issue date - nzei
TRANSCRIPT
1 | education aotearoa
educationvol 3, no 2 autumn 2012
become a better educator
issue date
Great Giveaways: art supplies, Games, books, dvds
rrP $5.95
Radical RefoRm what you need to know
Jemaine clement talks school
Home sweet Home is home-based ece safe?
cRisis? what crisis?
South Auckland’s success stories
Aotearoa
autumn 2012 | 3
ContributorS
Jane Blaikie edits education aotearoa. She has worked as a journalist, an editor at te Papa and a tutor at Whitireia Polytechnic.
dr david Stewart, Fellow of nZei and life member of nZPF, is a sometime principal, academic, centre director, author and researcher. He retains a close interest in te ariki Project.
Sarah Jones works at the web design company Boost new media. She was e-media manager for learning media.
Freelance journalist diana clement specialises in writing on personal finance and related topics.
amanda Hanan is a writer living on the Kapiti coast. She teaches drama.
ContentsUp fronteditorials 4letters 6news 8
Featureswhat crisis? 10South auckland success stories
Jemaine clement 16it’s good to be creative
Home sweet home? 18Home-based care
12 top facts 22on education reform
Getting to know you 29assessment at tipping point
Extratechnology 24the network for learning
the professionals 27Scholarships, conferences, and more
reviews 32John Hattie’s new book
Giveaways 34art supplies, books, dvds and more
For resources, blogs and more www.educationaotearoa.org.nzFor nZei HelP call 0800 693 443 • Follow ea on twitter: educationnZ
autumn 2012 | 3
Recycle and spread the word! once you’ve read ea, let others see it too:• leave it in a waiting room
(dentist or doctor)• Give it to your Board of trustees• leave it out at school
for parents to read• donate it to your local library
or information centre• add it to the pile of
magazines at the gym
18
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autumn 2012 | 54 | education aotearoa
tHe Government’s desire to further wrest education policy from the influence of professionals will likely see more law
changes. After all, what do you do when your critics become ever more frustrated with poor decisions, and ever more vocal. Quite simply, you gag them.
Expect to see moves on principals – one scenario is that they will no longer be employed by boards of trustees, instead being taken into the state sector. The government appeared to go on a fishing trip with this earlier in the year, when documents were leaked to journalists, suggesting principals would be employed by the State Services Commission.
There, principals could be employed on fixed term contracts, bound by the State Sector Code of Conduct, and therefore unable to comment on government policy, regardless of what damage it was doing to students and their learning.
This would effectively break down the Tomorrow’s School model, which appears under threat. It is imperative that we make all boards of trustees aware of the likely implications of these moves, and that boards act to defend themselves and their schools and centres.
A board’s role as employer of the principal of a school is what gives it control over the operations of its school. Without this role, boards will effectively become glorified PTAs.
GrowinG up I was extremely lucky to belong to a family that included Dr Clarence Beeby. Needless to say his influence on my choice of career was marked. From a young age, I was aware
that what was happening in our local schools was extraordinary and special – and that children living in other countries weren’t so lucky.
Looking back, I see now those were halcyon days for education – our world had suffered terrible shocks, depression and war, and leaders were prepared to break out of old paradigms. They put their differences to one side, and they worked together for the good of all in society.
A strong and productive consensus developed between the government of the day, the Ministry of Education led by Dr Beeby, and NZEI - about how to create the best possible education system.
And we did – to this day, we are still admired around the world for our child-centred learning, and the achievements we generate in a bi-cultural and multi-cultural society.
At the end of March I attended an OECD-EI conference of countries with high-performing education systems, which thankfully the New Zealand Minister of Education this time did attend. The conference once again emphasised the importance of governments working in parallel with education professionals and their unions on education reform (see story p22).
Paul Goulternational Secretary nZei te riu roa
4 | education aotearoa
editoRials
ian leckienational President te manukura
Managing editor Stephanie millsEditor Jane BlaikieDesign and production nZei Cover photograph St Joseph’s School, otahuhu, by annie mcdougall
all rights reserved. address: 12th Floor, education House, West Building, 178 Willis St, Wellington 6140
Website: www.educationaotearoa.org.nz
For nZei HelP call 0800 693 443
to advertise: call maree Selak, 09 571 9494, www.hawkhurst.co.nz or email [email protected]
to subscribe, email: [email protected]
to contribute, email: [email protected]: the views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of nZei te riu roa or its members. education aotearoa is new Zealand’s foremost publication dedicated to celebrating and informing educators working in early childhood and primary education.
iSSn 1176-5062 (Print)
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autumn 2012 | 76 | education aotearoa
our winning letter writer receives a $100 book voucher—send your letter to [email protected]
inteRact
expertise in intercultural communicative language teaching
support for schools to establish and develop language programmes
information about teaching materials, resources and networking opportunities
advice and guidance on immersion experiences, scholarships and language assistants
Wang Yu Glenda Palmer Bernd Schliephake Tomoko Semba Pablo Mateu García
Chinese National Adviser French National Adviser German National Adviser Japanese National Adviser Spanish National Adviser
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National Advisers for Learning Languages
Letters to the editorHattie’s partyOne of the most amusing aspects of current education “reform” is the huge inconsistency in how the John Hattie “evidence” is used. According to Treasury, class-size effect is small enough to act against, that is, we take our chances and increase class sizes. By contrast, we start a major new initiative on charter schools, when their effect size is apparently exactly the same size! Furthermore, Hattie suggests that if you exclude the lesser quality research on charter schools, then their effect size falls to zero!
This resonates with research from the UK’s CfBT Education Trust that looked at how the development of education policy has changed over the past 30 years (at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz). Dealing with ideologically-driven policy development on the hoof is our real challenge.
Bill Courtney, Wellington
sacred cowWould anyone else like to kick the ”sacred cow” of New Zealand children starting school on their fifth birthdays into cyberspace, never to be seen again?
I watched my first son head off to school on his fifth birthday with a mixture of pride and trepidation. Then we endured seven months of hearing him cry himself to sleep every Sunday night because he didn’t want to go to school the next day. With the wisdom of hindsight I would have started him later - we had just moved to the district and he had settled well at kindergarten. But no-one suggested it because the idea of children starting school the moment they turn five seems to be enshrined in our national heritage. As a new entrant teacher I now know many children, especially boys, are not ready to start school on their fifth birthday.
Later I watched my daughter struggle to keep going to the kindergarten she had loved, because all her friends had left to start school. I now watch other children struggle with starting school, for exactly the opposite reason. I also struggle with the enormous amount of time I waste going over rules and routines with each new child and their parents. Children who start towards the end of term have missed all the basics of my teaching programme. Other children have to sit patiently on the mat as we go over the same old things.
As far as I am aware, New Zealand is the only country crazy enough to have almost 200 possible start dates for new entrants. Most countries have one or two. Changing our system to four intakes a year, one at the beginning of each new term, would make life easier for everyone.
Barbara Jones, Otorohanga
profound impactI have been lucky enough to be part of an infant-and-toddler education PD group looking at children’s neurological development, and how this impacts on their mental health; the way the child’s brain processes information; and the importance of quality relationships. We have also examined how the parent’s/caregiver’s own mental health affects the child.
The one thing that has affected me from this research is how we as teachers have
a profound impact on not just the child, but also their parents, our fellow teachers and the wider community around us.
During the second year of study, we were lucky enough to study under Professor Dr Stuart Shanker, a Canadian research professor of philosophy and psychology.
We unpacked how a child learns to co-regulate, develop empathy and self regulate. As teachers, we developed an understanding of meeting the special needs of the individual
child along with development of our own values and beliefs, and how this impacts on our teaching and so much more. All of this has positively affected my practice of assisting our communities’ children, families and the teachers I work alongside.
Marie MooreOxford, Canterbury
(Read Marie’s article on empathy at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz)
this issue’s winning letter
tarnishedThe EA summer 2012 issue reported on a survey of top websites used by teachers. Sparklebox is one mentioned. I wonder if Sarah Jones is familiar with the controversy surrounding Sparklebox in the UK? The owner has been convicted of offences against children. I was an avid user of Sparklebox for many years, but I have made the decision to boycott it in light of the situation. I now use the Twinkl site instead. Helpkidzlearn.co.uk is also excellent and free!
Julie Fitzgerald, Wanaka
CARTOON – HAVE PERMISSION MUST HAVE CREDIT ...” appears courtesy of Rod Emmerson and the New Zealand Herald” .
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news-cartoons/news/article.cfm?c_id=500814&objectid=10782815
the poll results*national standards and privacySchools’ annual reports to the ministry can be obtained by the media. nZei asked principals:Have you identified any issues or concerns about the identification of individual students at your school in preparing your reporting of national standards achievement data to the ministry, or in reporting data to ero?
