Cultural Diversity  

TEXT: ​Improving Education Outcomes for Pacific Learners (May 2012)  

The Education Review Office  
Critically analyse and evaluate the evidence in relation to:  

Own Practice  Being at a school that is predominantly a Pacifica community this has a huge impact on my practice. After 
reading this report I was not aware of the Pasifika Education Plan (PEP) and what it means for Pasifika 
students. The report points out great recommendations for how schools should be supporting Pasifika 
achievement. In relation to these recommendations I feel that my school and myself are doing them in 
some way. For example: We have set up targeting student achievement, we have introduced assessment 
walls in the classroom that are in kids speak and use this to help students create goals, we could work 
better at building teachers’ and boards’ knowledge of the strengths and needs of Pacific students and 
know how to use this knowledge to benefit students and we could work to better strengthen links with 
Pacific parents and communities to facilitate communication and build mutual understanding about the 
best ways to support their children’s learning. 
We introduced Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC), the focus of this is to improve 
Pacifica students achievement in maths.  
We have Whanau classes that aim to bring language and culture back into students lives at school and 
utilise the strengths of the teachers we have at school who speak a language.  
 
Outcomes, I. E. (2012). Improving Education Outcomes for Pacific Learners, (May).  

Future Focused  Under Bolstad, R & Gilbert J, et al. (2012), the identified six key areas for future focused learning. Here 
Education &  they are with links to Pacifica Education: 
Contemporary   ● Personalising the learning​ – how can you use technologies to build the school curriculum around 
the learner and more flexibly meet learners’ needs? 
Students are able to develop their own learning pathways based on their interests and background. 
Probably the most effective way to engage students with a need and want for learning. Teaching students 
the skills of the digital world so they are able to go home and teach their whanau.  
● Building an inclusive learning environment​ – how do you use technologies to: 
○ engage learners, family/whānau, and communities in co-shaping education to address 
students’ needs, strengths, interests and aspirations? 
○ provide access to anywhere, anytime learning? 
 ○ support assessment and evaluation processes so that these are dynamic and responsive to 
information about students? 
We utilize our Home School Partnership by inviting our families to come into school and be involved with 
their students learning. We provide opportunities for them to ask questions and try what their children 
are learning. We seek feedback constantly from our families as to how we can best deliver communication 
between school and home. We try to find teachers who are able to support our parents in communicating 
to them in their home tongue. We try to seek ‘experts’ from the community to come in and help out at 
school with events.  
● Developing a school curriculum​ that uses knowledge to develop learning capacity – how can you 
use technologies to enable students to create and use new knowledge to solve problems and find 
solutions to challenges on a “just-in-time” basis? 
We are in the process of changing how we do our planning and trying to use our students to have input 
with this as well. We are trying to find resources in our community to build our curriculum around. For 
example, we have a community garden up the road from our school and have been using ideas around 
how we can best use this and help give back to the community.  
● Rethinking learners’ and teachers’ roles​ – how can you use technologies to create a 
“knowledge-building” learning environment where learners and teachers work together? 
This is a new move for our teachers to understand and use, seeing our students as experts and having 
some knowledge of what they know is new for us. It is great to see how some teachers are embracing this 
though, lots of the time students already know how to use ‘new technology’ before the teachers. In my 
classroom, I know that when I get new technology or have been given something new, I just let my class 
go ‘play’ and they surprise me with what they come up with.  
● Building a culture of continuous learning​ for teachers and school leaders – what opportunities to 
participate in and build professional learning are afforded by technologies? 
Teachers need to instill this into students and keep pushing them know that learning is lifelong. Trying to 
get students into the pattern of wanting to learn and being able to be resilient is important. Teaching and 
developing a growth mindset is important, especially for Pacific students.  
● New kinds of partnerships and relationships​ - how can technologies be used to facilitate this? 
By using technology to get families more involved with student learning. You can create lessons that are 
more authentic and meaningful with technology. 
 Bolstad R., (2011). Taking a "future focus" in education – what does it mean?  
Bolstad, R & Gilbert J, et al., (2012).Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching – a New Zealand 
perspective 

Culturally Responsive  Evidence in Action - According to Education Counts  

● Assumptions based our own experiences and cultural mindset create barriers to 
learning for children who don't share them and can't relate to them 
● Children learn best in environments where their identities are valued 
● Teaching effectively requires forging educationally powerful connections to 
students' lives and identities 
● Children engage productively with maths when problems are set in contexts that 
they can relate to and understand 
● Learning requires active participation, so children from cultures that do not 
encourage questioning or putting forward ideas, for example, need to be actively 
supported to overcome these inhibitions 
● Mistakes have to be repositioned as a necessary and valuable part of learning if 
children are to be willing to take the risks that learning entails 
● Caring for students can mean making them uncomfortable by pushing them to think 
(pressing them for understanding) and to publicly contribute their thinking 
● Pasifika students learn best in a supportive collective characterised by reciprocal 
benefits and responsibilities. Parallels between a whānau and a community of 
learners can be leveraged. 
● When supposedly 'low' students are exposed to mixed-ability, challenging maths, 
they can surprise teachers 
● Ambitious teaching gets far more out of students than low expectations 
● Negative attitudes towards maths are not inevitable. Once they get over the initial 
shock, children love to be challenged and to be active participants in their own 
learning. 
14 Culturally Responsive Pedagogy | Education Counts. (2018). Educationcounts.govt.nz. Retrieved 17 August 2018, from 
https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/topics/bes/developing-mathematical-inquiry/14-culturally-responsive-pedagogy