100 years on – Te Kura is as relevant as ever

Kaiako Mike Woodlock and James enjoy a fair degree of banter. Good relationships between kaiako and ākonga are key to success.

For its first 70 years, Te Kura – the Correspondence School – went about its business assured of its purpose and success. As the then Department of Education’s Correspondence School, it had a closer relationship with government officials than any other school.

For decades, Te Kura has been praised by a wave of dignitaries, including Governors-General, Ministers of Education, and Prime Ministers.

From its first permanent home in Wellington’s Clifton Terrace, the headmaster of the time Arthur Butchers said the building stood conspicuously above the city as the pulsating centre of New Zealand’s largest school.

As well as being seen as a national treasure in New Zealand, outside the country it was viewed with great interest and admiration.

Over the years, hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders have been ‘corrie’ students – not just those in school, but adults, young mothers, prison inmates, preschoolers, teacher trainees, talented and gifted young people pursuing a career in sport or in the arts, Kiwis living overseas, defence personnel and a vast number of students in other schools that are unable to provide certain subjects.

The emerging technologies of the 1980s suggested a new type of learning would revolutionise distance education taking it from paper-based to digital learning, with the Correspondence School again leading the way.

A reform of educational administration, and changes in society also brought about some big changes.

Under the Tomorrow’s School reform, the Correspondance School became its own entity, governed by a board of trustees.

The school also experienced an influx of children and young people for whom the prevailing model of distance education did not appear to be a good fit.

New leadership brings hope

Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu CEO Mike Hollings.

Mike Hollings (Ngati Raukawa and Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi) was appointed CEO in 2006. He arrived at the school in with more than 30 years’ experience in the education sector, from teaching to management, policy development and review.

He also had a detailed knowledge about how the school operated, having spent several years at the Education Review Office, including a year as the acting chief review officer.

As something of a poacher turned gamekeeper, he had a strong sense of the school’s strengths and weaknesses.

There were 20,000 students on the roll at any one time, with more than 30,000 enrolling over a year. It had more Māori and at-risk students than any other school in New Zealand.

Mike believed that building close relationships with students and personalising learning was the key to re-engaging alienated young people back into education and to helping them succeed. Creating a bilingual environment was also essential in what is effectively the largest Māori school in the country.

Authentic learning

In 2009, the Correspondence School became Te Aho o Te Kura Pounamu, which refers to connecting students with learning.

Mike introduced the concept of authentic learning through real world experiences, and personalised learning meant students could achieve by following their own interests and passion.

At the same time, advances in technology enabled the school to position itself as a leader in e-learning. Students were no longer learning through sets of work sent through the post but were now part of the digital world with far more contact with their teachers.

Regionalisation was paying off, with teachers closer to their students, and with the setting up of Huingo Ako – a space where teachers, students and whānau could come together at least weekly.

The ‘Big Picture’ learning philosophy that Mike introduced has now evolved into Te Kura’s curriculum, Te Ara Pounamu, where ākonga are placed at the centre of their learning.

 A combination of authentic, blended and online learning provides a highly personalised and flexible learning environment that suits many styles of learning.

Ākonga at the centre

Twelve-year-old twins, Stunna and Vypa, live in Gisborne with a family of three generations.

Their mother Ashleigh says the boys were not learning in their last school but have progressed well at Te Kura.

“They are on the autistic spectrum, so they don’t learn like many other children, but Te Kura really suits their style of learning, and what’s really good is that it allows whānau to play a role in their education.

“Their great grandmother, my Nan, takes a keen interest and is helping the boys learn Māori,” says Ashleigh.

Other family members help support a wide range of activities, including one aunt taking the boys cycling every week, and regular participation in haka with extended whānau.

For a Hamilton ākonga, James, who left his old school due to trouble with other students, and where he struggled with anxiety, Te Kura has been the means of turning his life around.

“When I started at Huinga Ako, I would sit at my laptop and mumble when the teachers spoke to me, but they were lovely every time I attended, guiding me in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I had never had teachers check up on me the way they did at Te Kura, and they did their best to cater my learning to my interests.”

James says with endless support from kaiako, his confidence has grown and grown, and he has begun to pursue a career in teaching.

“I want to become as amazing a teacher as I can and be like those who I’ve been so lucky to have at Te Kura.”

Twins Stunna and Vypa, supervised by their mother, Ashleigh.

Flexible learning

Te Ara Pounamu allows greater flexibility with some ākonga able to complete three levels of NCEA in two years.

It’s a style that suits senior ākonga like Ashton, who says a few years ago, he’d resigned himself to the idea that education would always be a stressful and exhausting process.

“A combination of mental health problems and sensory issues made face-to-face school incredibly overwhelming, and I struggled to learn anything and complete my work. When I was offered the chance to do my schooling through Te Kura, I was cautiously optimistic but thought it would only help in a couple of minor ways.

“I couldn’t have been more wrong! Te Kura offers a flexible learning style that’s allowed me to move through booklets and assessments at my own pace, so I’ve been able to spend more time on difficult concepts and whizz through things that come easily to me. My teachers have also been an enormous help and have consistently offered constructive feedback and answers to anything I’ve been confused about.”

And Ashton says not only does he really enjoy mixing with other ākonga at Huinga Ako, he’s also made some of his closest friends at the weekly group meetings.

Te Kura’s success with students like James and Ashton, who were at risk of disengaging from their education, has been recognised by the Education Review Office.

Tyrese Epiha – a Te Kura ākonga who runs his own radio station, “The Scoop” in New Plymouth and who has also been taking a broadcasting course at WITT.

ERO affirmation

A report on the school, released last December, acknowledges that Te Kura is increasingly being relied on to enrol ākonga whose needs are not being met elsewhere, at a time of rising rates of student disengagement and alienation from the school system.

ERO noted that Te Kura has developed best-practice digital delivery capability and capacity that the wider sector could benefit from, especially in alternative learning environments, like those necessitated by the pandemic during 2020 and 2021.

Jane Lee, ERO’s deputy chief executive review and improvement services, says: “many other New Zealand schools can learn from Te Kura’s online delivery expertise, especially given the rapidly changing environment schools have faced since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that they are still responding to, sometimes on a weekly or even daily basis.”

Mike says the report also recognises Te Kura is stretched in being able to meet the high levels of unmet social, education and health needs under its current funding.

Kohana Williams studied with Te Kura while she pursued a ballet career.

He’s very proud to have led Te Kura, which has shown over its long history a remarkable ability to adapt to the many challenges that have confronted it, with the last ERO report affirmation that the school is on the right path.

“And what’s really special is that the well-founded tradition of Te Kura in forging close relationships between our kaiako and ākonga continues.

“Te Kura, as the Correspondence School, was set up to ensure that all New Zealanders could access schooling, even if they lived in the back of beyond. Today we are still providing learning for young people who, due to a whole variety of circumstances, would miss out on education.”

ERO has also asked the Ministry of Education to provide greater clarity and direction on the long-term role expected of Te Kura as a national provider to the wider education system.

“In its 100th year, Te Kura is as relevant as ever,” concludes Mike.