Christchurch City Council supporting cultural diversity
Christchurch City Libraries assisting Tangata Whenua and migrant groups
At Christchurch City Libraries Nga kete Wananga o Otautahi, there is a range of resources and services to assist Tangata Whenua and migrant groups. The library aims to ensure a diverse range of library services are delivered city wide and evolve with changing community needs and is a welcoming place for all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, with particular focus on Maori, Chinese and Pacifica peoples. View the Cultural Research Project Report [PDF 79KB] which identified further areas of needs.
The Council's World Languages Policy [PDF 181KB]requires Christchurch City libraries to expand the range of languages provided for and to consider a broader range of formats in other languages e.g. magazines, audiovisuals and online resources.
Cultural programmes at Christchurch City Libraries include:
- An annual programme of events and learning activities held throughout the library network to raise the awareness of Matariki (Maori New Year), Te Wiki o te reo Maori (Maori Language Week) and Te Ara Hou.
- An ethnic advocate providing learning through English for Speakers of Other Languages, works to provide a range of initiatives that target migrant groups such as leisure collections in world languages, bi-lingual resources and dictionaries,ESOL resources, and orientation of library services to new ESOL students.
- To celebrate International Children's Book Day on 2 April each year, the library holds Storytimes where staff read stories in different languages for children from local schools. During Matariki, Maori Storytime is held.
- Matariki at the marae (Nga Hau e Wha national marae) is a successful joint community event supported by Christchurch City Council. The event is aimed at welcoming everyone onto the marae for an opportunity to learn more about Matariki.
Christchurch City Council funding education initiatives
Christchurch City Council is a contributor to the annual operating costs of Rewi Alley Education and Cultural Centre. It funds Wharenui School to teach Chinese language through Rewi Alley School located in the school grounds.
The Council also made a significant funding contribution towards the Multi-ethnic Study Centre at Hagley Community College which supports the education of whole families from refugee backgrounds.
The Council funds English Language Partners Christchurch as well as community-based ESOL programmes and social integration classes such as the Burnside LINK programme.
Further info: Cultural diversity
CPIT Community Education courses
Helping adults commence or continue their learning journey
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CPIT has a proud history of providing Adult and Community Education for the Canterbury community and continues to run a wide variety of courses on the Madras, Sullivan Ave and Seven Oaks campuses and in community venues. In 2006 398 courses were run for 6463 enrolled students.
Summer School, held in December and January, is a time when the community can enjoy community courses and the delights of the campus while most students are on holiday. Weekend College includes courses for all ages and stages - art and design, automotive, boating, business, communication, computing for free, creative skills, digital media, English language, horticulture, language courses, Maori language and culture, music and photography courses are all popular.
Some people return for more Adult and Community Education experiences, while some others continue their lifelong learning journey and pathway into CPIT part time or full time programmes, or take advantage of other opportunities in the region.
CPIT welcomes the whole community to continue to be involved in education opportunities on its campuses.
Further info: Community Education
TradeFIT at CPIT
Providing industry supported trade learning
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TradeFIT is an ‘Industry Centre’ learning environment where students get training and assessment run in conjunction with the support of industry and government stakeholders. The site is a life size experiential work site hosting a full complement of trades and service. Training is accessible and affordable through sharing training expenses.
Students receive: industry profiling; in context training and assessment; non duplication of training resource; credibility through partnerships and integration with industry. The site is a Centre of Excellence with an industry research and development facility.
The TradeFIT Learning and Innovation Centre provides high-quality industry-appropriate training for the following industries:
- power distribution in core competencies through to specialist skills
- plumbing/gas fitting and drainlaying industry including pipe laying
- building and construction industry
- brick and block laying
- commercial building
- specialist skills
- craneage, rigging, scaffolding and steel structures industries.
The following are in development and will be available over the next two years:
- roading and construction industry
- road transport, logistics and warehousing
- communication systems/technology industry.
In addition to the wide range of 'traditional' trades at the Trades Innovation Institute, the TradeFIT concept offers 'real life' training in a range of previously unqualified or unavailable skill sets.
Further info: TradeFIT
English Language Partners Christchurch
Improving literacy and social skills for refugees and migrants
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ESOL home tutors provide English language and social support for adult refugees and migrants coming to live in Aotearoa/New Zealand. English Language Partners Christchurch has been teaching in the homes of migrants for the last 28 years. In 2006, 586 learners received teaching provided by 363 volunteers.
Teaching in homes overcomes some of the barriers to learning such as not having access to transport or not having the language skills required to use public transport. It also allows learning to happen in a familiar environment.
