New Education Minister starts her 100 Day Plan

On Tuesday the new Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, released her

First steps of 100 day for education: removing distractions and teaching the basics brilliantly press release.  Naturally every new government loves to stamp their mark on the education sector very early on.  And this does.

One hour a day....

First up, Minister Stanford states:

“We have an aspirational target to get 80 per cent of our kids to curriculum by the time they finish intermediate, to set them up for success so they can live the life they want.

“Starting from Term 1 2024, all students in Years 0 – 8 will be taught reading, writing and maths for an average of one hour a day in each subject.

“We’re seeing that many schools are already doing this well, but this change is about having time dedicated to teaching reading, writing and maths in a purposeful and deliberate way consistently across New Zealand.

“The Ministry of Education will provide guidance and support to assist schools with the implementation of these changes.”

This has been communicated by the MOE in the School Leaders Bulletin Issue 169 sent out on December 12th.  The MOE stated:

Improving outcomes in reading, writing, and maths (or pānui, tuhituhi and pāngarau) is a priority for the Government. The Government will ask schools with students Years 0 to 8 to spend an average of an hour a day teaching reading, writing, and maths (or pānui, tuhituhi and pāngarau).

We know many of you are already doing this teaching, so there may not be a big change for you. 

This policy will safeguard explicit teaching time for reading, writing and maths (or pānui, tuhituhi and pāngarau). The expectation is that, on average, schools will be doing five hours a week of maths (pāngarau) and 10 hours a week of reading and writing (pānui and tuhituhi). 

There are some issues I can see with this, but that is for another post.  

Come again!  What is this?

But this, further down in the Minister's press release raised my hackles:

Kura with students in Years 0 – 8, run by a specified kura board, will have until Term 3 2024 for implementation of the requirement for one hour a day of each of reading, writing and maths, to enable consultation.

Specialist schools will have an extended 12 month deadline until Term 1 2025 to ensure the requirement for one hour a day of each of reading, writing and maths best supports teaching and learning for their students.

Specialist schools?  Are we talking about the schools that cater for students who have ORS funding because they have extra special learning needs?  I had flashbacks to when I was required to do National Standards OTJs in reading, writing and maths for a Year 6 child with Downs Syndrome who was not even accessing Level 1 of the New Zealand Curriculum.

The cell phone ban.  🙄

Then there is the policy for no student cell phones in schools - which I consider most schools can already make this decision effectively for themselves and completely ignores that for many students this is the only device they can access for learning.  Here is what Erica Stanford wrote.

“New Zealand schools and overseas jurisdictions that have already imposed restrictions on cellphones in the classroom have reported better concentration and engagement in class, and an improvement in student achievement and wellbeing.

“Effective from Term 2 2024, students will need to put their cellphone away for the day and schools will be required to have a cellphone policy in place by then.

“While the policy officially takes effect from Term 2 2024, it is our expectation that most schools will implement the policy from Term 1.

“The implementation and enforcement of the policy will be at the discretion of individual schools to ensure it is implemented effectively for their school community. Options that have been successfully used in some schools include having students hand in their cellphones before class or leaving them in their lockers or bags for the day. Exemptions will be allowed for students with health conditions or in special learning circumstances."

I am glad there will be an exemption for students with health conditions.  I spend a bit of time in classes in my local intermediate school.  All students are required to hand in their phones at the beginning of the school day.  The only students who are exempt have diabetes and the phone monitors their blood sugar and need for insulin through a very expensive special patch on their arm that eliminates the need to use other more traditional measures.

The School Leaders Bulletin said:

Both international and local evidence shows that cellphones can be a distraction from learning during class time, as well as reducing important face to face interaction during school breaks. A UNESCO report published in July describes the move towards cellphones being away for the school day as supporting addressing issues of classroom disruption, improving learning and helping protect children from cyberbullying. 

Smartphones in school? Only when they clearly support learning – UNESCO 26 July 2023

The expectation of our new coalition Government is that you are ready to implement a cellphone policy that has cellphones ‘away for the day’ as soon as possible in Term 1 2024.

You can find examples of how some schools have managed implementing this policy here: 

Phones away for the day – Ministry of Education 

From now until the beginning of Term 1 2024, we will be providing examples of policy practice that you may choose to consult on and adapt for your community. These will be added to the web page.

The Government’s intention is to have the regulations for this policy in place before Christmas. For those schools that have an existing cellphone policy in place there may be very little to do. Others will need to begin the process of implementing a new cellphone policy in their school community. We will provide a small number of implementation examples to support the process of policy design and implementation. 

Subject to the regulations being in place, there will be some flexibility in how you implement the policy based on your circumstances and the needs of learners and their families. For example, an exemption could be agreed where a student requires a phone to support their health or learning needs.

The Ministerial Advisory Group is announced.

But the next part concerns me the most.  And that is the announcement of who would be on the Ministerial Advisory Group to review the primary school English, maths and statistics curricula.  Ms Stanford said of this group:

“The intention for the review of the English and maths curricula is not to start again, but to build on the work that has already been done and strengthen this,” says Erica Stanford.

