Nau Mai! — Welcome to the 2026 Academic Year
The first week is about more than just timetables. It's about building a learning community, understanding our shared values, and building the routines students need for secondary learning. This pack helps teachers combine whakawhanaungatanga, digital readiness, and self-management so Year 9-10 learners start with strong relationships as well as clear systems.
At a Glance
- 🤝 Relationship Building
- 🛠️ Digital Readiness
- 📜 Tikanga & Guidelines
- 🎯 Self-Management
Optional First-Week Activities — before Lesson 1
These activities are optional and are not part of the five-lesson sequence — no lesson depends on having run them. They are a way to set expectations with a new class in the first week; skip them and the five lessons still work exactly as written.
1. Whakawhanaungatanga: The Identity Map
Beyond the "icebreaker" — building a deep understanding of who we are.
Students create a visual "Identity Map" — their interests, the strengths they bring, and, if they choose, their tūrangawaewae and cultural connections. The map is private by default: it is the student's own document, and nothing on it has to be shown to anyone. Sharing is by invitation only — a student may show a partner, the teacher, or nobody, and choosing nobody carries no cost in the room. Week one is the wrong time to ask a new Year 9 to disclose identity to thirty strangers; the map works because it is theirs.
- Tool: Organic Mind Map Template
- Key Question: What do you want your teachers and peers to know about you that a computer doesn't?
2. Te Kete Ako Mastery: My First Entry
Onboarding students to their personal learning portfolio.
Get students familiar with the platform. Perform a "Kete Audit": you demonstrate saving one resource with the ⭐ Save to My Kete button and show it appearing in Tōku Kete, then each student finds a resource of their own on the Browse page and records its title and web address in their folder. Then, on paper, each student writes a one-sentence reflection about what kind of learner they want to be this year — it goes in their physical folder, and Lesson 5 will build a real portfolio around artefacts like it.
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Goal:
Signed in on your own kaiako account, open
Tōku Kete — My Kete
and save one resource to it on the shared screen, so ākonga see what a kete is for. Ākonga then
each choose a resource on the Browse page and write its title and web address into their folder.
Note: saving to Tōku Kete is a kaiako account feature — an ākonga sign-in will not have the ⭐ Save button, so do this part as a demonstration rather than asking students to try it. - Check: Can each student name the resource they chose, say where on the site they found it, and give one sentence on why it is worth keeping?
3. Co-Constructing Tikanga
Creating a shared classroom treaty based on mutual respect.
Shift from "rules" to "tikanga" (protocols). What does respect, curiosity, and effort look like in this room, online, and when conflict appears? Make the discussion concrete enough that students can recognise the expectations in practice.
- Activity: Use the Ideation Grid to brainstorm "The Ideal Classroom".
- Final Output: A short class tikanga document, built from ideas students contribute on paper (anonymously is fine), finalised by the teacher, displayed in the room, and revisited after a fortnight to see whether it matches how the class actually runs. No signing ceremony — a public oath in week one asks for a performance, not a commitment, and a student who is not ready to promise anything in front of strangers must be able to opt out without being seen doing it.
4. Timetable, Devices, and Help-Seeking Systems
Making secondary expectations explicit before mistakes pile up.
Walk students through how to read their timetable, where work will be posted, how to name digital files, and what to do when they miss instructions or feel stuck. The first week is the best time to normalise asking for support.
- Routine: Build a one-page checklist for what students do at the start and end of each day.
- Practice: Rehearse where to find notices, how to message a teacher appropriately, and which adults or tuakana can help when anxiety spikes.
📦 Printable Starter Resources
Student User Guide
Not written yet. This card promised a specific guide and linked to the whole handout catalogue, which told a kaiako nothing — the promise is left visible here so it is authored rather than quietly dropped.
Intentions & Goals
Not written yet. Until it exists, use your kura's own goal-setting sheet — the lessons do not depend on a particular template.
Digital Citizenship and Online Safety — handout
A generic Years 7–11 handout from the wider library, usable alongside Lesson 2 as a discussion starter. It is not a class contract — the tikanga your class actually commits to is the document Activity 3 builds, and no separate "digital tikanga contract" resource exists in this pack.
Kaiako Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga — Learning Intentions
- Help students transition into secondary routines with clarity about people, spaces, systems, and expectations.
- Use whakawhanaungatanga, digital onboarding, and explicit planning tools to build a learning culture where students can participate confidently from the first week.
- Position identity, goals, and help-seeking as normal parts of academic readiness rather than waiting for students to struggle in silence.
Paearu Angitu — Success Criteria
- I can explain how our class tikanga supports safety, respect, and focused learning.
- I can use my timetable, digital tools, and planning routines to be ready for the school day.
- I can name one likely challenge in the first month and identify the support, strategy, or person that will help me respond well.
Teacher Planning Snapshot
- Year level: Years 9-10 | Duration: opening week with revisits in the first month as routines settle.
- Curriculum alignment: Te Mātaiaho Phase 4 integration across key competencies, oral language, digital participation, and wellbeing. This starter pack prepares students to manage themselves, relate well to others, and contribute to a new class culture.
- Mātauranga Māori: Whakawhanaungatanga is core learning content here. Manaakitanga shapes how teachers welcome and respond to students, tikanga makes classroom expectations explicit, and whakapapa reminds students that identity, place, and whānau belong in secondary learning spaces too.
- Entry support: Model each routine step by step, use visible checklists, rehearse how to read the timetable, and pair students with a buddy or tuakana for the first digital and navigation tasks.
- On-level: Most students can co-construct class expectations, complete a first Kete entry, and reflect on their strengths and support needs with teacher circulation and frequent check-ins.
- Extension: Invite confident students to help lead orientation tasks, refine the class treaty language, or create a student guide for younger peers entering the school next year.
Inclusion and Accessibility
- ESOL / ELL: Pair every new routine with visuals, bilingual glossaries where possible, and oral rehearsal before expecting independent writing. Sentence stems help students explain needs and ask for help without whakamā.
- Accessibility: Offer printed and digital versions of timetables, checklists, and platform instructions. Keep key steps visible in the room and avoid relying on fast whole-class verbal processing alone.
- Neurodiverse learners: Students with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, or transition anxiety benefit from predictable timing, advance warnings before movement, chunked tasks, and more than one way to show readiness or reflection.
🔗 Unit Progression & Next Steps
The 5 lessons in this unit, in teaching order:
Pedagogical Foundations | Ngā Tūāpou Akoranga
A starter pack is not a neutral collection of activities — it embodies a theory of how learners arrive, what they bring, and what a good teacher does at the threshold. Three thinkers whose frameworks shaped the design of this unit.
→ Explore all theorists at Te Whare Ako — Teaching Theory