Special Needs funding in the media

I really appreciated this well written comment on special needs education funding from Paul Drummond, president of the NZ Principals' Federation.  Paul has given approval for to share his article.

This week the media highlighted the plight of special needs children and their right to attend their local school. For the record I fully support the right of all children to attend their local school and believe it is our job to provide a quality education for every child that is best suited to their needs and capabilities. Inclusion and diversity are values I believe we should all support. That said I also recognise that schools need a level of resource that matches children’s requirements, parental expectations and our own high standards. This is where the dilemma arises. Principals want to accept high needs students, but do not receive the necessary resources to provide the educational experience and the safe environment that these children richly deserve.

ORRS funding goes some way to providing critical support for children with highest need, but it will not have escaped your notice that the threshold for receiving ORRS funding has seemingly lifted. The verification system still produces inconsistences about who is funded from one year to the next and the moderated support funding often doesn’t cover what is required for high needs children to access the full curriculum. Decreasing support assumes that because the child is a year older they no longer need it! The challenge for us is to find the same level of funding or support from somewhere else. That can be our S.E.G. or creative use of staffing, parents, peers or arrangements with other schools. Unfortunately that ‘somewhere else’ doesn’t exist for all of us and inevitably compromises the rights of other students to access the curriculum. 

For some, the dilemma has been answered by suggesting that parents enroll their child at an alternative school which is better resourced or has specialist teachers in the particular area of disability. For others the answer is to accept the child and acknowledge that there will be limitations to the educational experiences from which the child could derive benefit. This might include, for example, excluding the child from school activity when there is no teacher aid support for toileting, a field trip or camp. As principals we must manage this complexity with professionalism and integrity.

Principals and teachers are constantly calling on their own resourcefulness and creativity to accommodate their special needs children who bring a diversity and richness to our school communities. These children add value to our schools. They help all of our children to develop a sense of empathy, of tolerance and accepting difference as normal. These are qualities which will ultimately create a more compassionate and civilised New Zealand – a nation to be proud of. 

When policy was introduced to deinstitutionalise and move to the mainstream, there was an expectation that all the resources would be transferred to the mainstreaming effort. It is time now to remind policy makers that our special children deserve their rightful share and if attending your local school is a right then it has to be protected and honoured with full resourcing.

It is timely to examine systems that achieve better than we do in the education of special needs children. One such system is Finland. Click here to read a review of a recent publication on the Finnish system and what can be learned.

Stopping the summer reading slide

A frustrating existence in education is the slide in achievement when children are not at school, in particular the period between the end of the year and the beginning of the year - December to February. Although we often think that the occasional day is OK, a week off or more has a detrimental effect on children's progress.  Classrooms do have learning rhythms. Often teachers cluster learning around a phase of time - such as a week, fortnight or a month, and if kids miss 3 days or so then they can struggle to catch up with the learning task and most definitely being part of the momentum of learning. The summer holiday break has a huge impact on progress.

Evidence of this can be found in this fascinating article on National Radio as Kathryn Ryan interviews Professor Tom Nicholson on a project that proved that daily reading over the summer break could progress children's reading scores, while the control group saw some children drop their reading ages by 6 months. Kids need to read daily, not just to maintain their progress, but to just be a part of the magical world of stories or knowledge.

Parents donate $250 million annually to state schools

I found this article long overdue. It was on STUFF in the weekend and really presents more questions than provides answers. It also goes hand in hand with my previous post about how NZ operates a super efficient education system based on government investment in education relative to our very high student performance. This is presented through an OECD/PISA report showing how much our government spent (considerably less) in comparison to our main reference nations - US, UK and Australia.

The article discusses the cost of technology in schools which is expensive to maintain and sustain continuity and yet schools receive very little financial support in this regard. It would be safe to say that it is the schools, and their Boards of Trustees who have modernized schools through providing technology for 21st century learning, while countries such as Australia, US and Canada lead the way in investing technology into schools for better learning. It is the parents fundraising that provides the necessary funds in NZ!

Schools run along a  knife edge about how much they can charge for a donation. Too much and you get a backlash, too little you can't make a tangible difference. When the minister says 'parents have always - and will always - need to pick up some cost'....it doesn't really fall within the Education Act. In reality though these questions fall back onto the Board of Trustees to choose between 3 very expensive categories which fall outside the operational grant given to schools by the Ministry of Education to meet operational costs. They have to choose between -

1. Additional teachers to improve or enhance learning opportunities for children.
2. Top up funding for students with special needs or learning who are between 30%-50% underfunded 9or receive no funding)
3. Technology - keeping up with the new and replacing the old technology.

