Hero New Zealand

Ensure places of learning are safe, inclusive and free from racism, discrimination and bullying

Ask learners/ākonga, whānau and staff about their experience of racism, discrimination and bullying, and use that information to reduce these behaviours

Make use of the student feed and student survey to collect student voice by answering simple questions
- Ask teachers to read the help article about using the student feed. More...
- Set up your student Hero accounts so that students can log in, read notices and respond to surveys. More...
- Teach a small group of Hero students how to log in and ask them to teach groups of other students. More...
Use community feed to celebrate inclusiveness with whānau, videos and images of students working as a team, or displaying school values, PB4L actions etc
- Ask all staff to read the help articles on using the community feed. More...

Have processes in place to promptly address and resolve any complaints or concerns about racism, discrimination and bullying

Publish your policy on your website and provide a link to this for parents on the Hero App
- If your school subscribes to 'Premier' you can add a link to your policy to the Hero app. Under school options select "School App Options"
Set up a locked “Parents communication page” where teachers can record complaints/concerns - share this with SLT to ensure there has been a follow up/action/outcome. This page could have a template with space to record when concerns have been followed with you have followed up with people concerned.
- Create a Parents communication page in Hero using the "Page" section. When creating this, consider guidelines for use and make sure that you add these to the "About this Page" section. Communicate the purpose of this page with staff.
Use of Behavioural tracking - use tags to identify racism, discrimination, bullying.
- Review the behaviour tags currently set up on Hero, do these reflect your schools requirements?
- Update your behaviour tags and ensure all staff understand the importance of using tags consistently to generate accurate data.

Create a safe and inclusive culture where diversity is valued and all learners/ākonga and staff, including those who identify as LGBTQIA+, are disabled, have learning support needs, are neurodiverse, or from diverse ethnic communities, feel they belong.

Create a learner page on Hero for students or their families to share their story and their values. Parents can talk in their language and their child translate for teacher/class
- Create a learner page on Hero for students or their families to share their story and their values. Parents can talk in their language and their child translate for the teacher/class.
Learner Profile Page created with templated questions to ensure teachers know about each child.
- Create a Learner Profile Page created with templated questions to ensure teachers know about each child.
- Encourage parents to update the page each year. This will help teachers quickly get to know their new students. They will be able to reflect over time the changes in their child eg. confidence, independence etc… Key questions could be…. Who lives in your home with you? Bedtime? Activities they enjoy? Clubs they belong to? Fears/Anxieties? Thoughts on school? Home responsibilities? Good friends outside of school/in school? Activities the family enjoy? Pets? Strengths/Passions/Things they are good at? What makes them “sparkle”? Encourage the use of images, video, voice to bring life to the story and to cater and embrace all needs.

Have high aspirations for every learner/ākonga, and support these by partnering with their whānau and communities to design and deliver education that responds to their needs, and sustains their identities, languages and cultures

Partner with family and whānau to equip every learner/ākonga to build and realise their aspirations

Encourage students and their families to share through Hero.
- Create a page that is open to students and their families, encourage posting to this page goals and aspirations. Make these posts the focus of conferences in Term 1. Embrace cultural diversity by translating the content in the “About this page” eg) create a slideshow or doc with translations.
Set personal goals for all students.
- Use the PLP goals at the initial meet the teacher (beginning of the year) to find out students/families goals and aspirations for the year or while at your Kura. Set these WITH the whānau - come back to them and revisit during the year. Record how each person is going to support the child to achieve/progress - then reflect on these together.
Opportunities for parents/teachers to add comments as child is working towards goals
- Talk to students about the importance of providing evidence when goals are complete, ask them to share this with their family. Evidence can be provided through a range of mediums eg) video, images...
Help everyone to feel included and part of their children's learning journeys.
- Celebrate and share examples of diversity/cultures etc on students posts/community feed - welcome families to speak in their language and students to translate this if required - use of video (Hero removes the barrier for parents as they can share on a post also in their language)

Help staff to build their awareness of bias and low expectations, and of how these impact learners/ākonga, staff and whānau

Use data to inform planning and teacher discussions.
- Use of the progress snapshots page - especially for students working above expectations as may not show they have progressed
Use goal-setting to help personalise learning.
- Add exemplars to goals to ensure consistency and support OTJs
- Use of goal setting feature which shows when the goals were last updated, making sure teachers are checking these regularly and updating them. Set guidelines and expectations for teachers regarding the frequency required for reviewing goals.
- Add exemplars to goals to ensure consistency and support OTJs More...