“The aim is to ensure teachers have the clarity and tools needed to teach these core subjects brilliantly. Work will be done in the first half of 2024, ready for implementation in 2025.

“We will make sure schools are teaching the basics brilliantly, so every child has the opportunity to succeed – in school and beyond.”

This echoes what was said in the School Leaders Bulletin.

But what does concern me is who is on the group, their links to other organisations and how many of them, if not all, were critical of the direction of the previous government's education policies and direction.

Dr Michael Johnston (Chair)   

Michael is a cognitive psychologist with experience in a variety of roles across the education sector. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the New Zealand Initiative where he leads the workstream on education. Michael has held academic positions at the University of Melbourne and Victoria University of Wellington, where he was Associate Dean (Academic) in the Faculty of Education. He has published research on human cognition, literacy acquisition and educational assessment. Prior to his time at Victoria, Michael was the Senior Statistician at the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, where he developed technical processes for NCEA, including the grade score marking system for external examinations. He contributed to Ministry of Education policy work for the NCEA literacy and numeracy co-requisites and designed the framework for the Progress and Consistency assessment tool. He is a current member of NZQA’s Technical Overview Group on Assessment.

So my concerns are as follows:

• is part of the New Zealand Initiative, a right wing think tank which is no fan of a free quality public education system.
• is not actually a teacher - he is a statistician - so has no idea about how teaching is done in primary.
• it says he contributed to MOE policy work for NCEA - but this Advisory group is focused on the primary curriculum.

Dr. Audrey Tan   

Audrey is a mathematics educator with more than 20 years' experience helping primary and secondary school students to achieve significantly improved outcomes.  With a deep belief that everyone can learn maths, Audrey has, for many years, advocated a more pragmatic approach to teaching maths in primary schools.  Her professional learning and development for educators in a school setting focuses on effective teaching practices that are supported by the cognitive science of learning to raise both teacher confidence and student achievement. Audrey holds a B.Sc. Honours degree in Mathematics from the University of Canterbury and a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics from the University of Cambridge.  She was a member of the NCEA Numeracy Subject Expert Group and has contributed to the New Zealand curriculum refresh as a Subject Matter Expert.

My concerns with this choice:

• Dr Tan has often been in the media over the last few years publicly denigrating our New Zealand Mathematics and Statistics Curriculum and how it is taught, but to be fair, she did so under the previous National led government too.

Barbara Ala’alatoa  

Barbara is a New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) refresh Coherence Group member for the New Zealand curriculum refresh project. She is the former Principal of Sylvia Park School and is currently an Education Consultant. Prior to this, she worked as a lecturer and senior lecturer at Auckland College of Education and as a primary school teacher. She has also chaired the National Ministerial Leadership and Teaching Quality Workstream and been a member of the National Workforce Policy Advisory Group and National Curriculum Advisory Group which had a real focus on progress and achievement and building leader and teacher capability. She has chaired the Boards of Te Kura (2019 to 2022) and Education Council of Aotearoa New Zealand (2015 to 2019) and was on the Independent Taskforce on the Review of Tomorrow’s Schools. Her current role is chair of Ako Mātātupu Teach First NZ.

I'll just refresh your memory of Ms Ala'alatoa:

• Hekia Parata's university flatmate.
• Ms Ala'alatoa was the principal at Sylvia Park School the day former PM John Key asked Hekia Parata to ring around to find out about kids going to school without lunch.
• she was the founding Chair of EDUCANZ, which was controversially set up in opposition to 99% of submission, so has a history of being appointed by National Education Ministers to organisations.

Dr Christine Braid   

Christine is a facilitator at the Institute of Education, Massey University with expertise in junior reading. She contributed to the New Zealand curriculum refresh specifically on literacy and is currently leading the Literacy@Massey training programme, where she works with teachers across New Zealand to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to significantly improve children’s literacy outcomes. She has a background as a primary school teacher and literacy facilitator, and more recently as an educational researcher in the area of literacy. She was part of the Massey University Early Literacy Research Project and lead facilitator on the Ministry of Education contract for teacher training in TEPiL.

I know one of Dr Christine Braid's extended family members, and she assures me that Christine is a top person who upholds the rights of all rangatahi and has spent years doing substantial research regarding how teachers influence reading outcomes for beginning readers.  Another friend of mine has received some solid PLD from Dr Braid.  However, she has been published by the New Zealand Institute too, which gives me concern, but her relative informs me that does not mean Dr Braid is aligned with them.

Professor Elizabeth Rata  

Professor Elizabeth Rata is a sociologist of education in the School of Critical Studies, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland. She is Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit (KERU) and leads the Knowledge Rich School Project which focuses on national curriculum design.

Professor Rata is somewhat controversial.  It was a post on BlueSky by Morgan Godfrey that first alerted me to this appointment and the fact this Ministerial Advisory Group was announced.  Prof Rata was very involved in the early set up of kura kaupapa, but has since been described as the female Don Brash when it comes to things Māori - and I am being very polite with that description.  She does have associations with Hobson's Pledge, the New Zealand Initiative and is one of the Listener Seven.  It is amazing what a Google search finds.  I also heard she believes the curriculum should be ten pieces of knowledge.  A few people reached out to me over her, and they had nothing complimentary to say, so I won't repeat it.  I'm really perplexed as to why Prof Rata was appointed.