It is not easy being on the Board - they often have to make harsh calls, often feeling hamstrung about meeting their vision and goals within the funds that are available.

Have a read of the article. It is challenging stuff.

Value for Money....... NZ is one of the best!

The latest Pisa report looks at how a countries educational system performs against how much that country invests. Not surprisingly and as usual NZ comes out as one of the top performers. The report shows that it is vital that a country uses its educational resources well as opposed to just throwing money at the system.

You can read the 4 page report here.

In terms of investing in its children NZ sits alongside countries such as Estonia, Greece, Israel, Hungary and Thailand. Countries which we are now tending to follow in terms of policy, the US, Australia and UK, spends considerably more per student than NZ. Yet we comfortably outperform them with our current system.

NZ spends around $43,000 per student across the years between 6-15 which equates to an annual spend of $4,300 US per child per year. In comparison the US spends $10,800 per student, the UK $8,500 per student and Australia $7,200. Our closest neighbours Australia  are funding per pupil 60% more than NZ.

The report shows that, among high-income economies, the amount spent on education is less important than how those resources are used, in particular getting the right people to work with children and investing in them heavily. Worrying for NZ classrooms is the PISA statement that small class sizes does not influence achievement outcomes - recently presented by Treasury. While I would acknowledge that the evidence seems to support this - small class sizes do not improve educational outcomes - what they do make is a huge difference to the confidence of education. People (kids, teachers, parents) feel better if class sizes are reasonable, and if the class sizes have to be big that there is quality spaces to work in.

Again NZ performs extremely well on the best test of all and that is in comparison to the OECD countries.

The Managerial Approach to Education

There have been some significant philosophical changes in education since National won the election in 2007. Firstly Anne Tolley, and now Hekia Parata aim to improve student outcomes through increasing structures around measuring schools. Time will tell if outcomes improve but it would be fair to say input from the sector around these policies has been minimal, along with additional funding. Anyway Kelvin Smythe, a long time devotee to education in New Zealand has put together a questionnaire that  accurately timelines the events of the last few years. It is quite difficult to digest, considering the importance of education to our nations standing.


Click here to view the questionnaire.

In regards to measuring how efficient our education system is you can't get much better feedback that the world wide measure (of similar countries) through the OECD.

How good is New Zealand?

Sparc becomes Sport NZ

Early this month SPARC  repackaged itself into SportNZ, the new name for the government organisation responsible for sport and recreation in NZ. The mission with the organisation is about promoting participation and enjoyment which leads through to the high performance areas of national representation.

I enjoyed viewing this little movie which shows the essential benefits of the importance that sport plays in our society. It lists some compelling statistics!

 Click here to view

New Minister of Education

The senior management team began the year at a 2 day conference in Hamilton called Learning at School. This conference  focuses on the current trends around the future of learning and is enlightening and challenging.

It also gave us a chance to hear our new Minister of Education, the Honourable Hekia Parata.

You may like to hear her 17 minute conference opening speech.

National Standards

Insight, a Sunday morning show from Radio New Zealand,  investigates the ongoing opposition to national standards for primary schools as they face the deadline for setting targets in reading, writing and maths. This show, written and presented by John Gerritsen and produced by Philippa Tolley gives a very balanced view on the struggles each party, either for or against, is experiencing, as National Standards have been in schools for 18 months. I recommend that you have a listen.

Click here to listen

The teacher and the child...that's is the difference

 
On May 18th 2011, Stanford University professor Linda-Darling Hammond was awarded the Teacher's College medal for devoting her life to a long and dedicated career in education reform. Below is a transcript of her acceptance speech, as posted on the Nation. As you might expect, she's got some pretty powerful things to say.

Click to read this very powerful speech..

History repeats (or does it?)

I found this article in the Scotsman newspaper by Andrew Whitaker. This is the perennial commentary around schools today where one generation thinks it is superior to the next, even though the society that schools are working in is vastly different that the 40 years before. Today's markers might like to find out what it really was like in their day. One thing that intrigues me is when was the point that we judge the declining standards against? A perfect example lies beneath as we compare media examples from 1964 and 2011.

AN EXAMS authority has launched a scathing criticism on the lack of basic reading and writing skills among pupils in Scottish schools. The Scottish Qualifications Authority highlighted poor spelling and grammar among teenagers sitting Higher English exams in 2010.

A key finding from the report said that handwriting was so poor that teachers are being encouraged to allow some pupils to use computers or to let them dictate the answers to exam questions to staff - facilities normally only used for pupils with dyslexia or other learning difficulties.

The report said: "Many markers commented on the poor handwriting of some candidates, which sometimes made it extremely difficult and time consuming to mark the essay.