Identify and respond to learner/ ākonga strengths, progress and needs, and learner/ākonga and whānau aspirations

Use of Page sets to differentiate the content available for students.
- Discuss the most appropriate use of "Page Sets" with your teams. Review the help article. More...
Encourage families to engage with and share student learning.
- Use the Personalised Goals feature in Hero and set goals with whānau and revisit these often. More...
- Use a Learner Profile Page with a template to identify strengths, needs, aspirations. Introduce this at a parent meeting and encourage families to add content about their children.
Use of Learner Profile Page - template to identify strengths, needs, aspirations

Build relationships with Māori, involve them in decision making, and partner with them to support rangatiratanga, and Māori educational success as Māori

Use page sets to create different content organisation for specific groups of learners, for example, students learning in Te Reo.
- Create pages and page sets that allow for Te Reo learners to share content in Te Reo. More...
- When creating pages in Hero, use the "About this Page" section to include Te Reo.
- Support bilingual learners through using the Te Reo Māori Progressions/goals. Contact the Hero helpdesk for a templated set of progressions taken from the following documents: Hei Korowai Tuatahi mō te Marautanga Reo Māori, He Ara Ako i te Reo Matatini and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa (Pāngarau). This template was a collaborative project between Linc Technologies and Tuahiwi School with a high level of contribution from Jess Ormsby, fluent Te Reo Māori specialist and leadership from principal, Melanie Taite-Pitama.

Collaborate with Māori communities to invest in, develop and deliver Māori- medium learning

Engage families in different ways and provide communication pathways for all.
- Use community surveys, in Hero Premier, to ask simple questions such as interest in joining a regular Hui, groups can be created based on the responses to this question.
- Create an auto group of parents who want to be part of regular huis to inform, seek views, opinions etc and use this to communicate opportunities to meet, sharing of discussion and decisions and opportunity for those to add comments to.

Reduce barriers to education for all, including for Māori and Pacific learners/ākonga, disabled learners/ākonga and those with learning support needs

Work with whānau and Pacific families to identify and understand barriers that may prevent learners/ākonga from accessing, participating or remaining engaged in schooling, and work to address them

Use the engagement analysis on posts to identify families who are not engaging with content so that you can find out why and how you can help them.
- Check some recent community feed posts to see the level and type of engagement. Look for patterns of families who are not reading the posts. More...
- Send out reminders to families that downloading the Hero App is the best way to stay up to date with school and learning.
- Contact families who are consistently not reading posts and ask if they need help to download the app or enable notifications. More...
- Use the Hero Family Pack (resource) for ways to engage parents and caregivers in how to access information. This can be downloaded from the Hero website - hero.linc-ed.com.

Ensure disabled learners/ākonga and staff, those with learning support needs, gifted learners/ ākonga, and neurodiverse learners/ākonga are safe and included in their school or kura, their needs are supported, and that learning support programmes are robust and effective

