National Standards @ Saint Paul's

There have been two things that have shaped my thinking around National Standards over the past few months. The first was the New Zealand Principal's Conference just before the break.

They had  a number of international speakers from different countries with their views on educational trends and how this relates to student achievement. National standards has been a significant issue across the world with a lot of countries discarding them as detrimental to fruitful outcomes for children and the nation. Without too much in-depth explanation I have summarized the important points that I gleaned from these speakers:

1. Finland has the best achievement results and this is due to their drive to lower accountability and increased responsibility for teachers. They pay enough to attract the best candidates from their Universities to go teaching. 
2. Equal societies do better. The tail in New Zealand is almost exclusively made up of Maori and Polynesian students.
3. A mindful approach to technology is a feature of successful education systems. 
4. Diagnosis and Design are the keys to successful school improvement.
5. Other factors that drive school improvement are: encouragement of deep learning, reducing gaps within schools, providing high support alongside high expectations, providing enrichment for all students and early intervention with minimal labeling.
6. If you put global competitiveness up against literacy and numeracy results you will find that countries like the US, who are bottom of the academic results table are top of the GDP per capita table. A prosperous future will depend on citizens who can invent a job rather than get one. Creative and Entrepreneurial skills provide three million new jobs each year while existing enterprises are losing 1 million. China is working to develop these skills by a range of efforts including the banning of national testing!

 The other event that has made an impact is the recent Education Review Office visit to Saint Paul's. It was interesting to engage in debate about the use of National Standards and their use at the school. We had gone through the time consuming task of unpacking the standards, making Overall Teacher Judgements of our children's grades and moderating the results. Unfortunately we had learnt too late  grading at 40, 80 and 180 weeks at school in the first three years as these anniversaries had passed for a number of our children. Inthe New Entrant class the teacher had indicated that the students were below standard because they had yet to reach the standard. They had yet to reach their anniversary so this data was inaccurate.
The solution for us was to go back to the standardised tests. We analysed this data to set measurable goals for ourselves. The ERO team initially indicated that this was going to be a non-compliance as there were no 'grey' areas. Much like the standards themselves we were to be judged 'below' despite our efforts to make the changes required and falling short at the finish line.( because of the sped of implementation)
After discussion back at the office they decided that to downgrade this in the final report. As part of the my follow up to the visit  I have put a report together around National Standards that interestingly is at odds with what tests such as  asTTLe are saying about our student achievement. Remember that our results were marked downwards.
This raises questions for us about the relationship between our good norm-referenced test results and the national standards results. It also asks questions about the practicality of using the 'big picture' standards. In our school they are not lining up against norm-referenced testing.
It will  be rare for children to make the kind of significant change that would lift their result. Progress that is smaller and incremental will not be recognized. Reports and analysis will not be productive.
There are practical and philosophic questions about the standards that need to be worked through before we commit to more valuable teacher time and energy.

The value of student blogs

There has been an extensive English research study done around writing achievement and the benefits of blogs. We have known for a long time that writing for a 'real' audience is a powerful motivator for children to write. And edit their writing. So, not surprisingly the study found huge improvement in students achievement, particularly boys.

An important element in keeping the obvious enthusiasm our students have for this practical use of the internet will be parents committing to posting comments regularly. Adults lives are very busy and this is yet another chore.

Part of the requirements around National standards reporting has been the desire of parents to help their children succeed at school. Schools have been asked to give parents advice on what they can do to be partners in the learning process. I encourage them to make a time each week and post a positive comment on the class blog. Your child not only benefits but also knows that you are interested in their learning.

Student Achievement Results

2010 Achievement Report to Parents

In our annual planning over the past few years we have an ongoing target to improve students literacy achievement across the school. In 2010 it was decided that vocabulary would be the aspect of reading and writing we would concentrate on. This was identified as one of the gaps in literacy learning for our students. The following statistics show the shift made in vocabulary achievement from March to November 2010 in a reading test. 

Month	Below Expectation	At Expectation	Above Expectation
March 2010	20%	39%	41%
November 2010	4%	39%	57%

It is especially heartening that students achieving below the expectation were reduced by 16% and that student achieving above the expectation increased by 16% 

In the same test the results showed 94% of our Year 1 to 3’s and 83% of our Year 4 to 8 students are now reading at or above the expectation so we have good overall reading results at Saint Paul’s at the end of 2010.  

All the significant groups such as Maori, Boys and Girls are showing results consistent with the group. 

Swimming Sports

The organizations that promote swimming in New Zealand have been increasingly concerned about the standard of swimming among our children. Primary School pools were hand built by their communities in the 1960's. These have come to end of their shelf life and new regulations and expenses have meant that more and more schools are without adequate facilities to teach swimming.
We are fortunate that we have the Aquatic Centre within walking distance that is supported financially by our parent community through the parent contribution. The Pool works hard to keep the prices significantly lower than is available to the general public partly through application for government funding.
The professional tuition that Saint Paul's students get from trained instructors in the water for 10 sessions each year will give a basic skill level over the 5 years they are swimming. But most will  need more to realize the goal of getting all 12 year olds being able to swim 200 metres.
It certainly appears from the recent Saint Paul's swimming sports that there are a number who get to the point where they are swimming strongly and confidently over  50 metre length.  I suspect that these children have had additional lessons. There are still, however, a number of our older students choosing to swim the width. My advice is that parents supplement the basic tuition at school with further lessons. Our death toll from drowning has been on the increase. It is vital we reverse this trend and equip our children with the skills to survive.

The Beginning

Our school is developing blogs to share school stuff with you the wider community. This is my humble effort. An issue that arises around school use of the internet, particularly blogs, is the problem of using photos and names where they can be accessed by the wider world. If there is a reason why this might be a problem for you please let us know!