My two cents on the student achievement "failure" in maths and science

On Tuesday morning I was awoken at the beach by the dulcet tones of forestry workers cutting down trees at 4:30am, so my Tuesday doomscrolling started quite early. 

The first thing I came across after 6:00am was an article on RNZ about the Principals Federation writing a letter to the Secretary of Education, Iona Holsted, at the Ministery of Education entitled Principals challenge Education Ministry over student failure. 

The Principals Federation says achievement in maths and science in particular should be ringing alarm bells and schools need more direction on what they should be teaching and the best ways to teach it. 

In a letter to the secretary for education, Iona Holsted, the federation's president, Perry Rush, said New Zealand's falling scores had not provoked an urgent response and the lack of "thought leadership" was a serious weakness. 

Holsted responded with a letter that said the Ministry of Education (MOE) was already working on the problems the federation raised and schools already had the ability, and the funding for teacher training, to change how they taught. 

You can hear Perry Rush of the Principals Federation speak to Corin Dann on Morning Report on Tuesday 2 February here and you can hear the response from Pauline Cleaver from the Ministry of Education on Morning Report here.

This follows on from the release of the latest results from the TIMMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) in December (see here) where Scores for New Zealand nine and 13-year-olds fell in both maths and science in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, with the 13-year-olds recording their worst results ever - 482 for maths and 499 for science.

Before that, in late November, the latest data from the National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) run by the University of Otago and the Council for Educational Research shows there has been no real increase in achievement in reading, writing and mathematics since the study started in 2012 and that Year 4 boys in high decile schools were doing worse in writing than previously.  Read more here.

Naturally, this is right up my alley and I have a lot of thoughts on this.  And I immediately set about tweeting about this and sharing with my teaching colleagues on Facebook.

Principals challenge Education Ministry over student failure.

Perry Rush has proposed some big provocations about where things are lacking in our sector when it comes to student achievement. #NZBFC630 #edchatNZ #disruptEDhttps://t.co/yXroXMythX

— Melanie D. (@melulater) February 1, 2021

This was my follow up tweet to John Gerritson, the reporter on the education beat for RNZ.

Hi John, I found this very interesting. I've left a big comment on the RNZ fb link, but to add to that, I feel many schools fail in science due to inquiry learning. In my opinion, inquiry learning is a fluffy load of bullshit below Y7. #NZBFC630 #edchatNZ #DisruptED

— Melanie D. (@melulater) February 1, 2021

I followed that tweet up with the following:  I believe that Y1-6 teachers should do proper unit studies on butterfly life cycles, floating and sinking, kitchen chemistry and the like in science, as well as in social studies, health & technology. Give kids knowledge to hang further inquiry on.

By doing this we teach kids basic scientific knowledge and processes. We better guide questioning and help them build the inquiry skills they are more capable to use from Y7, with knowledge and experience. We could even start guiding Y5/6 kids in term 4 with their own mini-inquiries for something they learned during the year they want to extend on. (Apparently, according to someone on Facebook, this is how IB do it. So I guess someone researched what I figured out from experience).

And these statements will upset the apple cart. I've been saying it at my school for the last few months.

And then I found out there was another article in the New Zealand Herald, behind the paywall, so, on my drive home from the beach, I had to go buy a hardcopy newspaper to read it. From now on I have copied my tweets I made as I read the newspaper and I will use those tweets to flesh out some more thoughts in this blog post.

I have so many thoughts on this and the first ones are: Anne Tolley and Hekia Parata have a lot to answer for with: 

* National Standards being inflicted on children 

* killing the Teacher Advisory Service in 2009 

* killing the PLD in Literacy and Numeracy in 2009.

As seen in the picture above, 45% of children who were tested in Maths at Y8 are achieving at the expected curriculum level in maths in 2018 and only 20% achieved the expected level in science in 2017.  These children in 2018 started school in 2009/2010, meaning most of their primary school years were blighted with National Standards, little access to meaning maths PLD for their teachers, and a narrowing of the curriculum, meaning science fell off the radar as many schools focused in on reading, writing and maths.  Science advisors ceased to exist along with the Teacher Advisory service at the end of 2009, so there's you answer to why Y8 kids in 2017 were achieving so bloody poorly at science. I have all the swear words in my head directed at Anne Tolley, the Minister of Education at the time, killing the Teacher Advisory Service - again. But more on that later.

This is where I make my first defense of the much derided and maligned Numeracy Project: And to all those people who slag off the Numeracy Project: I was a shit mathematician and an average maths teacher before I went through the Numeracy Project training. All the blocks clicked into place once I did it and I believe I'm a better teacher of maths as a result.

In response, on page 4: The ministry's deputy secretary of early learning and student achievement, Ellen MacGregor-Reid, said the ministry was concerned about "the pattern of decline" in achievement and was considering "specific actions need in particular areas of learning including social-emotional, literacy and mathematics".

"A priority for us this year is developing a maths strategic plan.

