Whew!

We have had a fantastic last couple of weeks at Freeville School.

Last week I was fortunate enough to join our Year 8's on their Wellington camp. What a great experience. Our Year 8's are truly very fortunate to have an opportunity like this and I have to say that Paul our AP does a tremendous job working with these young people. We are very lucky to have him at our school.

At Capital E the students looked at creating 3D animated online games in their first session and made their own TV News programme in the second. They visited Parilament, Wellington Zoo, Te Papa and the City Gallery. They travelled by plane, bus, train, tram and ferry.

We are very proud of our Year 8 students. They are engaged, polite, grateful and great fun. It was a pleasure to go on camp with them and our three fantastic camp mums.

Today we have our first Freeville Fair for 10 years. What a great community event this is turning out to be. We are very grateful to Rachael and her team for their stirling efforts and to everyone who has supported the fair. I know it will be a great success.

Inform Yourself

For a view from each side of the fence you may want to have a look at the following sites:

http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/National-Standards

http://www.ourprincipals.co.nz/

Otherwise you will get plenty of information if you use Google.

BOT Letter Regarding National Standards

3 November, 2010.

Dear Parents and Caregivers of Freeville School

You may have read in today’s Press about our Board of Trustees’ decision to defer setting targets against the Ministry of Education’s National Standards at the beginning of 2011. The purpose of this letter is to explain our position so that you understand the reasons behind this decision.

We put ourselves forward to become board members because we care about children. We want them to do well, feel that they are able to learn and be successful. We believe in the vision of our school, “Through our example, efforts and encouragement children at Freeville School will be the best that they can be.”

We have a very real concern that the National Standards as they currently exist will harm rather than enhance learning at our school. That they will in fact inhibit a large number of our children from being the best that they can be.

We share the concerns expressed by Professor Martin Thrupp, University of Waikato, Professor John Hattie, University of Auckland,  Professor Terry Crooks, University of Otago  and Lester Flockton, University of Otago, when they wrote the following to the Minister of Education in November last year:

“We are very concerned that the intended National Standards system wrongly assumes that children are failing if they do not meet the standard for their age. This will lead to the repeated labelling of many young children as failures and will be self-fulfilling because it will damage children’s self-esteem and turn them off learning and achieving in literacy and numeracy and other curricula areas. “

Freeville is a fantastic school. The board is reported to and excited about the progress children make in reading, writing, math’s and within inquiry.  We are reported to about the programmes that we have to support all learners and we are extremely proud of the teachers at our school and the work they do. 

 We will:

• Continue to set targets.  These will be aimed at achieving the aspirations that we have developed for our children.
• Let you know, as we have done this year, how we are progressing towards those targets.
• Report to you and talk to you about how your child is doing and let you know how your child is progressing. We will be honest and clear. But we won’t label them as failures.

As a board we realize that we are taking a risk by signing the pledge not to set targets against the National Standards. If worst comes to worst the board could be removed. But we are unable, in good conscience, to support this initiative when the Ministry expects that nationally 40% of Year 8’s will fail to reach the reading standard, and 50% will fail to reach the math’s standard. We feel that this has great potential to be damaging for children.

The board is a group of parents elected to represent you and your children. As always we are happy to discuss this further with anyone who would like more information.

Yours faithfully

Karen Brandon

Chairperson

Board of Trustees

National Standards

In Wednesday’s Press Freeville School was listed as one of 21 schools in Canterbury and 225 schools nationwide (now 240) whose Boards of Trustees had decided to defer setting targets against the national standards at the beginning of 2011.

As a principal, a board member and a parent at Freeville School I support the board’s decision. The Board is developing a letter to our community to explain in brief their thinking and why they have chosen to take this stance.

When considering their own viewpoint I hope that the parents and caregivers of Freeville School will think carefully about what they know about Freeville; our commitment to learning, our desire to do what is best for all the children at our school, and our willingness to take up new ideas and innovations if they are beneficial. If it was all good, we’d be in boots and all.

But it’s not all good, and I personally, as a principal and a parent, have a number of concerns about the standards. Here is just one.

We have been told that standards will address the reported 1 in 5 students who leave New Zealand schools unable to read and write. The bottom 20% of our student population.

We have also been told the standards were developed by working backwards from the performance expectations at NCEA level 2.

I have some questions about that:

1. If we are concerned about identifying the bottom 20%, why develop a reading standard that 40% of Year 8’s are expected to fail to meet?
2. Why have a math’s standard that 50% of Year 8’s are expected to fail to meet?
3. How does this work when 71% of New Zealand students pass NCEA level 2?

To me this doesn’t make sense.

The problem is that standards are set at a level where they are not in fact standards but goals that we would all love children to get to. There is a difference. To me a standard is a level that all children should reach, and if they don’t we should be concerned. This is not the case with the national standards.

