Blogs - National Standards

The Three Rs”: Reduce, Regiment, and Ruin our public education system

http://blog.greens.org.nz/2009/10/22/the-three-rs%E2%80%9D-reduce-regiment-and-ruin-our-public-education-system/ It wasn’t much fun waking up this morning to the news that the Ministry of Education will no longer be providing advice to primary schools on arts, science, technology, or physical education – nothing in fact, except the “three Rs”: reading, writing, and ‘rit… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 8, 2009 at 10:01pm — No Comments

National does not believe science should be taught in school

http://www.brad.net.nz/blog/2009/10/national-does-not-believe-science-should-be-taught-in-school/ http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/stories/2009/10/22/1245ce3b9622 Primary schools have been told that art, PE and science are to take a back seat to the three Rs. The Ministry of Education has told schools they wil… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 8, 2009 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Have you got research that supports National Standards?

Please if you have some research that will back this then link me to it so I can consider it. Have been looking for weeks now and I am still to find something that convinces me that my gut feelings and opinions and research from many, many people are wrong and national Standards are a good thing for our precious children. "http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10605223">http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10605223 'Pr… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 8:00pm — No Comments

Minister defends education standards ahead of announcement

http://www.3news.co.nz/Default.aspx?TabId=423&articleID=126603&cat=260&ce2637=1#comment The following comments have been made by Tolley: 'Teachers will need to know how a student reached an answer, rather than simply whether the answer was correct.' 'It was about "digging into" how a student learnt.' I am appalled as National Standards is about quantitative reporting s… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 7:45pm — No Comments

NAG 2a in regards to National Standards

I have included the NAG 2a which came out in a circular 2009/12. Tolley has said that results will not be used in league style tables. Item (c) shows reporting to the BOT annual report which as you know is publically available. The press knows this and it doesn't take 1 + 1 to get to 2 and see that media will have everything they need to publish league tables. A correspondent has suggested that the results could be required to be sent to a research organisation for in depth analysis and kept o… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 12:55pm — No Comments

My concerns as a parent

Hi all Yes my posts are selective but I am choosing to put up a selection of issues which worry me as a parent. To be honest, as I have trawled through the news articles the opposition to National Standards has far outweighed the positive so if you are worried that I am being one sided skim through the articles yourself for reassurance. http://www.stuff.co.nz/ search: 'National Standards' and Parents Against Labelling' Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 10:07am — No Comments

Potential of league tables

South Canterbury Primary Principals Association President, Mr Frazer: "The big concern is, will it be turned into league tables? That would potentially be quite damaging." He said the closure of Christchurch's Aorangi School was a test case of what the national standards could possibly result in. A review of Aorangi was announced in June, saying it would have to close because it would cost more than $2 million to rebuild the school, which had a falling roll. But Ms Tolley cited problems over… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 10:02am — No Comments

Intereted in your feedback

An interesting point brought up by a school parent that I have not actively thought about. What do professional teaching staff think about this? The Dominion Post asked parents at Clyde Quay School in Mt Victoria what they thought of the Government's national standards policy for primary schools. John Birkett, 39 "I am pretty happy with it. Teachers do their best and hopefully this will put some onus on parents to take more interest in their child's learning." Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 9:52am — No Comments

Introduction of National Standards

'The Principals Federation, which branded the introduction a "sad day", called for the standards to be scrapped and wanted the Government to start from scratch. Federation president Ernie Buutveld said schools could already identify pupils at risk of not achieving and make changes themselves.' http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/2996428/Principals-boycott-sad-day Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 9:49am — No Comments

Governmaent restriction of advisory services

The most recent trigger for this debate has been the news that the Government has decided to restrict the expert advisory services available to primary teachers to only a core group of numeracy and literacy subjects, with any savings being diverted into the national teaching standards exercise that is to begin next year. Not surprisingly, these moves to eliminate expert support for teachers in areas such as science, music, art and physical education are being hotly resisted by the teacher union… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 9:40am — No Comments

Cambridge University independent review

In Britain, a Cambridge University team has just completed the largest independent review of primary education in Britain in 40 years. The report contains strong criticisms of the centralisation of education, the narrowing of the curriculum, and the impact of continuous testing. Rather than serving as an early-warning system detecting those at risk, continuous testing is – in the view of the Cambridge University experts – more likely to become a premature badge of failure.… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 7, 2009 at 9:39am — No Comments

What do young children need in order to learn?