 

Associate Professor Fiona Ell   

Fiona is an Associate Professor in School of Curriculum Pedagogy, University of Auckland. She is a Lead subject matter expert for the Mathematics and Statistics writing team for the New Zealand curriculum refresh. Fiona was a member of the Royal Society Expert Panel on Mathematics Education from January to July 2021. She undertakes research in the area of mathematics education and prepares teachers to teach primary level mathematics and statistics.

Associate Professor Ell is also a member of the Governing Council of the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand as the Teacher Educatior's Representative.  Along with Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin (see below), Associate Professor Ell has been a member of the Royal Society Te Apārangi Expert Advisory Panel on Mathematics and Statistics convened between January and June 2021 with a brief to provide advice to the Ministry of Education on the English-medium Mathematics and Statistics curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand and I think it makes sense to have someone who has done this work be part of this Advisory Group.

Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin   

Gaven is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at Massey University, and Chair of the New Zealand Mathematical Research Institute. He is the former head of the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Study and chaired the Royal Society Te Apārangi Royal Society Panel 2021 providing advice to the Ministry of Education on refreshing the mathematics and statistics learning area of the New Zealand Curriculum. The Royal Society’s report was titled "Pāngarau Mathematics and Tauanga Statistics in Aotearoa New Zealand".

Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin was involved with the Expert Advisory panel in 2021.  He has spoken out in the media over the years for improvements in maths teaching.

Dr Helen Walls   

Helen is a professional learning facilitator and researcher specialising in the teaching of writing, structured literacy, school-wide data analysis, formative assessment and feedback. She has 20 years’ experience working in schools. Helen assists schools to plan effective programmes which are closely aligned with student needs. She is passionate about supporting teachers, sharing evidence-based methods that will engage with every student.

Dr Walls has worked with Dr Braid.  She is a teacher, professional learning facilitator and an educational researcher with an expertise in writing, known on Facebook as The Writing Teacher.

Iain Taylor   

Iain is an experienced Principal and educational leader. For the last 15 years he has led Manurewa Intermediate School as Principal. In this role he has worked to improve student attendance and achievement and was recognised for his service in 2017 as recipient of the Prime Minister’s Supreme Educational Excellence Award. Outside the classroom, Iain has led the New Zealand Principals’ Federation as their president and worked on the ERO Advisory Board.

This is a bit of a mixed bag.

• as the NZPF president, Iain Taylor condemned the Charter School model.
• he was one of the principals/schools rung by Hekia Parata to ask about kids having lunch or not on that infamous day, like Barbara Ala'alatoa.  (I think the other school in Ruatoria had a family connection to Ms Parata).
• he was inclined towards National Standards.
• he has hosted new PM Christopher Mark Luxon at least twice - Luxon visited Manurewa Intermediate a year ago and more recently with Minister Stanford.

In this second video, Iain Taylor is a bit dubious about Minister Stanford's goal to have 80% of Year 8 students "at curriculum" as they leave their intermediate years.  

As an aside, "at curriculum" is not a term we use in education the way Ms Stanford uses it and it really annoys me that she uses it.

Professor James Chapman   

James is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Massey University.  His research interests include literacy learning difficulties, cognitive-motivational factors associated with low achievement, and learning disabilities Reading Recovery. James is an experienced researcher and university teacher based at Massey University. As well as having over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books on learning disabilities, literacy learning issues, dyslexia/literacy difficulties, and cognitive motivation factors in learning and achievement, James has been an advisor for the University of Canterbury Better Start Literacy Approach research and was a member of the Ministry of Education Literacy Experts Group.

Prof James Chapman is a big fan of structured literacy, and not so much of Marie Clay and Reading Recovery.  But, hey, research moves on.

Lorraine Taylor   

Lorraine is an experienced Primary School Principal and mentor /coach for other principals. She is currently the principal of Silverstream School Upper Hutt after serving in principal roles in three Rotorua primary schools. Lorraine has been involved in Ministry of Education work for a number of years, notably in the development and testing for the Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT).

Lorraine Taylor is an unknown element to me.  But the fact she is an advocate for the development of PaCT gives me a moment to pause, especially since National's last Minister of Education had planned to elevate PaCT and make it compulsory as part of their 2017 education manifesto.

Dr. Melissa Derby   

Melissa is a Senior Lecturer teaching early literacy and human development at the University of Waikato. She is the co-Director of the Early Years Research Centre, hosted by the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research at the University of Waikato. Melissa completed her PhD in Education at the University of Canterbury, and her project was a part of A Better Start National Science Challenge. Her primary area of research is in early literacy, in particular exploring the role of whānau in fostering foundational literacy skills.

