The VLN Primary continues to grow in leaps and bounds every year, yet we are still not quite there in terms of becoming a recognised and fully supported part of our education system. This year we had 870 learners in the VLN Primary School network! What will next year bring?

NZ schools have a growing interest in accessing learning opportunities online especially in the area of Te Reo Māori, which has our greatest numbers of learners, and also in Digital Technologies | Hangarau Matihiko to support implementation of the new DT|HM curriculum. Our ALLiS (Asian languages) contract was very successful in helping grow our resources and capability in Asian languages, culture and global education. Unfortunately, with the ALLiS project now complete, we no longer have the funds to maintain a national coordinator, elearning support position. 

The Ministry of Education has always been a supporter of the VLN Primary school and feedback we regularly receive say they value our work in schools. So this is how it works:

• Through a contract with a host school, Moanataiari, the MoE fund us a small amount for our operations - this funds the ePrincipal position and some associated costs; 
  
• schools contribute to the teaching and learning resource on a reciprocal basis by contributing teaching staff or funding; 
  
• and the VLN Primary School charitable trust was formed by schools to hold it all together and make it work for all of our schools and our learners. 
  

The VLN Primary works as a collaborative partnership between and across schools and whānau, the Ministry of Education, and the VLN Primary governance trust. A working Community of Online Learning in practice!

We trust that the new government will support online learning in NZ schools, we are just not sure yet how that will  happen. Will it be CoOLs or not CoOLs?  We have contributed to preliminary research to inform CoOLs development and been involved in stakeholder discussion that will inform the Minister who will have to consider this in light of the recent legislative changes.

In the meantime we have a contract with the MoE until the end of 2018. What is challenging  is that the amount of operational funding we have for 2018 was set in 2012 - things have changed a lot for us since then. Namely 400% growth! Next year i am sure it will be more. We are desperately in need of additional resourcing to employ another member on our team to maintain our growing operations and to support and lead our te reo Māori programmes. 

This is a time when we should be strategically stepping up and helping lead change in this area, not struggling to keep afloat. There is so much potential to be realised and we are only just scratching the surface.

Of course we will continue to take the approach of business as usual for 2018. We will do the best with what we have available to us. We continue to look for support and partnership in all areas and are currently working on a Give a Little page that will enable the community to contribute to the support of our programmes.

You can do your bit to help by advocating on our collective behalf. Write, tweet or Facebook message, to the Minister of Education Hon Chris Hipkins, and your local MPs.

 Let them know the importance of the VLN Primary school for you and your learners and request they increase their operational funding to keep apace with our growing network of learners. Refer them to this article for the details, and share your good news stories with them. 

Check out our 2017 Yearbook to see the value we bring to learners around NZ and see the attached file with feedback from some of our schools. This highlights what schools value in their participation with the VLN Primary School.