Reflections from an Australian educators’ immersion tour of schools in Aotearoa
There is something powerful about stepping outside of what’s familiar to us. When we spend our days immersed in our own schools, communities and systems, it can be difficult to see the assumptions that shape the way we think and work.
Visiting another education system offers more than the opportunity to see different approaches in action. It creates a little distance from our own reality – enough to notice things that might otherwise remain invisible, to ask different questions, and perhaps to return home seeing our own context with fresh eyes.
That was the opportunity for a group of Australian educators from the Lutheran Schools Network who spent last week in Aotearoa New Zealand as part of an immersion tour of some Wellington schools, hosted by my colleague Maurie Abraham and myself. The schools we visited were Amesbury Primary School, Ōtaki College on the Kapiti Coast, and Wainuiomata High School – providing a mix of primary and secondary, and examples of the cultural diversity we’re seeing across the network of schools in New Zealand.
The experience we designed for them was deliberately more than a series of school visits. It began with a day to build an understanding of the New Zealand education context and to consider what they might encounter. The school visits then provided opportunities to hear directly from principals and staff about the vision and beliefs that shape their schools, and to see how those ideas are expressed not simply in documents or statements, but in the everyday experiences of learners, whānau and staff. The final day provided space to pause, reflect and consider what they had seen and heard – not with the expectation of simply taking New Zealand ideas back to Australia, but of interpreting the learning through the lens of their own communities and contexts.
As I’ve reflected on the week we spent together, and the reflections of the group on our final day together, there are some key themes that emerged from the reflections on our visits:
1. Vision, beliefs and values as the organising framework
A repeated observation was how each school’s vision, beliefs and values were not simply words on a wall or statements in a strategic plan – they provided the organising framework for the everyday life of the school. In each case these things had been developed in collaboration with staff, parents/whānau and the community, ensuring this organising framework is unique to each school and its community.
Articulating a school vision and values wasn’t an altogether unfamiliar concept for members of the visiting group, but what became evident from these visits was how profoundly and powerfully these were used as the organising framework to shape everything about how these schools operated – curriculum, pedagogy, relationships, spaces, staffing, decision-making and even the way success was understood.
2. Partnership and collective ownership
Further to the observations about the importance of having a strong vision, the visitors were impressed by the extent to which in each of these schools this wasn’t something created by a leadership team and then communicated to others. It is something built with the people who make up the school community, and continually renewed through partnership with whānau, community and staff
This generated much discussion about the importance of corporate ownership – that people are more likely to sustain what they have helped to shape.
3. Visionary and courageous leadership
The leadership we encountered in each school was both visionary and courageous, but rarely heroic or hierarchical. The leaders at these schools led by inspiring others to lead, distributing responsibility widely, and yet were prepared to hold the line when important values or beliefs were at stake.
This is particularly important during these times of significant change. Distributed leadership doesn’t mean leaderless leadership. Someone still needs to protect the integrity of the vision. And someone will ultimately be required to ‘hold the line’ when difficult decisions need to be made that will impact the whole organisation. But what this group observed and recognised was leadership that operated with humility, a servant heart and an unrelenting focus on building a school culture that reflects the shared beliefs and values of their staff and community.
4. The learner at the centre
Perhaps the most consistent thread across all of the schools we visited was the determination to keep the learner at the centre – understanding who each learner is, creating genuine opportunities for agency, and adapting curriculum, pedagogy, environments and support around their needs rather than expecting every learner to fit the same mould.
Promoting learner agency was a priority at each of these schools, and we saw evidence if this in a variety of ways, from the different ways learners could engage with learning tasks through to evidence of learner voice in key strategic and leadership decisions. At each school the principal commented on the increasing number of neuro-diverse students that were now attending their school, and shared about the different structures and strategies they had put in place to meet the needs of each of these students.
5. Emotional culture alongside academic rigour
In each of the facilitation days we spent with the group, we deliberately created opportunities to explore the emotional dimension of leadership – and the importance of attending to how staff, students and whānau experience change, not simply what needs to be done. Too often, innovation is approached in a task-driven way, with leaders focusing on goals, timelines, expectations and desired outcomes. While these things matter, they can easily overlook the human experience of change, leaving people feeling anxious, overwhelmed, disconnected or simply “done to”. We encouraged the group to add another question to their leadership thinking: “How do I want my staff to feel as we introduce this innovation?” That simple shift changes the conversation from managing the tasks of change to intentionally shaping the emotional culture in which change takes place – creating the conditions for people to feel safe, valued, hopeful and able to contribute. As we led the group through some exercises to illustrate this, they, in turn, reflected on how this was a characteristic of leadership in each of the schools we visited.
