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  • Two Auckland charter schools still have no idea if they will be open next year | Stuff.co.nz

    It amazes me the arrogance and ignorance of some people.

    Just read the comments to see the myriad of people all wondering what Labour’s problem with charter schools are.

    If they’re making a difference, and they’re meeting the needs of some kids, then surely that’s a good thing, regardless of how they get there? Right?

    Sure.

    Except, how do they get there.

    Entire schools, using tax payer money to be set up and run, with ‘special character’, which in this case includes class sizes of no more than 15.

    Okay. Let’s break it down.

    Let’s say that the Ministry of Education has $10,000 dollars to give to all schools to run for the year. Realistically it’s much more than this, but my ‘0’ key is starting to wear out…

    From this pool of money, $7,000 is given to the state sector to teach and to raise achievement and pay the teachers and try to make educational outcomes in the positive. $3,000 is given to charter schools to do what they want with it.

    However. There are 14 state schools using the $7,000, and only 2 charter schools using the $3,000. Let’s break this down. Each state school gets $500, and each charter school gets 3 times that.

    Now… Because the state schools are given a class size of 28 students, this works out to be $17 per student.

    Because the charter schools can state that their class sizes be no bigger than 15, this works out to be $100 per student.

    Now… This isn’t the issue that those of us in the state sector have an issue with. The issue is that there is an unfair playing field being created between the public sector and charter schools which are a mish-mash of private/public. The trouble being that not every student can go to a charter school and access that amazing resource.

    And in the meantime, that $3000 could have been going into the state system to provide similar benefits of smaller class sizes to every school, to every student, not just the few that manage to live near or get accepted into charter schools.

    I guess it comes down to one thing…

    Don’t read the comments!

    Source: Two Auckland charter schools still have no idea if they will be open next year | Stuff.co.nz

  • Teacher Strike – 15 August 2018

  • Over the Bridges and around the Roundabouts

    Hekia did a U-Turn on class sizes back in 2012 when she announced National would be increasing class sizes.

    John Key himself stated that he sent his children to private schools because of the smaller class sizes.

    Yesterday Simon Bridges sent National back down the road, but this time after heading around the round-about and back in the complete opposite direction to his former leaders. In fact, it appears that he’s even driving on the wrong side of the road.

    “In a fiery speech to the National Party annual conference on Sunday, Bridges promised National would increase the number of primary teachers to reduce class sizes and give kids “more teacher time”.

    “With the right education we can overcome the challenges that some children face purely because of the circumstances they were born into,” he said.”

    Stuff.co.nz – https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/105832210/smaller-class-sizes-under-nats-says-simon-bridges-in-major-speech

    It has left many of us scratching our heads, dazed and confused. Isn’t this what Teacher’s all around the country were asking for back when National was in power?

    It would seem easy to make such promises when you’re not held to account, or when you’re not in driving seat or in charge of the books.

    Of course, this gives Labour the mandate to lower class sizes and not have any opposition to such a proposal – least of all from the teachers around the country, backed (I’m assuming) by Simon Bridges himself.

    It won’t happen though. And here’s why.

    To lower the class sizes there are several things that need to change.

    Either there needs to be more teachers. Or there needs to be less children.

    Let’s assume that infanticide won’t go down well in 21st Century New Zealand, the government is forced into the first option.

    Please be advised: There are a lot of links to news articles in this article. I encourage you to read each article in full to gain a better perspective on the issues at hand. There is more than just one factor in all of this, and having a full picture of it all will assist you in understanding the complex array of issues raised.

    As I write this article, NZEI have just released a damning report regarding student numbers and the teaching profession, saying a crisis will hit by 2030 – a date that I bring up later on in this article as well!

    Point one.

    We’re already losing teachers by the bucket load. Earlier this year it was reported that half… HALF of all high school teachers quit within the first five years. That means that every five years we have to replace half of all the high school teachers. And that’s just to maintain the current teaching workforce. Similarly, 17% of all new ECE and primary graduates EXPECTED to leave within the first five years into their careers.

    “They often leave because they are burnt out by the demands of teaching, an increasingly narrow and prescriptive curriculum, and by policy initiatives that promise much, deliver very little, and are quickly replaced by some “new” policy that is equally ineffective and short term.”

    – Stephen May, January 22 2018

    Point two.