Ok so it is probably worthwhile to have some signposts for our primary and intermediate children. How about signposts that indicate what our children need to be able to do to participate in this knowledge age instead of a narrow focus on what teachers should teach within a couple of isolated subjects? What do you think? Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 4, 2009 at 10:51am — 2 Comments

The Three Rs' - Respect, Rights and Responsibility

George has sent me an email and the last paragraph hit home to me. He is talking about the issue of bullying in schools and and says the following: 'Toward the end of the interview, David (Rutherford) asks for more attention to another set of 3 R's of education - Rights, Respect and Responsibilities. If the fixation with literacy and numeracy persists, and the impact on motivation is what has been reported overseas, then these bullying statistics may not be set to improve in the near future.'… Continue

Added by Dellis Hunt on November 4, 2009 at 10:37am — 2 Comments

Editorial last weekend you may find interesting...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10605223 This editorial from the Herald on Sunday, together with Steve Braunias' spoof diary of Anne Tolley in the Sunday Start Times on Sunday was a welcome reprieve from the generally anti-teacher, blindly pro-league tables approach of most of the major dailies. However, it's interesting to note that a recent Ot… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on October 30, 2009 at 8:31am — No Comments

BULLDOZER APPROACH TO NATIONAL STANDARDS WON’T WORK

NZEI's latest press release The education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa says the government must recognise that a “bulldozer approach” to the introduction of National Standards will inevitably fail. The new National Standards for literacy and numeracy will be released at the end of October, and schools will then be expected to start working with them when they open their doors for the 2010 school year. That means principals and teachers will have just six weeks, during the busiest time of the… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on September 21, 2009 at 4:28pm — 1 Comment

DomPost attack on teachers

A number of individual principals' remarks, some of them ironic, about the risks of school league tables - and written in some cases months ago on MoE blogs - have led to a media frenzy this week. The DomPost made a virulent attack on ALL teachers http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/opinion/editorials/2823857/Editorial-Listen-and-learn-teachers yesterday. You can rea… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on September 3, 2009 at 2:56pm — No Comments

Trevor Mallard responds to national standards timeline

Labour welcomes Tolley back-down Labour Education Spokesperson Trevor Mallard today welcomed the back-down from Education Minister Anne Tolley on ramming through National Standards that would have created league tables of schools. “The original intention of the National Government was to rush National Standards into existence despite concerns from teachers, principals and the New Zealand Educational Institute,” Trevor Mallard said. “Teachers and principals have being saying for months that th… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on August 6, 2009 at 11:44am — No Comments

NZEI response to Tolley's move on timeline

The government’s just–announced timeline for the implementation and reporting of new national standards of educational achievement represents a victory for commonsense, says the education sector union NZEI Te Riu Roa. The Education Minister has released a timeline which recognises and takes account of concerns raised by teachers and principals that the draft timeframe was too tight. NZEI President Frances Nelson says while national standards will still be implemented next year and used to repo… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on August 6, 2009 at 11:34am — No Comments

Tolley puts timeline for data gathering from national standards back to 2012

The latest from the Minister.... Hon Anne Tolley Minister of Education 5 August 2009 Media Statement Timeline for Implementation of National Standards Minister of Education Anne Tolley has announced the timeline for implementing National Standards, which aim to lift the levels of achievement in literacy and numeracy for New Zealand children in primary and intermediate schools. “I have taken into account the feedback we received following the consultation period, where over 10,000 people attend… Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on August 5, 2009 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Ministry posts consultation feedback summary

The Ministry has posted a summary of feedback from parents and educators on its site: http://www.minedu.govt.nz/theMinistry/Consultation/NationalStandards/ConsultationFeedback.aspx Continue

Added by Stephanie Mills on August 3, 2009 at 11:48pm — No Comments

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