* From a survey of 106 principals.
no 23.6%
yes 63.2%
not as yet 13.2%
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news news
national standards researchNational Standards may compromise the existing high quality processes in schools, according to the initial report of the RAINS project (Research, Analysis and Insight into National Standards), conducted at Waikato University. Read a summary at http://tiny.cc/jq8qbw, or the full report at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz. NZEI is commissioning this research as the government has chosen not to investigate the impact of the standards on schools. NZEI’s research looks at the culture shift generated by standards, as educators feel increasingly under pressure to comply.
High-stakesIn Australia, research commissioned by the Whitlam Institute raises “deep concerns” about the effects of high-stakes testing on students, particularly in how it promotes “low-level thinking” that is “outcomes based”, and suits the needs of reporting processes rather than the needs of children (http://tiny.cc/37ssbw).
performance payInfluential US author Daniel Pink says two studies on performance pay for teachers (one each from Harvard University and Vanderbilt University’s National Center on Performance Incentives) confirm the findings of 50 years’ research in the behavioural sciences: “Contingent pay schemes – if you do this, then you get that – are effective for simple, routine work, but not very effective at all for complex, creative, conceptual work.” Both the big studies on teachers found performance pay did not improve student achievement. According to Harvard’s Roland Fryer, “If anything it may decrease student achievement, especially in larger schools.” Nevertheless, Education Minister Hekia Parata has said she will establish some sort of performance pay model for New Zealand teachers.
nZ a top performerA new OECD report, Does Money Buy Strong Performance in PISA, looks at the relationship between expenditure and results in PISA, across dozens of countries. It singles out New Zealand as a top performer, spending less than average per student but achieving more – and warns that government policies could be counter-productive to this success.
some good newsThe Minister of Education announced the make-up for two new ECE working groups. Members who do actually represent the professional voice of the sector have been included in the groups, as well as respected academics. The groups follow on from last year’s taskforce, and include Karla Tardieu, Clare Wells, Nancy Bell, Janis Carroll-Lind, Karen Sheilds and Carmen Dalli.
autumn 2012 | 9
How we got to charter schoolsThe influence of the business lobby, particularly the Business Roundtable and ACT, in pushing New Zealand into the hands of the charter school movement is shown in a timeline of developments put together by NZEI’s Stephanie Mills. Read it at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz. Read about Rupert Murdoch’s influence in the UK at http://tiny.cc/7m8qbw.
ministry shake-upThe new Secretary for Education, Lesley Longstone, met with NZEI for the first time at a meeting in late February. Lesley outlined the new governance structure at the ministry, comprising corporate management boards and portfolio boards. There are resulting changes to staffing. The Education Minister’s sister, Apryll Parata, is now responsible for performance and change, and will work closely with Lesley. In a subsequent meeting Lesley outlined her background as a statistician, and indicated
that she was in favour of charter schools. She said that the ministry needed to focus on getting the data right, and she preferred league tables based on individual student progression. A New Zealand Herald article reported that Lesley is being paid $660,000 a year, and may have received another $50,000 for relocation.
us warning on charter schoolWhen Cyclone Katrina ripped through New Orleans, it also took out the public school system, which has been largely replaced by charter schools. A local education professor warns that this has been bad news, especially for special needs students. He also notes that around 9% of US charter schools nationally have been closed because they haven’t met their charter targets, and many more are in the “failing” category. If the same figure had applied to NZ public schools, that’d be around 200 schools closed. Stephanie Mills spoke to Rob Garda, read the conversation at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz
class size matters Research shows that class size does matter; and that it matters most for socio-economically disadvantaged learners, the very group the Government says it is most concerned about, says Massey University Professor of Education John O’Neill (see http://tiny.cc/o28qbw). His comments follow Treasury advice that class sizes could be lifted and schools amalgamated, in a sort of asset-stripping exercise to improve efficiency – without affecting student outcomes. Despite a public outcry at the advice, Treasury continued to push the line
on increased class sizes – raising fears the government was testing the waters on budget cuts to school funding.
kiwis trust schools and teachersNew Zealanders are confident in their primary schools, according to the latest UMR research. Primary schools took third spot, behind the Fire Service and Police, in a poll of confidence in public institutions, up 5% to 64%. Teachers themselves polled third for respect, behind nurses and doctors, while politicians were 12th and investment bankers 14th.
support staff day, wed 13 Junecelebrate the day by reaching out to the community – invite an mp to school so they can hear about supporting success! nZEi’s support staff leaders have relaunched the campaign for fair pay, and for better recognition and resourcing of support staff. the campaign, Supporting Success, highlights the vital role support staff play in schools and centres. A new e-zine will be emailed to support staff at the beginning of each term. it contains resources, ideas for network meetings, and links to social networking sites. there’ll also be ideas for Area Council campaign planning. Go to www.supportingsuccess.org.nz to find out what’s hot. if you don’t have a personal email address, it’s as easy to get one as going to www.gmail.com. And make sure nZEi has your address: email [email protected].
CElEbrAtinG AilSAnothing like a surprise morning tea to celebrate something special – nZEi’s Ailsa Coutts passed the magic milestone of 50 years at the one workplace! Ailsa has worked in many roles, sharing nZEi’s vision of advocating for educators and children’s learning. it was with sadness that colleagues later heard Ailsa had decided to retire.
they don’t fit in boxes, says teacher irene Whittaker from Manchester Street School in Feilding. the photo was taken at the end of last year because when school photos were taken there were only six children. “Even with national Standards – can’t get them to fit the same way!”
national Standards should not be used to judge a school or teachers’ performance, says Professor Margaret Wu from Victoria university, Melbourne. Margaret spent a week in new Zealand, as the guest of nZEi, speaking to hundreds of educators. She said that student testing data was being used in many countries, in the name of transparency and accountability. However, she said such data was inconsistent and unreliable. it also led to a narrowing of the curriculum, and schools trying to exclude lower-performing students. Hear highlights from her new Zealand presentation by googling “Margaret Wu Youtube” or read her paper at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz. Her background is in educational measurement and statistics. She’s pictured above with Dunedin principal brent Caldwell and nZEi’s Sandie Aikin.
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autumn 2012 | 11autumn 2012 | 11
soutH auckland’s success stoRies
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the crisis in South auckland’s schools, silly! those failing schools, the incompetent teachers! listen up, it’s the sound of galloping cavalry – here come the charter schools!
“unbelieveable!” says principal Shirley Maihi, with good reason. She recently hosted the Australian Governor General
who came to see the innovations at her decile 1 school in Manurewa.
“It’s the grossest insult!” says Peter O’Connor, Associate Professor of Education at Auckland University. “Schools in South Auckland are the success story, teachers the unsung heroes – schools hold those communities together.”
Try telling that to a government with a mind on radical reform. It plans to introduce charter schools (public money going to private providers) in South Auckland and Christchurch – because of the crisis. Crisis? What crisis?
When EA went looking for South Auckland’s success stories, we found so many, we can showcase only a few of these amazing educators and their inspiring students.
the evidence from overseas is not convincingst JosepH’s scHool, otaHuHu: Principal Liz Horgan is a little wary of new programmes for schools that come in a blaze of publicity as a silver bullet for school problems. “The things that make for a successful school are committed teachers, supportive parents and kids willing to work and learn. Combine these with quality, sustained teaching and learning programmes and you have a sure-fire recipe for success. It’s not rocket science,” she says. “A huge component of success is just hard graft by everyone involved.” That’s
not to say the school lacks innovation. It was an early adopter of Reading Together, which teaches parents how to read with their children, and that programme is now being rolled out nationwide to all decile 1–3 schools. Liz is also wary about moves to compare similar low decile schools. “There are many complexities and factors that can aid or hinder ‘success’ and comparisons are not particularly helpful.” The school has very close links with its Catholic community, and unlike many schools in South Auckland, has virtually no transience, so while children might start behind they will catch up by Year 6. “I take my hat off to the vast majority of our families. They might have limited material resources at home – work long hours, with low wages and high rents – but they’re resilient and they do succeed despite some pretty significant odds.” A former student recently won a $35,000 university scholarship, and many others with successful careers come back to inspire the current students. “Charter schools are not needed in South Auckland,” says Liz. “The evidence from overseas experiences with charter schools is not convincing, and it is insulting to premise the need for them in South Auckland on perceived failure.”
it’s not brokensoutHern cross pre-scHool: Set in park-like grounds alongside a primary and high school, the centre is currently fully booked with a long waiting list. Head teacher Florrin Keni is quick to credit her team of highly qualified and stable educators. Teachers have been here for 25, 25, 35 and 15 years.