Dr Derby seems to be the only Māori voice on this panel, however, I was somewhat concerned when I google Dr Derby to see:

• she has been interviewed several times by Reality Check Radio (home of the anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorist, the Hobson Pledgers and so much more).
• she is a governing member of the Free Speech Union.
• she may be a Posie Parker supporter and is highly likely to be anti-trans. *
• she appears to be a person who does not think socio-economic or cultural deprivation impacts educational achievement.

But I'll let you form your own judgement from these videos Dr Derby has done for the Common Room NZ, which is, as described by The Spinoff, a right wing media organisation focused on unpacking the big ideas.

I think these videos clearly illustrate Dr Derby's values and beliefs.  While thought provoking and presented in a very reasonable manner, I was still speechless that she said what she said.

Final thoughts...

So some members of the Ministerial Advisory Group raise more concerns than others.  I am concerned there is no truly strong Māori voices and that there is not one Pasifika voice in this group.  I am concerned that there is a strong element of the New Zealand Initiative and possibly more National/ACT aligned members of this Advisory Group.

It remains to see what they will recommend.  The ink is barely dry on the Curriculum Refresh and school leadership and teaching teams are still getting their heads around it... so of course, like when the New Zealand Curriculum was about to bed in in 2009, National is upsetting the apple cart completely.

* This is not included to encourage people to dox anyone - I highly disapprove of doxxing.  In fact, it is to inform that this is found by a simple Google search which brought up Dr Derby's X post "likes" and who she has supported in her role at the Free Speech Union.

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.

When should a child begin formal schooling in New Zealand?

Currently New Zealand's education system is going through its biggest shake up in nearly thirty years.  It currently feels like every day we are having new revelations come out of Minister Hekia Parata's office to see how much higher she can push an education professional's blood pressure and heart rate!

Earlier this year Ms Parata raised the possibility of more "flexibility" with the age of starting school to give parent more "choice" and allow schools to set "expectations" for their community.  This may mean the following could happen:

• a school could still receive children from the day they turn 5 years old, as happens now.
• a school may decide that children will start schools at set times.  This may mean one intake a year at the beginning of the school year, or twice a year (terms 1 and 3), or at the beginning of each term.
• children may need to already be five and start at the next intake of new entrants.
• children may start earlier than five years old to met the date of an intake of new entrants.

At the website for the Education (Update) Amendment Bill I found the following:

Currently, most children start school on their fifth birthday or soon after. Some schools are encouraging parents to start their children at school as part of a cohort on set dates during the year.
Under the current Act, however, schools must allow any child who has turned five to start school on the day requested by their parents.
The Education (Update) Amendment Bill (the Bill) proposes to enable schools to implement a cohort entry policy whereby new entrants could only start school at the beginning of each term. The earliest that children would be able to start school is at the beginning of the term closest to their fifth birthday.
Before introducing a cohort entry policy, school boards of trustees would be required to consult with school staff, parents of current and prospective students of the school, and local early childhood education services.

The website then goes onto explaining the details more:

When will these changes take effect?

The Bill is expected to come into force in 2017.

Who will these changes affect?

These changes will affect schools with Year 1 students, children starting school and their parents and whānau, and early childhood education services.

What are the benefits of cohort entry?

Some education professionals consider that cohort entry enables them to support better transitions to school, simplify school and classroom planning, and minimise disruption for existing new entrant children.

When will children be able to enrol in a school with cohort entry?

Children will be able to start at a school with cohort entry at the beginning of the term closest to their fifth birthday, or the beginning of a later term. This means that some children will be able to start school up to eight weeks before they turn five, while other children will have to wait up to eight weeks after their fifth birthday before they can start school.
The precise cut-off dates for each term will be published in the Gazette and on the Ministry of Education’s website. Children turning five before the cut-off date for a term will be able to enrol in a school with cohort entry at the beginning of that term.

Examples Hana turns five in week eight of term one. As her birthday is closest to the beginning of term two, if she was enrolling in a school with cohort entry she would need to wait until the beginning of term two to start school. Tom turns five in week six of term four. As his birthday is closest to the beginning of term four, if he was enrolling in a school with cohort entry he could start school at the beginning of term four, or the beginning of a later term.

How will parents know which schools have cohort entry policies?

Schools will be required to publicise their cohort entry policy at least a term before implementing it. This could be done through their website, for example. Parents will also be able to find out whether a school has a cohort entry policy or not using the “Find a School” function on www.educationcounts.govt.nz

Will this change affect the compulsory age for schooling?

No. Parents will continue to have the option of not starting their child in school until their sixth birthday, irrespective of whether or not the school they enrol in has a cohort entry policy.

If a child is unable to enrol in school until after their fifth birthday, will they still be eligible for ECE subsidies?

Yes. Any Ministry of Education ECE subsidies, including 20 Hours Free, are currently available up until a child turns six or enrols in school. The Ministry of Social Development will be making changes to the childcare assistance regulations to ensure that children who are not able to start school until after their fifth birthday will continue to be eligible for the childcare subsidy.

If a child enrols in school before their fifth birthday, will they be eligible for the OSCAR subsidy?

Yes. The Ministry of Social Development will be making changes to the childcare assistance regulations to ensure that children starting school before their fifth birthday will be eligible to receive the OSCAR subsidy.

