Leadership and The Key Competencies

The NZ Curriculum Key Competencies are:-

thinking
using language, symbols and text
managing self
relating to others
participating and contributing

What are my strengths and weaknesses in relation to my teaching and leadership practice?

Our learning through play environment encourages the use of all 5 key competencies. Our ākonga are active learners who have tons of opportunities to practice these competencies every day. 

My big challenge as a leader this year has been to encourage our kaiako to stand back so that ākonga have more agency and self-direction. In the past, kaiako did most of the thinking and organising in the learning space. They made the decisions about how the day would run, how the resources would be organised, what might be learnt, where it might be learnt and with whom. 

It is a struggle for us to give up this level of control in favour of allowing ākonga to make choices, think problems through, fail frequently and try again. We find it difficult to resist the urge to help too much and talk too much. Allowing ākonga to lead the learning is a new skill that we need to add to our 21st Century learning kete. It's one that some kaiako find difficult to understand and even more difficult to implement.