‘Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi’ - This whakataukī, translates to “With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive’

It has been an exciting week for Teaching and Learning at Villa Maria College. Two members of our senior team, Mr. Mike Baugh (Deputy Operations), myself, and two middle leaders; Mrs. Willetts (Head of English) and Mrs Susan Arscott (Head of Intermediate) were lucky enough to visit five kura in Tāmaki Makaurau over the last two days.

We saw this whakatuki in action, within the kura we visited, where dynamic and inspirational learning was occurring and rangitahi were thriving in dynamic learning environments. We were also readily welcomed by other kaiako with manaakitanga and a willingness to share ideas and learn from one another. 

I returned home with a sense that community and collaboration is strong throughout kura across Aotearoa. Despite the many make ups, equity indexes (the old decile system), and philosophies, each kura had a strong sense of identity and purpose, and all faced changes in education with a strengths-based approach, mirroring our own response. Ensuring ākonga have a sense of belonging and a willingness of kaiako to work together to meet the needs of ākonga, was evident in all kura we visited. I certainly have returned affirmed in our belief that we are working steadily towards a vision at Villa Maria College which prepares our ākonga to leave our kura as strong Mercy women who are able to find a purposeful place in our world and to make a meaningful contribution.

Two of the kura we visited had also made the decision to no longer proceed with Level One NCEA next year and three years in, despite Covid disruptions, continued to have steady NCEA Level 2, 3 and University Entrance results. Here at Villa Maria College we remain confident that our decision to reduce unnecessary assessment in Year 11 from next year is the right one; reducing anxiety and workload, whilst increasing the time available for learning and the breadth in subjects at Year 11.

At St. Mary’s, a Mercy School in Auckland, we were welcomed by a glorious rainbow at the start of the day.

We watched a group of Year 10’s prepare for an in-school Stage Challenge in Physical Education. The girls had choreographed a dance of their own and were looking forward to performing this in costume.

We were delighted to have the opportunity to catch up with the Principal, Ms. Sarah Dwan. Ms Dwan taught at Villa Maria as Deputy Principal in charge of curriculum for a number of years, and the opportunity to get a photo of Sarah v1 and Sarah v2 was jumped at!

At Albany Junior High School the energy and engagement of their rangatahi was evident in all areas as we walked around. We envious saw the development of their te whare wānanga, recently gifted to them by a neighbouring school and currently under reconstruction with donations from their whānau and community.  

We saw many examples of inspirational practise we currently utilise or could adapt to our context, and our belief was reinforced that our junior curriculum provides a strong foundation on which future learning can be built. As we continue our mahi to review our Junior programme, we welcome ideas on how we can improve our programmes in order to foster strength in our young women, enabling them to be confident, resilient learners who display grit and curiosity in their learning and lives. We expect to be able to share our Junior Curriculum with you prior to its implementation in 2025.

Closer to home, here at Villa Maria College, our ākonga also learn in varied ways. This was evident in our central quad last week. As I walked across it, I came upon a group of senior te reo ākonga performing Ngā Poaka e Toru (the Three Little Pigs) in houses they’d drawn in chalk on the ground. Leaping in and out of ‘invisible walls’ the girls were giggling with delight as the Big Bad Wolf bayed “Ka whakapaua te hau, tō whare, ka hinga rā!!“. Their activities integrated movement, language and laughter in their learning.

I was delighted too, to see the developments in our Junior Curriculum pilots on Tuesday with the launch of an exciting collaboration between the Languages and Arts faculties. As reflected in the whakatuki, we know that our kaiako and our rangatahi, learn from and with one another, and the collaboration between kaiako as they integrate Arts and three different languages has been splendid to watch, if not sometimes challenging! Here we see Mrs Kilpatrick, our Dance kaiako interacting with Matua Wiremu, our te reo kaiako, demonstrating the ways the piupiu can move as the two faculties launched their unit on raranga (weaving). Like the whakatuki our collaboration pilots acknowledge that every Kaiako and every ākonga has something to offer to learning at Villa Maria, and that by working together we all flourish.