Naturally this topic encourages a great debate.  There are a number of concerned parties:  children, parents, new entrant teachers, principals and early childhood educators.  Let's look at how this impacts on all of these groups and various views they may have.

Children
Every child knows that they can start school on their 5th birthday.  It has been a long established custom in New Zealand to do so, and children will look at other children whose birthdays fall in the school holidays with pity. 

Last year my nephew turned five and began school the day after his birthday (he wanted to have his cake with his day care mates on his birthday), and he was very excited.  In the tradition of my family, my mother went to see him off to school as his Nana.  This is a tradition as my great grandmother saw my mother and myself off to school when we turned five.

So changes to when a child starts school may dampen the excitement of the ritual and anticipation of beginning school for children if this is changed.

The change in the culture of when children begin school will have to happen for children and their parents if changes are made.

Parents
Many parents welcome their child turning five and beginning school. 

First there is the knowledge that they and their child have achieved the milestone of starting school. 

There is the ritual of the fifth birthday and the giving of a new school bag, lunch box, drink bottle and pencil case loaded with goodies to help them learn (or lose on the first day of school). 

The anxiety of taking them to school and leaving them there... the amount of parents who cry themselves back to their car and home/to work usually outnumber the tears of the child!

And then there is the joy in no longer forking out for day care fees (my brother's biggest joy when his son started school) for working parents.

Any change to the starting age/time of a child being a new entrant to school will affect parents.  It either means they may end up with their child at home or in day care for longer, or it may mean they are required to start their child at school earlier than the established New Zealand custom.  Many will feel the need to "keep up with the Jones'" so they can "give their child a head start" by starting their child as a new entrant before they turn five, so this needs to be carefully considered and will require parents to be educated about the options that will be open to them if changes arise.

New Entrant Teachers
The debate about when it is best for children to start their school journey is long established in the world of a new entrant teacher.  Some enjoy and celebrate new ones joining them as and when they have their fifth birthdays, other lament the disruption of settling in a new child every few weeks and having to start all over again.

Some teachers support having set intakes, either annually, at the beginning of the school year and mid year, or at the beginning of each new term.  Some welcome the idea of an intake at the beginning of each month.

New entrant teachers will roll with what happens, but their main concern is that the child has had a practical amount of pre-school visits before they officially enrol at school so they can become familiar with the teacher, class and other children as well as some of the routines.

Principals
Principals currently have a big headache.  While they will endeavour to collect the appropriate information about who is a pre-schooler who is likely to attend their school well in advance, there is often a surprise enrolee who may pop up out of the blue to start on their fifth birthday without warning.  This can play havoc with class numbers, teacher:child ratios and space considerations for classrooms.

Early Childhood Educators
Children legally currently do not have to enrol in a primary school until their sixth birthday.  But if we start having children enrolling in primary school before their fifth birthday, this will have implications for early childhood providers. 

On one hand there will be less children, and this could affect their funding.  Then again, it frees up a place for a younger child to come into the early childhood facility. 

My opinion
I think that a change in this custom of when children start school is a good idea.  However this legislation will make it messy.  Under this legislation no one will know what the preferred enrolment of any of their local schools are unless they do a bit of research.  How many parents are going to do that?  How many irate parents and distressed five year old will school office staff and principals be confronted by?

I think, for the sake of children, parents, teachers, principals and all other interested parties that there has to be uniformity in this custom of when children start school up and down New Zealand.

I believe the best way forward is intakes of cohorts.  Each cohort should start school at the beginning of each new term.  Every child should already be five, or turning five within two weeks of the first day of the term - no four year olds who turn school after two weeks of the new term - but if you want your child to be closer to six years old before they start, that is still your choice as a parent.  This gives every child a group of students they will move through school with.  It will allow principals to appropriately plan staffing and use of classrooms within their school to accommodate the group of children starting each term.  It will allow the new entrant teacher to start the term with all their students and plan accordingly for them.

This has great possibilities for improving the transition for school for many children and giving them the best start to their school journey.  But the Minister has failed the standard by making the proposal too complicated in allowing different schools to have different intake policies after consulting with their communities.  The Minister will be failing children and parents as well as teachers and principals if this continues in this form.

World Teachers Day 2014 - celebrating teachers who have inspired us

Last year marked the start of the year of the Teacher and I blogged about why I am a teacher in the post World Teachers' Day - why I am a teacher and as I sit here reflecting on the past year and that post, I am also reflecting upon the teachers who inspired me as a learner and as a teacher. 

Teachers are not teachers for the money.  Teachers are teachers because they love to learn and to see others catch the learning bug.

I've caught up with a few friends and family in the last week who are teachers.  For ten weeks we have been head down bum up in our own classrooms, our own schools.  This term break is when teachers have traditionally held their annual meetings of their unions.  NZEI (primary & intermediate & ECE teachers and support staff) held their meeting in Rotorua and PPTA (secondary teachers) held their meeting in Wellington.  Even though I was not an official attendee to the NZEI Annual Conference, I did gate crash one day to hear three fabulous speakers, Dr Richie Poulton on self-control, Deborah Morris-Travers (CEO of Unicef) on child poverty and Efeso Collins on talanoa.  See the end of this post for the Storifys of the tweets I've made for Deborah and Efeso's presentations.

