As children returned to school last week a major reform of education was launched. It was the New Zealand Curriculum, the result of years of careful development, consultation and training. It is a unique document to bring New Zealand education into the 21st century. Teachers, principals and Boards of Trustees are excited about its potential. The launch of the new curriculum has of course been completely overshadowed by the introduction of National Standards however. There is obviously quite a bit of debate on either side about the use of standards in primary schools and there will be quite a lot of debate still to be had on the subject. Here at Wairakei we have taken a “get on with it” approach to national standards and will introduce them within our current assessment and reporting practices.
We already have quality assessment and reporting practices in the school, but there will be some small changes that you will notice during the year in what we report on and how we report progress and achievement. We will be introducing a mid year written report in literacy and numeracy. Parents will probably not notice huge differences as we at Wairakei have always tried to give parents a clear picture of where children are at, what they need to work on and what we all will be doing about it. We all want to know how our children are achieving against a standard and to have that information reported in plain language.
The main concern really is that if the media use the data from schools to make league tables, this would not be beneficial to learning.
I am especially pleased with how we do have that family feel about us which means that we work together as one unit to ensure that progress is made for each and every individual child.
Please watch the YouTube video from John Key to form your own opinion.
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