"We will be working with the sector this year to develop a high-level plan to support a systems approach to shifting the dial in mathematics.  This will identify and address the current issues impacting on mathematics teaching and learning, so there is sustained improvement.

"We are currently building a strong evidence base to support this work.  We have commissioned a Royal Society Te Aparangi convened independent papter on the mathematics knowledge and skills learners need to know, and when, and what needs to be changed in the NZ Curriculum to achieve this.

"We will also be establishing a diverse group of sector practitioners to critique outcomes evidence, including TIMSS and NMSSA data to help us understand and respond to practice and implementation challenges."

So this is where I turn my attention to the make up for the Royal Society Te Aparangi.

My concern is there is a lot of representation from the Universities of Auckland, Massey, Victoria and Canterbury - yet there is none from the University of Waikato nor the University of Otago.  I wonder why this is?  Is it because the Numeracy Project emerged from Waikato?  Is it because NMSSA is administered via Otago?

Also, what does "We will be establishing a divers group of sector practitioners" look like and how will this happen?

Today I had a chance to read past page 4 of yesterday's NZ Herald I bought and I found even more on pages 8 and 9. So I went down the rabbit hole again.

It starts off outlining the problem, what's going wrong & then what can we do. Associate Professor Jodie Hunter, co-director of Massey University's Centre for Research in Mathematics Education, and Dr Gillian Frankcom-Burgess, NZ Association of Maths Teachers president and lecturer at the Faculty of Education at University of Auckland, give expert comment in this article. Perry Rush is frequently quoted with his concerns. Massey University Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin, as the chair of the Royal Society is quoted, as is the ministry's chief scientific advisor, Professor Stuart McNaughton.

Firstly I was taken by the graphic down the right hand side of page 9.  There were a lot of downward arrows that are concerning.

The graphic to the right of the article struck me first. It looks at the latest TIMSS (Trends in International Maths & Science Study) results for Y9s (aged 13/14).

This top part shows where NZ is compared to Singapore, Japan, Australia, England & the US. And we're behind!!! We are usually ahead of Australia, England and the US, and this is our strong argument against a nationwide standardised assessment programme.

The middle graph looks at each strand: * statistics * number * geometry * algebra

(Where is measurement?)

We are trending down in all of these. Why? While statistics and number appear to be the strength of New Zealand students, it is of great concern that even these are dramatically trending downwards.

The bottom of the graphic looks at the kind of learning: * reasoning * applying * knowing

Knowing has had the most dramatic fall.

The Numeracy Project tackles all of these - but I don't think the Numeracy Project, despite its official status, is understood by many newer teachers.

So this photo below sums up the problem. Our Y9s a strongest in statistics & number, but even that's declining, and while reasoning (or explaining why/how they worked it out) is strong, that's declining. Concerning is their ability to apply a known strategy to different problems and their ability to "just know" certain things is declining too - the knowing in particular.

The knowing means things like knowing your times tables, that 4+b=10 is b=6, or if 4+6=10 then 40+60=100 & 400+600=1000 and so forth, that half is 1/2 or 50% or 0.5.

So how did we get it wrong?

Back in 1989, when Tomorrow's Schools was introduced, the curriculum advisory service within the Department of Education was disbanded when the Ministry of Education was formed. The Teacher Advisory Service came into being, hosted by universities and Teacher Training Colleges, which became Schools of Education within universities (now known as Facilities of Education).

National got rid of Teacher Advisory Services in the 90s, the Clark Labour government revived them in 2000 for Key's National government to kill them in 2009 again.

Consequently, since 2009, private providers have had to fill the gap and that could be practically anyone. Funding is contestable and smaller schools are at a greater disadvantage. Even in bigger schools, if you're not buddy buddy with the right SMT (senior management team) member you could miss out.

Which is the right way for principals, as senior leaders of curriculum and learning, to go?

Perry Rush, from the Principals Federation, outlines the confusion below. There are so many options. Rush notes many principals have rejected the Numeracy Project because "it confused students by giving them multiple ways to solve every problem" but declares there is no alternative.

Here comes a personal opinion here. I've already stated that the Numeracy Project was a revelation for me personally as a person who struggled with maths all through my own school years. What the Numeracy Project did for me was helped me understand place value and see the patterns. No longer was I reliant on a pen and paper to do an algorithm, I now had the ability to image the numbers in my head, compensate and create tidy tens - all language I never had until I did the Numeracy Project training in 2005.

Then is 2016, during my year of doing Masters papers, I met one of the original developers of the Numeracy Project. She told me it was never meant to be the silver bullet be-all-and-end-all of how to do maths replacing all the other ways of doing maths. It was meant to build teacher capability and confidence and be another tool in their kete.

So, naturally, back in the day, someone in the MOE must "have known better" and it was rolled out as the "must do" in the 2000s. Oh dear.

Personally, I think kiwi teachers, rather than looking to Singapore or Australia for overseas products to teach maths, should be looking at resources from New Zealand sources, like Caxton Educational, based on the NZ Curriculum.

