A Report Card for Hekia Parata as the Minister of Education

Hekia Parata Report Card:

Oral Language - Speaking: Above the Standard.
Hekia is a gifted orator with an ability to project her voice and use expression to captivate an audience.  However, Hekia's use of vocabulary often alienates her audience, so using a thesaurus to find words better aimed at her audience would be beneficial.

Oral Language - Listening: Well Below the Standard.
Hekia has displayed no signs of listening to others opinions.  She only follows instructions of her superiors, but never listens to those she considers beneath her, despite those people having considerable more knowledge than her on many subjects.

Reading Comprehension: Below Standard.
While Hekia is a capable reader and can decode accurately, her comprehension requires work.  Hekia seems to read things into a text that are not there and fails to inference what the author is actually inferring or even grasp glaringly obvious concepts and themes within the text.

Numeracy - Well Below the Standard.
Hekia fails to understand ratios, inflation, and has difficulty with the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  She plucks figures from mythical places and then relies on her ability as an orator to 'convince' fellow classmates that her calculations are correct.  We are looking to place Hekia is a remedial group for basic numeracy.

Writing - Above the Standard.
As with Speaking, Hekia is a gifted writer, particularly in the genre of persuasion and fantasy.  Somehow Hekia excells when she combines these two genre to create an alternative planet we've come to know as 'Planet Key'.

Science - Below the Standard.
Hekia does not believe in this area as she wants to focus on Literacy and Numeracy and has not met the standard in any of the strands.

Social Science - Below the Standard.
Hekia has failed the standard here due to her inability to move past her focus on Literacy and Numeracy.

Health and PE - Well Below the Standard.
Due to Hekia's focus on Literacy and Numeracy, and her objection to only healthy food being sold in the school canteen, Hekia has failed this standard.

The Arts - Well Below the Standard.
Again, Hekia's focus on only Literacy and Numeracy means she holds scant regard for the arts and she is unable to demonstrate any grasp of conceptual knowledge in the arts or display any practical work during her time.

Te Reo Māori - Above the Standard
Due to Hekia's superb oratory this is an area she does well in.

Key Competencies:


Thinking - Below the Standard
Thinking has not been a strong point for Hekia, especially her critical thinking skills.  Once Hekia gets an idea in mind it is very hard to get her to look at any evidence to the contrary, even if she has based her thinking on faulty evidence.

Relating to Others - Well Below the Standard

Hekia has very real issues relating to others, especially teachers, principals, support staff and education academics.  Her turnover of staff in her 'office' has also been of concern at times.  She will require a referral to the RTLB service if inschool efforts fail to make progress with her social skills.

Using Language, Symbols and Texts - At Standard

Hekia is able to use language, symbols and texts to communicate with others at a high level, but her interpretation of these competencies has room for improvement.

Managing Self - Below Standard
Usually Hekia is able to present a pleasant veneer to the public and classmates.  Her smile has been perfected.  However, there have been times where Hekia has shown she has difficulty controlling herself, such as at ULearn16 and the NZEI and PPTA conferences in 2015.  We will be monitoring her closely.


Participating and Contributing - Below Standard
While Hekia attends many events, her absence at NZEI and PPTA conferences outnumber her attendances and this has not gone unnoticed by those who look up to her for guidance.  Hekia tends to dominate proceedings and last year showed she was unable to let others fully contribute to the School Funding Review as she dominated proceedings.  This will need considerable guidance.

Overall, I assess Hekia Parata to have Not Met the Standard in being a Minister of Education.







Acknowledgements:  The fabulous cartoonists who have faithfully captured Hekia Parata over the years.  You are my heroes.