She can’t understand why “the government’s trying to fix something that’s not broken. We have the best system, yet they’re going to try strategies that haven’t worked elsewhere. Why should we have them here?”
we see huge gainsdawson primary scHool, otara: The day we arrive is exceptionally busy – there’s a scientist visiting, students are cooking produce from the garden in the hall, the ASB’s Get Wise finance programme is happening, students are being assessed or working on literacy and numeracy,
and a Fundamental Sports session is on the go. Children in the garden (where their interest has broadened into maths and an investigation into soil structure and how plants grow) are digging in 100 donated plants. A boys-only class is going to make an “earth ship”, made out of mud, to house a beehive. Principal Angela Funaki is an incredible networker – she cites a relationship with the Todd Foundation as being of huge benefit to the children. She’ll also hunt for funding to take students to the ballet and the opera, believing passionately that these children deserve the same rich experiences as children in wealthier
10 | education aotearoa
Crisis? What crisis?
We have the best system, yet the government’s going to try strategies that haven’t worked elsewhere. Why should we have them here?
4liz Horgan
visitors have come from around the world to admire the innovative programmes at Finlayson Park School.
autumn 2012 | 1312 | education aotearoa
soutH auckland’s success stoRies
suburbs. She’s backed by research showing that children learn off the back of experience, and this can hold back children from disadvantaged situations. “It’s just so disappointing to be in the news as low achievers, when we work very hard here and we see huge gains.” Students might start school with the skills of a three-year-old, but they will catch up over time – if they stay at school. The transience rate is 45%: “Many of our children live with 15 or 16 people in a house, or they simply move from relation to relation.”
the importance of pre-schoolst peter cHanel pre-scHool: Language is a big deal here. The centre’s bilingual, Samoan-English, but other languages spoken with children include Māori, Iraqi, Fijian, Tongan and Indian languages. Qualified teachers learn the basics in a number of languages so they can communicate with children who may arrive with little or no English. “It’s very important for children to attend pre-school,
especially if English is a second language,” says team leader Suhad Hamama, who also credits a very supportive management structure for the centre’s success. The centre tries to keep its fees down, although it was hit by a big funding cut. “You hear that children who go to centres with higher fees, the for-profit centres, are not going so much now, because of cost, but it’s so important.”
our children need the bestfinalyson park scHool, manurewa: Shirley Maihi’s school is bursting with energy. “Every year we seem to add something new – although getting the funding can be hard work.” The school offers high quality ESOL and bilingual education, and acts as a hub for many services so parents can better look after their children and support their education. Whether it’s a health nurse, a counsellor, a budgeter, a chaplain, driving lessons, “All enhance the skills of our parents.” Another programme (HIPPY - Home
Involvement Programmes for Parents and Youngsters) works with up to 70 families of pre-school children in their own homes. “It makes a huge difference to those children – they achieve much more highly than our other children. We start when they’re three-and-a-half to four, and it really stands them in good stead for later in school.” Shirley’s work is widely recognised (she has a QSM). In the week before EA visited she’d hosted Education Minister Hekia Parata, and then a group including the Australian Governor General and the head of the Ministry of Social Development. But she’s no soft touch. “It makes me really cross for a minister of the government [John Banks] to stand up and say South Auckland schools will be first for trialling charter schools when he hasn’t even ventured into South Auckland. I’ve been here 40 years and I haven’t seen him. How can he possibly say South Auckland needs to be first for untrialled stuff. Our children need the best and most experienced people in front of them. It’s just unbelievable – especially as the overseas research shows it’s a failed policy.” She’s similarly scathing of National Standards, saying it’s unrealistic for children in the school’s community to be achieving the standards in years 1-5, although they will by years 6-8. “We are not going to tell our parents their children are failing. We will show them the achievements, and the progress made – we will always do that.”
not one of these schools is failingpapatoetoe central scHool: Principal Marilyn Gwilliam works with a group of 11 low decile schools in Papatoetoe who are setting up a learning network so they can work even more closely together. The schools already cooperate on ventures such as a gifted-and-talented programme that sees students driven in mini-buses to work together on week-long intensives in areas such as maths and the arts. “Not one of these schools is failing, absolutely not! They are all led by experienced principals and very committed teachers – we have a huge involvement with our kids, and we’re very pro-active. If we see a student’s struggling we will act very quickly to fix the problem. We’ve all been using strong evidence-based practice for years – we use it to plan the next steps in a student’s learning. We haven’t needed National Standards
– they’re flawed, and schools are interpreting them differently; you can’t compare schools with them.” At Marilyn’s school, 170 students, out of a roll of 700, receive specialised ESOL teaching. Some 70% of all students go home to speak a language other than English. “One of the pleasures of working in South Auckland is the respect of the local community – for schools and the work of teachers. Some of the decile 10 schools aren’t like that. But here you feel valued and respected.”
i love these schoolsmanurewa intermediate: Before Iain Taylor decided to take on what was seen as a failing school, he’d taught in Ponsonby and Mt Albert, and had spent four years in Singapore establishing an international primary school. But it’s South Auckland that’s lit his fire. “I love these schools. The kids are real and energised. They’re prepared to give things a go – if you encourage them, they’ll get stuck in. It’s bloody tough as 4
angela Funaki
Shirley maihi
So why charter schools?associate professor of education Peter o’connor: “it’s about an ideological position that has the state abdicating its basic role. it’s saying schools are failing and we don’t know what to do to get it right, so we’ll hand them over to business – which is a strange notion [given the financial crash].”
Pupils at dawson School prepare food grown in the school’s garden.
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For more information contact0800 61 62 65 | [email protected] | www.education.auckland.ac.nz
Postgraduate information eveningYou are invited to attend this free evening presentation on postgraduate study and professional development options at the Faculty of Education.
Thursday 31 May 2012 | 5 - 7.30pmJ Block, Epsom Campus, Gate 3, 74 Epsom Avenue, Epsom
Presentations:• Education: 5-6pm, J1• Social Work, Counselling and Human Services: 5.15-6.15pm, J2
Followed by information stalls from 6-7.30pm
Register your attendance online at www.education.auckland.ac.nz/postgradweek
autumn 2012 | 1514 | education aotearoa
well, demanding, but you get so much more out of it.” He says the families are no different to high decile families, in that they want their children to do well – they just might not have the means to help them. Iain has put in huge hours at the school over the last three years, bringing in a new leadership team, new behaviour standards (the school previously had guards on the gates), and working with the community to create a vision for the school. In his first year, many teachers left, some of them willingly. “People say you can’t move teachers on but you absolutely can, you just have to follow the process – because NZEI will be there!” The school has strong academic programmes for students, as well as being part of “fruit in schools”, running a breakfast club and working with KidsCan to get shoes and raincoats for children. He has high expectations of teachers that they’ll be well organised and motivated. But he challenges the Minister of Education to define achievement. “When you’re sleeping on the floor
or in a garage and your parent’s in jail, and you get up and put on a uniform, and get to school on time and you’re productively engaged – that’s success.” He says National Standards “won’t do a jot” for his students, and he expects the school will be at the bottom of any league table. “There’s a bell curve, and the majority of kids on the left-hand side will be from this community – that’s the reality of crime and neglect and impoverished communities.” It’s a reality Iain is prepared to counter at school: “These children deserve the best possible environment.”
i need more resources and expertisemanurewa east scHool: Phil Palfrey’s school is the new hub for RTLB teachers in the area, it has a new unit for students with special needs, and two new bilingual units. Today, Phil is keen to talk about the new toilet blocks. He completed an MA on aspects of bullying, particularly looking at
how the physical environment of a school can deter it. The new toilets are open-plan (up to a point!) The stalls are closed but the door to the block hangs open and the walls have large windows so that a teacher can glance in at the wash-bowl area – a prime spot for fighting. His enthusiasm for this latest development is also matched by enthusiasm for his new Student Achievement Facilitator, some of whom have come in for flack as single-minded National Standards enforcers. Phil says some are better than others, and his one is great. “I’m getting real targeted PD about what I need – all for free. It’s like having a personal coach.” His school has a reputation for innovation, such as a lunch-time sports programme developed at the school. But now Phil’s keen to look more closely at numeracy and literacy – “I need more resources and expertise.” He’d also like to take his students on camp, so they have broader experiences to work off, and he’d like a mini-bus to collect kids whose families have moved, or have too far to walk on wet days. You get the sense his enthusiasms have a long way to run. n
- Jane Blaikie
iain taylor
the myth of the 1-in-5 failing students gets a lot of traction, in part because it’s a neat fit with the old chestnut, “lies damned lies and statistics.”
the myth conflates school drop-out rates with failure, and implies that students are dropping out because they’re failing academically. national Standards that have been set at “aspirational” levels also imply failure when the reality is quite different.
Emeritus Professor terry Crooks, who specialised in student assessment at otago university, analysed the 2010 nCEA level 2 results for EA. He concludes that only about 7% of students leave primary school ill-prepared for high school and nCEA level 2.
Where new Zealand does have a problem is with high drop-out rates of otherwise competent students. that is, while they’re on track to pass nCEA level 2, even if they have to stay to year
13, they’re simply not at school long enough to get qualifications.
South Auckland educators report over and again that transience (frequent school moves) puts many children at risk, and they associate it with multiple disadvantages.
