A shared understanding: South Wairarapa Community of Learning | Kāhui Ako

Valuing all voices is considered vital to success within the South Wairarapa Community of Learning | Kāhui Ako.

So before writing its achievement challenges, South Wairarapa consulted more than 600 students through discussion groups and online surveys, plus local iwi, health groups, school whānau, boards of trustees and other community members. All groups appreciated the opportunity to be involved.

Seven key themes came from these discussions: hauora, connections, global knowledge and skill, creativity and innovation, values, beliefs and agency, community and aspirations.

The enthusiastic leaders of South Wairarapa are from 13 schools – one secondary and 12 primary –   across small rural communities and towns in the region. From the start, their emphasis has been on collaborative tasks that create links between community and learning. Now, with everyone on board, they’re excited to get started.

Gathering and understanding other views

Mary Wootton is a learning facilitator and Expert Partner for this Community of Learning.

“Our role as Expert Partners is to accelerate the forming of this Community of Learning, and to help support the leaders to get moving,” she says.

“The accelerated progress of South Wairarapa shows what can occur with a strong partnership between Kāhui Ako leaders, the Ministry of Education, and expert partners. South Wairarapa has a real point of difference: its leaders want to be as inclusive as possible. They’ve actively sought and included the views of a range of students, from new entrants to year 13s, and other local community members, before writing up their achievement challenges.” 

South Wairarapa asked teachers, leaders, whānau and wider community members for their views on issues such as the learning strengths and challenges across their schools and communities, and what community members would like to see their schools work on.

Craig Nelson, Martinborough School principal, is the lead principal of the South Wairarapa Community of Learning. He has been actively involved in gathering student perspectives.

“This exercise is shaping the way the leaders think about teaching and learning within the community schools,” he says. “What came through quite strongly was that students were challenging the purpose of school and the purpose of learning. That led to us really asking ourselves: ‘What does learning look like, and what is important to our kids?’ Is school the only place where learning happens?

“Because it’s not just about school, it’s about having the buy-in of the whole village, so to speak. Therefore, the involvement of our whānau and community in developing the learner becomes really important, and that is why we needed to consult with them first. There’s so much more to a child’s learning than what happens in a classroom.” 

”The strengths are the people…”

Craig says the South Wairarapa Kāhui Ako is a natural progression from the Learning and Change Network the schools have been part of for four years.

“Through the Network we have seen the value in working together and forming a shared understanding of what education looked like for our kids,” he says.

“From this experience, we decided to form a Community of Learning as a continuation of what we were already doing. We saw there was potential for us to get more support and a bit more drive, externally, to help us succeed. 

“One of our challenges is physical distance – we’ve got some schools that are one hour’s drive apart, and so the ability to get together on a regular basis is not there. You can’t casually pop down as you might in a larger centre.

“The strengths are the people in our CoL. They’re absolutely willing to do the job – we’re all motivated to do the best for the young people in South Wairarapa. In all honesty, the strengths far outweigh the challenges. What we get from this is only limited by our imagination.”