Policy and Regulation

1 Why has the government introduced these planning and reporting requirements?

The Education Standards Act 2001 formalised the process of self-review that schools have been required to undertake since the change to the National Administration Guidelines in 2000. The requirement for strategic planning and self-review is now specified in the Education Act.

The policy involved a change to the nature of schools' charters. Each school's charter should now contain all the information traditionally contained in a school's strategic plan, annual plan, and "old" charter, in one coherent planning document. A school's charter is now a "living' document, at least part of which (the annual plan), must be reviewed each year. In its annual report the school will present its evaluation of progress against the planned objectives. The evaluation will in turn provide the basis for the next year's planning. Over the years, a successful planning and reporting process will establish direction for the school and provide evidence of school improvement.

The government introduced the changes to the legislation to create conditions in which schools' self-review is

• more rigorous and focused on student achievement;
• shared with the community, and
• referenced to society's goals for education.

The government was also conscious of impending changes in the governance and accountability arrangements for Crown Entities, and wished to emphasise the particular responsibilities of schools to foster student achievement.

2 How does the schools planning and reporting policy fit with the rest of the government's education strategy?

To secure New Zealanders' future in an increasingly complex world the government has two important education goals: to continuously improve achievement outcomes, and to eliminate the outcome disparities that separate our high achievers from our low achievers.

The government's strategy for raising achievement and reducing disparity has a number of major strands, six of which impact directly at the school level:

• raising everyone's expectations that all students can and must achieve;
• focusing the attention of educators, students and the community on education outcomes;
• improving the quality of teaching and the capability of teachers and school leaders through provision of professional development, support tools, good practice exemplars, and supplementary funding pools;
• strengthening the engagement of families and whänau;
• improving the knowledge and information available to decision makers at both the school and policy level to ensure that teaching, school management, and policy review is up-to-date, focussed and effective;
• strengthening the network of schools by improving schools' flexibility over property related decisions, and encouraging better use of resources through collaboration.

The government has introduced a number of policies and programmes that contribute to one or more parts of this strategy.

For example, the NEGs, NAGs and New Zealand Curriculum are about raising expectations for achievement and focussing all concerned on students' outcomes; the literacy leadership programme, and the professional development pools are about further developing the quality of teaching; the NCEA is about raising expectations and improving the focus on outcomes.

The schools planning and reporting policy is at the centre of the government's strategy since the quality of decision making and resource allocation at the school level is the key factor in determining whether these pressures and supports are effective in contributing to raised achievement and reduced disparities.

For example, the school's senior management team can best decide which teachers need professional development, in what areas, and can ensure that the teachers are given the development opportunities. Improving Mäori and Pasifika student outcomes in practice requires schools to identify the students who have particular needs, to analyse those needs and the professional response that is required, and ensure that the resources of the school are allocated in such a way as to support those students and their teachers.

3 Why is reducing disparities important?

By 2040 the majority of New Zealand's population will be non-European. Mäori and Pasifika students make up a increasing percentage of student population and will be a very significant group in the parent and working-age population of 2040. As a group, Mäori and Pasifika students are not achieving nationally to the level of other students. All students enrolled in education need to achieve at a level that means they can be successful throughout life. It is essential for New Zealand's future that all students succeed at every level of education. Educators in New Zealand need to be concerned when any group is over-represented among low achievers.

4 Why do all schools (including "successful" schools) have to do this?

All schools have to plan. All schools should do so on the basis of an evaluation of their students' learning progress.

Research tells us that significant gains in student achievement are achieved where students, staff, management, boards of trustees and the whole school community have focussed their efforts, set goals and objectives for student outcomes, and targeted programmes and resources towards achieving their goals.

