Alwyn Poole
Innovative Education Consultants
innovativeeducation.co.nz linkedin.com/in/alwyn-poole
Our State schooling system, with some exceptions where there is a strong and academically focused leader, is in deep trouble. Indicators are:
- Less than 50% of students fully attending.
- Clear indicators of poor outcomes for Numeracy and Literacy. This includes a situation where the introduction of NCEA co-credits in 2024 may see the Level 1 failure for leavers go from 13% to 40%. This is not because of the test difficulty but because Labour/Ministry have not accompanied the introduction with a huge improvement in teaching and teacher quality in those areas.
- Decline against international measure.
- Quantitative and qualitative teacher shortages – including relief teachers. A situation that will only get worse over the winter terms.
- Huge achievement gaps across the system by demographics and ethnicity. Where there is success – e.g. in the Catholic schools – many are so ideological that they suggest the schools should be closed and students forced into the state system.
- Bullying in person and online and examples of very weird staff behaviour.
- Huge increases in mental health issues. See this brilliant article on The Project.
Just when you thought things could not get any worse we have one document working its way into “Relationship and Sexuality” education in Years 1 – 8 (2020) which features statements such as:
In English, akonga can:
• critically explore how the diversity of families, schools, and communities is represented in texts
• explore and critique the representation of gender roles and relationships in texts
• co-construct ground rules for engaging in critical discussions about text content
• create oral, visual, or written texts about the roles and relationships within their whanau or family
• engage in dialogue and debate in the context of provocative online posts linked to relationships, gender, and sexuality
In science, akonga can:
• consider how biological sex has been constructed and measured over time and what this means in relation to people who have variations in sex characteristics
• consider variations in puberty, including the role of hormone blockers
This is for children between 5 and 12 years old (Year 1 – 8). There is no way they are going to be allowed to be kids. They get the worries of the adult world thrust down upon them and, for the record, I have always felt the sex and sexuality education belong in the home.
Then there is the “Curriculum Refresh” taking place. Here is the base document and if you can make clear sense of it you deserve an Honourary PhD.
Refreshed New Zealand Curriculum
Vision for Young People and purpose
A refreshed Te Tiriti-Honouring and Inclusive Curriculum Framework will be introduced. The Framework will include a whakapapa, a Vision for Young People – written by young people, for young people, and a purpose statement calling us to action with key shifts to ensure equity and inclusion for all akonga.
Curriculum levels and achievement objectives.
Designed to be cumulative – progressions replaces curriculum levels and achievement objectives with five phases of learning. Each phase of learning contains progress outcomes that describe what akonga should Understand, Know, and Do at each phase of learning.
Learning areas, matauranga Maori, key competencies, literacy and numeracy
The refreshed NZC will be organised around the same eight learning areas and key competencies from the 2007 Curriculum. Matauranga Maori will sit at the heart of the learning areas – with key competencies, literacy, and numeracy explicitly woven into each learning area.
There will be further opportunities to have your say on the Framework in term one 2023.
Gifted by Dr Wayne Ngata and members of our Ropu Kaitiaki, “Te Mataiaho” is the proposed working name for the Curriculum Framework and means “to observe and examine the strands of learning.”
Te Mataiaho brings to life the shifts required for akonga to see themselves and their learning in the refreshed curriculum. Grounded in the power of observation, Te Mataiaho weaves together all elements that will make up the whole of The New Zealand Curriculum. More than a Framework, Te Mataiaho is a tool that navigates the future for our akonga by honouring our past to enrich our present.
What Te Mataiaho includes:
• a whakapapa
• a refreshed purpose statement calling us to action
• a Te Tiriti o Waitangi statement
• a refreshed Vision for Young People – written by young people, for young people”.
New Zealand does not need this “Refresh”. Our system desperately needs a curriculum simplification and a return to high aspiration for all.
If you are a parent, grandparent or otherwise involved what can you do?
- Raise concerns on all aspects of education with your schools, BoTs and MPs.
- Look for alternatives if the State school or your local school is underperforming and/or an ideological soup. Private and State Integrated Schools have more freedom and exercise it. Alternative qualifications such as Cambridge and IB are worth investigating.
Whenever it can the Ministry of Education seeks to take back control and not all alternatives keep working and fully investigating each option is important. In 2014 and 2015 I help to establish two Partnership/Charter Schools – South Auckland Middle and Middle School West Auckland. They began well and were making a genuine academic difference to the children. In 2018 Labour turned them into State schools. From the end of 2020, I no longer had direct involvement but did have a data oversight service agreement. Those who left at the end of 2020 and prior were achieving NCEA L1 and 86% (SAMS) and 80% (MSWA) in the high schools they went to. When I did the evaluation for 2021 leavers those results – in a year – had dropped to 41% and 27%. School leaders – e.g. the MSWA Principal – now talk of success as “in whatever way you might choose to measure success” – an approach that is rife throughout underachieving schools (does a good arm fart count as success?). Their solution to the problems the data review showed was most Ministry like – they are choosing to no longer gather the data! The soft bigotry of low expectations.
From the start of the government’s response to the pandemic to October 2022 home-schooling in NZ had risen by 80%. If you have the time and expertise it is a very good option for many. Most towns/cities have home-schooling networks for social interaction, sports and field trips. Two barriers are; that you have to go through a process to get Ministry of Education approval to teach your own kids (in the UK it is simply a notification from parents) and organising for the sitting of assessments at Year 11 – 13 can be problematic.
At the beginning of 2021, I help launch a very good option for students/parents who are dissatisfied, concerned about ideology, geographically isolated, traumatised by their State school, or have no choice in their local area. I am no longer directly involved but Mt Hobson Middle School Connected is brilliantly lead and staffed with a world-class programme. It is for children Year 1 – 13. They make use of virtual classrooms and ensure that their students across the country regularly meet up. As a private school there is so much more freedom. There are fees but they are moderate compared to brick and mortar schools. IT is also a real investment for your child’s future. They have two options:
- A full teacher lead programme with subjects and projects taught through the school day.
- A fully resourced and advised programme where parents lead the teaching with full support from staff and enables them to fit things into their family routines. (approx. one quarter of the full fee)
Because MHAC is a registered school parents withdrawing from their State school and enrolling do not need the Ministry’s permission and the school has full authority to assess for NCEA.
As more and more people realise that the State/Ministry is travelling in the opposite direction to what families want, and what high quality education is, more people will take up alternative options. In Australia, Private and Catholic schools make up 36.6% of the provision. In New Zealand that figure is only 15.3% and the Ministry try and keep a clamp on this by not approving new Designated Character or Integrated Schools and the government allocates a tiny amount of support to Private Schools.
This is a watershed time for NZ and education is at the heart of it. This government and Ministry are a disgrace and it is time for parents to take things into their own hands – it is their children that are having their futures ripped away. Withdrawal from State education is an international trend.
According to a new joint analysis by the Associated Press and researchers from Stanford University, a whopping 1.2 million K-12 schoolchildren remain missing from public schools since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in 2020. The study, which examined 22 jurisdictions, found that roughly 26% of these students switched to homeschooling.