We have been told that the standards will be reviewed and may be adjusted. Too late for those children and parents who may have been told incorrectly that their child is failing. At Freeville School we work very hard to get every child to believe that he/she can learn and that they can be successful. This is hard enough without telling them twice a year that they are below an untrialled national standard.  

The GPC

Greetings to you all.

At present I am on the beautiful Waiheke Island attending a conference for a small group of principals from throughout New Zealand. There are 13 principals here and we all have to present to the group about what is happening at our schools and share some cool ideas that others might use.

I have chosen to share with these principals some of the things that we are doing in our junior school. In particular ideas like the Starting School Packs, the Starting School Soon Party, the first and second Word books, the amount of parent involvement we get in our junior school and so on.

Sometimes we take the things happening within our school for granted. We shouldn't though. I am constantly amazed by the work the teachers at Freeville do. They think outside the square and are solution focussed. We are very fortunate to have an innovative and imaginative staff, and I am always reminded of that when I share with other principals.

It's Great to be Back

Our children constantly amaze me.

Yesterday was day one following our earthquake and we were a bit worried to be fair. Would the children be OK? How would they be able to concentrate? Would they be tearful and anxious? Would all the parents keep them home?

There is no doubt that our children have in many instances been through a very difficult time. Some have lost their homes and possessions. Many have been lacking in sleep. But they are an extremely caring, concerned and open group of children. They were happy to share their experiences and talk about how they felt, who helped them, and what they did when the earthquake struck. They were equally willing to listen and inquire about the experiences of others, quick to laugh, and happy to be back at school.

They really are an amazing bunch, taught by a fantastic staff, and we should be very proud of all of them.

Back to School

Kia ora koutou

Freeville School will definitely be underway tomorrow Monday 13th September. School will start for all students at 9 a.m. as usual. There is a briefing for all all staff at 8 a.m.

I am sure that we are all ready to try to get back into our routines and restore some kind of normality to our lives.

Please remember that parents are welcome to gather in the library for a chat and a cup of tea or coffee after dropping their children to their classrooms.

On another note I have been away in Wellington over the weekend coaching the Canterbury Metro Primary Schools' U65kg rugby team. The concern from our hosts for the welfare of all Cantabrians was very genuine. Our experiences have certainly heightened the awareness of Wellingtonians in regard to their own earthquake preparedness. We found ourselves looking around with an 'earthquake aware eye,' pondering the strength of the central city buildings we were walking between.

Unfortunately the concern and hospitality of our hosts did not extend to the rugby field where we were taught a very harsh lesson, but one I am sure our boys will learn from.

Earthquake Update

Our thoughts are with our whole Freeville School family as we reflect on what has been a very difficult week. We know that many of our families have undergone significant hardship and we can only say that our thoughts and best wishes are with you all.

Our school itself has been very fortunate. In the initial quake we had no damage whatsoever and our school was deemed to be safe for staff to return following a check on Tuesday afternoon. However the large aftershock yesterday morning has caused some mainly superficial cracking. This now has to be rechecked by a structural engineer. We expect that this will happen over the next couple of days.

Our Board of Trustees is meeting at 4pm on Sunday to make a final decision about opening on Monday. We will not reopen unless we are sure that the school is as safe as it can be. At this stage though we expect to open for students and staff on Monday, September 13th.

Managing the Trauma

This morning I attended a session run by the Ministry of Education's Traumatic Incident Team at which they gave advice to schools about how best to manage adults and children when school reopens. Here are some of the key messages for adults and children which may be of use to you over the next couple of days:

• Expect and accept that people react in different ways to what has happened - there is no right or wrong way.
• Adults must look after themselves - work on keeping at least some routines around food, exercise, sleep and hydration.
• Identify at least one thing that you can do to calm yourself and make yourself feel better. Build this thing into your daily routine.
• Remember that children very quickly pick up on the adult talk around them. Try to keep adult talk away from children.
• Model coping, even if you are only pretending. Children will look to the adults around them for a model of how to behave.

When school does start back:

• We will be doing our best to, within reason, fall back into our routines.
• Parents are welcome to come to school and help their children to settle back into the classroom. We ask that parents don't stay in the classroom after the bell. Rather parents are invited to the library for a coffee and a chat.
• Teachers will give children the opportunity to share and talk about their experiences. As much as possible teachers will encourage children to think about what worked and what went well rather than dwelling on the negative or scary.
• We will be closely monitoring the school roll, attendance, and those children who may for one reason or another leave the school grounds. Please communicate closely with us.
• Remember that we will do whatever we practically can do to support you, the children and our staff. If we can do anything to help you, please ask. We will do our best.