Bula Vinaka!
I am excited to embark on my role as a Manaiakalani Kahui Ako Within School Teacher. Teaching at Sommerville for over a decade, I have had the privilege to work in an organisation that embodies being ‘more than a school’ which aligns with my passion for empowering neurodiverse learners to flourish and live their best lives.
Being an educator in a specialist school has led me to learn how to deliver the New Zealand curriculum in differentiated ways. This requires ongoing upskilling of my kete to adapt, tailor and innovate approaches that meet the complex individual needs of neurodiverse learners. Making the curriculum accessible for our learners requires careful consideration to creatively look into the different ways we deliver the curriculum. This has propelled my skill set to develop tailored teaching plans, and often be innovative to adapt teaching tools that support students to achieve important learning milestones.
I firmly believe that to achieve high levels of engagement from learners, the learning context needs to be meaningful, personalised, and relevant to the learner. As educators, it is our responsibility to deliver programes that cater to all students across a wide range of learning styles. Gardeners Multiple intelligences theory highlights that intelligence exists in different modalities, therefore, we need to tap into that to understand our students' learning styles and to teach them in the way that is most meaningful and engaging for them. My inquiry will weave effective ways to boost quality engagement of our students while ensuring the implementation of rich learning experiences.
I plan on following our overarching Sommerville strategic goal to ‘develop a curriculum that is responsive to personalised learning needs’ where success equals ‘students are engaged in their learning and active in their community’. This fits nicely alongside my curiosity to explore the different ways kaiako (in a specialist school context) use varying approaches/platforms in their programming to deliver rich learning opportunities that connect theory with practical, real-life knowledge and experiences that are relevant to diverse learners. I am motivated to use this opportunity to consider how reading, writing, and maths can be taught as part of an integrated curriculum while exploring effective teaching approaches to deliver the wider curriculum.
I am hopeful that this journey might inspire colleagues to “be courageous” and broaden their curriculum delivery to improve outcomes for their learners. My inquiry will link closely with Manaiakalani’s kaupapa and pedagogy of Learn, Create, Share (LCS).
