Dear Parents
The issue of National Standards has recently come to a head for Waikanae School. The Board would like to know your opinion.
Each year the school is required to submit its Charter to the Ministry. This year for the first time there is a requirement for schools to include in their Charters targets for student achievement set against National Standards.
Earlier in the year we submitted our Charter with no reference to National Standards. Instead, we set achievement targets in relation to agreed school benchmarks. The Ministry has now written to the Board instructing us under Section 61 of the Education Act 1989 to modify and resubmit our Charter in line with the National Standards Policy so that it can be approved. We are keen to take this opportunity to negotiate with the Ministry and to voice to them our concerns.
It is important to note that we are implementing National Standards in our assessment practices and our reporting mechanisms to parents. Our concerns centre around one aspect of the National Standards, Section 2.C.1 of the National Administrative Guidelines, which requires us to send our achievement data in to the Ministry of Education.
To date the Board of Trustees has declined to set targets against National Standards for the following reasons:
1. The National Standards are not standard. They are broad and imprecise, and every teacher across the country who assesses a child will interpret them differently. Waikanae School teachers have worked hard to moderate their judgements to achieve as much consistency as possible within our school; however this cannot be achieved on a nationwide basis.
2. We are concerned about the requirement to send school data to the Ministry. While National Standards can be usefully implemented within our school community as one of a range of tools with which to assess and report on students' achievement, their inherent subjectivity means that the data becomes unreliable when it is centralised.
3. We believe that the centralisation of schools' achievement data will result in published league tables. These will be based on data which is unreliable and inconsistent across schools.
4. Published league tables can have a range of unintended consequences, including narrowing teachers' focus to the basics of reading, written language, and mathematics. New Zealand's current broad-based curriculum gives all children opportunities for success. A narrowed learning environment will not provide underachieving children with opportunities to succeed or children who achieve highly with opportunities to be stimulated and extended.
In summary, we want to see our school's achievement data used within our school to assure the community and the Board that our children are making progress and achieving well, using a variety of reliable norm referenced assessment tools. We do not see any advantage to our children in sending their achievement data in to the Ministry of Education. It is the role of the Education Review Office to identify underachieving schools and to direct them to seek and adopt advice to develop their practice.
As part of our school's planning, we would like some definitive information that explains your view. We would like you to go online and tell us what you think. We would appreciate your response as soon as possible and will need to close the survey on Friday 16 September.
Click here to be taken to our 5 minute survey.
Yours sincerely
Elizabeth Couchman
Chairperson
Waikanae School Board of Trustees
