs of the marae. The design also focuses on developing more effective student learning spaces for the teaching of tikanga Māori. This has been an exciting project to be involved in and helps to support our school’s commitment to progressing learning for all students and staff in this area.

Beacon Schools Project

One of the challenges we have in Deaf Education is how to create a meaningful educational community around a group of often isolated learners, particularly those that need to engage in learning through the use of New Zealand Sign Language. With the opportunity for change discussions have been taking place about how to best support and educate DHH children, and as a result, what possible changes to service design might occur. The ability to investigate different service provision options (such as one day hubs, clustering of students at a magnet school or co-enrollment) is a unique opportunity and one that both the Board and the senior leadership team are keen to explore further.

Our Beacon School Project in Dunedin is one such opportunity. Done in partnership with Halfway Bush School we are trialing a new way of bringing our students together by creating critical mass through focused school enrolment. This provides the opportunity to “hot house” our resources to provide a well-supported structure of inclusion that provides the opportunity to build a community that is both authentic and reciprocal. The model embraces a multi-lingual/multi-cultural philosophy and helps to provide our learners with more continuous access to language.

The project began at the beginning of this term but already we are seeing some very positive results in student learning, participation, and social and emotional well-being.