But there is also the time for that collegial aspect of sharing a meal or a drink and discussing with your friends and whanau who are teachers about the funnier aspects of teaching, the trials, the successes, the frustrations.... that you can truly appreciate in the term break.

Then there is the catching up on housework, car maintenance, dentist/doctor/vet visits, marking, professional reading, class tidying... all those things you were too busy to do during the previous 10 weeks crammed into 2 weeks.

And while I do bemoan the fact that teachers are under attack from our own government and society (that's for another post), Sunday was all about celebrating the teachers that have inspired us as learners.  These are the teachers who inspired me as a learner at primary and secondary school:

This is my 6th Form Certificate Máori class at Melville High in Hamilton in 1990 with our teacher, Te Pirihi Whiu (known as Bill to the other teachers).  We had had Te Pirihi as our teacher since third form, where he put us all out of our comfort zone.  But we stuck with him.  The teacher that petrified us as turds, was beloved by our sixth form year.  "Jump" he said to us in 1987 and we did.  By 1990, it was like "Whatever, TP" but we learned so much.  Four of us became teachers, the fifth a lawyer.

I think that the above quote is true of the teachers I have worked with and I also want to celebrate the teachers I have worked with who have inspired me as a professional.

I am so lucky to count these people as friends as well as colleagues.

So today I challenge you to tell the teachers who have inspired you as a learner or as a professional (no matter what profession you are in) that they have had an impact on you.  Celebrate what teachers have helped you achieve, and celebrate that they were your teacher.  Celebrate our quality public education system and World Teachers' Day.  I want you to celebrate the teachers who met your standard of a great teacher.

And below, be inspired by Deborah Morris-Travers and Efeso Collins, who spent a small amount of time this last week inspiring teachers, principals and support staff at the NZEI Annual Conference.  I certainly got a lot out of their wise words and recorded what I could.

Labour's Education Policy - An antidote to the GERM infection of the last six years.

The first weekend of July saw the Labour Party well and truly launch its 2014 election campaign.  They had a three day Congress in Wellington, and I attended the Sunday when David Cunliffe made his keynote speech and laid out the bones of some very important policy Labour wants to base its campaign on.  And education was at the core of it.

I was very far away from the middle, coughing my germs I had to the empty space on the edge of the auditorium, hence this terrible photograph I took.

As a teacher, any announcements on education are of great interest to me, particularly if they are going to get rid of what I think is detrimental in education (GERM policies, National Standards, Charter Schools, performance pay, IES roles, no teacher representation on EDUCANZ) and will promote and/or improve what teachers know to be valuable in education (teacher education pre-service and for those in practice, special education, class sizes, work load, New Zealand Curriculum, and so on).

I was not disappointed.

But please do not think that I am merely basing who I will vote for on education.  Education will be the first thing I think about though because I work in it, I'm passionate for learning and children, and it pays for the important things I do like eating and shopping and the internet - the priorities in life.

However, I do also consider other things like the following:

• the economy - will they balance the books and be responsible?
• employment - will their policies create jobs or put people out of jobs?  Will they make it fairer to the employee so they have job security?  Will the Living Wage happen so that we don't have the working poor living in poverty?
• housing - will I be able to buy a house before I truly get wrinkles?  Will rental houses be warm and dry and healthy?  Will all those families living in cars and garages get a state house?
• environment - will they improve the health of our waterways so I can swim in the Waikato and Waihou Rivers with confidence?  Will the kauri survive the kauri die back disease?  Will our native birds be protected?  Will 1080 be used in the bush?  Will the Maui dolphin be protected?  Will oil drilling and fracking be placed under much tougher regulations?
• Christchurch - will those poor people get a fair deal from their insurance companies?  Will the rebuild meet what a modern city should/could be?
• manufacturing - will there will be manufacturing in New Zealand?  Will people be encouraged to invest in improving our primary goods (e.g. milk, wood, wool, etc) before exporting rather than sending off the raw product?
• the regions - will the people of the regions be able to stay and have a good standard of living with a job close to home, or will they have to move to Auckland?
• health - will they make the waiting list process more transparent rather than the lie it currently is?  Will more people get their operations sooner so they can become productive members of society again?  Will more get put into addiction services?  Will nurses get paid better and get more nurses in wards to reduce their workload and improve patient care?  Will care in our rest homes be upgraded for the elderly?
• welfare - will we see children of beneficiaries taken care of?  Will solo parents get a fair shake of the stick when it comes to improving their education and work prospects?  Will WINZ go back to having caseworkers who know what's going on with each client so they don't waste time?
• TPPA - will they give away our rights and freedoms to run our lives and our country free from foreign companies dictating what should happen in New Zealand?

So as you can see, I have a few issues to consider.  They may not be the same as yours, or we may have some in common, but it is our responsibility as voters in a democracy to consider who we will vote for and why.