Now the good news is that we are doing maths for similar time lengths as other countries.

And I was happy about that, until I read the highlighted portion. WTF???

Why is maths not happening in some classes? Is there other things crowding it out? Teacher confidence? Poor organisation? Lost in other exciting work? If you have a student teacher in your class, you need to be modelling best practice of teaching and I am alarmed if a student teacher is in a class for a week, and it is a fairly calm, normal week for a school, yet there is no maths actually happening.

Ability grouping is big in NZ. I personally refuse to do it in writing because I conference with every child and prefer and individualised process. I find it essential for most guided reading activities, but when they are not in their guided reading groups with me, the children are in mixed ability groups or independently doing other literacy tasks. I do ability group for a significant portion of my number and some of my algebra learning in maths - but I see no need in statistics, geometry or measurement to do so.

The concern that some kids don't get exposed to higher-level maths and specific concepts like fractions caused me to make changes in my programme a few years ago. So I introduced Maths Talk, where I have different problems everyday to start and warm us up each day. We see lots of ways to solve the same problem. I also use this time to introduce concepts like fractions or how to use a ruler to measure.

Also, every day my class looks at the MetService three times. We may see at 9:00am the temperature is 15.6°C, but the expected high is 23°C. So we work out the difference between the two numbers (7.4°C) which brings in maths concepts like decimals, rounding, tidy tens - a lot of place value. As the last year went on, we began doing it in te reo Māori as well, so the kids have a bilingual choice.

There are ways of introducing maths into many of your daily routines in your class.

The head of the Royal Society expert panel, Distinguished Professor Gaven Martin, says, "Our feeling was that the basic curriculum was good, so the real disjunct is what is promised from it and what is being delivered against it. That is a big issue."

Yes and No.

Yes, our New Zealand Curriculum has a lot of freedom to tailor to your local needs and community.

No, there's some wishy washy stiff to tighten. Do we really need such freedom in maths? Shouldn't maths be tighter with its objectives to be learnt?

I think the big issue is do teachers know the curriculum? Do they feel confident to be inspired by the curriculum and know how to teach the curriculum? Do they have the resources and support to do so? Have they received ongoing PLD to inspire, remind and consolidate their ability to teach maths?

And my answer is no to many of these questions.

In my observations, since National Standards was made non-compulsory at the end of 2017, many teachers did not know the curriculum because they based everything on National Standards. They didn't know where kids should be without National Standards. They didn't know they could assess students against objectives in the curriculum and at the curriculum levels. They looked for a replacement - sadly many have turn to PaCT and now base everything they do around that. PaCT is not a curriculum, it is an assessment tool!!!!!!!!!!

I see so many teachers also asking in NZ Teachers for units and resources rather than planning their own, or buying a ready-made one on Teachers Pay Teachers. It's almost like the growth of the internet and the National Standards years have taken all the creativity out of being a teacher and planning for your class.

I was so concerned about this, I wrote a blog post about it on my teaching blog in January 2018, For those who are crying: "How will I plan and assess without National Standards?" here is some inspiration. Feel free to check out some old school teachering.

Also, since National Standards came in, many old school principals have retired and the number of principals who have only known the years of accountability in education or have only taught under the shadow of National Standards is increasing. How can they lead their staff in unpacking the New Zealand Curriculum if they are clouded by the Standards still?

In 2017 I said this directly to Chris Hipkins and Tracey Martin (former Associate Minister of Education), and I said it again to their faces in 2018. I told them that PLD in the curriculum was vital. Hmmm. Too little happened.

The idea of hiring specialist teachers of math for upper primary and intermediate schools by Professor Stuart McNaughton, the MOE's chief scientific advisor, is ridiculous considering high schools are struggling to find staff, with actual maths teaching qualifications, to fill mathematic teacher vacancies. This is the sort of useless thinking that sets the MOE up for ridicule from the education sector over and over and shows that they are too far removed from the chalk board and the practicalities of classroom teaching and running a school.

Perry Rush and Dr Frankcom-Burgess are right in their assertion that every primary and intermediate teacher should be able to teach maths. Just because you don't like a subject or it is not your strength doesn't mean you do not get to teach it. You ask for help to get upskilled and grow your confidence. I have the same argument about teaching swimming, but that's for another ranting thread another day.

I look at what Associate Professor Hunter & Dr Frankcom-Burgess say in this photo below and I feel completely vindicated!!! I say this to my class all the time, that maths is about patterns and using what you know about smaller numbers to apply to bigger numbers.

It was the Numeracy Project that opened my eyes to THIS.

The Numeracy Project can boost a maths timid teacher's abilities!!

Yesterday I tweeted Chris Hipkins and Jan Tinetti (Associate Minister of Education) to ask where our promised new Teacher Advisory Service is.

No reply.

So it is heartening to see the "Curriculum Centre" with regional subject advisors in the proposed Education Support Agency is getting off the ground finally. Thanks to the NZ Herald for pointing that out.