    We’re losing not only good teachers, but experienced ones, by the bucket load. I’m not talking about teachers with 10 years of experience. We’re talking deputy principals with 30 years of experience. We’re talking teachers with 23 years of experience as a principal, and 40 years in teaching. That kind of experience doesn’t just grow on trees. Simon Bridges was two when this principal BEGAN teaching.

    Point three.

    To try and address the dwindling education workforce, the National government sent an ambulance to the bottom of the cliff. From the ambulance came the idea that we’d just train new teachers, rather than trying to stem the flow of valuable, dedicated, and experienced teachers jumping from the top of the cliff face.  We all know why they did this – paying beginning teachers is a lot cheaper than continuing to pay experienced ones. But needless to say, the results are as expected.

    The course was introduced and graduates rushed through in record time. I trained for four years to become a teacher, and I was nowhere near prepared enough for the daily rigors of school life. Furthermore, while the introduction of this was (in my opinion) a good one with a step in the right direction towards ongoing apprenticeship where teaching students are placed in a school and get used to “the grind” with some real-life practice, it only had room for 20 applicants in it’s first year in 2016.

    Nine MILLION dollars was injected into “a raft of new initiatives” to help address the shortage in 2016. Money well spent by Hekia and the National Government? I guess proof will be in the pudding.

    On top of this, the numbers getting trained are subsiding as well. I’m not at all surprised. The number going through education training at the moment is a third of what it was when I trained in 2010. Continuing that trend we will no longer be training any new teachers by 2034. Poor pay, high stress, and better career options in other professions are being blamed.

    In addition to this, we’re not even getting the brightest or best for the profession. Just read this article from 2016 which states that graduates accepted into teaching degrees were some of the lowest scores across ALL bachelor programmes. It also explains saying that “The number of entrants into teaching has dropped by 25 per cent in five years, putting pressure on universities to accept even lower entry grades to maintain numbers”.

    Point four.

    So as we can see, getting more teacher’s isn’t working. Why not?

    Well – as a teacher, I’m certainly not recommending that anyone choose the career over any other. I’ve heard it on good authority that at least one local principal discouraged his own children from becoming teachers, stating that it isn’t like it used to be when he was a teacher while raising them in the 90’s.

    As stated: Poor pay, high stress, and better career options exist out there for anyone wanting to earn a living in this world. We’ve already seen a teacher shortage in Auckland, not just because of the lack of teachers, but because of the cost of living, the cost of housing (renting or owning) in Auckland (and elsewhere around the country) is beyond their means. Even those that moved in to try and plug the gap are now looking at leaving.

    Put simply, Teaching is no longer valued as it once was. And it is a detriment to our society.

    So how do we show value in Teaching as a profession? Well. Pay is one way. If the job is paid well, there will naturally be more interest in it as it becomes a viable career on par with other options that are out there.

    Check out these stats from a bit of research a Twitter follower did:

    When a Corporal in the New Zealand Army can earn as much as the TOP tier experienced teachers (besides units, or senior management), then it speaks volumes. And don’t for a second think I am belittling Corporals in the New Zealand Military.

    Heck; just look at the salaries of members of parliament. You have to go back to 1979 since the pay for a back-bench MP was the same as a Teacher’s salary. Now, a Back-bench MP brings home $168K worth of bacon each year – and then vote to increase their wages which gets passed almost before the Yay’s can say ‘Y’.

    That’s a 40% difference, in nigh on 40 years. There’s no way that we’ll get back to where the pay scales will be anywhere near the same.

    It can’t happen, I hear you say…

    It did. Back in 1985, under a Lange led Labour government, a 40.17% pay hike was given to secondary teachers across the country.

    I’m not saying that it will happen again. But if the government (and the people the MP’s represent) are serious about the future of the country, then they need to get serious about making Teaching a viable career.

    You can come out and say that you want smaller class sizes, but to get to smaller class sizes, you need more teachers. And to get more teachers you have to make it a job worth staying in (less work pressure) and pay them more so that teaching is on par with other careers.

    Everyone knows, thanks to Whitney Houston, that children are our future, and we’ve all had a teacher who has inspired us to be more than we are, or more than we were. You put money into education, and you get it back in droves in the generations to come.

     

    The good news is, Minister Hipkins is aware of it and is doing something about it. Quite what it is that’s doing is largely unknown – given the latest purchase in the Defense force, but hey… at least it’s not a U-turn.

     

  • Teacher Workload: After the Standards

    There was a small sigh of relief when the Rt Hon. Chris Hipkins announced that National Standards were no longer a government requirement for primary schools to use. Okay; it was more of a large cheer than a small sigh, but suddenly we are nigh on six months from that announcement, and as a teacher, I’m not seeing much of a decrease in workload.

