Duncan Lennox is a primary school teacher and principal who retired after 40 years in primary and intermediate school education. He taught at Otara, Tamaki, and Dargaville Intermediate schools, at a school in a Papua New Guinea, and Flaxmere Primary School. Duncan started the Hastings Christian School which grew from 16 pupils to 140 pupils.
When I started school in1948, school reports were pretty simple. There were two columns; one for effort and one for achievement. Each had a five point scale. The curricula for Years 0 – 8 were contained in one folder with one booklet of about 40 A5 pages for each curriculum subject. Principals oversaw the grades that were given and every three years inspectors came around and checked out these and other aspects of the schools’ performance. Teachers, principals and inspectors were able to ensure the assessments were in line with some basic standardised tests. Later NZCER developed the Progress and Achievement Tests (PAT) which were set to the NZ situation. These improved people’s objectivity and accuracy in assessments. Parents were confident that the assessments gave an accurate idea of how each child was achieving for his/her age.
The National Curriculum documents introduced in 1994 were described by one of our top educational experts as monsters because of the thousands of Learning Objectives and Specific Learning Outcomes. Much of it was a politically and philosophically driven agenda of the Left. Reporting of pupils’ achievement for their age became confused in detail. “Edubabble” reports became complicated, wordy and confusing but did not answer the two things parents wanted to know: How is my child achieving for his/her age? Is he/she working hard and behaving? Parents and employers are convinced that in spite of the extra billions of dollars going into the system, many young people are coming out at the end less skilled than in the past.
Parents are not stupid. When school zoning was abolished pupils from poorly performing schools left in droves to go to schools with high standards. There are good examples of students fleeing from poorly performing schools to those with impressive results. Helen Clark’s government reintroduced zoning and made questionable appointments. Under that sort of influence Labour set a goal of having New Zealand rise to the educational level of the average of the OECD. Before all the nonsense started, we were with the top!
Children are not the property of government, to be moulded into political pawns of the Left. Children are the responsibility of parents. Parents must be given the power to know how their children are achieving and how their schools are performing and given the freedom to choose what they believe is the best school for their children.
National Standards are one means of helping parents know more accurately how their children and schools are doing. For good teachers it is reassuring to have an objective standard to know where they are going and how well they are doing. It is a win-win situation for pupils, parents and teachers.
But it’s only a start. Real progress will come when parents have access to reliable information about their childrens’ progress and the quality of schools. Then real choice for parents will exist.
I am posting below a media
I am posting below a media release I put out today in support of National Standards. ACT is very much in favour of parents knowing how their children are achieving. Accurate information on their childrens' performance and accurate information on how schools achieve is necessary for real choice to exist.
Associate Minister of Education Heather Roy today expressed her support for the Government’s new National Standards, an important policy that will provide parents with much-needed information about their children’s educational progress.
"The Government has responded to a request from parents asking for access to clear and plain-language reporting on their child’s progress. They access information formally when it is available and informally through networks," Mrs Roy said.
"Parents have a right to the same information that is available to schools. If parents are to be active participants in their child’s education, they need to have a clear idea of how their child is progressing and the quality of education their school is providing.
"Many schools already assess children well and pass this information on to parents. However, consistency of assessment throughout the country is crucial in determining where and when students are not performing well, then to do something about it. National Standards are needed to provide this benchmark information.
"Parents want information on their child’s progress and the National Standards provide the infrastructure to ensure this is available. The policy has drawn criticism and generated much controversy, but why should we be content with one in five young people in New Zealand currently leaving school without the literacy and numeracy skills they need to do well in life?
"Providing progress reports in plain language to parents allows them to make better-informed decisions about their child’s education; it makes schools accountable for their results and creates incentives to provide quality education.
"ACT aspires to excellence in education and the introduction of National Standards is an important step toward improving levels of achievement and success in all schools. All Parties should be striving to assist our children and young people to reach their full potential," Mrs Roy said.
In the news yesterday, a
In the news yesterday, a teacher speaking against the National Standards, argued that one of the problems is that when children arrive at school as new entrants, there is a wide variation in what they already know. Some have no educational skills whatsoever and others can hold a pencil, know the alphabet, write their names and know their numbers up to or beyond 10. It seems to me that since most children go to some kind of pre-school, there should be standards expected of them too. If children arrive at school with the above-mentioned skills, they will have a really good start to learning. I taught New Entrant classes for many years and used to supply parents with material to help with those things. The ones who arrived with those skills made incredible progress. They were focused, and eager to fly. How hard would it be to get pre-schools to aim at having their pupils achieve those standards before the children go on to primary school. My grandchild attended a pre-school in Singapore where they did that. She has done very well. There is no doubt that pupils come out at the end of the Singaporean system much further ahead of their New Zealand counterparts.
Post new comment