As well, being forced to tell children who don’t meet national Standards that they are failing – may create the very thing the standards are meant to avoid. research quoted in the times Educational Supplement suggests that for 80% of children, to tell them they’re failing is fine – it may even help them work a bit harder. but telling the other 20% of children, the ones trapped in poverty for example, that they’re failing simply confirms what they believe about themselves – and they will just give up earlier.read Professor Crooks’ analysis at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz
1-in-5 are failing. Yeah right.
manurewa east School students play a game that teaches maths.
soutH auckland’s success stoRies
Phil Palfrey
How to teach Mandarin – as a learner yourself!Vimi Chandra is bilingual in Hindi and English – but it was Mandarin that she chose to learn herself and teach to her Year 1 students.
A primary school teacher for 12 years, she started teaching Chinese in 2011 to her class at Holy Cross Catholic School, Henderson. Chinese is very different to English, being a tonal and scripted language, and there are very few teachers of Chinese with experience of teaching to early learners.
But with the support and motivation of her principal and another colleague who teaches Mandarin, she thought she would “give it a go”. She also enrolled in Teacher Professional Development Languages (TPDL), a full-year MoE-funded programme.
Her students come from a variety of backgrounds, including Filipino, Samoan, Tongan, Maori and Indian. Although the children have
two formal lessons of Mandarin a week the language is spoken and used throughout the day for “formulaic” classroom language. The children are expected to respond appropriately in Mandarin.
As a result, students are speaking and using Mandarin to communicate with the teacher and each other for a high proportion of their language lessons. Although students are beginners and have basic proficiency, the language is spoken fluently and confidently with great pronunciation and enthusiasm.
Vimi was sceptical at first, of how to teach Chinese to learners that had not yet learnt how to read but as she gained more knowledge of language teaching theory and
Chinese language, she was able to experiment with different teaching methods and strategies.
The result has been incredible, says Raewyn Ho, one of the team of In School Support Facilitators for TDPL. Students show great enthusiasm to learn and because Vimi gives them a variety of opportunities to use the language meaningfully in simple activities they are eager to use Mandarin all the time, even out of class time.
Vimi says her new learning has been “a challenge – but really enjoyable with one of the biggest highlights being a one week trip to a Beijing university. I visited the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Birds Nest Silk Markets and enjoyed a meal at a Peking Duck restaurant.”
Vimi Chandra
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autumn 2012 | 1716 | education aotearoa
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Jemaine clement tells amanda Hanan how a nerdy maths-loving kid moved from the front of the class to the back row
Jemaine Clement is not just famous in New Zealand. First, the duo Flight of the Conchords struck a note with international
audiences, then Hollywood claimed him. The last few years have seen an Emmy
nomination, appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman, a guest spot on The Simpsons, and work voicing in animated films Despicable Me and Rio. If that isn’t enough, Jemaine spent the last year of his life chasing actor Will Smith around trying to kill him during the filming of Men in Black 3.
Lesser men may have let all the fame and fortune go to their heads, but Jemaine must not have received the stardom memo. He’s given Hollywood Hills a miss and is happily settled in Wellington’s Mt Victoria with his family.
The morning of the interview he’s running late because he took his son to kindy and then stayed on to read a few stories as Sophocles is not happy to be left yet. His wife’s family is from Greece and his son started preschool there. In Greece, parents were not allowed to stay with the children, and Jemaine much prefers the relaxed New Zealand kindergarten system.
little JemaineJemaine started his school days at Greytown Primary but soon moved to Masterton East, of which he has fond memories. He remembers his
first day of school and his mother giving him strict instructions: No matter what, he was not to lose his sandals!
Wouldn’t you know it, there was an activity that meant all the children had to take off their shoes. Little Jemaine was not too happy with this but did what the teacher said.
At the end of the lesson when he went to put on his sandals everyone had theirs on and one pair remained ... and they weren’t his. Sigh. Note to Jemaine’s mum (an NZEI staff member): this is the story and he’s sticking to it.
Jemaine says he was nerdy - the quiet, shy kid who sat at the front of the class and who loved maths. He liked to please the teacher and liked his school work to look neat. Once when he had lost his rubber, he made a hole in the paper trying to rub out his mistake with his finger. The teacher held up his book and showed everyone, saying this is an example of what not to do. He thought her saying that was an example of what not to do.
23 poemsAt school, sport was not an activity he liked. He found sports boring and embarrassing - an activity forced on him that he thought was more about finding out who was the best than playing the game.
He remembers a Mr Murray who once told the class to write a poem for homework.
Jemaine came the next day with 23 poems. He remembers the teacher’s amazement.
Sometimes quantity is as good as quality. If he ever got in trouble it was for laughing too loud. He loved to laugh almost as much as he loved to tell a joke. He remembers the other kids laughing (or groaning) at his jokes, and he thinks he started telling jokes at an early age. He did want to be an actor when he was at school but then so did everyone else. He doubts the teachers remember him as being the least bit funny, and imagines they would be very surprised at his occupation now.
blackadderBy the end of primary school he started moving his seat to the back of the class to join the less nerdy and then came ... Blackadder. In year 8 he discovered the comedy series and describes it as life-changing. Blackadder - the English comedy series both odd and extravagant, and dealing with status and stupidity equally - appealed greatly to his 12-year-old sense of humour.
In March, Jemaine was about to leave on a publicity tour to promote Men in Black 3. Apart from being away from his family, he loves the travelling. If you’re are a fan, you’ll know a Flight of the Conchords New Zealand tour starts in June complete with new material and some old favourites.
Jemaine and his partner, Oscar-winner Bret McKenzie, have been busy writing. Jemaine finds it great to be using his imagination, especially if he hasn’t done it for a while. “You just have to. It’s good to be creative. You need to use that part of the brain.” n
It’s good to be creative
In Greece, parents were not allowed to stay with the children, and Jemaine much prefers the relaxed New Zealand kindergarten system.
Win DVDsFlight of the conchords are touring the country in June. Win one of three sets of dvds of the tv show Flight of the conchords Series 1 and Series 2. enter the competition by emailing [email protected], with fotc in the subject line.
(For terms and conditions please see page 34.)
Pic from Getty $213
autumn 2012 | 1918 | education aotearoa
for visiting teachers and the home educators, their induction or orientation, and on-going professional development. “This is key to improving practices in the sector.”
big businessAs a formal sector, home-based education is relatively young, but it’s grown rapidly in the past 20 years. In 1990 the Ministry of Education identified 40 such services. By 2006 the number was 9922 involving 35,000 children.
In large part this has been driven by money. Government funding of up to $9.17 per hour can be claimed for each child in home-based care. People can set up networks with very little capital, and they’ve become big business – one national chain has won a number of business awards. There is now very little informal care in New Zealand compared to other countries.
Those who are passionate about home-based education say these services support a child as they would be in an early childhood centre, but they can offer more, especially to very young children. In a smaller, more intimate setting babies can develop a strong, responsive relationship with one person – the foundation of early development.
more qualified staffHowever, most people in the sector agree on the need for improved education both for visiting teachers and the in-home educators.
Linda Mitchell, Associate Professor in Professional Studies in Education at the University of Waikato, was involved in a major review of New Zealand and international studies on early childhood education, which highlighted the importance of qualified staff.
18 | education aotearoa
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autumn 2012 | 19
Home sweet home?diana clement investigates home-based ece and discovers strong concerns leading to calls for greater protection of very young children.
Home-based ece
i t’s hard to have a rational debate about home-based care for very young children – when even government ministers don’t understand
the subtleties.As this article was being written, Social
Development Minister Paula Bennett casually suggested that beneficiaries could set up “baby-sitting clubs” so they could get back to work.
“People don’t necessarily think about home-based care as a profession. They think of home-based as informal care,” says Carol Stovold, president of the Homebased ECE Association.
At a time when neurological research
is showing that strong, positive primary relationships are critical to infants’ and toddlers’ early and later development, the casual dismissal of home-based services seems short-sighted. It also goes against the government’s claim to be targeting “vulnerable” children.
The government-appointed ECE Taskforce also raised concerns about quality in the home-based-care sector. The case of a four-month-old baby left home alone in Auckland by a nanny supplied by a national home-based-care chain grabbed the headlines last year, but it wasn’t too surprising for many in the sector.
key points
• the number of young children in home-based care has ballooned.
• children in such services can be vulnerable.
• there are concerns about the quality of some services.
• regulations need to be tightened.
While networks of home-based carers must be regularly visited by teachers, many say the networks are too big, and visiting teachers have to visit too many educators and children
informal careWhen parents place very young children into the hands of non-family members most are seeking quality care and education.
Placed with one unsupervised adult, these children can be vulnerable. To that end, the home-based sector is covered by regulations, but some want these strengthened.
While networks of home-based carers must be regularly visited by teachers, many say the network sizes are too big, and visiting teachers have to visit too many educators and children.