The results of the recent international PISA study show us that New Zealand schools demonstrate a relatively consistent level of performance - that is, the average achievement level of students in school A is not much different from that in school B, irrespective of size, location, transience, decile, or socio-economic indicators. However, there is greater disparity of achievement between the highest and lowest achieving students within New Zealand schools than any other country in the OECD. New Zealand's top students are achieving as well as any of their international peers. On the other hand, New Zealand's lowest achieving youngsters achieve worse results than almost any other students. Every New Zealand school has both kinds of students. Underachieving students are in every school. It is up to each school to identify the curriculum areas, skills or particular groups of students in most need of a deliberate programme of improvement. The Ministry of Education has a joint responsibility with schools to ensure that resources are being used most effectively to achieve the outcomes our society needs for its on-going success.

5 How will the preparation of plans and reports improve teaching and learning in schools?

Paperwork alone won't change anything. If the planning and reporting process in a school is seen as nothing more than the preparation of tidy paperwork "to satisfy the Ministry of Education", then the improvements our students need will not happen. Plans and reports are the visible evidence of the collection and evaluation of information, and the goal-setting, decision making, and resource allocation that goes into running an improvement-focussed school.

Improvement of student outcomes depends on high-quality responsive teaching. A good planning process will establish, through analysis and consultation, the areas where teaching needs to be strengthened and supported. Through the planning process, the board and management of the school will make informed decisions about the classroom programmes, initiatives, and resources the school intends to use to address areas of need, and establish responsibilities for the delivery of those programmes. The `charter' is important only insofar as it effectively communicates these plans, goals, and responsibilities to all concerned.

6 Why do schools have to provide copies of plans and reports to the Ministry of Education?

State schools are taxpayer funded. The New Zealand public has a right to know what is being planned and the progress being made on their investment in education. The governance and management teams in schools will use the charter to articulate their school's strategic priorities, the relationship of those priorities to national goals for education, and the plans and programmes they intend to put in place to achieve their planned outcomes. Copying their plans and evaluative reports to the Ministry allows the Government to satisfy that accountability - it can assure the public about the extent to which progress is being made towards national priorities for education.

The information provided by schools plans and reports can assist government's review of policy and the development of new resources and initiatives. They can give insights into areas where school improvement, professional development, research and development, and funding is needed most.

The Ministry of Education has a responsibility to support schools by providing tools and information to support teaching and learning in New Zealand schools. By examining copies of each school's planning and reporting documentation, it can determine what kinds of support or advice may be most useful and necessary - and where further support may be needed.

Many schools make application for additional resourcing from contestable funding pools. Evaluating a school's charter plans will enable the Ministry to understand how the additional resource may contribute to the school's change management strategy and its long term directions, and therefore to evaluate the strength of its case for that additional resourcing.

7 Doesn't the requirement to copy charters and reports to the Ministry signal a lack of trust in professionals?

On the contrary. Providing an account to their clients or investors about what they're going to do, what they expect to achieve and what results they eventually achieved, are fundamental to being regarded as a professional. As the government is expected to account to taxpayers so it expects the professionals in schools to account to it about the professional decisions they're making, and the progress they are making.

8 The Secretary for Education has the power to renegotiate an unsatisfactory charter. Isn't this a retreat from the self-management guaranteed under Tomorrows' Schools?

The vision of this policy is that schools will play a part in a national drive to raise achievement and reduce disparity. The unique circumstances of each school mean that the best way to achieve this vision is best known and best managed at the school level. How schools go about their planning, the particular areas in which they set goals, the ways and means they measure the success of their initiatives, and the way they document all of these things, is their own business.

Nevertheless, schools are publicly funded institutions, and have a responsibility to serve the public interest in education. The Ministry, for its part, has a responsibility to work with all schools to achieve the best possible outcomes for students. In the unlikely circumstance that a school was planning in ways that were detrimental to student learning or in other ways contrary to the public interest, society would expect the Ministry to take a leadership role. This requires sharing of information - hence the requirement to send copies of charters and annual reports to the Ministry.

9 Why doesn't ERO do the checking?

The Education Review Office's external evaluation role is complementary to the self-review that schools carry out. Through an in-depth look inside the school every few years, ERO is able to provide assurance that the issues identified and prioritised by schools have been the right ones. Boards should be able to make use of ERO findings in refining their goals and in identifying future planning objectives. ERO also has a role to assure the public that schools are complying with legislative requirements.

