Category: Archived

All the old posts from years gone by.

  • School Donations: Rich get Richer…

    Original Article: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/109937537/rich-school-poor-school-top-schools-get-millions-in-donations-while-others-get-0

    About $140 million was donated to New Zealand schools in 2017 – and more than half of that went to just 10 per cent of schools.

    Wellington College received the most money of any state school, banking almost $5.7m.

    Coming in second was St Peter’s College in the Auckland suburb of Epsom, which received more than $3m in donations.

    At Auckland Grammar School, just 350 metres down the road, donations topped $2.2m.

    And a three-minute drive away at Epsom Girls’ Grammar School, the figure was almost $1.8m.

    Between them, the three Epsom schools received just shy of $7m.

    By contrast, 37 schools recorded no donations for 2017, and a further 79 received $1000 or less.

    The data, supplied by the Ministry of Education, included all donations to a school, whether from parents or other sources.

    Wellington College had a bumper year for donations in 2017 because donors contributed to a new performing arts centre, principal Gregor Fountain said.

    Some schools have scrapped parental donations to ease the financial burden on families.

    In its election manifesto, Labour pledged an additional $150 per student for schools that did not ask parents for donations.

    Little has been said about the policy since, with Education Minister Chris Hipkins saying it was “Budget sensitive”, so he could not talk about it.

    Capping the amount schools could ask for was one of the suggestions to come out of the Tomorrow’s Schools review.

    The taskforce heard some families could be “put off” sending their children to a particular school due to high donation levels.

    Limiting the amount schools could request would mean all families had equity of choice, the report said.

    A donation was, by definition, voluntary. However, Post-Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) president Jack Boyle said there were many schools where it “isn’t voluntary, nor is it a donation. It’s a compulsory fee”.

    Read Original Article Here

  • Five Year Limit – Enough time to make a difference?

    It could be a seismic shift in education, tearing apart the model schools have operated on for more than 30 years.

    School leaders are “cautiously optimistic” about radical reforms recommended by an independent taskforce last week, which said there was no evidence self-governance had helped schools improve equity or lift student achievement.

    Its proposals are open for public consultation until April 7, when Education Minister Chris Hipkins will consider what changes to pursue.

    The taskforce’s main recommendation is that New Zealand establish 20 ‘Education Hubs’ to act as the middlemen between the Government and individual schools.

    The hubs would take over many of school boards of trustees’ business and governance responsibilities, leaving them to focus on student achievement, strategic planning, community engagement and local fundraising.

    The idea has caused some uneasiness in the education sector, partly because it is not known exactly who or how many people would act as minister-appointed directors of these Crown entities.

    But the main cause of angst has been the hubs’ potentially wide-reaching powers over property, employment, advisory services, professional development, and funding for up to 125 schools each.

    “The one thing I do like is the personalisation and communication to communities that we currently have; I would hate to lose that,” Canterbury West Coast Principals’ Association president and Burnside High School principal Phil Holstein said.

    “It’s another layer of administration and I’m not sure how that would look.”

    Beyond a massive restructure of school governance, the independent taskforce has made several other game-changing recommendations.

    …

    The taskforce has proposed principals spend only five years at a school before they are moved elsewhere.

    The proposal came as a surprise to New Zealand Principals’ Federation president and Bathgate Park School principal Whetu Cormick.

    ​”We would all be thinking, what does this mean for ourselves? I would expect we would still have a permanent position within the hub arrangement,” he said.

    “The idea of us moving across and sharing knowledge in schools … is an idea we haven’t had for a very, very long time.”

    Under the taskforce’s plan, principals would be appointed by the hubs rather than by boards of trustees.

    Several principals welcomed these ideas as a way to keep them accountable – even if they lost some job stability.

    But it could take five years just to become established in a school community and “white knights” were rarely well received, they said.

    Read the entire article here.

  • It’s Time to Teach Back Home

    Great to see the NZ Government finally getting on board with the latest NZEI slogan “It’s time”.

    Of course, they tried to be cool with it, and put in a New Zullund accent in the spelling – “It’s Toym to Come Home and Teach in New Zealand”.

    In the latest effort from the Government to try and lure teachers back home, the first website has been launched.

    https://teachbackhome.co.nz

    The fancy graphics and videos can’t have been cheap.