There are questions, too, about the suitability of some educators and carers. Carol of the Homebased ECE Association would like a more standardised approach to the selection process
left: Home-based care advocates say their services support a child as they would be in a centre, but that they can offer more, especially to very young children.
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20 | education aotearoa autumn 2012 | 21autumn 2012 | 21
Already many schools are providing an
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Home-based ece
“This was one of the strongest predictors of (good) outcomes for children,” says Linda. Although visiting teachers (in home-based networks) are qualified, there isn’t a high requirement for the educators involved in day- to-day interactions with children to be.
lower ratiosThe other factor highlighted by the literature, says Linda, is the need to lower the current educator-to-child ratios. “With a smaller number of children with the adult there is able to be more responsive interactions and cognitively challenging interactions,” she says. “Ratios of one-to-four are poor.” Ideally she’d like to see the ratio reduced to one-to-three children. “Imagine being a single adult with four pre-school children? It is hard going.” Likewise she would like to see the ratio of visiting teachers to educators improved.
This cuts to the heart of the issue around
quality and money – whether it is in fact possible to run a home-based service at a profit if it’s run properly.
open to interpretationBarnardos New Zealand practice manager Early Childhood Services Penelope Janes says the Education Regulations 2008 state the visiting teacher must take all reasonable steps each month to observe every child in the network. The regulations don’t, however, give prescriptive numbers of staff needed in a network.
Penelope says that changes to the regulations in 2008 were an improvement for the sector as a whole – although some of the requirements had always been part of some providers’ services. “At Barnardos, (a large provider of home-based care) we have always had a robust educator selection process and have required them to do a certain amount of training and professional development.”
However, it is taking a while for the regulations to be fully implemented across the sector. Not all services are yet relicensed under the 2008 regulations, she says, as it’s a six-year process.
“If I could say that every service met the criteria, I could be confident all home-based services were providing a good service for children and families.
“I would want to be assured that that was happening in all home-based services and to date I am not. I wish the provisions in the regulations that apply to home-based were a bit less open to interpretation.”
unsuitable carersAreas she is concerned about include:
• The educator selection process• Curriculum• Health and safety of premises where the
caring takes place.Penelope adds that there have been instances where Barnardos KidStart has turned an educator down because they weren’t up to scratch or the property unsuitable, just to find the same person working for another home-based service within weeks.
“There is a dilemma between maintaining high standards of quality and having a viable service,” she says. “We are not prepared to compromise quality at Barnardos.”
trainingOne comment echoed by many is that they’d like to see greater emphasis on babies in the training for ECE teachers.
Visiting teachers may also need extra training. The visiting teacher’s role involves training and monitoring adult educators in the home, says Carol Stovold, who also owns and manages Quality Kidz Homebased Childcare, Nanny and Babysitting Agency. But visiting teachers may not be well-equipped for this through their ECE qualification.
“They are taught to teach children, and they may not necessarily have the skills to be a professional moderator or trainer of adults. As a sector we would improve if we had our own training pathway.”
at what levelShe would like to see visiting teachers have additional standardised training above their teaching qualifications.
PORSE In-Home Childcare has taken its own in-house approach to the training dilemma, by creating courses for its visiting teachers and workplace training for educators, through PORSE’s internal certification pathway, stages 1, 2, and 3, and an NZQA level 3 national certificate.
Barnardos has taken a different approach. It worked with the Homebased ECE Association and the Open Polytechnic to develop the Open Polytechnic Certificate in Early Childhood Practice (Level 4). The distance-based qualification is aimed at people involved in a range of early childhood settings including home-based, education and care centres, play groups and parents of young children.
Other sector leaders are sceptical, saying some in the home-based sector resist ECE qualifications at higher levels because many of the educators aren’t suited, or think they aren’t suited, to such study, and some of them would not get admitted to courses.
As the government begins to act on the recommendations of the ECE Taskforce, it can only be hoped ministers listen to professionals, rather than those with financial interests. n
There have been instances where Barnardos KidStart has turned an educator down because they weren’t up to scratch or the property unsuitable, just to find the same person working for another home-based service within weeks.
there is a dilemma between maintaining high standards of quality and having an economically viable service.
22 | education aotearoa autumn 2012 | 23
education RefoRm
2 educators must be high-level knowledge workers. in schools and centres,
professional norms of management must complement administrative forms of control – with the status, pay, professional autonomy and high-quality education that go with professional work.
12 policy design needs to be underpinned by solid research and analysis. if reform
advocates can build a broad consensus among experts and the public, and build that consensus by showing evidence of the need for reform, they are likely to be in a stronger position to implement the reforms successfully.
4 High-performing [education] systems build their human resource systems by putting the
energy up front in attracting, training and supporting good teachers rather than on the back end of reducing attrition and firing weak teachers.
8 internationally, educators say their greatest
development needs are related to teaching special-needs students, ict skills, and student discipline and behaviour.
11 appraisal and feedback to educators works when it is supportive and welcomed
by educators. a key component is good training for those conducting the appraisals. when appraisal is linked to rewards it must be fair,
based on multiple measures, and transparently applied in ways that involve the profession.
1 ict has profound implications for education and educators. Students can learn basic cognitive skills online (literacy, numeracy),
and many traditional jobs can be out- sourced. the role of educators is now to provide personalised learning and create life-long learners – so students can manage complex ways of thinking and working that computers cannot take over.
7 many of the countries with the strongest student performance also have strong teachers’ unions,
and the better a country’s education performs, the more likely that country is working constructively with its unions and treating its teachers as trusted professional partners.
need to know: 12 top facts on
Education reformas the new Zealand government continues its radical reform of public education, two new reports from the oecd explode some myths.
6 countries that have succeeded in making education an attractive profession have done so not
just through pay, but also by raising the status of education, offering real career prospects, and giving educators responsibility as professionals and leaders of reform.
10 the chances for success in reform can improve through
effective consultation, through a willingness to compromise and, above all, through the involvement of teachers in the planning and implementation of reform.
9 Student failure comes at a high cost to society (crime, poor health, unemployment). Students from low socio-economic backgrounds are
twice as likely to be low performers. Ways to improve equity in education include:
● avoiding early “tracking” and grouping of students by ability
● Strengthening school leadership
● Quality teachers and supportive school climates for students
● avoiding student segregation by managing parental choice of schools – full parental choice is not recommended.
according to associate Professor Peter o’connor, auckland university, charter schools and high-stakes testing appear to increase the gap in the educational achievement rate of children from rich and poor households. in the uS, this gap has grown faster in the last 10 years than at any other time.
3 Professional development for educators
tends to be most effective when delivered through longer programmes that upgrade qualifications or when it involves collaborative research into improving educator effectiveness. educators tend to get more out of programmes when they share some of the cost, and when development is a collaborative activity working with others to improve practices.
Sources: Points 1-11 Building a High-Quality teaching Profession – lessons from around the world, andreas Schleicher, oecd Publishing, 2011; point 12 equity and Quality in Schools: Supporting disadvantaged students and schools, oecd, 2012.
5 norway has worked with the media to reduce teacher bashing that had been
prevalent in the media. china and Japan hold public recognition days for teachers when respect for the profession is emphasised.
24 | education aotearoa
d etails of the Network for Learning, estimated to cost between $300-400 million over the next 10 years, are sketchy.
Press releases from the Minister of Education’s office promise affordable, safe, speedy access to the Internet and to a range of content, communication and administration services delivered over ultra-fast broadband.
better and cheaper internetSetting up a dedicated network restricted to schools should provide access to services and content at high speeds without the usage and bandwidth issues that schools encounter over the public or “commodity” internet.
No more stuttering audio, choppy video or hitting your data cap mid-lesson. As a result, demand for online content and services will increase.
The Ministry of Education’s website also claims that centralised procurement and management of online services will reduce ICT complexity and cost for schools. Fast internet access to the best education services at a price you can afford - it’s not a difficult sell if the government makes good on its promises.
what’s on offer There’s likely to be a core package negotiated by the ministry for internet access, firewalling and filtering, and help desk support. The ministry’s own services are also obvious candidates for the network: the sprawling but essential Te Kete Ipurangi; Digistore’s digital content; e-asTTle and the Virtual Learning Network.
A stable, fast network infrastructure would be a huge boost to the Virtual Learning Network, which uses video conferencing to deliver online
programmes of learning across a broad range of curriculum areas. It also has the potential to become the backbone for teachers’ professional development and social networking.
Other government-funded operations providing bandwidth-hungry content, such as NZOnScreen, Te Ara and DigitalNZ, are surely within scope. Much of this material is available on the Internet, but it can be hard to find. “The network will make it much easier for students and teachers to get straight to the material they are looking for,” says Andy Neale from DigitalNZ at the National Library.
commercial interestsThe Network for Learning is also an attractive proposition to commercial education services. Great bandwidth improves the viability of services that operate over the web, and visibility on a national network beats knocking on the door of every school in the country.