So on Sunday as I listened to David Cunliffe's speech (you can watch his speech here, along with other speeches from other Labour MPs), I did have cause to be happy about a number of things.  Consequently I tweeted and retweeted things, and then I put it all together with Storify (please excuse the places where my fingers and the smartphone disagreed on what letter I pushed).  So here is what I heard and saw:

You can now see why I was a happy teacher.  And now I want to go and look more in depth at the education policy.

Early Childhood Education and Families:

You may remember back in the end of January David Cunliffe did his own State of the Nation speech and he announced some key policy for families and pre-schoolers, the Best Start for Our Kids policy:

• All families earning under $150,000 per year will receive $60 per week for a baby’s first year of life. For parents who are eligible for paid parental leave, the payment will kick in once this comes to an end. Low and modest income families will also receive $60 per week between the child’s first and third birthdays.
• Free early childhood education for three, four and five year old children will be extended from 20 to 25 hours a week
• Paid parental leave will be extended from 14 to 26 weeks as set out in Sue Moroney’s Member’s Bill.
• Free antenatal classes for all parents who want them and extra visits from organisations like Plunket for those who need it most.

This caught people's attention and the paid parental leave bill promoted by Sue Moroney is a particularly popular policy.  This bill has received support across the House - except from National who want to veto it and put up their own half-baked 18 week scheme in Budget 2014.  Hopefully after 20 September, Sue's Bill will be passed and enacted.

Labour will also do the following for pre-schoolers:

• From July 2017 (the tenth anniversary of 20 Hours Free), Labour will extend the Free ECE policy to 25 hours for three and four year old children. The policy will also apply to those five year olds still in early childhood education services. (Extending Free ECE to 25 Hours)
• Labour will restore over time National’s funding for highly qualified ECE centres. We will work with the sector to reinstate the policy of 100 percent qualified staff in all teacher-led services.  The first phase of restoring funding for 100 percent qualified ECEC centres will be provided in Labour’s first Budget in 2015 and come into effect from January 2016.
• We will build more ECE centres in high-need areas so there are enough places for kids who need them.

And Labour has committed to the following by establishing a Ministry for Children:

• We will do away with the Families Commission and focus funding on an independent Children’s Commissioner.
• We will also implement a plan to measure and set targets to reduce child poverty that would be backed up by legislation, and report on progress every budget.

These are important steps in the early years.  For every $1 spent on children in the first five years of their lives, we save $11 later on for each child.  Getting in early saves money and creates a healthier individual in all ways as a citizen, and a healthier community.  I think that it is important that ECE services are teacher led and employ fully trained and registered teachers who understand how young children develop and to ensure their learning needs are meet alongside the growth of their social skills and physical development.

Schools - Years 0-13:

Now this was the part that was especially important to me, being a teacher of primary aged students.

Labour will back quality education and invest in 21st Century Schools by:

• Hire 2,000 more teachers
• Reduce the average size of secondary school classes from 26+ down to 23.
• Reduce the size of senior primary school classes (Years 4-8) from 29+ down to 26.
• Invest $104 million in new classrooms.
• Support professional development for our teachers.
• Put in place a programme that provides an affordable option, available to all schools, for Year 5-13 students to have access to a portable digital device, in the classroom and at home.
• Commit $25 million to provide teachers with professional development during the 2016 and 2017 school years to assist them to make the most effective use of digital devices in the classroom.
• Partner with schools, local government and communities to put in place infrastructure that will allow students, particularly those from low-decile schools, who do not currently have internet connections to use their portable devices to access the internet at home.
• Develop a comprehensive plan for rebuilding out-dated and worn-out school buildings, so that every school has access to modern learning environments by 2030.

So far so good.  Every teacher will tell you that a few less kids in their class means more time for the remaining students, a relief from some paperwork those few more kids create.  It can mean the difference between teaching and crowd control.  And when you consider how big a 12 year old is, a few less bodies in the room creates space.

Teachers have been left in the wilderness since the Advisory Services were dismantled in 2009.  Professional Development for many teachers became a distant memory as the new arrangement has often been too expensive, so only selected people get to attend PD courses.  Also, it means that if you have a weakness in science, there were no advisors to come and advise you anymore.  Consequently teachers and principals are welcoming the long waited proposed return of the Advisory Service so schools can again access quality advice and cost-effective PD.

A digital device for all Year 5-13 students is music to my ears, probably because it would make what I want to do as a teacher who loves teaching digitally more of a reality in more schools.  It is good that Labour are also planning on backing this with PD for teachers (because plenty will need it) and internet access in the home.  The internet access solution will be interesting to put into practise as I can see there may be many pitfalls to overcome and it won't happen overnight.

And just this weekend I was with a friend who teaches in a decile one school in Porirua.  She told me her classroom was straight out of the 70s.  So an upgrade of her and her student's working/learning conditions is desperately in need.