    The site goes to outline the incentives to come back to New Zealand and teach.

    • Up to $7000 relocation grant (limited number)
    • Three agencies to assist you finding a job “…in Auckland” (and in other parts of the country!).
    • A child willing to give you their lunch (Seriously!?)
    • Videos of teaching happening in New Zealand.
    • The lack of security checks for weapons in New Zealand schools (Seriously!?).
    • A list of a few latest job listings from the Education Gazette and a link to take you there to see more.
    • A list of registration requirements before you can teach in New Zealand.

    Yes there is a degree of humour in the recruitment drive – but it treats it like a bit of a joke, which isn’t entirely ideal.
    But at what cost? Just looking through the site, there are several areas where the $10 million dollars for recruitment is being spent

    • Website design – probably exorbitant given the visual media costs and prior history of prices paid for websites by the Government.
    • $5K and $7K relocation grants
    • Ministry of Education “contracted recruitment agents”.
    • Several student story videos and other video media.

    However; the grants were already in place PRIOR to the $10million dollar scheme, as per this article: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11981974

    Of course, there are other costs involved as well, and it speaks volumes when those that have returned to teach here are then let down by the system and have since quit! Not exactly the best advertisement.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11924965

    I certainly hope that this isn’t the only plan to address the teacher shortage. Hopefully it’s low down on the initiatives.

    It’s time to start valuing the Teaching profession – make it a viable career, with appealing pay and career prospects. Reduce the workload and motivate the current teachers enough to tell the world about what an awesome job they have, rather than how tough it is at the moment. Don’t offer us a child’s lunch or suggest that not having to walk through a metal detector is what makes our education system the best in the world.

  • More pupils, less teachers

    South Canterbury primary schools are full to the brim for next year but finding enough teachers to teach them is a different story.

    For many of the region’s schools, 2019 is going to be a “bumper” year, with enrolments either nearing or at full capacity, principals say.

    However, recruiting teachers to cover this influx or replace those who are leaving has been a greater challenge.

    While St Joseph’s Timaru School only had to recruit one teacher, principal Carmel Brosnahan-Pye said “it wasn’t easy”. “It’s[recruiting teachers] definitely an increasing issue in South Canterbury,” Brosnahan-Pye said.

    Beaconsfield School principal Hamish Brown echoed Brosnahan-Pye’s comments saying finding new teachers has “changed dramatically over the last couple of years”.

    Despite this, most schools have been able to recruit the teachers they need, although Timaru Christian School is re-advertising​ one of its 2019 positions.

    While principal Bethany Rentoul would not say why, as the process was ongoing, she did say that the school had “filled three other positions recently”.

    “We have received fewer applications for positions overall, over the past few interview rounds, and there has been a big increase in the number of overseas teachers applying,” Rentoul said.

  • Primary school Science results poor

    Teachers lack the confidence and resources to deliver meaningful science lessons, an expert says.

    A leading science educator is shocked by a study that shows just 20 percent of children in their final year of primary and intermediate schooling are reaching the expected level of the curriculum in science.

    The National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement said the figure for children in Year 8 was the worst of any subject in the curriculum.

    The founder and chief executive of science education trust, the House of Science, Chris Duggan said the result had huge implications for society.

    “It’s shocking and I’m sure that there’ll be a lot of people very disappointed,” she said.

    “The Year 4s have improved slightly but the Year 8s it’s still really, really bad. To look at that and see that 80 percent of our Year 8s are going into secondary school with insufficient science to allow secondary teachers to start teaching where they should, that’s a real worry.”

    Ms Duggan said many years ago science teaching was well-supported with government-funded science advisors who worked with primary school teachers and specialist resources for use in science lessons.

    But that support had not been available for a long time and in addition the introduction of the national standards in reading, writing and maths had sidelined other areas of the curriculum, including science, she said.

    Read full article here.

     

  • Understanding the Teacher Crisis

    The Side Eye: Everything to Everyone – understanding the teacher crisis:

    A unique take on the Teacher Crisis put into a visual narrative succinctly and accurately by Toby Morris.

    Be sure to check it out over at The Spinoff – The Side Eye.