6. Te Tiriti, culture and belonging
One of the most powerful aspects of the immersion was seeing how schools were interpreting their responsibilities under Te Tiriti o Waitangi in ways that strengthened belonging, identity and participation for all learners. This was particularly evident in the way we were welcomed with a mihi whakatau at each school. While each context differed in how this was given effect, the common elements were clearly evident, and students were always involved. The use of te reo Māori in everyday conversation, in signage around the buildings and in strategic documentation was also clearly visible, providing an important reminder that culture and identity can be woven into the everyday life of a school rather than treated as an occasional addition.
Each of the schools and their communities had found their own way of responding to the commitments of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and creating learning environments in which Māori learners could see their culture, language and identity affirmed. Yet this was not at the expense of others. Rather, it created a broader invitation for learners from many cultures and backgrounds to bring who they are into the life of the school, and to experience that identity as something valued rather than something to be accommodated.
For our Australian visitors, this also prompted important reflection on their own context. While Australia does not have an equivalent partnership agreement to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, there is a growing desire within many communities and schools to find both structural and local ways of recognising, respecting and embracing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, cultures and identities. The experience of seeing how Te Tiriti is interpreted and given life within New Zealand schools provided a valuable opportunity to think about what this might mean in their own settings. The intention was not to simply transplant a New Zealand approach into an Australian context, but to consider what they might learn from the principles of partnership, participation and recognition of identity, and how these might inform their own journey towards greater cultural responsiveness and belonging.
7. Working within – and sometimes against – system pressures
Running through many of the conversations was a recognition of the tension schools face when externally mandated approaches collide with locally developed visions for learning that have been built patiently with learners, whānau and communities. In each of the schools we visited, senior leaders spoke openly about how they were responding to the current government requirements around curriculum and pedagogical approaches. What was striking was that, while each school was finding ways to accommodate these requirements, none saw compliance as a reason to abandon the vision and values that had been developed collectively over time. Rather, there was a strong sense of holding the line on what mattered most -working out where changes could be incorporated, adapted or interpreted in ways that remained consistent with the school’s beliefs about learners and learning. It was a powerful reminder that responsiveness to system direction does not have to mean surrendering local agency, and that courageous leadership sometimes means being willing to navigate the requirements of the system while remaining steadfast about the things a school community holds to be important.
Conclusion
Perhaps the real measure of the immersion experience was not what participants saw while they were there, but what they will see differently when they return home. The value lies not in coming away with a shopping list of things to copy, but with new questions to ask of our own practice. What might we see differently now? What assumptions might we challenge? How might we more intentionally build a shared vision with our staff, learners, whānau and communities? How might we lead change in ways that attend not only to what needs to happen, but to how people experience it? And, when external expectations inevitably change, what are the things we need to adapt – and what are the things we need to hold the line on?
The experience of these Australian educators in Aotearoa offered many examples of what schools can do, but perhaps its greater value was in prompting deeper reflection about the kind of leadership, culture and learning communities they will want to create in their own contexts. The challenge now is not to replicate what they saw, but to take the learning home, interpret it through their own communities and circumstances, and make something of it that is genuinely their own.
Would you like to learn more?
The programme we offered the Lutheran Schools Network grew from the GROW programme that Maurie Abraham and I have developed together – supporting educators in leadership roles to rediscover their purpose, experiment boldly and lead the kind of transformational change our schools need for the future.
If this experience has prompted you to think about how an immersion might benefit your own leadership team or professional learning group, we’d love to explore the possibilities with you. We can work with you to design a GROW immersion experience around the contexts and questions that matter to your group, or provide an extended period of GROW facilitation to support your team as you turn new insights into action within your own school.
Sometimes the best way to see new possibilities is to step outside our own context for a while – and then have someone alongside us to help make sense of what we see when we return.
Use the form below to contact us about this opportunity