Labour will also:

• Fund schools $100 per student per year if they don’t demand donations from parents.
• Scrap National Standards and return schools’ focus back to teaching the full breadth of New Zealand’s internationally acclaimed curriculum.
• Require schools to report student progress to parents in all areas of their learning.
• Ensure every child develops the basic foundations for further learning by extending Reading Recovery so kids falling behind can catch-up.
• Re-direct resources spent forcing ‘National Standards’ on schools into teacher professional development programmes to assist students who are underachieving.
• We will repeal charter school legislation and no more charter schools will be created under Labour. 

Donations have always been a bone of contention, and I can see many schools will be winning with this piece of policy.  I can see how schools like Auckland Boys' Grammar and the like will not be keen on this policy, but parents will like it.  For many schools the funding created by the donations system is the difference between having sports gear for the kids at lunch time to play with or not having any sports gear at lunch time; the difference between having a digital camera in each syndicate or not having a digital camera at all; the difference between having a school production or not having a school production.  Different schools rely on that money for many things that the Ops Grant does not pay for.

 

You many have noticed that I have bolded and highlighted in red two very important policies: getting rid of National Standards and Charter Schools.  These represent the cornerstone of GERM philosophy, of creating a crisis in education and then privatising our quality public education system.  Prior to National enacting National Standards, New Zealand was ranked in the top five of the questionable PISA rankings.  Since National Standards were introduced we have slid down the ranks.  Infact each country which has introduced policies like National Standards (i.e. Common Core in the US, Naplan in Australia, Key Stage Testing in the UK) and consequently Charter Schools, have slid down the international rankings in more that just PISA. 

 

Labour will require teachers to focus on our world leading and much acclaimed New Zealand Curriculum, on all learning areas, and to report to parents on all the learning areas.  This is great for children, because it means we can celebrate those children who also excel in art, physical education, science, music, drama, dance.... not just reading, writing and maths.

 

And I am really pleased to see that Reading Recovery will get a boost and that the National Standards budget will be redirected to help those kids that don't receive ORS funding but need extra help.  Reading Recovery funding has been tightly squeezed each year, and definitely there was less money for the end of 2012.  The earlier we can get in and help students with their learning, the sooner they will be able to become independent and confident learners.  One way the Professional Development could help is teaching teachers how to recognise dyslexia and help children with dyslexia overcome the obstacles that dyslexia likes to create.

 

"Every week 40,000 kids turn up to school without breakfast or without lunch and are fed by charities. But there a more kids who need help. The last nationwide survey of children’s nutrition undertaken by the Ministry of Health found 83,000 children aged 5 to 14, sometimes or often went to school without breakfast.
"Labour will partner with community and voluntary organisations, incorporating the most cost-effective approaches currently operating, to provide free food in every decile 1-3 primary, intermediate school that needs and wants it."

There are schools that see kids turning up day after day without having had breakfast and a poor lunch if any.  I recently read of a teacher who brings bread, butter and spreads to school to feed the kids without lunch - until her principal told her to stop doing it (so she had to get sneakier at feeding these kids).  I have a friend who teaches at a decile 6 high school.  She has a toaster, bread, butter, spreads, jug, milk and milo ready for any kid who needs it in her class.  And it is well used, and she gets better work out of the kids who ate than the kids who came hungry and did not use the food and facilities she provided.

 

Tertiary Education:

 

"The National Party is removing the right of students, staff and other community groups to be represented on university councils. It follows the Government’s introduction of voluntary student association membership and is a further silencing of students.
"Labour is making a commitment to students that when we are elected to government we will ensure they are represented on university councils and have strong student associations.
"We believe having those who are involved in learning and teaching on the governing bodies of universities is a good thing and adds value to the decisions being made."

This is not a good move for universities as it takes their accountability to students, staff and the community away.

There will be more tertiary education policy announced in the lead up to the election.

 

Adult Education:

Labour has committed to reinstating adult education:

• Restore $13m per year for Adult and Community Education
• Another $9m per year on top of that from 2018
• $1m per year of extra funding for ACE English for speakers of other languages (ESOL)

"It’s a cornerstone of New Zealand communities and offers pathways for New Zealanders looking to retrain and reengage with education, and for new New Zealanders to gain the skills and community connections to grow and establish their new lives in New Zealand.  Labour recognises that a lot has changed since the National Government cut ACE funding, which is why the allocation of this funding will be made in close consultation with the adult education sector. We believe that to get the best results for all New Zealanders who want to access ACE we need to work alongside the sector."

I think that reinstating Adult Community Education is a win:win.  It was a conduit for people to get skills and further their education.  But not just for those people, I have taken my fair share of night classes: te reo Maori (excellent for increasing my te reo use in the classroom) and Spanish (I had two Uruguayan students whose English wasn't flash, and learning Spanish helped build my relationship with them and understand their frustrations).

These are the policies that have been released so far to do with education at the time of publishing this post (14/07/14).

I personally am pleased with the direction Labour is taking with education.  It is clear that it has consulted and actually listened to stakeholders and intends on being collaborative in the true sense once it takes over the government benches (fingers crossed) in late September.

I think Labour is meeting the standard when it comes to education policy.  I will endeavour to update when future education policy is released, and when Labour becomes the lead partner in government I will be reminding them of their policy promises and monitoring their follow through.