    For the rest of the story, please head over to the original article here.

    https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/the-side-eye/03-12-2018/the-side-eye-everything-to-everyone-understanding-the-teacher-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR04F0_Wj102NUYIFSY1Th7SJhbX99I83ZLJJwidKkSEwdKfAnvlkLkycqY

  • ‘Why on earth would I want to teach in NZ?’ The Kiwi teachers staying overseas

    When Ben Drury was teaching at a New Zealand primary school, he was stressed, working at the weekends and “chasing his tail” in the evenings.

    After more than a decade in the classroom, friends started heading overseas to teach – and Drury followed suit, first to Singapore and then to Korea.

    Six years into teaching abroad, he has no plans to move back.

    With accommodation, annual flights home and private school tuition for his kids covered, it was a “pretty good gig”, he said.
    On top of that, his salary was enough for his wife to be a stay-at-home mum.
    “There’s no way we could have done that in New Zealand,” he said.

    While the lifestyle perks are attractive, it’s the shift in workload that has proved the real point of difference.

    In Korea, Drury gets about six hours of time away from his class every week.

    Back home in New Zealand, he got two days a term – or the equivalent of one hour a week.

    “Do I feel less stressed where I am now? Yes, for sure.”

     

    Read original article.

  • Why didn’t teachers strike under National? They were fighting to save education itself.

    Earlier this week a trade unionist wrote for The Spinoff about the rise of public service strike action under the Labour government. Today former Green Party education spokesperson Catherine Delahunty shares her perspective.

    I have heard more than a few complaints that teachers did not strike under National, so why are they doing it now? As education spokesperson for the Green Party for nearly nine years, I spent many hours with teachers and their unions, examining legislation which undermined the quality public education system. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that over the last nine years the teaching profession was punchdrunk by a sustained political assault on their mission. Hence the exodus, and the struggle to replace the workforce. The recent teachers strikes are a last-ditch effort from a profession with legitimate expectations of fundamental change, relief and reward.

    At the very beginning of the Key government we went straight into urgency to debate their National Standards legislation. This was a disastrous policy which attacked the core principles of teaching and immediately teachers and their unions were forced into battle. Some schools resisted it, and many protested, but the policy of measuring and comparing primary students and schools via league tables became the norm. The damage was done. Remember: National Standards was never debated or discussed with schools and was passed into law under urgency.

    Then came Education Minister Hekia Parata’s attempt to increase class size, on the grounds that size doesn’t matter. This was resisted by parents as well as teachers, who knew that larger classes would mean teachers had less time with each child. The combined effort of both groups led to a humiliating back down by the minister, but the fight took up a lot of energy. In the middle of these debacles the Christchurch earthquakes struck and schools became hubs for communities and for children in shock. The government took the opportunity to impose a reform on Christchurch schools which went way beyond closing or repairing the damaged schools and a battle for survival took place, characterised by official mismanagement and insensitivity towards a traumatised school network.

    But this was just the beginning of the relentless changes and ideologically driven “reforms”. The charter schools championed by ACT and National were provided with resources other schools could only dream of and a range of experiments of highly variable value were begun. Military school and privatisation at public expense were put in the same basket as tangata whenua efforts for educational self determination, while 90% of Māori students remained in underfunded local English-medium schools. Teachers’ major focus was privatisation rather than wages and conditions.

    This all happened while house prices in Auckland went nuts and teacher aides did not get centralised wage funding. Early childhood education was a privatised mess and franchises created baby barns with government encouragement, while Kohanga Reo and Playcentre struggled.

    At the Education and Science Select Committee some seemingly random government bills kept turning up but they all facilitated reduced student and teacher representation in the tertiary sector, school boards being able to run several schools, the replacement of the Teachers Council by a new less representative body, the Teachers Code of Ethics becoming the Code of Conduct… on it went. This all took place in a global context of educational “reform” known as the GERM (Global Education Reform Movement), which led to a rewrite of the Education Act and an Update Bill to incorporate the COOL (Communities of Online Learning) concept – basically a digital replacement of the teacher.

    The actual rewrites were without vision and did not reflect many student or teacher ideas or a common purpose that lifted the debate. They generated deep concern from people like the Children’s Commissioner and the Ombudsman from a children’s voice and rights perspective. Meanwhile the learning support system continued to be broken and teachers were leaving the profession in despair.

    Read original article

  • A Rainy Day

    In relation to:

  • Barnyard

    In relation to