Week 26: Applied Practice My Professional Context.
My Professional Context:
The History of Karamu High School.
Having taught just over a Year and a half at Karamu High School (KHS), I
am still finding my way in terms identifying the school culture and where I fit
in the community. There is strong evidence of culture, I do however feel that
this is a young school and continues to evolve its culture. The schools I have
taught at were older established schools and schools of special character,
where culture is in-bedded into the community. Our vision: Proudly Karamu,
Proudly Learning, Proudly Hastings.
The History of Karamu High School.
Karamu High School was opened in 1962, the city of Hastings first
co-educational high school.
The school's motto, Knowledge Is Strength He Mana Tō Te
Mātauranga emphasises the important role knowledge plays in a strong
and successful life and is the basis of good citizenship
In 2009 the Ministry of Education announced that a 8 Million dollar
modernisation project would take place at Karamu which was officially opened at
the 50th Jubilee celebrations in 2012.
The Socio-Economic Status of Hastings and KHS.
Below are the most current
published statistics from the Census outlining how Hasting compares to the rest
of the Nation. Lower in all areas. Hastings has a very high Maori and European
population compared to the National averages. These help shape the wider
community of Karamu High School, Ero reported in 2015 in October 2015 there were 835
students, 297 of whom identified as Māori. (ERO, 2016).
We are a decile 4 co-educational school, which
reflects the community who attend the school, there is a real mixture of
students and families, some students come from families steeped in academia,
well supported at home, brought up in wealth and well to do suburbs, where
other families struggle to get the students to school.
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| Statistics NZ 2013 Snapshot of Hastings District People, Ethnic, Economic status. |
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| New Values Initiative Set by SMT, Board and KHS Community. |
My Work Environment:
Teachers
work very hard for their students often giving up lunch times and time after
school to help student reach their academic, cultural and sporting
achievements.
Role
modelling past successful students to present students as a way to celebrate
success. We often have role models to come to speak to our students at assemblies,
our most recent was Amy Fisher, Olympic Kayaker giving back to our community,
with her inspiration and Olympic memorabilia on display for all the KHS
community to see.
In 2014, 78% of school leavers had achieved at least NCEA Level 2. This is similar to the national figure and is an improvement from 61% in 2012. (ERO, 2016). Indicates how hard our teachers areworking for our students.
Stoll and
Fink (1996) outlined 10 Norms of Improving school, (Diagram Norms of
Improvement). Over the last Year and half, I can see that the school has begun
to re-address these norms below. In the short time that I have been at KHS
there has been significant changes in the Senior Management Team, new Principal
and 2 new Deputy Principals. With the new leadership there has certainly been a
new phase of transformational leadership theory in practice. Bass &
Riggio (2006) believed transformational leadership occurs when followers feel
empowered to become leaders themselves. This is certainly how I have felt from
time to time at KHS, given opportunities and support to be a leader
in digital learning at the school and being supported to study at the Mindlab
to develop my understanding of digital technology use and newer pedagogy's that
support 21st Century Learners.
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| Stoll (1998) Norms of Improvement.
Stoll
(1998) discussed that schools go through stages over time with building,
establishing culture, I believe that KHS is at the middle stage, whereby, the
school is established but is continuing to evolve.
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We are
working on many of the Norms of Improvement, Collegiality being one, KHS having
recently joined the Whirinaki Community of
Learning.
Life long earning by providing staff with regular timetabled professional
development. This is re-addressing the 10 Norms of Improvement.
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