When students become more confident they have the opportunity to learn in group sessions such as the eight Social English groups that meet weekly. There are also four classes for pre-literate learners where a creche is provided for children so parents can participate. This also provides the opportunity for children to interact with other children and English speaking creche workers.
New migrants who gain English language skills have a better chance of successfully settling in Christchurch. Twenty five percent of learners are refugees. Learners come from all over the world, with the top five learner ethnicities in 2006 being: Mainland Chinese, Afghan, Russian, Indian and Korean. To be eligible learners must be permanent NZ residents, or on a work visa having applied for residency and waiting for their residency application to be processed. Learners cannot be on holiday, students, visitors, or hold guardian visas.
Volunteers provide one to one and group teaching, committee work, crèche and driving services. Up to 100 new tutors are trained each year and they complete an NZQA approved course. Funding comes from many sources including the Tertiary Education Commission who is the major funder of approximately 65 per cent.
Further info:
English Language Partners Christchurch
MOE and Christchurch schools
Increasing student engagement
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Several Christchurch secondary schools are working with the Ministry of Education on new strategies to increase the engagement of their students in education. This is part of a national initiative which has a particular focus on Maori student disengagement and links in closely with other education initiatives focusing on student achievement levels.
Some of the indicators of student disengagement are high rates of suspensions, early leaving and truancy. Schools identified with high rates are invited to work in the initiative and are provided with support, professional development and funding.
The schools are implementing a variety of strategies which range from targeted programmes for identified students to whole school changes in behaviour management, to changes in classroom learning programmes, all structured to meet the needs of particular groupings of students.
An example in Christchurch is the implementation of restorative practices which has been adopted by a number of the schools in the project. The schools have made a commitment to train staff and to put in considerable time and energy to establish these new practices. The processes developed are similar to that used in restorative justice settings in the court system, adapted for a school setting.
Schools can continue on the project beyond a year if necessary and new schools are brought in from time to time. Schools are encouraged and given opportunities to share best practice ideas in this area locally and nationally.
Further info: Ministry of Education student engagement
MOE GELL project
Improving the transition from early childhood centres to primary school
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- Participation in early childhood education increases.
- Fewer students are stood down or suspended.
- Fewer students are truant from school.
- Levels of adult literacy and numeracy increase.
"You'll be a big school girl/boy soon.", "You are nearly five." "Nearly off to school." "You'll be reading soon."
How many of us can remember our first day at school? What are your memories? A day of delight? A day of trauma? Did you cling to mum or dad and raise the devil? Did you trot off happily and enjoy every minute of that first day in your new world?
Whatever your memories, turning five years old is a momentous occasion in the life of most New Zealanders as young children begin a new chapter in their lives. In 2007 we recognise that rather than this marking the beginning of a child's learning, beginning primary school is actually a continuation of the learning process begun at birth. More and more educators recognise that successful education must recognise and build on the learning that has gone before.
The GELL (Grow Early Literacy Learning) was a joint project between the Ministry of Education, the Christchurch College of Education, and several primary schools and early childhood centres in Christchurch's south west.The group of teachers and facilitators wanted to explore ways the children could make powerful learning gains throughout their earliest years of education. The teachers in the different settings decided to work together to ensure that children's successful learning experiences in the early childhood setting contributed to, and were continued, in the very first day in their new school as 'a big school girl/boy.'
The teachers decided they would learn about each other's work while they increased their understanding of literacy learning and worked together to promote the early childhood centres and schools in their community.
The group met regularly for discussion and to watch each other teach.The teachers shared their ideas and understandings about the transition from early childhood to primary education with a particular focus on early literacy learning. They used this knowledge to develop ways to make the transition a positive experience for children and their families.
The teachers were all experienced in their particular areas and were able to use their high level of expertise to think of some new ways to approach early literacy teaching and learning.
At each meeting the group looked at samples of children's work and talked about the learning they could see taking place. The teachers discussed how they recorded the progress a child was making and how to use this information to identify and build on the child's increasing knowledge and skills. Through observing each other teach they were able to think about their own work and explore other ways to support and extend children.
Over the months of the project the teachers built new understandings of each other's setting and began to make changes that showed this. One school began to make more use of the valuable information that the children brought from their early childhood centre about their learning. Early childhood teachers felt more confident in their ideas of how to extend early reading and writing learning. Photographic booklets about transition to school were developed by schools and early childhood centres to share with children and parents. Schools and centres began to share some resources so that children arriving at their new school would find some old friends among the poems and stories in the classroom.
Teachers from both settings felt that their closer relationships greatly benefited the children they worked with and were keen to continue to meet and discuss their teaching.