The "refresh" of the NZ Curriculum is starting, beginning with introducing the Aotearoa NZ Histories curriculum, released today coincidentally for consultation, which I'm so looking forward to seeing how they resource this for Y4 & below - I'm available to consult on this MOE.

As much as I love the freedom of the NZC, in 2005/2006 when consultation happened, I expressed my concern over it being too vague. I was greatly concerned that knowledge was being sidelined by inquiry, and I think my concern in the last 15 years has been borne out. Why? I was really concerned we would be creating future adults who knew nothing, who had nothing to initiate a conversation or be able to participate in a conversation, who would be unable to enjoy the fun of being in a pub quiz team, people who could only talk shopping and gaming.

Initially my concern was for a lack of knowledge teaching was for science, social studies, health and technology, but now it extends into maths.

How can children inquire and ask questions if they have no knowledge base to ignite from? Too many teachers have included maths in their inquiry units, rather than explicitly teaching the foundations of maths. They are missing out on igniting the passion of a future potential mathematician, revealing the patterns maths has and how they are reflected in nature and music and art and dance - even the Arts link into maths!!!

Today there have been calls from science teachers that science needs just as much attention as maths to improve achievement outcomes, but the issues with maths are over shadowing it. You can read this RNZ article Science educators raise concerns while the Ministry of Education focuses on maths results.

Science educator House of Science chief executive Chris Duggan said there were too few specialist primary school science teachers, and not enough resources.

An Education Review Office report showed 73 percent of primary schools did not have an effective science programme, she said.

"Walk into most primary schools in the country and ask to see their science resources and there'll be one little bookshelf dedicated to science stuff which will usually consist of a box of random magnets, some electronic stuff and maybe some broken glassware.

"And nobody uses it because they don't know what to do with it."

She is not wrong. Science has become a poor cousin in the curriculum budget. Not only has this been driven by the narrowing of the curriculum thanks to the introduction of National Standards, but I am going to point out that former Prime Minister Sir Bill English, when he was the Minister of Finance, closed down Learning Media and that has had consequences. Learning Media used to produce resources across the curriculum subjects, including wonderful provocation for science in a long running series. Now we don't get anything like that unless we buy it from a publisher and it is expensive.

We are missing fabulous resources for the Arts, health, social studies, maths and physical education as a result of Sir Bill's lack of vision and understanding of the long term impact of his financially driven decision.

Inconclusion, this situation has come to a head, and at all levels, government, MOE, academic, kahui ako, school, individual teacher, we all need to look at how we do things. We should not throw the baby out with the bath water, but maybe we relook at how we use what we have better to grow teachers so they can improve their practice.

Writing this today, has allowed me to reflect on my own practice and ask some hard questions of myself as a teacher. I want to contribute to making achieving in maths great again.

How about you?

Chris Hipkins, I have the solution to the teacher supply crisis!

Today, Minister of Education, Chris Hipkins, announced an extention to the programme to recruit 850 teachers from overseas, up from the original 400 teachers, hoping to attract New Zealand teachers currently teaching off shore. This follows the MOE asking Immigration NZ to put teaching on the skills shortage list on Friday.

This plan has a fatal flaw however. As NZEI president Lynda Stuart pointed out in the NZEI press release today, "Overseas recruitment may be necessary given this crisis point, but it's a bandaid solution - there's a global shortage of teachers, and if we don't do something about the workload and remuneration of teachers, overseas teachers won't last in the system any longer than our homegrown teachers."

Everyday in the last two weeks I have heard of teachers quiting teaching to do something else in New Zealand or leaving New Zealand to be a teacher overseas.  I've also heard repeated stories from teachers who came home from teaching overseas to New Zealand, only to discover they worked such long hours in New Zealand for such poor pay they never saw their families, so they have gone back overseas for worklife balance.

On top of all this is the last National led government's Minister of Education, Nikki Kaye, telling the current Minister, Mr Hipkins, that he is not doing enough.  See this press release via Voxy.  A complete act of hypocrisy considering during nine long years of National, teachers were villified for "failing students", given 1% pay rises and had increasing teacher workloads amongst all the GERM battles.

So my message to Minister Hipkins is this - the fastest way to get teachers into our classrooms is to attract those who have recently left back. How can that happen:

• a pay jolt.
• reduce workload (get ERO to pull their head in and stop insisting on useless data and let schools use their small data to drive the learning).
• reduce class sizes.
• increase classroom release - teachers shouldn't have to be using their weekends and evenings to do work in preparation for school and dealing with data input and writing reports.
• give us more help for children with special needs - a SENCO in every school.

Solve all these issues and we wouldn't be hemorrhaging teachers from our schools.

In regards to teachers required to do the Teacher Refresher Course to retain a practicing certificate, I believe we should be approaching that differently and with a more cost effective programme. Instead of doing the course:

• those returning to the classroom in either a fulltime or part-time role should be getting an advice and guidance programme for a minimum of one term.
• relief teachers should have a base school with which they can do PLD and receive guidance and appraisal to meet the conditions for being a reliever. 