    Yet we’re assured that the government is working to reduce paperwork in the teaching profession.

    When announcing the scrapping of National Standards, Hipkins got rid of the four point ruler for measuring children, but ensured that teacher workload remained high. You see, he said that “Parents will still receive reports at least twice a year on their child’s progress and achievement in maths, reading and writing as well as across the curriculum areas. But this reporting will focus on children’s progress, rather than measuring them against arbitrary National Standards.” – Chris Hipkins

    So now, not only do we have to continue to report to parents twice a year (suggested at every 6 months), we are now also commenting across all of the curriculum areas.

    You see; National Standards themselves did not add any extra work to the teacher workload. We already know from day in and day out interactions with the students, whether a student is below, at, or above – and so making that call took a matter of minutes and a slightly different grey shade on the report. The issue teachers had with National Standards was largely around the barbaric way it labelled children as failures, and was too broad in its measure to show any progress students might have made.

    No; it wasn’t National Standards themselves that caused an insurmountable amount of additional workload. It was the need to report to parents formally in written form twice a year.

    Prior to that, parents would usually have a parent/teacher meeting in the middle of the year to chat about how their child was doing, and a written report at the end of the year as a summary of how well their child was doing. Evidently this wasn’t enough. Too many children were slipping through the gaps and failing. We needed to keep parents informed on their child’s progress (or lack of) so that we could catch them before they fell through.

    Except, now; with the requirement of two written reports, teacher’s workload doubled. But not just in writing screeds and screeds of reports. Teacher’s also need to gather data on each student, test them (and re-test them), anaylise their data, and compare it to an arbitrary set of benchmarks in order to see their progress. Instead of doing this at the start of the year to inform teaching and then repeating in Term 4 to write a summative report, we are now carrying out these tests throughout the year, to spread the workload out, and to be able to write two reports.

    So while the National Standards have been scrapped, their remnants still remain, and continue to add to the workload and stress being experienced by teachers across the country.

    Time for some Maths.

    In our school’s current reporting format (which is largely based off a Ministry approved/suggested template) I have written on average 105 words for each of the Reading, Writing, and Maths curriculum areas. This includes the current progress a child is making and their next learning steps. That’s 315 words per report. My current class has 31 students in it. That’s 9,765 words. Double that because we report twice a year, and add some on for a General comment on the final report, and we’re bordering on 20,000 words each year in reports. To give an idea of how much this is, a Massey University Research Report worth 60 credits should not exceed 20,000 words, and a 90 credit Thesis paper should not exceed 30,000 words.

    Every year.

    What’s the solution? There’s no easy way to say this; but getting rid of the mid year report and replacing it with parent meetings seems the only way to bring the workload back to something more manageable. In my experience, there are parents of below expectation students who are aware they are below. Parents who don’t know their child is below the expectation are usually ones who a) aren’t actively helping in any way and won’t help in any way just because it’s written on a piece of paper, or b) aren’t all that concerned. This is a generalisation, sure; but I suspect that parents who care about their child’s education are going to be aware of where their child is in relation to where they’re expected to be without the need for it to be written down in a report. I also suspect that making parents who don’t care about their child’s education aware of where their child is in relation to where they’re expected to be isn’t going to change the amount of care or effort that they are going to be willing to invest in order to make any sizeable difference.

    Therefore, the need to report twice a year is somewhat redundant. It’s created twice the workload, and stretched assessment throughout the year (instead of letting the teacher teach throughout the year) and adds to the stress without actually adding anything to education.

    Related Reading

     

  • PTC Portfolio – Example Template

    So part of my job is providing PD for our staff on a variety of things, usually anything to do with ICT.

    I have been asked to run a workshop on online PTC portfolios, and so as part of that, I built an example PTC site, complete with How-To guide to get your own PTC Portfolio set up just like it.

    ptcportfolio.wordpress.com

    You can head on over to the site and use it if you’re looking at putting your PTC Portfolio up online. Don’t worry, you can keep it all private and make the most of being able to access your portfolio from anywhere.

    Of course, I used WordPress.com, one of the most widespread CMS’s available, and is what I use personally for my own PTC Portfolio.

     

  • Individual Testing is Killing Teaching

    When I was at school, I can’t remember ever doing a one on one test with my teacher.

    I’m not saying it didn’t happen. I’m saying I don’t remember it. I do remember being tested, in whole class tests, PAT mostly. Colouring in blank circles was fun.