"This is a serious problem in a critical essay, which might extend over five or more pages, making it hard to follow and concentrate on the candidate's line of thought."

They stressed that no candidate's work was, or ever has been, left unmarked for this reason. The report suggested that pupils whose handwriting is seriously weak are given alternatives, such as using computer technology without spellcheck to write their exams.

BUT IN 1964 this story appeared as a headline in an August, 1964 edition of The Glasgow Herald:

"Examiners are once again complaining about the poor standard of grammar and spelling of candidate's in this year's new Scottish Certificate of Education examinations."

"Many educationalists and examiners claim that since the Scottish Leaving Certificate and Junior Secondary Certificate were abolished only two years ago, bringing in the new Higher and Ordinary Grade certificates, candidates work has deteriorated markedly. Suddenly, reading skills and good handwriting are no longer important to the young?
Grammar, also a very important part of the English language, has also slumped."

"Scottish Home and Health Department educationalists are putting this lowering of standards down to the advent of television, and more leisure activities in the post-War period, leading to less reading amongst the young."

(Source: The Glasgow Herald Archives)

So it begs the question - when was spelling and grammar satisfactory in schools?

Sir Ken Robinson - Animated.

This animate is a visual adaptation to a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert, and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award. His speech, on Changing Paradigms of Education, puts some of New Zealand recent educational policy in a global context, (not is a positive way). It is very interesting and the amazing animation makes it a very easy watch. His message really resonates amongst the challenges facing schools today. It is 11 minutes along so hang in there and sadly his full conclusion is not included, but you will get the idea to his message. Watch out for the amazing bit on ADHD / Ritolin around the 3.30 mark.



Who are the RSA? -

The RSA is a UK charitable organisation that promotes new ways of thinking about human fulfilment and social progress. In the light of new challenges and opportunities for the human race, and by combining thought leadership, social engagement and powerful forms of collaboration, the RSA aims to make a vital and unique contribution to how we see the world.

Click here to go to their website and see other presentations.

Dyslexia and social networking

One of the great thing about web 2.0 and social networking is the connections and people you meet (although not really)! Luqman Micel commented on Sarah's dyslexia blog recently, inviting her (and us) to see his blog on dyslexia, teaching and learning from Malaysia. No air tickets required, and of course I was able to click and read his content which was very useful, challenging exisiting practices and adding to the melting pot that defines different approaches to individual learning needs. You can read Luqman's blog here. Social networking allows people with dyslexia and learning difficulties to communicate with confidence as it is about the message and the content, not necessarily the accuracy.

One humourous posting on Luqman's blog was this poem on the complexities of the English language...

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England .
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
And get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

And if people from Poland are called Poles
Then people from Holland should be Holes
And the Germans, Germs.

And lets not forget the Americans, who changed s to z, but that's another story.

Thank you Luqman

Ewan McIntosh - Eportfolios and emerging literacies

Ewan MacIntosh is someone I really admire. He has made a strong contribution to 21st century education with a prominent role in England and Scotland, including work as Digital Commissioner 4iP (Scotland, Northern Ireland and The North East) at Channel 4. Some of the Muritai staff subscribe to his regular posts. He is a strong advocate for student voice and engagement of children in their learning using 21st technology.

In this short video he gives credence to our blogging culture at school. He talks about the development of an outcome as the important thing to be shared and celebrated and describes learning as often messy! All our teachers keep class blogs which children contribute too and share the learning landscape with the local and global community

Nigel Latta

Many of us know Nigel Latta, a psychologist and parenting expert from his excellent 'Politically Incorrect Parenting Show' TV show last year. Nigel has an excellent website which you can access here.

I have been enjoying his regular sessions with Kathryn Ryan on National Radio where he shares tips on how parents can support and grow their children in a pragmatic and realistic way. You can choose from a variety of topics by clicking here to see the online catalogue.

A particularly useful episode recently focused on helping children deal with psychological bullying from peers. This is the scourge of many schools where bullying is common in an invisible way as bullies cleverly dominate through subtle psychological intimidation. Click here for the excellent session.

Future of Education

One of the best sources of quality discussion around education can be found at good old National Radio. This discussion on Kathryn Ryan's 'Nine to Noon' slot sees an excellent interview with Dr Monica Martinez about the future of education.

Listen to this excellent podcast by clicking here.

Monica Martinez is lead developer of the US-based KnowledgeWorks Foundation's influential '2020 Forecast: Creating the future for learning'. The discussion touches on how this Foundation uses the 2020 Forecast to highlight how education is evolving in a world where learning is tailored to the needs of the individual student and brought to life through real-world experiences. You can see what Knowledgeworks is about by clicking here.

