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.