Then we have the problem of attracting people to the profession via training programmes.  Over the last ten years universities have been under pressure to put bums on seats.... but teaching has become unattractive.  

Universities have slashed and burned their faculties that do initial teacher education.  The Faculty of Education at Waikato University is unloved, nothing has changed physically since I did my initial teacher education in the 1990s.  Add to that the fact Prof Neil Quigley has gutted the Faculty of staff, it is even grimmer.

Now we have the University of Auckland cutting most of its initial teacher education programmes and staff and its advisory service.  How will this help with the need to train new teachers?

I understand that the current negotiations with primary teachers and principals and secondary teachers mean that co-operation between the Minister's office and unions has taken a battering and is on hold, but we really need to suck it up on both sides to work together to solve these issues.  

The Ministry of Education continuing to offer teachers pay rises without addressing the issues of workload (class sizes, classroom release, etc.), recruitment and retention, and special education is not helping.  

Tracey Martin is doing great work in special education, but that is a proposal currently.  Teachers have seen working party after working party over the last two decades with nothing achieved and won't wait anymore for this issue to be addressed.  Hence why it is in our pay claim.  

Until the Minister gets ERO to pull their heads in, principals have their hands tied to reduce workload and teachers continue to collect data that does not necessarily mean much.

Without classroom release, teachers will continue to be forced to use their family time to work in the evenings and at weekends.  Chris Hipkins will claim we don't have enough release teachers because we have a teacher shortage.  I think the teachers will emerge from the woodwork to do the release if they increase classroom release.

So Chris, how far are you prepared to come to solve the teacher crisis?

You should have hired me when you had the chance, but I went back to teaching.  But if you ask my current boss Nigel nicely, I'm sure he'll let me pop down to Wellington to help you out.  Jacinda has his contact details.  But then again, I'm pretty sure you have mine.  😁😁😁

Why Primary Teachers and Principals (and the Secondary Teachers too) Rejected the MOE Offers

I was last week quite surprised by Acting Education Minister Tracey Martin being surprised by primary teachers and principals rejecting the MOE offer to us.  

Thanks to the amazing Green Grub's lady for this graphic.  Check out Green Grub's Facebook page.

When Mrs Martin came to the NZEI President's Dinner at the NZEI Annual Conference on Sunday night, she told my friend Dianne (from SOSNZ) that she did not understand why teachers had turned down the offer.  Dianne told her it's because teachers are exhausted from the workload.  The work is never ending, and teachers can be their own worst enemy, but they do it for the kids and because there is this never ending demand to accelerate learning. 

Teachers can not wait three more years for this government to get a bit more money to solve these issues.  We are at crisis point now.  We have limited relievers now and teachers are coming to school sick or classes are being split to allow teachers to take sick leave.  

We have students who are not getting the help they should get because teachers are so overworked that they do not get through the referral system in a timely manner and then there is often little funding or no room for that child on the roll of the RTLB or RTLit or there is no speech language therapist available or whatever.

We now have teachers cutting down to 0.8 or less so they can get through the workload in the working week so they can reclaim their weekends for their families.  Some have quite teaching to do relieving so they can be more present in their families.  What is there to attract them back into full-time teaching when the workload is astronomical?  My friend Dianne was offered a full-time teaching job for next year last week - her son cried because "Mum will always be working now".

There has been a 40% drop in people entering initial teacher training in the last five years (unsurprising after the National led government constantly running teachers down over their time in government).  Coupled with the high rate of attrition of teachers within their first five years of teaching leaving our profession for good or heading overseas to greener pastures, we do not have the younger teachers required to replace the aging population of teachers heading towards retirement in the next ten years.  It is predicted we will be up to 1800 teachers short.

As I lay awake this morning (thank you hacking cough), I read a response by Labour MP Marja Lubeck to a comment on a Facebook post by Education Minister Chris Hipkins (currently on paternity leave) he did after attending the PPTA Conference in Wellington yesterday.  

Ms Lubeck also seemed perplexed about why we had rejected the offer and proceeded to lay out what Labour has done in the Education space in the last year.  While these were all things we wanted, not one of them addresses our primary teacher or principal claims.

I wrote this response to Ms Lubeck:

Marja Lubeck Labour List MP, those are all great things, but getting rid of National Standards was not about workload, that was about pedagogy; about not labeling children as failures and "weighing them like pigs".

Democratising the Education Council was important to us because we should have a say in the body governing us.  However, this does not improve my workload.

Providing new classroom spaces does not improve my workload.  However, can someone organise a heat pump to be installed in my prefab; we sweated through term 1 and huddled around a tiny fan heater in terms 2 and 3.  I'm not looking forward to sweating out term 4.

I'm stoked ECE received more funding after years of freezes, however, this will not improve workloads in ECE, primary or secondary sectors - it will just allow centres financial breathing room.