Vendors EA talked to had a range of ideas about how commercial services might participate in the network. Tomorrow’s School gives schools autonomy over how they spend their money; on the other hand, the ministry has engaged in national deals with vendors to lower ICT costs for schools. Which way will the network go?
Adobe favours a centralised approach, which would see them cut a deal with the ministry to supply their creative software, such as Photoshop and Premiere Elements, to all schools. “It’s a numbers game, and the more students involved, the lower the cost,” says Chris Gray from Adobe. “It’s also an equity issue - all children should be able to participate in the learning revolution.” Adobe’s software runs on desktop machines, but
ultra-fast broadband combined with the government’s new network for learning will change the digital world of schools. What will it look like? sarah Jones investigates
it also has related web-based tools that it could promote to schools over the network.
Central funding has made the MyPortfolio service possible. Ministry support has enabled the team at Kineo and Catalyst IT to provide a managed online e-portfolio service to schools, including user support and inter-operability with major learning management systems.
However, what makes central procurement unlikely across the board is the mixed environment that already exists in schools. Richard Wyles from Kineo notes, “Some schools are using open source, some are using the cloud, some are using Microsoft and so on.” In addition, argue Wyles and others, schools are typically in a better position than ministries to make decisions about what’s needed at the teaching coalface in a fast-changing environment.
the sales channelIt’s just as unlikely to imagine the Network for Learning as a sales channel, promoting products from all comers. “The value of the network is in helping schools locate specialised education services relevant to teaching and learning in New
Zealand,” says Gresham Bradley of eTV, a content service that streams television channels and video from New Zealand and around the world.
Jan Zawadski of Hapara (a teacher dashboard for managing the Google Apps environment ) would like to see an approval process run by teachers. He believes this would make it easier for schools to choose the right tools. “If I was a teacher,” he says, “the experience I’d love to have is to go to a website that lists the tools I could use in my school, who’s using them, what rating they’ve given them and the comments they’ve made.”
Smaller vendors in particular already rely on teachers promoting their resources and tools to other teachers. eTV’s Gresham suggests an informal marketplace will naturally evolve out of the connections forged between schools, as teachers share information about services and products.
the hybrid modelThe answer is likely to be the middle ground. While the government may back away from centralised procurement as a total solution, “the notion that each school has to recreate the wheel is inefficient from everyone’s perspective,” says Gresham. 4
The Network for Learning
tecHnology
“It’s a numbers game – the more students, the lower the cost. It’s also an equity issue - all children should be able to participate in the learning revolution.”
autumn 2012 | 25
who’s in and who’s out?
26 | education aotearoa
“It will be important to have guidelines and an approval process for services that can be accessed over the network.”
Kineo’s Richard Wyles suggests the ministry releases criteria, and assesses services against them, much as they’ve done for student management systems. “From the school’s perspective, there’s so much clutter and noise out in the market that the ministry does have a guidance role.” This approach will shape the market, and the pool of available services might narrow as result.
Best guess is that a pragmatic government will cut nationwide deals for a select group of core services, where the product is generic and schools don’t have strong preferences (filtering or data storage, for example). In all other cases,
the complexities of the education environment point to the Network for Learning connecting schools to a collection of pre-selected or evaluated online services and content. Schools will ultimately decide what they pay for and pull down the pipes. n
tecHnology
autumn 2012 | 27
National Standards and the Network for LearningFormer education minister anne tolley said last year that the network for learning is for schools to connect, collaborate and share resources and best practice.
national’s education policy mentions the network in the context of strengthening accountability and performance measurement. among other things, national wants to “measure the value a school is adding to a students’ education” and “shift the resourcing model, so it incentivises performance”.
it says it will use the network “to support collection and dissemination of data and knowledge”. does this mean gathering and reporting on national Standards and other school and system-level measures?
the minister’s words and the party’s policy stand in tension. the government is saying education is a collaborative exercise while ushering in a competitive environment. collaboration may well be the loser.
“If I was a teacher, I’d love to go to a website that lists the tools I could use in my school, who’s using them, what rating they’ve given them and the comments they’ve made.”
resources...• Great web resource for school
librarians and everybody interested in school libraries - www.scoop.it/t/transforming-our-practice-school-libraries
• Nelson Intermediate School has seen some good gains in student achievement with its Reading for Comprehension programme, which was developed by assistant principal Margaret Urlich. The programme is based on the Ministry of Education’s “Effective Literacy Practice Years 5-8”; and writings by Dr Alison Davis and Sheena Cameron. See her report at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz. If you’d like a copy of the programme, email [email protected] with ‘Reading’ in the subject line.
• UNICEF has launched new teacher support materials to accompany its book For Each and Every Child/ He Taonga Tonu te Tamariki. They include lesson plans, activities, and whole school events to assist in teaching New Zealand children about their rights, and links directly with the New Zealand Curriculum. Download from: www.unicef.org.nz/schoolroom
tHe pRofessionals
research• Interest has been sparked in South Auckland by a new Canadian tool called the Early Development Index that measures five areas of child development (at age five) that are good predictors of adult health, education and social outcomes. The resulting data is not designed to monitor individual children (or educators!) but to monitor “vulnerability”
by population and district so that supports and services can be provided where needed – http://earlylearning.ubc.ca/edi/ • New research suggests babies don’t learn to talk just from hearing sounds - they’re lip-readers too. It happens during that stage when a baby’s babbling gradually changes from gibberish into syllables and eventually into that first “mama” or “dada”.
Scientists in the US discovered that from about six-months-old, babies begin shifting from the intent eye gaze of early infancy to studying mouths when people talk to them. Once they master the lip movements, they apparently shift back to look you in the eye again. The study will appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Developing Independent Writersand Readers
in Foundation Phase Classes
Developing independent readersWellington teacher Alison bowis has published a book while working for VSA in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. A former reading recovery teacher at naenae School, Alison’s Developing independent Writers and readers has been distributed at 5000 schools in an area where resources are scarce. the new Zealand High Commission in South Africa chipped in with a $50,000 grant. “i could see i wasn’t going to have much influence on reading because of the lack of books,” says Alison. She decided to focus instead on helping teachers use children’s stories to “publish” their own books – a common practice in new Zealand classrooms. “basically the children turn their own work into books to use in their class libraries.” More about VSA at www.vsa.org.nz
• Following the employment of a convicted sex offender in schools, the group Child Matters, which aims to prevent child abuse in New Zealand, is urging educators to buy its publication, Safe Not Sorry ($15, www.childmatters.org.nz/shop). It’s a step-by-step handbook for selecting and employing safe people to work with children, including volunteers.
• Resources for teachers from the Healthy Food Guide team (www.5aday.co.nz), plus lunchbox recipes (under home/news/ what’s new)
• “Additive free for better concentration” – read Julie Law’s article at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz
• The National Foundation for the Deaf is urging schools and centres to install “Safe Sound Indicators” to keep down noise levels in classes and protect the hearing of educators and students. Approach your local RSA, Lions Club, etc, for a community fundraiser – more at http://www.nfd.org.nz/
obituaryNZEI staff and members helped celebrate the long and rich life of educationalist John (Jack) Eric Smith at a packed service last term. Jack, aged 87, died in Auckland on March 10. A former NZEI president who also served as National Secretary for a number of years, Jack began his career at a small school in Northland. He is survived by his wife Joy, who was a long-time teacher and reliever at St Joseph’s School, Otahuhu, and his many children and grandchildren.
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tHe pRofessionals
scholarships• Applications are open for NZEI Te Riu Roa’s ECE and support staff scholarships (up to $5000 each). They can be used to carry out a research project, to complete a relevant qualification, or to attend an international or national professional conference. Expressions of interest close on May 11. More at http://tiny.cc/z7sjbw• The Margaret M Blackwell Travel Fellowship 2012 for those working in ECE will be advertised in May - www.nzcer.org.nz/blackwell.
events• New Zealand’s inaugural Money Week will take place 2-8 September 2012. Enquire at - http://www.retirement.org.nz/• Primary Science Week - schools are invited to take part in a nationwide science week being held 7-11 May, including a national school science experiment. Activities are designed to promote awe, wonder and interest. http://tiny.cc/ebtjbw
qualifications• The country’s first university degree for teachers in Māori immersion schools acknowledges the importance and status of teaching te reo. Massey University’s Te Aho Tatairangi is a four year degree course which aims to supply 200 Māori immersion graduates by 2020. NZEI Matua Takawaenga Laures Park says the degree “broadens the options for people with an interest in Māori immersion teaching.”• New graduate qualifications from the Open Polytechnic offer primary teachers the skills to inspire children to engage in the world of science. They are the Graduate Certificate in Primary Science Teaching (Curriculum) and the Graduate Diploma in Primary Science Teaching. The Graduate Certificate in Primary Teaching (Leadership) will open later this year. today’s teachers are beset with an ever
expanding range of assessment and evaluation recordings that are promoted as
essential in order to make a decision about the next learning progression.