Use video messages to help share learning and information
- Sharing quick video messages is often a way to increase engagement. Keep the messages short and so that families get used to the fact that they don't need to allocate a lot of time to watching these regular updates.
Use the tracking progress snapshot tool
- The progress snapshot tool is a great way to see at a glance which children may be in need of focussed attention. The tool is aligned to your school's curriculum expectations and will indicate where students are working in relation to these expectations. Share this information with classroom teachers and team leaders. More...
- Hold regular and scheduled data meetings within teaching teams to look at snapshots and discuss plans for individuals and groups of students.
Using learning Support Icon to ensure students below have an intervention/targeted support
- The support icons that are shown on student profile images are a really quick and easy way to see which students are receiving support and also indicate when that support was last updated. Share this information with all teachers. More...
Using learning narratives to show progress and achievement of goals (Uploading photos/video) Use tags to help collect data
- Discuss with all staff what a quality learning narrative looks like. Think about audience, detail and value of the information to the end user (parent, student, other/ future teacher)
- Draw up and share agreed guidelines on what a learning narrative should look like. Add this to the "About this Page" section.
Use of accessibilities on apple devices/google extensions eg. speech to text
- Android and Apple devices have built-in tools that allow users to speak into their device and automatically convert this to text.
Share assessments with parents/students.
- Add assessments to a page that families can view so that they can see progress through a particular assessment. Note: carefully consider which assessments are designed to inform teaching and which are suited to sharing with learners and their families. More...
- Provide opportunities for parents to discuss and understand the meaning of these assessments eg) parent interviews.
Learning Support register through use of tags/posts - recording interventions/notes
- Discuss with the team the sorts of tags that should be available for learning support and encourage the consistent use of these by all staff.
Use of auto groups to track Priority learners
- Show teachers how to use auto groups. Auto groups are a great way to have groups automatically generated and always up to date. Many schools have pages that are linked to an auto group so that the simple addition of a new post for a student will add them to the group automatically. More...

Where possible, reduce non-fee costs, including costs associated with BYOD policies, and take advantage of policies to reduce financial dependence on families and whānau.

Sponsorship from local businesses can be added to the Hero App as way to bring in additional funding that can offset the costs for families
- Approach local businesses who may be interested in adding their logo and link to Hero for your school. More...

Ensure every learner/ ākonga gains sound foundation skills, including language*, literacy and numeracy

Ensure all learners/ākonga have ongoing opportunities to develop key capabilities, including communication, problem solving, critical thinking and interpersonal skills

Use Hero goal setting to track and celebrate learning in the key competencies, dispositions and skills
- Review the goals that are currently available in your Hero site.
- Add new sets of goals based on your school's values, Key Competencies, vision or essential skils. More...
Using tags for KC, Values, dispositions etc when making a post then using this to analyse areas that need to be developed/celebrated more
- Create tags sets to track learning for a specific area. More...
- Help teachers to access and use tag data sheets to understand patterns. More...
Teach students to upload their own videos to share/demonstrate new learning.
- Start with a small group of students and help them to share videos explaining their learning. Focus on students explaining the why, what and how of their learning.

Identify learners/ākonga who are not making sufficient progress in key foundation skills, and adjust learning opportunities, teaching approaches and supports, including seeking additional support from specialists

Insights, tag analysis and auto groups quickly identify individuals and groups needed additional help and support
- Run a team meeting focussed on looking at the "insights" page for different groupings of students.
Use of tracking flags
- Agree a set of key questions to ask when reviewing tracking flags for a group of students. More...
- Run a team meeting focussed on the use of tracking flags to identify students who may need extra support. More...

Value the heritage languages spoken by Pacific learners/ ākonga, and provide opportunities to use and to build on them

Use online tools such as google translate to convert learning and information posts into different languages and target these posts to families
- Use list builder to understand the variety of languages within your school community. Create auto groups based on languages spoken at home so that specific posts can be translated when appropriate. Connect with willing parents to support the translation of key information as appropriate.
- Use google translator to translate a key piece of information. Demonstrate how to do this with other staff members.

