"The principals and those in leadership positions at the schools met up in early 2017 and created the achievement challenges. These were then submitted to the Ministry of Education."
She says the principals had to work on their relationships with each other first, before involving other teachers.
"It was important that we all bonded before hand. The collaboration between schools increased to include the teachers across schools in 2019."
The teacher-only day focused on workshops on four challenges - Cultural Capacity, Transitions, Learner Agency and Wellbeing.
The challenges work to strengthen cultural understanding and partnerships with parents of the community, raise achievements through enhanced transitions, enhance learning agency within a localised curriculum and enhance learning by strengthening networks that foster the development of wellbeing.
"The challenges help the cluster of schools work together to strengthen the collaboration between the schools."
Topics included Digital Technologies, enviroschools and understanding dyslexia and anxiety.
Local iwi Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Maru and Ngā Ruahine attended the day, sharing local stories.
Kim says the vision for the Kāhui Ako is care and collaboration to strengthen the community.
"We are all working together with the children at the centre of all decisions made by the schools."
This is the second year where all schools closed to come together.
"I think it's important we have days like this as there is strength in numbers and it's great that we are learning from each other. For our isolated schools, being able to collaborate and work together is important."
She says there were many benefits.
"We came together and broke down the barriers between early childhood and primary and primary and secondary. It is very important that we can all communicate and work together."