Dyslexia and male and female brains

I had the pleasure of attending a 4D conference on Dyslexia in Auckland this week. The morning session was presented by Neil Mackay, a teacher and trainer who created the concept of the Dyslexia Friendly School, something we are aspiring to achieve. Our determination to improve access for children with learning difficulties to the curriculum is based on our desire for all children to be achieving and being their best. To do this we must accept different ways that children can show us they understand concepts, knowledge and skills. It was a fantastic day. You can check out some of Muritai thinking at Sarah's learning support blog.

In addition to this Neil showed us a clip from Mark Gungor where he explains the difference between female and male brains. This clip is VERY funny.

Sir Ken Robinson - Bring on the Learning Revolution

In 2006 Sir Ken Robinson shook the educational world with his talk at the TED conference which outlined 'how schools can kill creativity'. In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish.

Using a large amount of humour, a series of poignant quotes and references, Sir Ken delivers another powerful session which challenges the process of current education reform. His reference to the general idea that 'successful' educational system is all about getting to 'university' resonates for NZ. His challenge is understanding the way that education feeds and promotes our human community.

Watch out for the bit about about Kindergarten.....

The Lost Generation

An old friend sent this to me recently and I found it very, very clever and moving. As we all know a palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward.

Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite too.

This is only a 1 minute 44 second long video, but it is brilliant. Make sure you read it as well as listen...forward and backward.

This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20 year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50" by AARP. This video won second place. When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant.

Take a minute and watch it.

No excuses

We shared this with some of our older children today. Developed by high school students in Santiago it covers all the reasons why kids could not be part of contributing to a school cultures and success and then shares why offering no excuses is their school mantra - to succeed. What a powerful clip.

Lessons in leadership

This short clip is how leadership works. I hope you enjoy viewing how you can get the desired results in unusual ways.

SOME THOUGHTS FROM ANDREW ON NATIONAL STANDARDS

The impact of National Standards in literacy and numeracy on primary and intermediate schools across New Zealand must not be underestimated, and the approach taken to incorporate these into the successful programmes that schools are already running requires careful consideration.
Some key points from policy -
• The standards describe the benchmarks all children need to meet to keep up with the curriculum at primary and intermediate schools.
• Teachers will decide whether a pupil is at, above, below or well below standards of literacy and numeracy.
• The standards will require teachers to make an overall judgment on a child’s progress based on comprehensive evidence including tests and observations.
• The Education Review Office will check schools to ensure they are using the standards properly.
• The Board of Trustees will have to report to the Ministry of Education by May 2012 on the numbers and proportions of pupils at above, below or well below the standards.

At Muritai School our priority is to balance the importance of being able to report on our children’s levels of attainment in a set of nationally accepted benchmarks with our current direction and focus in developing thought processes, key competencies and values, and extending learning abilities thorough the creative and innovative teaching styles our teachers are encouraged to employ.

Fortunately at Muritai we have been using a comprehensive range of assessment and reporting procedures that already provides quality information on achievement growth, trends and comparisons within individual and age group expectations. Our current procedures are well placed to incorporate the National Standards, and I therefore expect the refinement needed to incorporate any national testing tools that are yet to be developed will simply be an addition to what we already do.
You can get a picture of what we do by accessing our Charter and our Reporting improved student achievement to community.

Our challenge will be to ensure that we do not lose sight of the vision that we have for the ‘Muritai Child’ and the exciting work we are currently developing through children’s engagement, learning opportunities, key competencies and values education. While reading, writing and arithmetic have been given high priority by the current government, parents can be assured that we most certainly will not be undervaluing or sacrificing our vision or the importance of social sciences, sciences, technologies, the arts and sports as we believe these have a significant positive impact on the development of our children.
Of course there will be teething problems with the new standards and much will be required of professionals to work with the Ministry of Education to find solutions. Indeed this may take several years before all are satisfied. Undoubtedly however, the successful implementation of the new standards will rely greatly on principals and teachers themselves, how they approach and embrace these and how they successfully incorporate them into their current programmes without undermining what they are currently delivering well and striving for.

National Standards discussion on National radio

This discussion was on National Radio on Monday. With Kathryn Ryan were Professor Robin Alexander of Cambridge University;
Professor Tom Nicholson of Massey University and Ray Newport of the School Trustees Association. It is a rigorous debate really as each person advocates their point of view.

National standards discussion

This is a worthwhile discussion, particularly from Robin Alexander who outlines the impact of national testing on UK schools (which is different to the National Standards). He advocates a broarder curriculum with greater recognition of oral language, thinking and problem solving and discusses the potential of narrowing curriculums to meet governmental directives to raise achievement in literacy and numeracy. UK achievement has been falling as a new generation of children are immersing into a teaching process that is narrow and specific by nature.

