The ERO Report ‘Reading and Writing in Years 1 and 2′ says in the section ‘What was working well in schools’ that “Teachers recognised the need for, and actively encouraged, learning partnerships with children and parents. They made learning explicit to both children and parents by discussing learning goals and expected outcomes and the criteria by which children could achieve success. Teachers made good use of modelling books, children’s portfolios and daily notebooks.
Parents were invited to the school to discuss and set goals based on information collected from school entry tests, the six-year net and other assessments. As part of formal reporting, parents and families were given accurate information about their child’s reading levels. This was often accompanied by an outline of what they needed to achieve next. Daily notebooks explained ideas parents could use to support their child and provided information to help them track progress. Parents were well informed about their child’s reading achievement and progress.”
No, parents want plunket charts.
Sounds like the schools are already doing a lot.
Yes I think they are.
Merry Christmas A Mother
Couldn’t agree more Kelvin. I commented recently about my grandson’s Year 1 report which really blew me away with it’s comprehensive assessment of his progress for the 7 months he has been at school this year. Anne Tolley urgently needs to revisit the situation she has created and at the very least get back to the drawing board – trialling the national standards for starters before more damage is done if she really believes they need to be introduced.
Anna Tolley is an idiot. I listened to her last night on TV3 and thought to my self that at some time in the past i must have fallen asleep and missed the “national standards actually teach children to read and right.
If that is the case, why do we need teachers. All we need to do is set standards and hey presto kids will learn.
To say i was staggered with her lame answer is an understatement.
Her idiot answer to help the 30% is to change the standards for 100% of students. No, leave the standards as they are and put all the effort into the 30% who she says are failing.
Idiots are in charge of the hen house.
Merry Christmas Kelvin, Jilly and John.
Silly stuff all right. As they said on the National Programme a few weeks ago we DO need National Standards for:
(a) Minister of Education
(b) Secretary of Education
(c) Ministry of Education and especially
(d) Education Review Office – the most political of the lot.
I’ll make that a wish for the New Year.
Seasons Greetings
Ede
Is it just me?
All I hear in the media is
A) National and parents want standards because apparently noone knows how well their children are doing.
B) Unions dont like them because they want to protect their own necks and cover up how they are failing the kids.
HOW COME I HAVE TO COME TO THIS SITE TO HEAR THAT PARENTS ARE GETTING FEEDBACK AND THAT SCHOOLS ACTUALLY DO MEASURE PERFORMANCE.
COME ON LABOUR (AND UNIONS) EXPLAIN CLEARLY TO PEOPLE
A) What happens when the current system works. And what protection/supervision do we have from ‘incompetant’ or burntout teachers.
B)How the proposed National standards interfere with a pupils progress, (I might not be in be in favor but neither do I think the sky will fall in).
C) What would labour do? Why didn’t they do it in 9 years? What would the professionals do? I have read it on this site, and don’t know why action wasn’t taken.
It is clear Super(marketer)Trolly has found an issue that touched a nerve and proposed a solution. Not enough of the general public know what is wrong with her solution or that there are other alternatives.
@Spud and everyone else. MERRY CHRISTMAS
The money should be split between the students that need extra help. Those that are falling behind and the gifted students that have their own unique set of needs.
@Jeremy
Maybe as this http://www.thestandard.org.nz/jackie-blue-committed-to-insert-region-here/ will help explain why the media is commenting as ‘this is what parents want’
Here is the letter written by the experts http://blog.labour.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Open_Letter_to_the_Minister_of_Education.pdf
And then she turns around and tells NZ that they are all behind her
http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2009/12/13/tolleys-false-claim-of-hattie-support/
In short she is distorting the truth. It’s also failed in countries that this has been tried in.
Kids that are struggling just give up.
Yes Mother,
The point was why do I have to come here to read this?
I do suspect that newspapers/TV have chopped back thier staff so much that they just print what comes in the fax and do not employ reporters to research subjects and inform debate.
So why are these blog/ other articles either not there or not as prominent as the propaganda?
I don’t know but it would make it easier to fight this.
I wonder that myself quite often.
@Jeremy
“HOW COME I HAVE TO COME TO THIS SITE TO HEAR THAT PARENTS ARE GETTING FEEDBACK AND THAT SCHOOLS ACTUALLY DO MEASURE PERFORMANCE.”
Because it’s not in the Minister’s best interests to tell the whole story.
“A) What happens when the current system works. And what protection/supervision do we have from ‘incompetant’ or burntout teachers.”
I agree – Incompetent or burned out teachers are an issue. Using the ERO report as a general guide, and it says 30% aren’t up to scratch, then we need to focus on that 30%, but leave the 70% doing fine to get on with the job. But the inompetence and burned out issues are conversations the sector needs to have the courage to have amongst itself.
“B)How the proposed National standards interfere with a pupils progress”
I don’t know if National Standards will interfere per se, I just don’t think they’ll make much of a difference. The $30m spent developing something that 70% of schools already have an do well was an exercise in stupidity. Anne Tolley would have been better gathering data on how many and which schools weren’t being successful and then pumping $30m into them to make them lift their standard.
“C) What would labour do? Why didn’t they do it in 9 years? What would the professionals do? I have read it on this site, and don’t know why action wasn’t taken.”
I can’t answer the ‘why didn’t (Labour) do it in 9 years’ question (I wasn’t around then), other than to say, why would they want to? The stats will show that whatever Labour was doing was actually making a difference. Goodness knows how many schools weren’t doing the job in 1999. For all we know it may have been 70% weren’t doing so well. In fact when an ERO report into schooling in the Far North came out in about 1996 it said that only 15% were doing an excellent job (I forget how many were good & how many were poor). So maybe Labour can claim whatever they did has made a big difference?
My personal belief is if there is a problem, you focus on the problem and don’t waste time and effort on those doing fine, just give them the freedom to weave their magic.
“It is clear Super(marketer)Trolly has found an issue that touched a nerve and proposed a solution. Not enough of the general public know what is wrong with her solution or that there are other alternatives.”
What is wrong with Tolley’s National Standards?- the simplest way I can explain it is this – if you put all the hundreds of possible strategies to raise achievement in a line from most effective to least effective, would ‘National Standards’ be in the top 50% of strategies? Maybe, maybe not. There is no research based evidence that National Standards do anything. So why don’t we just focus on the top 5-10% of strategies that research has proven to be effective and leave Tolley like guess work and propaganda out of it until there is some evidence that it works. Just one last point, there is almost nothing a teacher can do that makes kids dumber, therefore almost everything does make kids learn to some extent or another. So if Tolley claims National Standards will work, she is probably correct. We can rest assured though that National Standards will not be in the top 5-10% of the most effective strategies.
It seems as if a lot of us are opposed to standards and do have valid reasons. I guess what I’m trying to point out is that National seems to me to getting better press (marketing).
The biggest concern is that she sees no reason to consult as it was a policy campaigned on (I thought they had no policy except a change of face at the top). But it does not seem that they thought to consult any education professionals about the policy before writing it.
Why?
I if it comes back to the Nats distrust of unions, to the point that they let the unions write policy and then do the opposite.
Or do they consult with a professional, ask if they belong to a union and all of a sudden stop listening. Unfortunately in NZ that meant the only people there was no one left to listen to. What they seem to have missed is that it is the NZEI and Tea Coll researchers and Principals Fed and Trustees, (to a lesser extent) that have concerns.