Ngā reo e toru: Trissessment listening to whānau, tamariki and kaiako voices to make learning visible through assessment.

Abstract

The Ole Schoolhouse (Rotorua) kaiako and researchers from  the Early Childhood Education (ECE) team at Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology worked together for eighteen months on a Teacher-Led Innovation Fund (TLIF) project. This project sought to recognise and nurture the mana of the tamaiti (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2017) by formalising the process by which tamariki and whānau were able to participate in assessment.  The project’s purpose was to use action research to evaluate how the trissessment model (Cown et al, 2016) might support The Ole Schoolhouse’s tamariki, whānau and kaiako to collaborate and amplify both the tamaiti’s and the whānau voice in the assessment process. A key finding was the shift in whānau understanding of their role in the assessing of their tamaiti’s learning.  The whānau began to see that they were experts in their tamaiti’s learning and that their perspectives would profoundly deepen kaiako understanding of tamariki interests, dispositions and skills.