You can read the Cambridge report on my blog.

Cambridge report

A different set of 3Rs

I particularly enjoyed Natalie Anderson's commentary on a different set of essential skills that children should be taught through education - resilience, risk and rebellion.

Resilience is one of the foundation attributes she would like her kids to develop. Life has its knocks. It just does. It isn't fair and it isn't always easy. But the ability to pick yourself up and box on is essential.

Risk taking is something that she notes can be hard as a parent to watch. "I turn my back as my lot ride a foam mattress as fast as Schumacher down the stairs and shut my eyes when the three years olds climb onto the trampoline." Learning to be ok with making an idiot of yourself - and to be ok with giving something a really good go and failing, is something else she wants for them.

Rebellion is to have courage in their convictions. To be able to take a stand against authority or against the tide of popular pressure.To be strong individuals who are confident and who want to make a difference - who are passionate enough to make a stand against something? That would be awesome.

It is an excellent article and shows the width necessary in children's development. You can read the full article here.

National Standards

National Standards were introduced last week. Sadly the teaching profession was absent from the celebrations, not because they weren't invited, but more to do with their frustration at the process and based on the empirical evidence that they won't improve student achievement. While the process around the excellent new curriculum has seen it richly embedded into schools, through a lengthy consultation and implementation process, National Standards are being introduced on a much quicker scale. For us at Muritai, I feel very calm about things. We are self-managing, have good processes, our kids achieve well, they are well resourced, and we report to parents in writing about student achievement in regards to below, at or above twice a year. Any change? Well yes - and it is all to do with creating a them and us atmosphere between government and parents and the teachers. It will be a test of leadership to keep a handle on this potentially difficult situation which has changed the education landscape that was progressing so nicely under Labour on the back of John Hattie's and Helen Timperley, BES and others excellent research. The focus on developing quality teaching environments, on the back of assessment for learning, has now shifted to accountability processes based on assessment of learning. While we are currently highly regarded internationally for our education processes we seem to have adopted systems that most mid-ranked countries employ which only serve to achieve longevity of politicians careers.

I particularly enjoyed reading this article from the New Zealand Herald; one of the very few media articles to reflect on the school's side of the fence.

New Zealand Herald editorial

Enviroschool Interview with Radio New Zealand

I enjoyed listening to Ned and Samantha being interviewed by Jim Rose on Chris Laidlaw's sunday morning radio show. The whole article is 45 minutes long but Ned and Samantha are first up. they did really well - sounded so articulate and confident. We have become a leading school through our Gold award. Overall it is also an interesting discussion about education and action learning.

Listen here

Cambridge review of UK primary education systems

This is the most comprehensive independent review done on the UK education systems in the last 40 years. It is very telling and worth a read as it suggests the government has gone down the wrong path - narrowing the curriculum and placing children's education at the whim of a testing regime. Sadly the UK Labour government has distanced itself from it preferring their own commissioned report which endorses what they are doing. The crux of the Cambridge review criticizes government control of classrooms and teaching via testing and standards and suggests that the curriculum is more narrow than in the Victorian era. Their recommendations are pretty much what is happening in New Zealand (before National suggested National Standards).

Summary -


Synopsis -

I'm back - Rory Sutherland

Hi all. I have been enjoying my study break and with 4 weeks to go before I head back to school I thought I'd get back into the blogging cycle again. I decided to quit for a bit and focus just on reading and researching. Anyway - just to get back on the bike I thought I'd post this excellent talk from Rory Sutherland. He is an advertising man and talks about real v perceived value/change. Although it is really about advertising it is transferable across a whole swag of concepts. There is a short segment about education around the 3 minute mark but worth watching for the whole 16 minutes as has a great ending and is pretty funny all the way through. From leadership view it is challenging about real change v perceived change - and challenges the notion of ... ‘if we say we’ve done it then we must have done it’.

I'm on study leave

I have been out of school for a week and I am slowly getting my head around being away for the next 32 weeks from Muritai School. After 8 years at the helm it feels weird not being there. I been removed from all distribution lists and am receiving no emails at all from school. It has given me a huge realization about how much time, effort and commitment we put into our schools.

This is a great opportunity for me and I have a heavy study workload as I aim to nearly finish my Masters of Administration and Leadership through Massey University. Just one week of being away already has given me some new ideas about how to tackle issues to do with learning and management at school. What I am particularly enjoying is the concept of being a learner again. We never stop learning but there are times I think that it is prudent to concentrate and be disciplined in the learning process. This year is my year.

The school is in good hands and you may like to sign up to Matt's blog as he keeps you in touch with the day to day life of Muritai School.

