Kōkirihia is a rōpū of passionate people and organisations that have come together to ensure that all tamariki and rangatahi living in Aotearoa have access to a fair, just and culturally enriching education – one with high expectations of every single learner and their ability to reach their potential and thrive.
Noun /ˈstriːmɪŋ/
The term we use in Aotearoa New Zealand to cover harmful fixed-ability grouping, banding, and the inflexible use of prerequisites in education – all practices whereby students are sorted into different classes or placed into in-class ability-based groups for sustained periods of time based on teacher perceptions of ability and assessment data.
We all want to believe that here in Aotearoa New Zealand we live in a fair and equitable society where our students have access to an education system in which they will thrive and have the opportunities to reach their full potential. However, until now this hasn’t been the case. For many generations, the practice of streaming has been embedded in our education system in Aotearoa New Zealand, so much so that it has now become largely invisible.
The research evidence is unequivocal that fixed-ability grouping in any form does not work for the vast majority, and any advantages for high achievers are minimal. While the negative impacts are widespread among all demographics, the research shows that streaming is particularly damaging for Māori and Pacific children as they are more likely to be incorrectly placed in lower ability groups and streams than Pākehā and Asian students.
These practices and beliefs significantly impact learner self-esteem, self-belief, and potential, and create trauma. Streaming inhibits student choice, social cohesion, success and actualisation of student potential to be confident citizens of Aotearoa. The result is an education system with huge disparities and inequities.
The flipside of the evidence clearly shows that when students are taught in mixed but flexible achievement groups, and who have teachers who expect all students to make large gains, they often surpass even their teachers' high expectations.
“I hate streaming, because it’s in levels, dumb to smart…for me I was in the low classes.”
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High Expectation Teaching (HET) is an Aotearoa New Zealand pedagogy offering a viable alternative to the current ways of grouping, and an empirically proven means of lifting achievement.
Developed following the early work of Christine Rubie-Davies that showed students with high expectation teachers made more than two years’ academic growth in one year, compared with students in other classes who made little progress over one year.
Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC) is a research-based professional development and pedagogical change initiative.
Funded by the Ministry of Education (MoE) DMIC has evolved in response to the persistent inequities for Māori and Pacific students with those schools with large Pacific communities prioritised for inclusion in the professional learning development (PLD).
Reciprocal Teaching was developed in the 1980s as a collaborative way of teaching and learning four metacognitive strategies that are essentials for reading for meaning, critical thinking and problem-solving, and understanding different points of view.
The four thinking strategies are: questioning, clarifying, summarising and predicting.In Aotearoa New Zealand, many teachers and students know it as RT3T, which has been developed and led by Dr Julia Westera. It is being utilised for all schooling levels and across the curriculum.
Whanganui Iwi – taking the local community on the journey.
Led by Ngā Tai o te Awa Trust, Poipoia kia Mōhio has community, whānau, hapū and iwi as its starting point. Putting this into practice meant holding community wānanga to explore the whakapapa of streaming in their rohe to explore who it benefits, to hear the stories from both young and old, and to ask what it might look and feel like if things were done differently. Their approach is one that ‘pitches the collectivism of te ao Māori against the individualism of our western education system.
Join the movement and become a Kōkirihia champion.
