Orientation

The establishment of the Toki Pounamu Education Trust is associated with a wider, comprehensive renewal programme for the West Coast, known as the West Coast Transformation Programme, and also an education initiative, known as the Toki Pounamu Programme, which involves schools and the community of the West Coast and the New Zealand Ministry of Education. "Toki Pounamu" is the 'Sharp Edge of Learning", being "Toki" (Maori Adze) symbolising authority, strength and triumph over adversity. The overall aim of the Toki Pounamu Education Trust is to develop the capacity of children and families in the West Coast community through the advancement of learning.

In particular, it is intended that the Toki Pounamu Education Trust will be involved in promoting, implementing and developing, in conjunction with various other stakeholders, learning infrastructure and programmes to be delivered on the West Coast, and will give children, families and teachers in the West Coast community the opportunity to access appropriate learning tools so that they can benefit from such infrastructure and programmes, both at school and at home.

Visible Learning

Visible learning means that what you teach and what students learn, create and share is accessible online by anyone. Your learning site is the virtual extension of your classroom - it's where students go to 'rewind' previous lessons for deeper understanding, to know what's coming up, and to access learning resources. Students away on school trips or family holidays, or sick at home, can still see exactly what's going on, and can catch up.

Parents can see exactly what is going on in your classroom, at any time of the day. They can log into the Hapara Parent Portal and look through their child's folders in the same way they might look through a physical school book. They might even see their child working on a doc in real time. They can see their child's blog and comment on their learning anytime. They can see the teacher's professional learning blog too.