Te Tiriti O Waitangi

This year I really wanted to focus on the Treaty of Waitangi and really push my students to a greater understanding of it. This is due to the fact I have become frustrated with how many Kiwis don't fully understand the implications of the Treaty and what it actually means. I felt that as a teacher I would be able to help my students fully understand the history of it, because we can learn a lot about ourselves through history.

We started with a KLW chart on the Treaty. I was surprised at how little the students knew.

I then split the students into small groups and they then worked together to complete a venn digram comparing the Treaty of Waitangi with other treaties around the world. I felt this was a great introduction for the students to the treaty as they were researching and discovering different things about it.

After having a taste of the treaty, students have then come up with their own inquiry question to look further into. I only used one question this time as I wanted to students to be able to answer it in the time we had (Approx two weeks) Their questions are displayed on our inquiry wall bricks in our class.

We have also been researching Hone Heke, James Busby and William Hobson. Students are gaining a better understanding of not only why the treaty was set up, but also why there are so many issues now.

After spending some time learning and researching about the founders involved with the Treaty, I thought it was time to challenge them around the timeline of the Treaty. To do this I split the class into small groups of 3 and 4. I gave them each a copy of the dates and the significant events that happened then. Students were then given 20 minutes to try and put the significant event to the date. It was really interesting how many students wanted to use the chrome books to check their answers, rather that just going with their gut. The groups did fairly well getting over half of the questions correct.

Over all I feel my class has gained a better understanding of Te Tiriti O Waitangi. Whilst I could have spent longer exploring it, I feel my students are ready to move onto something new. We will move into learning where we are from in the form of our Pepeha's, then onto ANZAC. We are also going to explore the New Zealand Land wars this year, which my boys seem very interested in.

What worked well: Group work, Resources for students,
What didn't work so well: Inquiry of students.Their questions were very brief and not conducive to a deep inquiry. Some of their questions were too simple. Next time I would need to ensure that all my students understand the inquiry process before they select their question.