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

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

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