In New Zealand we often talk about an ideal seamless education; an education system where each phase builds easily and successfully on the learning that has gone before. This project went some way towards making this a reality by helping teachers see how they each contributed to the learning life of the student and increasing their respect for each other's role. Parents also noted the greater involvement of the early childhood teachers with their local primary school. It is to be hoped that this might help parents feel confident that their children really are receiving a top quality, seamless education. May more children of the future say:
"I went off happily and enjoyed every minute of my first day of school. I was among friends."
Further info: Ministry of Education, early childhood
MOE initiatives
Meeting the needs of Christchurch refugees
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- Refugees and migrants can access quality English language services.
As part of the government's Education Goals for all New Zealanders, meeting the educational needs of diverse refugee and migrant communities is a key priority for the Ministry of Education. To achieve this goal, the ministry has number of initiatives and programmes aimed at removing barriers hindering refugee and migrant communities accessing education. These initiatives include:
- The creation of Refugee and Migrant Co-ordinator's positions within the MOE: The Ministry has two officials dedicated to working with refugees and migrants to ensure the education needs for families from Non English Speaking Background (NESB) are met. The roles of these positions are:
- To develop risk management strategies for new arrivals settling into schools and local communities.
- To facilitate the development of solutions for schools to support the integration of refugee students.
- To facilitate the development of solutions with parents and schools to enhance parent education and participation in their children's schooling and communication between schools and parents.
- Community Empowerment through access to information and resources: The Ministry has also put extra resources in schools with refugee students to employ Bilingual Community Liaison workers and Bilingual Tutors (Afghan, Kurdish, Somali, and Ethiopian) to give refugee communities unhindered access to education. The purposes of these positions are:
- To manage liaison between social agencies, the schools and refugee families.
- To work within the community encouraging them to participate in schools to achieve aspirations for their children.
- To provide bilingual in class support to at risk refugee students.
Establishment of Multiethnic Refugee Integrated Family Literacy centre: While responding to the Christchurch Refugee Communities needs, the Ministry has funded the establishment of a Refugee Multiethnic Education Centre. The centre which is based at Hagley community College supports refugee families and their students from schools across the city. The purposes of the centre are:
- To provide academic back up support to newly-arrived students from refugee backgrounds
- To provide assistance with homework and other essential skills; such as work organization to raise their educational achievement
- To provide English and social development skills to parents from refugee backgrounds to facilitate their resettlement and integration in the community in Christchurch.
Career Support for Refugee Students: The Ministry has put in place extra funding for schools with significant numbers of refugee students to run appropriate career support programmes for students and their families from refugee backgrounds. The intention is to provide refugee students with the right guidance for pursuing further studies or employment. The initiative has assisted families and students to make combined decisions about students' future career and to agree on goals that the family, teachers and school can work towards.
NCEA Preparation Programme: The Ministry has supported Hagley College with funding to run NCEA preparation programmes for high school students across the city to prepare them for their final NCEA assessments and for the end-of-year examination.
English Language Intensive Programme (ELIP) for refugee and migrant students: The Ministry has allocated funding to establish an English Language Intensive Programme in three Intermediate schools in Christchurch to assist identified students from Refugee and Migrant backgrounds who do not have the academic ability to cope with the demands of year 9 and 10. The ELIP is a specialized type of programme, that differs from and improves on the traditional ESOL (English for Speaker of Other Languages) to make a difference to learning for participating students prior to the transition to secondary.
Advisory support and professional Development for Teachers and school with students from Refugee Backgrounds: A major focus of the Ministry's work has been to build capabilities of local schools to support the education of students from diverse backgrounds.
Additional support for professional development programmes related to improving skills of teacher aides and bilingual English language assistance are among the initiatives the Ministry is engaged in to meet the educational needs of local communities in Christchurch.
The Ministry has also developed varieties of resources for schools to build the professional capacity of teachers to support teaching and learning for diverse learners.
Community empowerment initiative through engaging families: Families Learning Together is a booklet produced by the Ministry of Education, in a variety of the languages of refugee and migrant communities. The versions of the booklet are in Arabic, Amharic, Farsi, Somali, Khmer, English, Chinese, Korean and Hindu. It is designed to give families information about how to support their child at home and to give information about school expectations.
The initiative supports the Ministry of Education's Schooling Strategy. The intention is to engage families and communities better with schools. The initiative is also aimed to strengthen home-school links and build the knowledge of families so that they can support their children's learning outside school.
Refugee Education Subgroup: The Refugee Education Subgroup of the forum is a network comprised of organisations and individuals with an interest in education. This network provides feedback to the Ministry on how the Ministry's initiative is impacting on the families and the learners. The subgroup is also a source of advice and consultation on education issues which are of concern to the families.