Secrets of Success

I love this brilliant 3 minute presentation from Richard St John at the TED website. He talks about how he identified the 8 secrets of success which he gleaned from 500 interviews /coffees with successful people over 7 years.

So much these days is said of a person's connection to their environment that they are engaged in. We looked very hard before school started at key elements we had to display as a staff to inspire our children to do their best. I think Richard St John sums it up superbly in his presentation.

The 8 secrets of success are - Passion, Work, Improve, Focus, Push, Serve, Ideas and Persist.

You can view the presentation here. Enjoy!

Wordle - The words of Muritai School.

I love using wordle. Here is a wordle image which displays all the key words in our Charter and Strategic Plan. Lots of these words were reinforced through our recent community survey and when we asked the children what was great about Muritai School. It covers a lot

Eastbourne Village Carnival

Once again the Muritai School Eastbourne Village Carnival was a huge success. Developed 7 years ago as part of our commitment to our community the carnival is principally a fundraiser for the school but the size of the event must also have huge spin offs for the community of Eastbourne. About 10,000 people came to our little village to see what was on offer and experienced various forms of entertainment from music, stalls, fun for the kids and wholesome food. An amazing group of parents put together a wonderful event and we raised around $60,000 for an upgrade of our school library. We managed to get 150 stalls into the surrounding streets which was a real achievement. Almost every school parent became involved in some way or another from donating gear, baking or making, running a stall or setting up or cleaning up. Our children were heavily involved as well with all our senior students contributing in some way or another. Thank you carnival team. You have done us proud.

Orchestra

We have, at Muritai, an increasingly competent school orchestra. Started early in the year by Kate Donnelly we were treated to a performance by them at a recent school assembly. They have really improved over the last half year and should be proud of their efforts. After Kate left to go to Cambodia, Oli Ryks, Ruth Hooke and Jenni Champion, all extremely competent musicians in their own right, have nurtured them through so they are playing well together. Our orchestra is very young and showing a lot of potential.

 It is difficult enough to learn to play an instrument but to learn to play with others and different instruments - that requires a lot of skill. Well done to them all, we appreciate their contribution.  Watch them grow over the next few years.

Blogging at Muritai

As you know all classes have blogs. A trip to feedjit indicated the Stu Devenport's blog in room 13 was the most visited blog in Wellington with Kim Cookson in third place. It is nice that people are visiting our class blogs as it opens our classrooms to the wider community without having to visit into class. Stu and his year 5 class have made an awesome video of how to make paper and Kim and her year 1 class have blogged the visit of her father, an electrician, in support of their inquiry unit on 'Flick that Switch'.

It is a very interesting development and by being part of the 'blogging community' we have huge access to some really neat things being done by teachers and classrooms around the world. You may like to visit this really neat site about logging the teaching of  maths in a  virtual way.

Armistice Day - 11.11.08

We were pleased to be able to be part of the Armistice Day celebrations at the Eastbourne War Memorial last week. The Eastbourne RSA invited the senior students to be part of the procedings and we chimed in with haka and waiata to show our appreciation of the contribution our armed services have made to our countries history. Feedback from the RSA has been hugely positive and it is nice to be able to continually play our part in our community celebrations.

You can see the performance by watching the movie below.

Life Education

This week we have hosted the Life Education Trust's mobile classroom so our year 7-8 children could partake in the From the Shadows programme about drug education. This is another part of our lives today that 'would never have happened in my day".

Life Education has a mission statement to help give the young people of NZ, through positive health-based education, their knowledge and skills to raise their awareness, to live a fulfilling and healthy life.

As children grow they face a number of negative influences that over time can have a negative effect on changing their desires and leading to problems associated with poor health, low self-esteem and abuse of people and substances. Life Education is a non-profit organisation that works in schools and is linked to the school curriculum. They teach children about the wonder of life, themselves, and other people, with the aim of showing them how to reach their full potential. The Life Education philosophy focuses on creating sensitivity to values which lead to an understanding and appreciation of human life. This enables the child to make decisions about any negative influences that might impede the development of their fullest potential.

I spent some time in the 'classroom' and was  very impressed with teacher Jo Manks, the delivery of the programme and the children's engagement in such a controversial issue as drug education. The talk was hard-hitting, relevant and educational.  Check out the Life Education website to see what a wonderful resource this is. . There are some great resources at their parents link here.

World Teacher Day

Today in New Zealand we are celebrating World Teacher Day. Teaching is a profession that is immensely rewarding and working with the children is an absolute privilege. The rise of the world wide web has enable education to much more global in nature and we have abetter understanding of the key issues our colleagues are confronted with in their own communities.