    At some point, teachers or schools or ERO or MOE wanted to know more. They wanted to get more specific information on the learners, to track, to identify gaps, or simply to report against National Standards for.

    And it lead to each individual child in every class being tested individually. Each child’s strengths can be identified, and the gaps they have can then be specifically targeted. Teachers knew what each child needed, and could pass comment on this first hand to their parents or caregivers, through the wonderful National Standard reports that were sent home twice a year.

    Great.

    Except that it is unmanageable.

    28 kids in your class. That’s 28 tests, all carried out individually with the teacher. That’s 27 students who are left to quiet independent work while the teacher questions 1 child. Rinse and repeat. Let’s say that each test takes 5 minutes with the teacher, allowing for arrival, sit down, thinking time, and several correct questions that lead to more difficult ones (and therefore more thinking time) and then leaving time. At 5 minutes a test and 28 students, that’s 140 minutes of testing. 2 hours and 20 minutes to conduct one test for the whole class. 

    This of course does not account for the additional time of hushing students, interruptions, and maintaining a semblance of order over the class while trying to test one child at a time. The testing can take days, usually weeks to get through the whole class one at a time.

    This is the problem though. During those weeks, there is no teaching happening. It’s simply independent work while I test. It becomes too hard to switch between teacher and tester, and so constant switching between these two roles sends one spiralling into minor bouts of schizophrenia.

    Add in that this is one test, for one subject, say Maths. Add in Writing. Add in Reading.

    The stain of National Standards lingers on. While many schools have ditched them, the mindset of the assessments that have been left behind are still causing teachers to be testing, testing, testing – not because of the National Standards, but because of the style of assessment that schools are now using.

    There is no doubt that these tests produce a very accurate and specific picture of what each child knows and doesn’t know, and it becomes very hard to argue against. However, there needs to be some compromise, otherwise we will continue to fall into one of the two modes – teaching or testing – throughout the year.

    But why?

    Why do we test at all – in all honesty?

    In this article, there are numerous points made. Most poignantly is where it says “some countries have achieved better outcomes from their state systems by deliberately shunning standardised testing. In this informative Atlantic article, the Finnish journalist Aru Partanen cites the attributes of a Finnish school system that regularly outscores the US ( and New Zealand) in international rankings of student achievement. Among other things, Finland has no standardised testing, and no private schools at all.”

    In the opening paragraph, it raises exactly where we are at in New Zealand education right now. It says “Testing kids in the classroom sounds like a good idea. Surely that keeps tabs on how they’re doing, and identifies which kids might be falling through the cracks…and that’s all good, right? Well…except that most teachers have always done testing, have always sought to detect kids at risk, and have always managed to strike a healthy balance between teaching and testing. The issue is whether the demands to follow standardised testing procedures (and the practices and attitudes that go with them ) may now be poisoning the whole environment for learning.”

    This was written in 2013. Five years ago. I had been teaching for three years. Now five years later, and approaching a decade in the classroom, I am still teaching and then testing. Now, with the removal of national standards, we have the opportunity to make a change. Something has to change.

    I didn’t become a teacher to make kids sit tests, or even interview kids about what they know and if they can tell me different ways of solving the same problem. I didn’t become a teacher to spend hours on end analysing data and working out what kids don’t know and feel guilty for how much more I should be working.

    I became a teacher to teach. I became a teacher to help kids learn.

     

    Related Reading

  • Letter Keepsafe

    Need somewhere to keep all your classroom display letters? Sick of re-making letters all the time. Keep them safe in this Top Teacher Tip.

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    Always needing labels or needing to stick paper print outs to things? Use this Top Teacher Tip to make your life easier! #FlipTheTape #TooEasy

  • Repeatable Centres

    Need to label a bunch of cubby holes in your class, but don’t want to measure each time to find the centre? Use this Top Teacher Tip to make the whole process easier!

  • Please Restrain Me

    Seriously. The latest in Ministry bull-hockey is in full swing.

    Many teachers were somewhat perplexed at the latest heightening of the issue of restraint in schools, when the Ministry introduced a layer of bureaucracy to the issue of restraining children who were out of control in the school.  In the bulletin dated 21 August 2017, the Ministry states that

    “New rules have come into force which require schools to notify, monitor and report on the use of physical restraint.

    Schools should be, and usually are, a safe and happy place. But there are times when things risk getting out of control and someone needs to step in.

