Pasifika literacy initiatives

The Literacy and Numeracy Strategy includes a strong focus on improving the achievement of Pasifika students. Specific funding has been provided for initiatives that address the particular needs of schools and communities with significant numbers of Pasifika students.

Improving ESOL teachers' qualifications

Trained ESOL teachers working in mainstream classrooms or as specialists in primary and secondary schools provide critical interventions for those Pasifika NESB students who may be struggling to develop literacy in English. The Teaching English in Schools to Speakers of Other Languages Tuition Fees scholarship helps up to 150 teachers a year to gain papers towards an appropriate qualification. Each teacher is funded for four papers, including course fees and $100 for books per annum, for two years.

Pasifika home-school partnerships

These professional development programmes help to raise the performance of students by strengthening schools' relationships with families. In primary schools, teachers and parents (the school's lead team) are trained in four one-day workshops to co-lead six sessions for their Pasifika families.

These sessions are conducted in English and home languages to endorse and build on what families are already doing for their children's learning and language. The sessions give parents opportunities to discuss how they can further help their children's literacy development. The programme confirms that parents are the most important influence on a child's growth and development and that they are pivotal in supporting their children's progress at school.

Clusters of schools in Auckland Central, Manurewa, Tokoroa, and Wellington Central have participated in this programme in terms 1 and 2, with further clusters in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, and Christchurch beginning in the second half of 2002.

Rosebank School's experience
Sixty percent of the roll of this large Auckland primary are Pasifika students. Rosebank involved parents as co-leaders in the home-school partnership team delivering the key literacy messages. This helped lessen any anxiety for parents who might feel intimidated by the unfamiliar territory of the school. Sessions were scheduled from 6 to 7 p.m. to enable parents on shift work to attend. To create a welcoming family atmosphere, older children were supervised in the computer room and little ones in a play space. Over a hundred parents came to each session.

Though the training affirms that strength in the home language provides the foundation for acquiring English, some parents were hesitant about using their own first language with their children, concerned that it could impede their progress. With greater understanding, they began borrowing such books as those in the Tupu series and reclaiming their place as "first teachers".

This Pasifika home-school partnership proved a great success in building confidence in its Pasifika families and an incentive to continue to raise standards across the whole school.

Rosebank evaluated the effect of this initiative by the proportion of children reading at or above the reading level for their age. In July 2001, 68 percent of the year 5 children who had been at Rosebank for the preceding 12 months, and 88 percent of those who had been at the school for three years or longer, were reading at the 9- to 10-year-old level. In 2002, the school is aiming for a good proportion of year 6 children to be reading at the 11- to 12-year-old level.

More information about Pasifika initiatives is available at www.tki.org.nz/r/literacy_numeracy/index_e.php

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