The teaching profession across the world faces the challenge of providing a quality education to meet the new demands of the 21st century. Economic, social, scientific and technological needs, the issues of sustainable development, poverty reduction and related questions of decent work for all, the AIDS epidemic and school violence are increasingly impacting on the profession.

In addition to this, not just in new Zealand but in many countries, there is a severe shortage of teachers, with an estimated 2 million 18 million additional teachers needed worldwide if universal primary education is to be achieved by 2015. A staggering figure!

The reason why we went into teaching is to try to light the flame of learning in each child that comes through the door and to nurture relationships to enable the kids to be the best that they can be. Faced with such high expectations, teachers often feel undervalued, insufficiently supported and ill equipped professionally to cope with the realities of the environments in which they work.

On World Teachers’ Day we celebrate teachers across the world, in all countries, towns and villages. The role of teachers in achieving quality education for all and on this World Teachers’ Day we thank the teachers, at Muritai and across the world, and affirm that yes, TEACHERS MATTER.

If you haven't thanked your class teacher lately you will be surprised how much that endorsement can do to help them do the job they do so well.

Interesting stuff

I follow the class blogs quite closely and always enjoy the presentations that the teachers and children make to share the things that they are doing at school. Kirsten Berry and Room 22 has been doing some great stuff lately and by visiting their class blog you can see the extension that the children have involved in as they enter the last term of the year. I found the Dangle experience a stunning piece of work and their logging of their new Innovation unit really exciting. Clearly the kids are engaged, finding things enjoyable and being the best that they can be. Barbara has been recording our new entrants first days at school in slideshows. This is a nice record for all the families can enjoy. Starting school can be a daunting experience for a 5 year old but when you see them in the blogs then you can see the kids are pretty happy to be at Muritai.

The Eastbourne Carnival

Just to prove that the school never sleeps we have been working hard to put the Eastbourne Carnival together to raise money for the school. We are looking to refresh and expand the library and so will need lots of money to develop this and bring it into the 21st century. The carnival is our biannual fundraiser and it allows us to meet one of our school objectives - to play a leading part in our wider community. It is looking as though it will be a fantastic day and usually 10,000-15,000 flood into our little community to enjoy what we have to offer. A huge thank you to the dedicated group of parents who undertake this massive organizational challenge. It will be a great day. Check out the carnival website that Arini has put together with all the information you need to know.

The End is Nigh!

Tomorrow is the last day of term. Sad in some ways as it has been fantastic but we are all very tired and could all do with some family time. The Lorax last week was a huge success and I was so impressed with the confidence and the capability of the children. It is well documented that the year 8 children were my new entrant group when I started and they really raised the bar when performing in the show. It is so nice to see them progress from 5 to 13 - it is a real journey for them. I was so impressed with our lead actors that carried the show. Georgie and Finn as the Lorax and Michaela and Kate as the Oncelor were just superb. We haven't had that level of dialogue in a show for a long time. Overall everyone pitched in and played their part and that is what helped it to be such a great show. Thank you all for your continued support.

Amazing website

In an email chat staff were having around a website called Free Rice that involves children playing learning games to donate rice on correct answers to countries that are experiencing famine, Stephen introduced this stunning, factual website called Breathing Earth on population growth and CO2 emissions. Check it out and be amazed, educated and challenged all at once.

Thinking workshop

On Saturday Muritai hosted Michael Pohl, an international expert on using thinking skills in the classroom. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day based around three main sessions - a school-wide culture of thinking, using thinking skills in the classroom and developing students interaction with thinking skills. Michael really stretched us throughout the day and really challenged us to think about how we were constructing learning tasks for the children. Thinking is one of the five key competencies in the new curriculum so this was timely PD for us as we look to strengthen our knowledge of embedding the KC into our learning framework. One key thing shared through the day was how influential thinking skills will become as our children head to the future and our five years olds hit the workforce in thirteen years time. Their workplace won't be likeit is today and certainly like it was in 1990 so we have to keep refining what we do. You may like to read this excellent 2008 article entitled All Our Students Thinking, by Nel Noddings, Professor of Education at Stanford University.

Solar Power at Muritai

We always have new things on the go at Muritai. One of the latest things is the prospect of linking up with Genesis energy and their SchoolGen programme. Schoolgen is a programme developed by Genesis Energy to bring solar energy to life for children and schools across New Zealand. When our year 5 and 8 children looked at renewable resources as part of their inquiry, solar and wind power was investigated very closely by the children as potential dominant forces when oil is no longer available. Working with Matt Skilton and Stephen Eames we have got ourselves involved in the process to bring solar power to Muritai. Today we were visited by a team from Genesis Energy and Lulu, Georgie and Ned gave our visitors a very thorough tour of our school with a specific focus on the Enviroschool programme which is such a dominant part of our daily life. This is the big world in action. Well done team and fingers crossed for sustainable energy at Muritai School.