10 What is the government's strategy for engaging with students' families in supporting schools?

Strengthening the engagement of families and whänau is a key part of the government's strategy. The Ministry of Education is doing a lot of work with other government departments to ensure policy alignments to better support parents and strengthen their capability to support their children's education.

The government has launched publicity and face-to-face communications programmes that support schools' work such as Whakaaro Matauranga, Feed the Mind, and Te Mana.

Nevertheless educators all know that the best kind of communication is face-to-face communication, and the government's education `agents' at the community level are, of course, the staff in schools themselves. Therefore better communication between schools and communities is a vital part of making this strategy work. This is why the charter planning legislation encourages schools to regularly consult with their communities and why it is encouraging more discussion of plans and progress.

11 What exactly are the National Administration Guidelines (NAGs)?

The National Administration Guidelines, along with the National Education Goals and the National Curriculum Statements, form the National Education Guidelines. The National Education Guidelines were established in 1990 and were revised in 1993, 1996 and again in 2001. The legal status of the NAGs is defined in section 60A of the Education Act. The NAGs are regulations that set out the way schools acknowledge national education priorities in the development of their charter and implementation of their programmes, and provides a framework for the way human, financial, and property resources are used in implementing those programmes.

"The purpose of a school charter is to establish the mission, aims, objectives, directions, and targets of the Board that will give effect to the Government's national education goals and the Board's priorities." (Education Act (1989) Section 61 (2))

12 Who is responsible for implementing the NAGs?

Under the Education Act 1989, Boards of Trustees are responsible for overseeing the management of their schools. In practice, boards work with principals, senior management, and staff to ensure that requirements are met.

13 What does NAG 1 mean by "to achieve for success"?

NAG 1 refers to achievement that provides the basis for success in further learning at school and in higher education and training. It also refers to the knowledge, values, skills, and attitudes that will be needed by the students of today to be successful participants in Aotearoa New Zealand and in the wider world. This NAG focuses administration of schools on their core business of student learning.

14 What does giving "priority to achievement in literacy and numeracy" mean? Is this just for primary schools?

Without competence in literacy and numeracy, people are not only denied the opportunity of benefiting from further learning but are also unable to participate effectively in most of the institutions of the "knowledge society". Although the Report of the Literacy Taskforce focused on achievement in literacy and numeracy in the early years, such achievement should be a continuing priority for all students. This does not necessarily mean allocating more time to literacy and numeracy teaching, but it does mean that teachers should focus on using that time efficiently and on reinforcing reading skills while working in other curriculum areas. However, to ensure that students' learning and life chances are not limited, no other programmes are more important than literacy and numeracy.

15 Are schools still required to provide a "balanced" curriculum?

The NAGs make it clear that high priority is to be given to student achievement in literacy and numeracy, especially in the early years. Beyond literacy and numeracy, the Ministry considers that the balance of essential learning areas and essential skills is a matter for each school to determine within the framework provided by the national curriculum statements.

The precise balance of the curriculum for students will vary from year to year and from student to student. A critical factor is that sufficient evidence is gathered and analysed to enable sound judgements about achievement and progress to be made.

16 Do schools still have to monitor student progress against achievement objectives?

Schools do have to provide a description of how well their students are doing. Achievement objectives should be used in planning teaching and learning programmes and when evaluating and reporting on student achievement and progress. The objectives are not intended to be a checklist of assessments to be ticked off for each student or aggregated to report curriculum level ratings for students. The achievement objectives are intended to be:

... sufficiently broad and flexible to allow for local interpretation and elaboration... to empower schools and teachers to design programmes which are relevant to the learning needs of their students and communities... [and] sufficiently specific to provide students, teachers, parents, and communities with clear information about what is to be learned and achieved during the years of schooling (The New Zealand Curriculum Framework, page 23).