    On rare occasions a student may need to be physically restrained and new rules have now been issued to give greater clarity about when it is okay to do so.”

    Trust is a two way street, and the Ministry here demonstrates exactly the level of trust that it has in it’s teachers. Due to this, teachers are naturally cautious to this, with many thinking of where this leads. While the Ministry say that this is purely for monitoring purposes and to see if the school needs help in managing the behaviour at the school, many teachers are much more cynical, and can see this leading to sanctions on individual teachers who restrain too often, or repercussions to schools who are required to restrain on a regular basis. What’s more, the chances of legal procedures also looms in minds around the country.

    Which is why now, teachers more than ever are hesitant, and on occasion flat out refuse to restrain children, even when student safety is in question. The hassle of filling out the form is one reason for ignoring it, but the process behind the form, and the repercussions it could lead to are much bigger deterrents.

    Of course, the first question on many of our lips was – “What constitutes restraint?”

    The bulletin listed some examples for us, to give us an idea:

    “The legislation says that a teacher or authorised staff member can use physical restraint if he or she reasonably believes that there is a serious and imminent risk to the safety of the student or others, and the physical restraint must be reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances. Situations where it may be appropriate include:

    • Breaking up a fight

    • Stopping a student from moving in with a weapon

    • Stopping a student who is throwing furniture close to others who could be injured

    • Preventing a student from running onto a road.”

    Suddenly, separating two students who are throwing haymakers (an activity that happens at least once a month, if not once a week in some schools) now requires a teacher to fill out a form and report to the Ministry. A copy also goes to their Board of Trustees. An interview (usually by phone) also occurs after the form is submitted.

    So what about if I have to remove a child from class because they refuse to follow my instructions and are disrupting the class? Another form. Another interview. But is it restraint?

    So naturally, schools began asking the Ministry these questions, hoping to seek some clarification around the new laws that were put in place. Somewhat expectedly, the MoE had no answers. They fumbled around and provided comments that amounted to not much more than “We don’t know”.

    Surely they had a plan in place? Surely they could foresee that there would need to be some clarification for those on the front line as they ducked and dodged the furniture being thrown at them?

    Hastily, they put together an all encompassing workshop: “Understanding Behaviour, Responding Safely” or UBRS for short.

    I had the privilege of going to one of these courses today.

    What an absolute joke. Bordering on pathetic.

    The whole basis for the workshop was “Minimising the use of Restraint”. This says one thing; that we (MoE), think all teachers use restraint as step one in our behaviour plan. The majority of the course discussed and elaborated and explained all the ins and outs of managing behaviour, providing safe learning spaces, and building relationships with the children – once again assuming that teachers do not already do all of this.

    Seriously.

    In a room full of teachers, all of whom are wondering what is considered restraint, what isn’t considered restraint, when do I have to fill out the form and when do I not, and some safe and un-harmful ways to restrain children in a suitable way.

    Instead, this question (which was raised in the first five minutes of the workshop) got shut down and dismissed, as “we are looking at ways you can deal with the behaviour before it escalates”.

    Pathetic.

    To assume that teacher’s don’t already do all of that in their class; that they don’t get to know their students, work out what triggers students, work along students to de-escalate conflict, and do everything in their power to NOT get to a point where a student flies out of control, was nothing more than belittling and patronising.

    Yet this is what is being rolled out.

    We were even told that this wasn’t really even designed to be used at this level, and wasn’t about dealing with restraint. Yet on the Ministry website, it is made quite clear on their “Support for schools to manage challenging student behaviour” page which mentions restraint, that the training provided is “The Understanding Behaviour, Responding Safely (UBRS), workshop…” and “…is delivered in modules for whole school staff groups focusing on prevention and de-escalation strategies.”

    It does not mention anything about restraint, which the new laws are about, and are what teachers are actually concerned about, as opposed to managing behaviour focussed on prevention and de-escalation.

    What a joke.

    Look; Teacher’s aren’t walking about looking for kids to restrain. We aren’t going around antagonising and riling up students until they’re out of control and we need to drag them over to the school office.

    But if you’re going to make a “No restraint” rule, but make the exception for certain circumstances, then you’re going to have to do some work with those that are affected, namely teachers, on what those circumstances are, and safe ways (for the student AND the teacher) to carry out any kind of restraint IN CASE it is necessary.

    P.S. Please, please, please; if you’re running an ADULT’s workshop, do not expect us to a) work effectively in groups with strangers and b) do roleplays.