Respect Manakitanga

Like all of our Values, respect often looks different in different contexts. I always think that respect is an interesting value because how we show respect to others reflects how we respect ourselves. When we are teaching respect, we are teaching children how to get along with others and how we show people that we value them. Some of the ways that we may see respect at school are by: listening patiently to someone, asking appropriate questions, sharing your time, ideas or games with someone, or applauding good effort to show you appreciate someone else’s contributions, apologising when we make a mistake and accepting someone else’s apology. Respect is how we show the world that we value ourselves and value other people. 

Responsibility Takohanga

1. Being responsible for myself. Making good decisions, getting organised and being a good self-manager.

2. Being responsible for other people. Looking after those that need help, such as younger students, ensure that we respect other people’s learning time and managing our distractions.

3. Being responsible for our place. Looking after our own, and others’ equipment. Looking after our school or home by taking care and being tidy “a home for everything”.

4. Taking responsibility for our mistakes. This is probably the hardest for our children, and directly relates back to the value of resilience. When we make a mistake or a poor choice. We “front up” and admit to our mistake, then do what we can to fix it. It is in the fixing and overcoming of our mistakes, we develop this important Value of resilience.

Resilience Manawaroa

We see children demonstrating resilience when they “work tough,” when learning is new or difficult. It is natural for children to get frustrated in their work and play. However, how we talk and respond when this happens will help our children to develop resilience. Conversations about: what makes us special, what we can control, doing our best, taking positive risks, forgiving other people’s mistakes, being able to fix our own mistakes and acknowledging how we feel when frustrated can help to develop resilience in our children.

“If a child doesn’t know how to read, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to swim, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to multiply, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to drive, we teach.”

“If a child doesn’t know how to behave, we……..... ……….teach?”

- Tom Herner (NASDE President ) Counterpoint 1998, p.2

At Kai Iwi School we have been implementing some new ways of working with Children to set expectations and repair relationships, when they make a poor decision. The methods we have brought into the School are founded on research and successful practice from other Schools.

As a School we believe that relationships are vital to a healthy child and community. So when we need to correct or teach a behaviour we understand that it needs to be done in a way that maintains and develops positive relationships

W.A.R.M Conversations.

We use four main sets of questions when an incident occurs at School where someone has been hurt. There are also some supporting questons that can be used as needed.

What. What happen? (Tell the story)

• What were you thinking at the time

• What have you thought about since?

• If there was a video on the wall, wht would it have seen?

• How does that fit with our values?

Affected: Who do you think has been Affected? Who else? (We explore the harm)

• In what ways?

• Was this fair or unfair?

• Was this the right or wrong thing to do?

• If you were in their shoes, how would you be feeling?

Repair: What do we need to do to put things right? (Repair the harm)

• What else might need to happen?

• Tell me more about this.

• What exactly are you appologisig for?

• How will this help?

• When can this happen?

• What des sorry look like from here?

Move Forward: How do we make sure that this doesn’t happen again?

• What do you need to start doing, stop doing or stay doing?

• Wat are your goals to help you move forward?

• What other support do you need?

• If this happens again, what do you think should happen next?

By doing this we Repair the relationship, hold children accountable for their behavior, develop responsibility and resilience, reduce the likelihood of the behavior reoccurring, and teach children how to repair relationships themselves so that teacher intervention is needed less often.