Tēna koutou, tēna koutou, tēna koutou katoa

What a year to look back on. An extraordinary year for our school, our education system, our country, and our world. Covid-19 has dominated so much of our lives this year. According to UNESCO data at least 1.5 billion students globally have been affected by school closures. Of course, here in New Zealand we never actually closed as we have moved quickly to teaching and learning online, when, and where needed. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of all our staff that has had to move and adapt to this new way of providing teaching and support and of course most importantly to our students for their efforts to learn and engage online. This has come with its challenges but there are some positive aspects to this as well. Some recent research undertaken by our Ministry of Education has indicated some common themes associated with students’ lockdown experiences. These themes are worth exploring as we know that our return to face to face will see a need for us to rethink some of our approaches.
Themes were:

• Students were showing greater independence and agency over their own learning.
• That some students had preferred online learning to traditional learning methods.
• Many students found they had less distraction than in the classroom.
• There was more family and whanau engagement with students’ education.

• Many students felt they were provided with a better quality of learning materials fit for their specific learning.

We also have our own strong theme developed. The opportunity we have had to bring our learning communities together from across the country.

We know the great benefit of course of being together face to face. There is no substitute for that. However, we now need to take our learning from online teaching back into our classrooms next year. We need to look to the positive aspects of this work and build upon together with our students and staff. 

So, I thank everyone for the amazing efforts you have made together to make this year as successful as possible. I am certainly looking forward to getting away from the ironing board! (Lockdown Life Hack: An ironing board makes for a great fully adjustable desk!)

Ngā maanakitanga
Noho ora mai

James Le Marquand