Reflection 2: My Professional Context

Reflection 2: My Professional Context
Auroa school is a decile 8, rural school located 20 minutes inland from Hawera. We are a full primary school from Year 1-8 with just over 200 students. We are predominantly Pakeha, however, we do have around 30% who are Maori.
Auroa school is surrounded by a farming community. Families that are in the area are either share-miking, owners of their own farm or working on a farm. It is fair to say that the children who attend Auroa school are from supportive, two-parent families (in most cases) who are heavily involved with their child’s education. The Auroa school community has a strong PTA, BOT and parent attendance.
A few years ago, Auroa school merged with three other schools in the local community due to low numbers in other schools. This created a large split between communities because there were four communities coming together to create one. There were many families who did leave the area and time was needed for parents to feel comfortable.
For the past four years, we have been a 1:1 device school. Since this change has been implemented, our teaching and learning pedagogies have also changed to accommodate for this tool to support learning.
We have had our fair amount of staff that has come into the school and moved on. We do have beginning teachers. Because we are a small school, we all work considerably closely alongside each other; we are a very strong, positive and supportive staff. It is incredibly nice to know that we also have a strong PTA, BOT and parent community also supporting us along the way.
Because we are a dairy community, it means that come the 1st of June every year, the dairy change-over occurs. Sometimes we can have up to 20 children leave our school, only for 20 new students to enter. Because the dairy industry is constantly changing, so too are our classrooms. Children enter our classrooms at awkward times throughout the year and we do constantly have to prepare ourselves for this.
Because of the ethnic nature of our school, the range of diversity has been very minimal. However, this year, in particular, we have been fortunate to have families from different ethnic groups join our school. This has meant that we have had to re-think the overarching theme of ‘culture’ and what it means for our students. Many students do not understand what ‘culture’ is, and so as a staff, we have had to think about how we can incorporate specific cultural activities into our classroom so that every child feels included, supported and catered for.  
We are constantly implementing meetings and activities for parents to be involved with so that they understand what is occurring in our classroom. This is vital around our BYOD programme, as parents do need to understand how children can use iPads in an effective manner, regardless of whether they are 5 or 11 years old. There are strong communication lines between teachers and parents, the main source of this is Seesaw.
Becoming a BYOD school has meant that we have established a very well-known name for our school, ‘forward thinking and innovative’. Many of Stoll and Fink’s cultural norms are embedded within our school environment and coincide with our values for our school. We are a small school is there is an incredible amount of shared learning, collaboration, respect and shared goals for learning and teaching.
References:

Stoll. (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture

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