Refugee Youth Strategy: The Ministry is a lead agency and a strategic partner of the refugee youth strategy. The strategy aims to harness the services of different government and non governmental agencies working in the resettlement sector with particular focus on youth.
Computers in Home Project: The Ministry has been working with PEETO - the Multicultural Learning Centre on the implementation of the computers in home project. The program which is designed to provide computers to low income refugee families is part of the Ministry's commitment to supporting refugee students learning. The initiative has to date provided computers to 50 families from the Afghan, Kurdish, Somalia and Ethiopian communities.
Further info: Ministry of Education - ESOL
MOE early childhood care
Enhancing learning foundations through quality ECE services
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"Early childhood care and education services assist children and their families to develop independence and to access the resources necessary to enable them to direct their own lives." Pathways to the Future: Nga Huarahi Arataki, A ten year strategic plan for early childhood education.
By continuing to increase participation in quality ECE services we are supporting:
- Children to develop and enhance strong early learning foundations through participation in quality ECE services.
- Children, parents, families and whänau to access ECE services that meet their needs (including training, education, and employment needs of parents, and cultural and language aspirations of children, parents, whanau and wider communities).
Children can develop and build on strong early learning foundations in a number of settings, including their own homes. A child's early learning foundations are further extended when they take part in quality ECE. For children from disadvantaged backgrounds, participation in quality ECE is particularly important, as they may not be exposed to high quality early learning experiences in the home.
The Ministry of Education’s strategies to increase participation:
In communities where participation is low, particularly Maori, Pasifika, low socio-economic and rural communities, strategies are driven by the needs of those individual communities
- support ECE services to be more responsive to the needs of children, parents, families and whanau.
Several agencies are working with the Ministry of Education on the Promoting Early Childhood Education Participation Project. The Project targets those communities with low early childhood education participation and low participation is measured by information collected on five year olds’ previous participation. This initiative is based upon the principle that local communities are best placed to identify reasons for non-participation, assess need, and determine what solutions will work best for them. The goal of this initiative therefore, is to increase the early childhood education participation rate in targeted communities to reduce overall disparities. The project supports these agencies to work in communities and to support families in the following ways:
- linking communities, families and ECE services
- identifying non-participating children and reasons for non-participation, and working closely with families to inform them about the benefits of ECE
- supporting families to make a choice and enrol into a preferred ECE service and help parents to be involved in their children's learning
- monitor retention of children placed into an ECE service (for a minimum of three months regular attendance).
As a result of such initiatives the early childhood education enrolments between 2002 and 2006 in the Canterbury local body region have increased by 9.6 per cent.
A focus on the participation of Maori: Two factors sharpen our focus for the future of Maori in ECE. Firstly, Maori children do not currently participate in ECE services at the same rate as other New Zealand children. Secondly, Maori children will form a larger proportion of this country's birth-to-five-year-olds within the next ten years.
In 2005, nationally, 92 per cent of all children participated in some form of early childhood education. (European/Pakeha 96 per cent, Asian 91 per cent, Maori 86 per cent, Pacific Islands 81 per cent). In the Southern Region the total participation rate was 94.3 per cent and 89.9 per cent for Maori. In Canterbury Maori participation rate was 96.3 per cent which is higher than the national average.
Whanau, hapu, iwi and communities are best placed to know the barriers Maori encounter in taking part in ECE services. Our efforts under this goal focus on working with Maori to uncover these barriers and to develop strategies to foster greater involvement.
As many Maori children attend mainstream ECE services, ensuring these services are responsive to their needs and those of their whanau is also a priority. The emphasis here involves working with both ECE services and teacher education providers to improve ECE teachers' understanding and appreciation of the Treaty of Waitangi, bi-culturalism, Te Reo and Tikanga Maori so that they can support and encourage the learning of Maori children and the involvement of Maori parents.
A focus on the participation of Pasifika peoples: Pasifika peoples share a number of the same challenges as Maori - fewer Pasifika children attend ECE services than other New Zealand children and they will comprise an increasing proportion of birth-to-five-year-olds over the next ten years. However, the solutions to these challenges may not be the same.
Pasifika communities play an important role in determining the strategies to encourage more Pasifika parents to involve their children in ECE services. The identification of barriers to participation and suitable solutions being identified, has supported the Government to work more actively in partnership with Pasifika communities to ensure they have ready access to ECE services that meet their needs. This includes supporting the establishment and ongoing operation of community-based Pasifika ECE services. This support may focus on financial aspects with funding provided through the discretionary grants scheme (provision of planning and capital funds for the establishment of community based early childhood services), or it might involve offering such services as the use of government-owned buildings.
Further info: Ministry of Education - Early childhood