What will improve my workload as a primary teacher?

* release time: currently CRT (Classroom Release Time) for primary teachers is two days a term or, as written in the Primary Teachers Collective Agreement, ten hours per term.  This does not give me enough time to complete all the reading and maths assessments I need to do for my class.  Consequently I need to complete the remainder during time I should be teaching - therefore my class end up doing "busy work" to try and manage them while I try to assess kids.  This is not ideal for the child being assessed or my stress levels.  This also means I get no time to do planning.  Currently I spend three hours minimum after school each day to do my planning, collate assessment, respond to whānau, make resources.... and I am often back at the weekend for at least three hours.  And then there are the meetings...

* Retention and recruitment: where are the incentives for young people to stay in our profession?  Where are the incentives to join our profession?  Why would a young person choose a job that pays possibly $50,000 but requires you to work 60 hour weeks and subsidise the education system out of their own pocket when they could work at 40 hour week elsewhere and not being using their own money to get the job done?  Where's the incentive for teachers who left our profession or cut back from fulltime to 0.8 so they could have family life to be full time teachers or relief teachers?

* A SENCO in every school: our most vulnerable kids are missing out.  Recently half of one of my CRT days was spent on working on an RTLB referral for one child.  That's 1/4 of my CRT time for the term on ONE CHILD.  Is that efficient use of my time?  It's still incomplete.  I haven't had time to go back to it.  Meanwhile a child goes without help.  A fulltime SENCO would have it sorted well and truly by now because that would be their focus.

Teachers are burning out.

I've already left the profession once due to National Standards.  I came back because of the promise of a Labour led government.  If nothing changes in regards to workload, I will be yet another teacher forced to leave the profession again in order to preserve my own health and wellbeing.

Many people will say we need to go a bit easier or this will be a one term government, that the cupboard is bare and they need time.  We don't have time.  Teaching is at a crisis point of a lack of teachers and the others burning out.  Children have missed out for too long already due to austerity in education.  I worked bloody hard in 2017 to get a change of government, and I will work bloody hard to ensure they are still the government beyond 2020... but our teachers and our children can no longer wait.  

This government needs to deliver to teachers and children to ensure Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's goal to make New Zealand the best place in the world for a child to grow up in.

New Zealand's "Rape Culture" is alive and well

Today the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) released its report into the Roast Busters controversy.  I wrote about this and New Zealand's rape culture last year when the police announced no charges would be laid due to a lack of evidence in the post Musings on New Zealand's Rape Culture, Domestic Violence and Apologies.

It was quite handy when Stuff automatically told my phone about the release of this report by the IPCA with their breaking news feature on their app.  It meant I didn't have to wait until 6 o'clock to be fully enraged with the rest of the country.  It meant I could reflect on rape culture again; a culture which continues to be mocked as non-existent, when if you are female you know it is not.

And there is plenty in this report to be angry about.  While the report said that all the young women/girls making complaints were treated with compassion and courtesy, I was appalled to read through the article to find the following:

• some of the young men/boys involved were never approached or spoken to by the police.
• the parents of the young men/boys were not approached and informed of the allegations so they could have "that talk" with their sons.
• the police failed to follow lines of inquiry in a timely fashion and sometimes not at all.
• record keeping was poor.
• each complaint was treated separately and not considered as a pattern of incidents.

Naturally the Police have been very apologetic with public "We are Sorries" from the Police Commissioner and the Waitemata Area Commander.  Anne Tolley, as the former Minister of Police responsible when the story broke and when the decision came through not to press charges, expressed concerns and as the current Minister of Social Development says that Child Youth and Family (CYF) would be next under the microscope.  The current Minister for Police, Michael Woodhouse, has said that it was failures by individual officers.

No police officer has lost their job, but they have been moved on to other roles and sectors in the police.  Greg O'Connor, of the Police Association, would have liked the report to look into what else was happening in the Waitemata area at the time, claiming that there had been a large number of cases that had priority at the time and not enough manpower to do it all justice.  Jacinda Ardern said that a lack of resourcing had affected the case.

You can read these documents from the IPCA: the media statement, the IPCA Public Report, and the speech notes by Judge Sir David Carruthers.  You can read more on Stuff (Roast Busters case subject of another review) and at the New Zealand Herald (Roast Busters case: Apology 'just the beginning').

This stood out from the speech made by Judge Sir David Carruthers at the release of the report today:

 

The first aspect, which the Authority publicly reported on in May 2014, considered the information provided by Police to the media about the Police investigations.

The second, which is outlined in today’s report, considered the adequacy of the initial Police criminal investigations and the handling of any complaints or reports received by Police from members of the public between 2011 and October 2013. The findings in the report are the result of a very thorough and detailed investigation.

The report is confined to those Police investigations up until these matters came to media attention in October 2013. It does not cover the subsequent Police reinvestigation, dubbed ‘Operation Clover’. The Police have publicly reported on the results of that reinvestigation, which did not result in the prosecution of any of the young men concerned.

