Feedback: Education sector
Reporting to parents
Consistent with parents/whānau views, the sector emphasised the usefulness of parents having clear, timely, honest and accurate information about their child’s progress, a picture of the whole child as an individual, reporting on current performance, and setting goals together.
The sector also asked for good, detailed information that addresses questions about the standards, assessment and reporting, and their implementation.
New Zealand Curriculum
The education sector wanted clarity on the alignment between National Standards, The New Zealand Curriculum, and the learning progressions.
There were concerns that the standards would narrow the curriculum and teaching practice, with less personalisation to meet diverse student needs.
“The new curriculum is about rich learning experiences and educating the whole child. We stand to lose all of this. From 2010, parents will receive regular reports showing their child’s progress against National Standards. Where does The New Zealand Curriculum fit into these National Standards? Do the National Standards replace reporting of progress against the NZC?”
Consultation materials
The sector thought the consultation materials were easy to understand, but there were divided views about whether: the standards were set at appropriate levels; the criteria were clear; and the exemplars appropriate.
Issues raised against each of the draft standards have been addressed in the response to feedback section below.
Assessment and use of data
There was concern from around a quarter of respondents that achievement data would be used to develop league tables, leading to unfair school comparisons which could be used in the media. It was suggested schools report on the value they added, on patterns of progress rather than raw standards, and build on the existing planning and reporting framework.
“Assessing against the standards has a high degree of subjectivity. There would be concern about a lack of consistency of practice across schools.”
Respondents identified a possible tension between maintaining school flexibility and autonomy and the need to ensure consistency of teacher judgements, assessment, school planning and reporting, and reporting to the community and the Ministry. Some schools thought ensuring consistency was important. Others questioned the extent to which the Ministry will need to prescribe assessment tools and reporting formats, moderate assessments and professional judgements, and specify frequency and timing of assessment and reporting.
Seventy two per cent of school respondents thought their school had strengths in using assessment tools. Most thought the tools their schools were using were sufficient to assess against the standards. However, they were less confident about their ability to make teacher judgements about the standards or to use the standards to improve teaching and learning.
“I think a standardised report would be good, but I would also like to see an area that reports about the progression that has been made, not just the achievement levels...”
Around a quarter of respondents thought their school had the capability to make changes to their school information management system that would be needed for the implementation of the standards.
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Timeframes
Respondents questioned the short timeframes for consultation and implementation, and were concerned that the standards would displace work on implementing The New Zealand Curriculum.
There were comments about the speed of implementation and the possible clash with the new curriculum.
“I am not opposed to National Standards philosophically, but mainly upset by the timeframe.”
Impact on students
There were concerns over the adverse impact on students performing below standard (their engagement, motivation and self-esteem), on high achievers, and on particular groups (students with special education needs, English language learners, Māori and Pasifika moving from immersion education, children who learn and progress at different rates, transient students, poor attendees).
“Many of our students start very slowly. Many of them have very little, if any, pre-school experience. Hence the standards for reading, writing and maths for Year 1 and Year 4 in the draft are set too high for them. Our student achievement would look quite poor alongside those. However by the end of Year 8 the students at our school are performing very well, especially for writing and reading.”
Impact on teachers
The impact of the standards on teachers was also raised as an issue. This included increasing their workload, whether results against standards would be related to performance pay, and whether initial teacher education (ITE) providers were able to ensure new teachers have the knowledge and skills to work with National Standards.
The sector sought assurance that professional development and support would be provided for teachers and schools to implement the standards, and wanted to know what support there would be for children identified as not meeting the standards and for their teachers and schools.
“It needs to be made clear to teachers that this is not extra work, it should be consolidating what we already do with our assessment information from STAR, PAT, PM and Probe etc.”
“Teachers need to be left to teach the children and reporting should be kept as manageable as possible.”
There were 132 submissions from Steiner school staff and parents who expressed concern that the special character of their schools and their approach to learning would be threatened by National Standards.