UNLEASH

ED

Tag: training

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

     

     

  • Future of education in NZ for National freightrain

    In response to NZ Herald – Every child’s chance to learn second language: National’s education policy – 27 August 2017.

    Whilst some schools are struggling to get students to learn a first language, we’ll be teaching them coding and a second language as well should National get through to it’s fourth consecutive term.

    National Standards will be extended.

    And low and behold, surprise, surprise, they will be pumping money into improving the teaching of maths to primary schools.

    Seriously. When will they get the message?

    The second part of the package was a $126 million investment to raise maths achievement for primary school students. English said National Standards showed New Zealand needed to lift its game in maths. “So we’ll provide our students and teachers with the tools they need to do that… We’ll help 1200 teachers a year complete extra university papers targeted at teaching maths to primary students… We’ll also provide intensive classroom support for students, where schools have identified the need to improve their maths.”

    Obviously teachers are the reason students aren’t achieving in Mathematics. Rubbish teachers and ineffective teaching. Ignore the fact that there are other factors at play for many students, it MUST be the useless teachers we have that are failing our students.

    So to fix this problem, we’ll send teachers back to university to learn how to teach Mathematics more effectively by ex-teachers-turn-lecturers who couldn’t hack it in the classroom 15 years ago with some kind of trendy fad way of teaching. Probably after school, in teacher’s own time.

    Teachers work out of their skin. Anyone who has visited schools that are supposedly ‘struggling’ knows that there are other factors in any underachievement.

    It’s made even more a joke when you begin to look at the reason behind such a policy. A simple search on our favourite search engine shows that Education Counts has the data for National Standards Results, 2016 (PDF). On the very first graph of this document we see that Reading sits at 77.8%, Maths at 75.4% and 71.2% for Writing. So why are we targeting Maths?

    Quite simple actually.

    Maths is the easiest to address. It has a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’. It’s measurable. It’s quantifiable. It’s the easiest to show progress. It’s assessments are stable and data rich. This is something that Reading and Writing don’t have, being largely subjective – especially Writing. The government want to ride on some success. By investing in Mathematics and measuring the future success of their education budget, they can prove that National Standards work, and legitimise all three subjects.

    However, what teachers really want, and really need, are some resources, assessments, and some structure around how Writing is assessed and taught, and to see how this can impact on all other subjects (including Mathematics). Pumping more money into Mathematics is an easy out for the Government, whilst appearing that they are putting in resources and funding into education before an election, whilst in reality, they are plugging a hole that isn’t leaking (or not leaking as much).

    Are any teacher’s actually excited about this? About having more money put into Mathematics, even after ALiM and other initiatives? About the prospect of having to go back to complete some additional university papers?

  • Untrained Teachers Coming to a School Near You.

    There’s been quite a lot on the go this week in educational politics.

    But this one is one that should have every parent, school, and child very concerned.

    Education Minister Hekia Parata defends trainee teachers in new legislation

    At the release of the plans for partnership schools, there was very little surprise that they could hire who ever they liked as teachers, so that specially skilled and experts in different fields could work in these schools. It was advertised for the likes of Willie Apirana or Tana Umaga could be in front of a classroom and motivate and inspire children across a range of contexts and learning. Quite why they would want to be in a classroom instead of what they already do quite well, I don’t know.

    However, at the same time, the Minister tightened the reigns over the Education Council, and the regulations around appraisal and registration were put under the spotlight.

    This week however, the Minister has made a quick amendment to the Education Legislation Bill, that will essentially allow unqualified people to teach in state schools.

    “The proposed amendment to the Education Legislation Bill allows schools to establish a “trainee teaching” position for a school.

    According to NZEI, the primary teachers’ union, a “last-minute” change lets schools cheaply hire an “unqualified person in an unsupervised teaching role” while they did an initial teacher training programme.

    There has already been a lot made of the Teach First programme, where after a ridiculously short training period, teachers are pushed out into the real world with qualification to teach in the classroom, and many criticisms have been made of it.

    But why does the Minister suddenly need more teachers? We’re told that only 15% of graduates land a full time job.

    It’s simple.

    Experienced teachers cost money through salary to keep on staff. By reducing the number of experienced staff with jobs (through whatever method) they can be replaced by beginning staff who are paid less, due to the step that they will be starting on.

    At a recent meeting, when discussing the negotiations between NZEI and the Ministry for the latest collective agreement where the Education Council will be paying for the registration of teachers, Hekia Parata mentioned that she finds it strange that teachers don’t want to pay money into the Education Council; and that instead of paying into the union (NZEI) we should be paying into the Education Council.

    (Side Note: I might actually consider this if I had some kind of say on the Education Council; but if all the members on the council are simply appointed by the minister herself, then it is undemocratic and does not warrant my ‘subscription’.)

    In addition to this, David Seymour has weighed in on a different factor, but also brought into question the place of unions in the Secondary sector. “But what I would say is that all good, hard working teachers up and down the country might want to ask themselves if they want to be a member of an organisation that puts ideology ahead of kids like this.” – David Seymour

    What does this mean? Well, quite clearly, Hekia and her understudy don’t want the unions to exist. If teachers began paying into the Education Council instead of NZEI, then the union would cease to exist. If teachers leave unions on ‘moral’ grounds, then they will cease to exist. With all the control held within the Education Council, the Ministry can begin to tighten the screws even more on registration, and essentially drive out existing teachers. This has already begun to happen by using the whole vulnerable children act and finding “predators” that exist in the system. Each new case of child abuse from teachers or workers in schools as fuel to the fire of tightening the registration process, until even those of us who are great teachers, trained fully, and have a wealth of experience will be forced out as well.

    But it’s okay. Because even before they have completed training (which is already so minimal it’s under question) those enrolled in the Teach First programme can begin teaching in permanent positions around the country to replace the teachers who leave.

    No doubt, Hekia will come out with her standard response “It’s simply not true”, and the fact that there is no evidence to suggest this will happen is not a reason to ignore this as a threat in the future. The logical steps and the progression of this thing called GERM is taking place, and we’re seeing it happen right in front of it. They are put in for good reason, such as the registration process to weed out ‘those’ teachers, but their bigger mission opens it up to much more deviant possibilities.

    Watch this space people. Watch this space!