So does that mean we now need another report into the subsequent police reinvestigation called Operation Clover?

Ellis is able to capture the essence of an issue with brilliance.

An urgent debate was called in Parliament this afternoon.  A number of Members of Parliament from both sides of the house rose to speak about this report today. 

Jacinda Ardern, Labour's spokesperson for Justice, listed a number of actions that demonstrated poor policing practice.  Jacinda then went on to outline the history of the case prior to today.  Jacinda Ardern specifically highlighted the lack of co-ordination in dealing with this case.  This was highlighted from the first paragraph in the report.  At the start of the IPCA the police told them about four separate incidents and then found out about three further separate incidents with the same group of young men.  But no one would join the dots between each of the seven cases to see there was a systemic problem with the same group of young men over and over again.

 And Jacinda also questioned, as did the IPCA, the practice of the police in investigating this case, and that the IPCA believes that investigation should have continued as per the policies of the police because the victims involved were children.  Jacinda Ardern questioned that while the police did not have the evidence to lay charges, some old fashioned policing should have happened; the police should have knocked on the doors of the families of these young men and had conversations with their parents.  And Jacinda knows this is an appropriate course of action as her father is a policeman.

Then Jacinda Ardern brought up this piece of legislation:

Section 134 of the Act outlines the penalties for those who have sexual conduct with a young person under 16 years as:
"(1) Every one who has sexual connection with a young person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.

(2) Every one who attempts to have sexual connection with a young person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years.

(3) Every one who does an indecent act on a young person is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years.

(4) No person can be convicted of a charge under this section if he or she was married to the young person concerned at the time of the sexual connection or indecent act concerned.

(5) The young person in respect of whom an offence against this section was committed cannot be charged as a party to the offence if the person who committed the offence was of or over the age of 16 years when the offence was committed.

(6) In this section,—
  (a) young person means a person under the age of 16 years; and

 (b) doing an indecent act on a young person includes indecently assaulting the young person.  
Why is this piece of legislation so important?  The victims who made complaints to the police were all aged under 16 in six of the seven cases and each young man involved in the assaults that took place knew that they were aged under 16.  The fact that these children were under the age of consent consequently means that the evidence for a violation of the law was there because there is no consent when a person is younger than 16 because sexual connection is unlawful below that age.  Therefore the investigation should still be actively open and work should be continuing to secure the necessary evidence.  See more in this video of Jacinda Ardern during the debate.

Michael Woodhouse, the current Minister of Police spoke next.  He began while saying he agreed with almost everything Jacinda Ardern had said, and also said that there was nothing to candy coat the finding of the IPCA.  He then went on to defend Anne Tolley's role in the controversy, saying that she did not have the information available to her because the police had not collected that information, and that this was clear from the IPCA report.  Mr Woodhouse then went on to glorify what had happened to crime statistics under Mrs Tolley's reign as Minister of Police. 

But he kept referring to statistics on adult sexual assault - which I found concerning as you can not call a girl under 16 an adult when she can not consent to sex legally, and particularly as this issue is all about sexual assault.  Michael Woodhouse also spanked Jacinda Ardern and Greg O'Connor on the hand for their criticism about a lack of resources hampering the investigation.  Quite frankly, a lack of resources for the police stands out like dog balls when you look at this case.  Yes, a lot of money was spent on investigating this case, but I believe that the case was dropped because it would continue to cost more money and was not going to be resolved quickly.  You can hear more from Michael Woodhouse below.

I was appalled to hear Catherine Delahunty of the Greens point out yet another failing in the case, that the officers who took the complaints did not even get the name of the boys involved correct when they took down their initial details.  Catherine called for an independent taskforce into how sexual assault is dealt with.  You can hear more of what Catherine Delahunty has to say in this video below, but she is correct when she states that girls and women of today's modern society will continue to fail to have any faith in the police believing them if the police do not investigate their complaints properly.  And this is after Louise Nicholas has been working with the police to change their culture and response to sexual assault complaints!

Tracey Martin, deputy leader of New Zealand First, acknowledged that while many police officers are fathers and mothers, we have major failings in the New Zealand Police and spoke of another case with a young girl facing a similar situation.  It resulted in a "he said/she said" impasse.  She claimed this was not a one party problem and needed cross party support in parliament to make changes to ensure that women (or men) can go to the police and make a complaint with the confidence that they will be believed and the complaint investigated.  Tracey called for the conversation to happen in parliament, for this report not to be forgotten and gather dust.  You can hear what Tracey Martin has to say in this video below.

Minister of Justice, Amy Adams, talked about making changes, even when it is difficult, and called for the support of the House to make changes.  Amy Adams is in the process of establishing the role of a Chief Victims Advisor to all ministers across portfolios so that there would be independent advice available.  Admirable, but this government has a poor record on utilising true, independent advice.  Amy always criticised the perpetrators for their victimising the girls with social media and promoted the bill that she thinks will prevent this or take action against them for using social media.  We have a domestic violence notification every six minutes and half of homicides are related to domestic abuse, and while the Roast Busters case is not domestic abuse related, it is indicative of some of society's attitudes that must change.