Artsplash Choir Festival

Each year our choir performs at the Artsplash festival at the Michael Fowler Centre. Most schools do this and the show is performed using a variety of different choirs over a number of evenings. It is always an excellent show. What I love about this opportunity is how inclusive the event is. Any one of our children over year 4 can be involved and then they have to work hard to know the words and of course sing in tune. It is a great example of what life is all about. Choose something you are interested in and do your best, not just for yourself but for others and for team mates as well. Our performing arts teacher Ruth Hooke has been tutoring our choir for many years now and this years team were very good indeed. Well done all - a great show.

International Literacy Day

Today was International Literacy Day around the world. We celebrated with a dress up day where staff and children came as their favourite book character. This afternoon at 1.30 we jumbled teaching and support staff and children around and had shared reading sessions with staff reading their favourite books to the children. Every day this week staff are reading to the children in the library at lunchtimes. What a neat event to promote literacy to the children of Muritai.

Professional feedback from I Can We can ICT cluster

Recent visitors to the school from the Horowhenua were most impressed with what was on display. Their cluster keeps a blog record of their development in Inquiry. You may like to view some of their thoughts on what they saw at Muritai.
Oroua Downs
Koputaroa
Opiki
Levin North

Thanks guys. We loved hosting you here.

Professional Development

We do many forms of Professional Development at Muritai. As a school we have main focus which we collectively work on. Teams have learning talk each week in team meetings where they problem solve a learning or teaching aspect putting their collective minds together to identify best practice to improve learning outcomes. Staff attend various workshops based on their identified development goals. In September Michael Pohl is working with us on enhancing our thinking culture and developing questioning skills in teachers and children. Often the best development though is to watch each other teach. Matt has blogged about the recent VCOP presentation that Belinda did for many of the staff. VCOP is a structural support mechanism to improve writing knowledge to help develop children's writing i the middle school. It is making a great difference this year. Great stuff. Check it out on Matt's blog.

Visiting schools

Often at Muritai we have visiting schools. They are specifically interested in our learning ecology and in particular our inquiry learning and ICT programmes. Last week we welcomed 39 teachers from the Horowhenua district who spent the whole day at school. I spoke on the work we had done to develop our learning ecology and then three groups of children fielded questions on their learning programmes - year 2 on their Inquiry on Friendly Footprints, year 6 on Energy and year 8 on their experience of 8 years of learning at Muritai. Hearing the children talk endorsed what we are trying to do and they were able to share their learning experiences which pretty much replicated our ecology intent.

One of the cools things that came with the visit was the powhiri where we welcomed our visitors onto Muritai School with waiata, haka, korero, mihi and hongi. A neat experience for all concerned. Rahania has documented it in his blog and you can view the powhiri here.

Wednesday's in the classroom

During the holidays I attended the New Zealand Principal's conference. Keynote speaker Malachai Pancost urged us to set aside a day a week to work with the children and the teachers during the process of learning. This term I have been out and about on Wednesdays. Today I enjoyed my time in the junior school. A neat thing that I saw was buddy classes - room 4 and room 11, split in half and were doing some buddy maths together. This was because of Maths week and gave an an excellent opportunity for the older children to explain the maths and for the younger children to understand the maths. Check out Karen's and Hayley's blogs to get closer to the action on these splits. I was also involved in working with groups, creating paper planes, conferencing writing, listening to reading and developing questions with children. I had a great time and felt really useful. I'm really impressed with the teaching and learning going on in the classrooms. Very proud to be Principal of this school.

Progressive Education in the 1940's

Here is something different. For those that shake your heads at the education of today might like to have a look at this movie from the 1940's which is where it all came from. Controversial - not anymore; appropriate - yes. To think 27 years later this group of children put a man on the moon! Education must change with the times.

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Ministry flyer on Bullying for children

Children from year 3-8 have been all issued with a neat little flyer from the Ministry of Education called Step Up, Be Safe. This booklet which folds down into a pocket size, is an excellent resource that defines behaviours on promoting an awareness on bullying,friendships, types of bullying and some strategies to help children dealing with situations of bullying. You can access the booklet here.

Bullying has always been around in society and is very unsavoury and causes much distress. The power struggle usually centres around dominance for social gain. The key often is the group being totally intolerant of this behaviour and supporting the right behaviour. We aim to stamp all bullying out because it is totally unacceptable at our school and prohibits children's rights to be happy. As the booklet suggests - we have to all work together to beat the bullies, stick up for children, inform adults so that bullies can change their behaviour.