...Clearly articulated standards for achievement play an important role in making decisions and judgements about learning. As Sadler (1998) stated, "it is impossible to make judgements about the quality of something purely `in its own terms', that is, in the complete absence of any reference points or framework at all. But it is possible to define standards and make consistent judgements against those standards" (McRae 2001; 21)

17 Can schools expect to make a difference for students that historically have underachieved?

Research shows that quality teaching makes a difference: between 45 and 55% of differences in student outcomes can be attributed to teaching. New Zealand-based research provides insights into actions that will make a difference in the classroom. Writing in various issues of set (published by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research), Adrienne Alton-Lee and Graeme Nuthall describe how schools can change outcomes for children in relation to both gender and ethnicity by making changes to the teaching and learning environments. Alison Jones also discusses opportunities for schools to make positive change in At School I've Got a Chance (Dunmore Press, 1991).

The Literacy Leadership programme (contact Learning Media Ltd) also case studies some very dramatic examples of schools turning perennial under-achievement into success by deliberate attention to first practice in the teaching of reading.

NAG guideline 1(iii) specifically requires that students and groups of students who 'are not achieving' or 'are at risk of not achieving' be identified as well as those 'aspects of the curriculum which require particular attention'. Schools must 'develop and implement teaching and learning strategies to address the needs of students and aspects of the curriculum' that have been identified (Guideline 1(iv)).

In this context, assessment processes that are specifically designed to promote learning are a powerful tool for raising achievement and reducing disparities. Through the National Assessment Strategy the Ministry is developing a range of assessment tools, such as the curriculum exemplars and the asTTle tools to enable valid, reliable and consistent judgements. The Ministry of Education is providing professional development through Assessment for Better Learning that will focus on the National Education Monitoring Project materials and Assessment Resource Banks with the aim of improving learning. Other topics will include the assessment of Mäori-medium students and the use of School Entry Assessment/Aro matawai Urunga-ä-kura (SEA/AKA).

18 How do the National Administration Guidelines (NAGs) fit in to the new planning and reporting framework?

The NEGs and NAGs remain the mechanism through which the government communicates its policies and regulations to the school sector.

When the Education Standards Act 2001 was passed, the section of the Education Act relating to NAGs was changed. The NAGs' functions of communicating the government's education policy objectives and defining administrative procedures were more sharply defined. The planning, self-review and reporting aspect of NAG 2, has been incorporated in the planning and reporting provisions of the Education Act itself. These changes highlight the need to think about the purpose of regulation in the school sector and the place of each of the NAGs.

Since the publication of the current NAGs in 1999 (which have been amended slightly since), the NAGs themselves became the organising framework under which many schools manage. In their strategic plans, schools were setting separate goals under each of the NAG areas: goals for curriculum, goals for Health and Safety, goals for property development, etc. While this worked well in some cases, in a lot of other cases it meant that these goals became ends in themselves, rather than as strategic props supporting the main goal of improving student achievement through quality teaching and learning. That way of viewing the NAGs appears to reduce teaching and learning to just one-sixth of the business of administering education.

As well as elevating NAG 2 to a legislative requirement, the new policy seeks to emphasise that a school's core business is raising student outcomes. NAG 1, through which the government articulates its national priorities for education, has primacy.

The strategic management of resources, staffing, and property development ought to align with and support curriculum delivery. National Administration Guidelines 3 to 6 are guidelines that protect the public interest in the administration of schools. Like the road rules, NAGs 3 to 6 are sensible parameters within which boards and principals do their work.

NAG 1, on the other hand, defines the focus of schools' work: the focus of their planning and the focus of their reporting should be about raising student achievement.

19 Have the NAGs changed?

No. Not as part of School Planning and Reporting. There was an amendment in December 2003 specifically defining gifted students as students with special needs.

The new ways of understanding the nature and the purpose of the National Administration Guidelines and how they relate to Schools Planning and Reporting are important. The Government has decided that there is no need to change them in the foreseeable future.