Anne Tolley, who was the Minister of Police at the time of the Roast Busters case becoming known and when the police decided not to lay charges, also spoke.  She trumpeted that she was the first Minister of Police to make a complaint to the IPCA and that this report was a result of her complaint - but I'm pretty sure there were complaints made by opposition parties to the IPCA as well.  She was pleased that the girls (aka victims) now know what actually happened.  She emphasised that it was not a systemic breakdown, but failures by individuals. 

Anne Tolley also said that CYF had to take some responsibility too.  And the report makes mention of the knowledge CYF had and how co-operation and information sharing between CYF and the police needs improvement.  The police clearly did not give the right information to CYF, but neither did CYF clarify with the police it seems.  Hear more from Anne Tolley below.

Sue Moroney from Labour also stood to speak and to point out that the Speaker had allowed this debate because of Ministerial responsibility over the Roast Busters issue, and Sue pointed out that no Ministers were taking responsibility for this issue and the culture that exists to allow this issue to continue.  Sue Moroney stood up and spoke for New Zealand women to say we have had enough.  Sue pointed out that the police do not need a complaint to be laid to investigate an incident of sexual assault.  This is written into New Zealand law and is part of the policy of the police.  Sue pointed out that Michael Woodhouse and Anne Tolley were wrong on this point when they said the police couldn't prosecute because there had been no formal complaint.  See more about what Sue Moroney said below.

Louise Upston, Minister for Women, reiterated that the Roast Busters boys need to take responsibility for their actions and have to shoulder the blame.  Louise also echoed Anne Tolley in saying that it was her who referred the complaint against the police to the IPCA, and Michael Woodhouse in regards to the good statistics from the police over recent years.  She also listed a number of programmes and funding under this government.  (I think that Louise Upston may have neglected to mention the fact that her government denied the Christchurch centre that assisted rape victims funding before the 2014 election and they had to shut up shop as a result).  See more of Louise Upston's speech below.

Poto Williams also stood to speak on this matter, asking what victims of sexual abuse need.  They need timeliness, compassion, to feel they have been heard, not to be re-victimised, and that once they have told their stories to the police that the police will take action on their behalf.  Poto Williams believes that these needs have not been fully fulfilled.  85% of victims of family violence are also sexual violence victims.  Poto Williams stood to defend Jacinda Ardern's assertion that a lack of resources for the police hampered the investigation.  She said "Jacinda was being generous, because if not for a lack of resource, then it is about attitude and culture.  An attitude that sexual predation is ok and an attitude that the police do not care.  And a culture of indifference.  And I for one will not stand for that."  That is a fantastic statement, and you can view more of what Poto Williams has to say below.

I note that only one man stood to speak on this issue, the Minister of Police, Michael Woodhouse.  Are all the other men in parliament too scared that they may be tarred with the "apology" brush like when David Cunliffe stood up and apologised for the fact that men are the assailants in the majority of domestic abuse cases at the Women's Refuge conference last year?

A lot of what has been said on the Roast Busters case boils down to consent.  Sex without consent is rape, no two ways about it.  Sex with a person under 16 does not boil down to whether or not all parties are consenting to it because under our law in New Zealand it is classed as Unlawful Sexual Connection and can therefore be prosecuted against.

So the parents of the Roast Busters boys, in fact the parents of any teenager or young adult, should read this blog Consent: Not actually  that complicated by Rockstar Dinosaur Pirate Princess and share it with their kids and use it as a base for discussion about sex and consent.  This blog uses a cup of tea as an analogy for sex.  I shared this blog on Facebook and one of my friends commented that along with getting consent for a cup of tea/sex, you should also check how the recipient likes their cup of tea/sex.

Sharon Murdoch is also an amazing cartoonist who hits the nail on the head.

The whole process of this Roast Busters case has brought up the issue of teenage sex and alcohol consumption, consent and the rape culture that permeates our society.

It also brings up the concept of  "old fashioned" community policing.  My great uncle was a policeman.  At his funeral, his son, my mum's cousin, told how parents would knock on Uncle Bill's door and asked him to "give their boy a kid up the bum" or "scare some sense into the little bugger".  This little community service stopped a lot of idiocy by the neighbourhood boys getting out of control and ruining their future prospects. 

Where has this gone from policing today?  How many girls would not have fallen victim to these Roast Buster boys if the police officers involved had have visited their family homes and informed the parents of these boys as to what they were doing at these parties so the parents of these boys could knock some sense into them?

Again, as a society, we fail these girls if this report is allowed to languish on a dusty shelf in parliament's library.  As a society we have to demand action from our law makers and law enforcement to ensure that victims are supported and protected and further harm is not inflicted.

To not do so would be to fail the standard, and we can't have the police fail their own standards again and let them get away with it.