For me all 3 are affected by the teacher student ratio and the restrictions a high student to teacher ratio can make.
Currently our kaupapa has 86 kids with supposedly 4 kaiako; but due to other commitments we are really working at 3 kaiako and sometimes 2 kaiako due to release.
The group being the developing inquiry (group B) should not be an issue but the starting point for these kids being both lack of idea and lack of understanding of the inquiry format.
In our team discussion a colleague commented as a criticism a group who were making fruit kebabs; how was this inquiry? Unfortunately this was the colleague who was unable to immerse herself in the kaupapa because of other commitments and this group were in fact the group she had as her check in students. I understood fully the criticism and know that this was a group I had found myself working with. This group had lacked self-managing skills and were very distracted initially and this idea had come about by the fact that they had watched another group I worked with make fruits kebabs as a trial for their cooking inquiry. They were convinced that this was their inquiry and I had to make it happen. And referring to the MOE training became argumentative (escalating) when asked why? as a link to inquiry.
Lacking connection to a passion, an idea and the understanding that kaupapa is immersed in the inquiry process takes time and when there is the impact of a large group.
At times, especially in block 3, when we have 2 kaiako in, it has this sense of babysitting.
I question why I haven't felt like this before as an advocate of inquiry projects. The impact of a hapori is that instead of 25 or 120 (as I have had in the past) there are 250+ akonga that we work with and knowing the students and knowng where they are at with inquiry and their passions are hard. Time invested into these rich conversations is crucial yet harder in the open space and number ratio.
My weeks have focussed on the need for a better student ratio for learning in an open space and the MOE to recognise this. I have a huge advocate for learning in ILE but would also am experiencing in my last two kaupapas large numbers and learners new to the inquiry process.
I know that last year we tried passion projects badly; both due to the lack of devices and the lack of buy in/knowledge of kaiako to an inquiry process. We instead integrated inquiry into our numeracy and literacy groups with were constant and we were able to know students and work with their plus one.
Something to think about below as we endeavour to proceed...