Meaningfully incorporate Te Reo Māori and tikanga Māori into the everyday life of the place of learning

Seek advice from Māori on how best to include tikanga Māori in values, practices and organisational culture

Use development opportunities for teachers/kaiako and leaders to build their teaching capability, knowledge and skills in te reo Māori and tikanga Māori

Build capability and understanding amongst teachers.
- Use the staff feed to share videos, articles and learnings in te reo Māori or featuring speakers of Māori.
Encourage teachers to reflect on the use of te reo Māori and tikanga Māori.
- Using Professional Growth Cycle staff pages as a place to record new learning, upload links, share and collaborate with other staff on similar goals
Provide opportunities for teachers to share and promote the use of Te Reo.
- Using community feed to add te Kupu te wiki - word of the week. Encourage students/families to upload a video of them using the word in their context - run a competition e.g. go into the draw to win…

Talk with learners/ākonga and staff about why correct pronunciation of te reo Māori is important, and provide them with opportunities to learn and practice without judgement

Actively share quality examples.
- Post quality examples and small snippets the student, staff and community feeds each week
Promote the importance of correct pronunciation.
- Use of the ability to Insert a link to a site where you can check correct pronunciation

Develop staff to strengthen teaching, leadership and learner support capability across the education workforce

Identify gaps in teaching capability and invest in opportunities for teachers/ kaiako and staff to strengthen teaching, leadership and learning support

Agree expectations and a format for recording professional learning and growth.
- Using the Professional Growth Cycle Pages to insert "The Standards" doc and highlight things we do well and things to develop. Staff may select from here some things they want to work on together/collaboratively and add to their own page
- Opportunity to include a template for teacher observations
- Allow teachers to collaborate and share teaching experiences with other staff through staff pages - including uploading videos/teaching examples/links etc

Develop teacher/kaiako confidence and competence to teach diverse learners/ākonga with varying needs, and to appropriately modify teaching approaches

Use data analysing tools - insights to hold effective data meetings.
- Use data analysing tools - insights to hold effective data meetings
- Use the sort feature on the class profile page to identify at a glance students levels.
Use the sort feature on the class profile page to identify at a glance students levels.

Expect and support teachers/ kaiako to build their understanding of learners’/ ākonga contexts, including languages spoken at home, histories, stories and cultural values, to provide culturally responsive teaching

Increase the focus on knowing each learner.
- Establish student pages where students can post content that is important to them, teachers will be notified of this content and have access to it throughout the year to help them build strong relationships and understand more about their learners
- All staff (including support staff) have access to ALL students information - Supports developing a culture of ‘They are all OUR children’
All staff (including support staff) have access to ALL students information - Supports developing a culture of ‘They are all OUR children’

Collaborate with industries and employers to ensure learners/ ākonga have the skills, knowledge and pathways to succeed in work

Support learners/ākonga to see the connection between what they’re learning and the world of work

Use exemplars within goals to help learners to understand the ‘why’ behind the learning. Each goal within Hero can have specific examples or extra content that will help students to gain a fresh insight into their learning.
- When reviewing goals within Hero, try adding exemplars that focus on 'why' the goal is important as well as what success looks like.
Focus on Key Competencies - as all workplaces are looking for these
- Create a set of Key Competencies tags so that posts can be tagged to one of more.
- Use the tag data sheets to check for consistent and equitable use of the Key Competency tags.

Break down ethnic, gender and socioeconomic stereotypes around education and career pathways, including for girls and young women

Celebrate learning.
- Use the community, student and staff feeds to celebrate learning and success for all students, celebrate former students, role models and a variety of stories.

Collaborate with industries, employers and tertiary education providers to plan for successful transitions to enable all learners/ākonga to succeed in education

Prepare students for the next stage in their learning journey.
- Print any pages from a students report/learning pages to share with another school to support transitioning
Prepare for new learners coming. to the school in the future.
- During school visits or when NE teachers visit kindy’s they could begin to add some learning stories in preparation for the transition eg, photos/videos of students maybe discussing what they are looking forward to about school. Maybe the school could also make a video introducing the teachers who will be in the students class, show students on the playground, in the classroom , hall, library etc and upload so that they have access to this they could watch prior to starting school after they have met. Principal could also do some talking

Using Hero to support the National Education and Learning Priorities (NELP)

Objective 1 - LEARNERS AT THE CENTRE

Objective 2 - BARRIER FREE ACCESS

Objective 3 - QUALITY TEACHING AND LEADERSHIP

Objective 4 - FUTURE OF LEARNING AND WORK