Over recent years, much of this has become more formalised. Some might argue that the time taken to keep up with this digital case load has already exceeded the “cost-benefit” ratio for teaching effectiveness. And there is more to come!
active exchangeIf we think about what teachers do, and if we focus mainly on their interactions with students, it is clear that an active exchange is occurring. Teachers are offering concepts and students are usually engaging with this material and occasionally offering an insight as to their thinking with a question or comment.
Clearly, teachers are constantly making judgements about what next as a consequence of this interaction. They get to know what students are thinking from what the students say and do. Thus, effective teaching results from making the best quality teacher judgements.
As schools ponder how to structure their school development to support this thinking along the continuum of more direction to greater discretion, it
dr david stewart says the current obsession with assessment and data-gathering in new Zealand schools has reached a tipping point
4
Getting to
know you
is the thesis of this article that the growth of quality teacher judgements are a consequence of teachers critiquing their own practice through talking with their peers in a structured reflective manner.
It is inside these reflective discussions that student performance data, rubrics and the like have a place.
a step too farWhereas I have always been of the mind that Marie Clay’s running records for reading have been the gold standard for assessing progress in reading, there is a limit to what classroom teachers can do while still maintaining their class teaching focus.
For example, the ministry’s new progress and consistency tool suggests multiple running records over multiple rubrics for every student. I don’t know how long this would take and how often it is being suggested it should be done, but it perfectly illustrates my point about being past the tipping point for most classroom teachers.
Would doing this with every student improve teacher judgement in subsequent teaching episodes? Is it expected that individualised teaching will become the norm? What would be the implications of this for class size? Perhaps sampling across the class with a tool like this would be useful inside a peer teacher discussion?
key points
• the government’s current obsession with school data is about gaining greater control of schooling.
• increased data-gathering, however, does not increase the spread of quality teaching.
• Schools face difficult choices if they want to maintain a whole-of-child philosophy.
above: Principal cherie taylor-Patel in a photo taken pre-national Standards.
At Cambridge Early learning Centre the teachers and children “love to dress up with vigour”. Here, the children dressed linda in preparation for her wedding and helped practice the walk down the aisle.
Check out the Human rights website created at royal oak intermediate School, Auckland: http://www.wix.com/royaloak11/humanrights, with help from World Vision – and read the article about how students created it at www.educationaotearoa.org.nz
Law change for immigrant childrenthe Human rights Commission has welcomed changes in the immigration Act 2009 that mean it is no longer unlawful for schools to enrol children and young people who had no legal immigration status in new Zealand. the Ministry of Education has expanded the criteria for funded domestic students to include children who are ordinarily resident in new Zealand and who have been living here unlawfully for six months with their parent/s or legal guardian/s.
assessment foR leaRning
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over testing, collaboration over competition, and give high value to a continuing whole-of-school development of teacher judgement. Compliance with mandated structures would, of course, be woven into such a model.
Questioning edictsIt is clear that questioning government educational edicts through rational discussion has become much more difficult.
What teachers need to be able to demonstrate is that they can achieve the goals the ministry requires while still retaining the “broad and progressive approach to curriculum, pedagogy and assessment” that many educators value highly.
They should be able to provide parents with plain language informative reports. They should be able to demonstrate accelerated attainment for a number of their students identified as being at risk. They should be able to show progress towards set goals.
Many schools already do, but what is also important is that while doing this they demonstrate the value of professional discretion, they promote reflective practice, they show that schools are collaborative enterprises, and that they encourage diversity and discovery.
If all of this can be done in a climate of good humour, positive encouragement and support for each other then the case for community of learning - contrasted with, say, only individual attainment - will be overwhelming.
like no otherTeachers’ work is like no other. They are dependent on their colleagues both in the sense that another teacher has taught their current class previously, and in the sense of involving peers in reflection and critique of their current practice.
The consequence of their work is retained inside the heads of others where it becomes inextricably
combined with previous knowledge in idiosyncratic ways. Talking with groups of these others often reveals the huge difference in meaning that can result from the same interaction.
That some could believe that a teacher could be codified through some aggregation of student data beggars belief. To understand what teachers do requires both a sensitive series of observations when even then subtle nuances may be missed, and conversations based around evidence of practice where intentions can be matched with behaviour.
Schools need to be able to demonstrate that they do this themselves if they wish to capture the high ground in the current environment.
class feedbackHow then do I get to know what you know?
Teachers get to know what students know as they teach them. During a teaching session teachers are constantly deciding about “what next?” as a consequence of the kinds of feedback that they are getting from their class.
Students do stuff and once again teachers get indicators about who knows what. It is when teachers are uncertain about progress that a more formal, more individual assessment mode is required. From time to time teachers need to report to parents. They need to be sure about their facts and once again a more formal, more individual mode of data gathering is indicated.
45 hoursWe need to be clear about how much time is required to switch to this kind of personal interview based around 30 children in an average class. My reckoning is about 15 hours for each subject - thus 45 hours twice a year (20 minutes talking with each student and 10 minutes summary writing).
Given that release time is unlikely, teachers need to spread this activity over many weeks. To reach a mid-year term 2 report deadline some of this work will need to be begun midway thought term 1!
At the edges, therefore, the testing will run across 12 weeks allowing for the term break. Pupil-to-pupil comparisons over this kind of period are unlikely to be valid. The simple fact is the this kind of testing, careful as it may appear should not be used for any purpose other than to plan further teaching sessions and talk somewhat informally with parents. n
See also www.arikiproject.ac.nz.
Greater control of schoolingWhat most teachers have done over the years is to monitor class work and deal individually with the exceptions. Teachers generally have welcomed new ideas and new methodologies, which have aided in making better decisions about student progress. What is currently changing is the purpose for such suggested processes.
Under the guise of providing better information for parents, the administration is aiming to exercise much greater control of schooling. Unfortunately, the government has allowed ideology to supplant rational discourse, and schools now can only access teacher support through signalling their acceptance of the centrality of National Standards. Principals are, therefore, thrust back on their own initiative if they try to retain a measure of autonomy.
The problem of spreading and extending high-quality teaching practice, linked as it is around understanding what students currently know, can’t be solved by simply adding more
data-gathering of student attainment to the work of classroom teachers. What teachers do is a consequence of what they think about what they do. This thinking time can be stimulated within trusted groups of peers critiquing evidence of each others’ practice. Here the emphasis is on the interactive nature of their work.
stark choiceIt is at this point that the dichotomy for school development is most starkly posed. Principals along with their boards and staff have the broad choice of basing their plan for their medium-term future between a focus which gives absolute priority to currently mandated practices, such as National Standards – or basing their school development initiatives around proven whole-of-child philosophies incorporating aspects such as empathy, fairness, acceptance of conflicting viewpoints, trust and social responsibility alongside the 3Rs.
This second view would emphasis teaching
assessment foR leaRning
Last year, Capital e in Wellington took part in a Ministry of education research project on the delivery of LeOtC services across the country. One outcome of this process was to improve Māori achieving educational success as Māori.
this year students, teachers and whānau from te Kura-a-iwi o Whakatupuranga rua Mano are working closely with the Creative technology team at Capital e to explore the best teaching and learning practices that foster increased Māori engagement in Capital e’s programmes.
By forming this partnership, Capital e educators have been able to look at how their teaching practices incorporate the appropriate use of te reo Māori, and Māori ways of knowing and doing into
learning contexts. they’ve also looked at how they can include the concept of whakawhānaungatanga as a foundation for creative inspiration using technology.
“We are excited about this opportunity to help children use the latest technology in really fun, active, creative ways to express their ideas, culture and customs, and at the same time help us to look at ways we can improve what we have to offer students and teachers here at Capital e.
“We believe that by empowering children and teachers with creative technology tools, they will be better able to communicate their ideas and creativity and I’m sure that all students will benefit from this partnership in the long run,” said Creative technology Manager, stephen aitken.
More details at www.capitale.org.nz – check out Capital E’s OnTV Studio and SoundHouse™ Education programmes.
◊◊◊◊
SPECiAl ProMotion
Capital E’s Creative Technology LEOTC hits the noteChildren are loving Capital E’s new take on Creative Technology LEOTC
above: Principal mike Sutton when he was showcasing “quality teaching” initiatives.
To understand what teachers do requires both a sensitive series of observations and even then subtle nuances may be missed, and conversations based around evidence of practice where intentions can be matched with behaviour.
visible learning for teachers: maximising impact on learningJohn HattieRoutledgeThis is the sequel to the author’s 2009 best-selling “holy grail” summary of the research literature on what influences student achievement in all formal education sectors.
The cover blurb says this book is targeted at teachers, and “explains how to apply the principles from Visible Learning to any classroom anywhere in the world”. It is said to provide “an evidence-based answer to the question: How do we maximize achievement in our schools?”
The book is in three parts. Part one reprises the method used earlier in the author’s reading of 800+ reviews by other researchers and articulates his personal beliefs about the importance of passionate and expert teachers. Part two, five chapters that
comprise the guts of the book, focus on the logic of “the lesson” and aim to “frame the findings of Visible Learning into the key stages of decision-making through which teachers work”.
The uncompromising emphasis is on meticulous planning, expectations and targets, and “continually evaluating the impact of the teacher on the learner”.
It’s also an argument for “resource-intensive” collaborative work and mutual critique by highly professional teachers. Part three looks at the system and school level infrastructures (for which the author borrows the term “deliverology”) that need to be in place to “drive” achievement improvements. Eight stirring “mind-frame” mantra are set out (for example, “teachers/leaders engage in dialogue not monologue”) and the author claims “that teachers and leaders who develop these ways of thinking are more likely to have major impacts on student learning”.
author as guruThe book begins and ends with an injunction to readers: “know thy [sic] impact” – which aptly illustrates the shift in tone from the original 2009 book (scholarly) to its 2012 sequel (evangelical).
Since 2009, Visible Learning the research has become Visible Learning PlusTM, the brand, with the author as guru. The
Beware Professor Hattie’s global branding the House that Jack built
koinei te whare na- Haki i HangaGavin bishop$35 hardcover, $20 paperbackKiwi version of the nursery rhyme back in print by Gecko Press. Sets this classic story in New Zealand in 1798.
the red poppyDavid Hill & Fifi Colston, CD of song by robert Kennedy$33 hardcoverle QuesnoyGlyn Harper & Jenny Cooper$20 paperbackTwo great books about New Zealand soldiers in World War 1. The Red Poppy is a powerful story with a positive outcome, about a New Zealand and German soldier
who meet in terrifying circumstances. Ages 7+, with teaching notes. The second tells the true story, from a French girl’s perspective, of the rescue of a besieged town, Le Quesnoy, by New Zealand soldiers. Aimed at 4+, but includes a map and detailed description for older readers on the inside covers.
small & tall tales of extinct animalsHelene rajcak & Damien laverdunt. translated by Jen Craddock$37 hardcoverA beautifully-produced book exploring the world of weird and wonderful extinct animals, combining cartoons, naturalist drawings and mythology with science. Includes the moa and the Haast eagle.
mr tripp Goes for a skateSandy McKat & ruth Paul$14 paperbackMr Tripp is teaching Room Five about the wheel. On Wheels Day, when everyone brings something with wheels, Mr Tripp gives a rather exciting skateboard demonstration. Ages 5+
uncle trev and His whistling bullJack lasenby $20 paperbackThe fifth collection of Uncle Trev’s quixotic tales (only two others are still in print), this is laugh-out-loud homespun humour, perfect for read aloud to Years 4-6. Each chapter is a complete story.
Best new books for kids
The redemption of graphic novelsthere’s been, in equal amounts, surprise, delight and apprehension at the inclusion, for the first time ever, of not just one, but three graphic novels in the short-list of the new Zealand Post book Awards for 2012.
that one of them, Shaolin burning by Ant Sang, is in the picture book category has been the most contentious as this section has traditionally been the preserve of books for the under sixes, and has been won previously by the likes of Summery Saturday Morning by Margaret Mahy.
Shaolin burning is definitely not for that demographic, but it is a picture book, and it is shortlisted on merit. Picture books are
not only for children, and the interest in graphic novels goes back a long way.
the only difference is that they were then called comics, and had a dubious reputation. in America in the 1960s they were often used by the counter-culture to mock authority (that is, nixon, Vietnam War) and the thing authorities hate most is to be mocked. their response was to condemn the genre with words like “rewarding illiteracy” and “promoting immorality”. the genre’s redemption has come about more recently by renaming them with the literary code “graphic novel”, and by tackling an array of serious topics.
While these books appeal to reluctant
(read boy) readers, it’s a mistake to consider all readers of graphic novels as less literate.
A generation that can Skype, Facebook, Google, download, tweet, text, type, write, and read – seems to be literate in so many more ways, and visual literacy is just another method of engaging with the literature of their choice.
(the other graphic novels in the 2012 nZ Post book Awards Shortlist are both in the non-Fiction Category: Kimble bent Malcontent by Chris Grosz, and nice Day for A War by Chris Slane and Matt Elliott [part graphic].) nJohn McIntyre, [email protected]
ReviewsReviews
structure of the 2012 book directly mirrors that of a series of commercial professional development workshops run by Cognition Education (in which the author is a non-executive director) in New Zealand, Australia (in partnership with the publisher MacMillan) and throughout North, Central and South America (under exclusive franchise to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
What this book unaccountably fails to point out is that much of its supposed evidence-base (and thus the average effect-size and ranking of key influences) is irrelevant to schools. Nor is it generalisable to all school students. The author concedes that the essential “teacher passion” he writes about so eloquently does not appear in his evidence-base (p16). The material on “expert” teachers comes from earlier, quite different “teaching standards” research by the author, and the professional development and school improvement messages are off-the-shelf “deliverology”.
The author undoubtedly draws on an impressively broad and rich education research career to tell his story but, in this reviewer’s opinion, readers would be wise to distinguish between the Visible Learning global branding and the scholarly narrative that exist in equal measure in this book. n
– Professor John O’Neill, Massey University
autumn 2012 | 33
other recent books How to play a video Game, Pippin barr, awa Press – get to grips with world’s fastest growing form of entertainment, from a Wellingtonian turned European lecturer.
school wars: the battle for britain’s education, Melissa benn, verso – a passionate argument for universal public education.
Grammar rules: writing with military precision, Craig Shrives, Kyle Books – comprehensive and readable survey of the rules of grammar from the UK, useful for a quick brush-up.
32 | education aotearoa
i love learning – art supplies!Gear up for ea’s incredible “i love learning” art competition – with this fabulous pack of art supplies from officemax. includes a classroom set of paint brushes, an artist’s colour Wheel, and nine litres of paint in various colours! call officemax for all your education supplies, including art and textbooks, office products, technology needs, furniture or packaging, cafeteria and health & hygiene supplies. Freephone 0800 577 700. Freefax 0800 367 724. www.officemax.co.nz.
GiveawaysWin these great prizes. to enter, email your name and address to [email protected] by may 28, using the headline of the prize in the subject line. Send separate emails for each prize.
termS and conditionS competitions are open to new Zealand residents only. only one entry per person per prize category. Prizes are not transferable or exchangeable and cannot be redeemed for cash. entry for this competition is limited to nZei members or nZei Honorary members. the prizes will be drawn on or after may 28, 2012. Winners will be notified by email. if a winner is unable to be contacted or is unable to receive the prize, another winner will be chosen at random. any personal information collected will be held by nZei. you have rights to access personal information, and to request correction of that information. nZei has no liability or responsibility for lost, late or misdirected entries or prizes. entry constitutes consent for nZei to use names and/or photographs of winners for promotion and publicity purposes. as permitted by law, nZei will not be liable for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage whatsoever, including personal injury which is suffered as a result of, or arising from persons(s) participating in the promotion or in connection with winning a prize. nZei reserves the right to change these terms or cancel the competitions. By entering, you are deemed to accept these terms.
every dad should have one! this very cool book by nZei member adam Buckingham, called turning trash into treasure for young children, showcases some great projects. turn wooden packing into cars, make mobiles out of bike wheels, make activity centres out of old engines and electrical gear – there are dozens of inspiring ideas, with gorgeous pics from centres around the country. three copies available. Books retail at $40 each, or at $35 (incl p&p) for nZei members – email [email protected]. also has some great tips on how to involve dads in your centre or kindergarten. adam is one of very few men working in ece in new Zealand, and he’s keen to encourage others to be involved.
34 | education aotearoa
the art of conversation a fabulous game to help children develop as confident speakers, better listeners and great all-round communicators – for students from aged five to adults. From toning down the over-the-top talker, to drawing out the shy child and all those in-between, taoc® helps children communicate! acclaimed by educators, therapists and parents (and best of all, kids love it!) taoc® can help children of varying abilities and special needs, including asperger’s, gifted children and children at risk. the game may be played in nine different modes, both competitive and non-competitive. three copies to be won. more at www.taoc.co.nz
flight of the conchordsFlight of the conchords are touring the country in June. Win one of three sets of dvds of the tv show Flight of the conchords Series 1 and Series 2.
books for older readersan enthralling pack of five new novels for older readers, all set in new Zealand with action plots. • Justice and utu by david
Hair, Harpercollins nZ• reach by Hugh Brown,
Harpercollins nZ• telling lies by tricia Glensor, Harpercollins nZ• steel pelicans by des Hunt, Harpercollins nZ• uncle trev and His whistling bull
by Jack lasenby, Gecko Press
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This year’s competition has a theme of “I Love Learning”. Check out www.schooliscool.org.nz to see the 2500 gorgeous entries from last year.
Upload your entries to www.ilovelearning.org.nz from May 1. Or have a scout around the website now – read the judge’s tips!
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