Monday, August 29, 2011 at 2:01PM Insight from Dr Julia Atkin on the New Zealand curriculum. She believes it is the best in the world, did you read that right, the best, not second or third...the BEST. I happen to agree.
NZC, curriculum, learning, teaching in Curriculum Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 9:32PM Seth Godin published this under the heading, "What's High School for?". I think it could apply to all school
levels.
Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:
Need I say more?
2011, Seth Godin, curriculum, learning in Curriculum Monday, May 24, 2010 at 7:51PM A last a great news story on the news hour. This is 21st century learning in action. Actually come to think of it, this is real learning in action, personally connected, failing forward, perseverance, chasing dreams, yada yada...
21st Century, curriculum, education in Curriculum Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9:50AM In the weekend I was catching up on the NZ Curriculum auction on Trade Me. My 8 year old daughter was asking why Mr Hawkins was doing selling it. Mr Hawkins being the seller on and also her principal.
I told her he was upset about the national standards the government were planning to bring in. She asked, "what they were"?
"All children will be tested and assessed so your teacher knows where you are at with your reading, writing and maths" I replied.
"Then what"? She says.
Good question!
curriculum, national standards in Teachers, school Sunday, February 7, 2010 at 12:13PM With so much being written about and an incredible amount of opinion being spouted forward on the topic on
national standards it is sometimes far too easy to forget the key points of this professional debate. As much and the union and the government would like it to be black and white like most, (but not all) things in life it is quite grey.
Alongside the return to school we have had a flurry of opinion, usually ill-informed on this topic. In my humble opinion three of the best considered views on standards come from those listed below.
The first is a edited video clip from TVNZ's Q & A programme on Sunday mornings. Dr Therese Arseneau, political scientist from Canterbury University sums ups very well where things are at.
Then this morning from Russell Brown's Hard News blog comes this very good piece, taking a very balanced view and actually backing his statements with evidence, imagine that. In the opening paragraphs he takes aim at the lead story in the NZ Herald and rightly so. He makes this comment about the so called poll the Herald conducted, given that parents want standards but very very few understand them,
But 88% of the self-selected Herald readers surveyed by Nielsen on the forthcoming national education standards were decent enough to admit that they didn't fully understand what they were commenting on. Given that the idea of standards is, in part, to provide clarity to parents, the fact that they apparently do not understand the system should arguably be the real lead in the story.
Russell then goes on to quote a report provided to our own Ministry by Ian Schagen who was right in the middle of the Bristish system and its development. I thought I was reasonably well read on National Standards, however this one I missed. Russell submits this quote,
I suppose it would be impossible to prevent the media publishing league tables in order to sell papers, but it is important that the government and Ministry has no truck with them. The Minister needs to have a severe word with anyone publishing league tables and tell them firmly that they are harming New Zealand education.As soon as the assessment judgements underpinning the use of National Standards become high-stakes for schools, we are going to compromise the real value of formative assessment for improving teaching and learning for individual students.
And then from a political perspective, someone's whose comment I respect is John Armstrong writing for the NZ Herald. Identified on the NZ Listener's 2009 power list for the influence he seems to have with our politicians, shared these thoughts last week.
It is an interesting view from a politically speaking. Two quotes I liked.
It's going well. Swimmingly so, according to the Prime Minister. Well, things aren't going well.
If everything was going tickety-boo when it came to implementing the new regime to measure primary school pupils' progress in learning basic literacy and numeracy skills, why did Key feel it necessary to intervene and call a special press conference to launch a propaganda offensive to counter the "misinformation" that teachers and the education unions are supposedly spreading?
If you are looking for a positive in all this, At least the country is debating one of the most important aspects of a civilized democratic society, education!
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 9:50AM postpone national standards, says heads
This was the headline in the NZ Herald this morning. I think I need to read that as it sounds like of interest to an educator. However comments made by those who the Herald asked for comment left me wondering.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education yesterday said it was pleased with the progress of schools in preparing for the new curriculum to be introduced at the start of the next school year.
they are pleased when only 2% of secondary and 7% or primary are ready according to an ERO report published this year. If that is pleasing I would hate to think what disappointing would be.
The MoE Secretary for Education then said
These figures, while very low, are of concern to the ministry and will need more focused support before the end of this year."
What exactly will this 'support' look like
Then Dr Stoop the CEO of ERO states
The chief executive of ERO, Graham Stoop, said the Government monitoring body was also pleased with the results of the report.
How can you be pleased with progress and the report when the figures are only 2% and 7% for the compulsory sector respectively
curriculum, national standards, policy in Curriculum, Policy Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 10:08PM When I was younger the mantra from my parents was, actions speak louder than words. So what does this mean in relation to education, technology and learning? Quite apart from the fact I now repeat the same mantra to my own children and those in my school, this week we have seen the dfference between what our political masters are saying and what is actually happening around curriclum development.
What do I really mean? One of my over riding concerns about the introduction of national standards is they will become the de facto NZ curriculum. At a time where considerable work is being done by schools to work with what is widely acknowledged as a fantastic curriculum there is considerable danger the national standards will come in over top and become the NZ curriculum.
I have raised this on more than one occasion with MoE and political representatives. The response was no that is true we don't want the standards to become the NZ curriculum. All this is very nice to hear, however now we come to the action bit. This week the MoE announced its professional development funding priorities for 2010.
The professional development services provided through the SSS contracts in 2010 will include:
- increased support for primary and ongoing support for secondary for improving achievement in literacy and numeracy through The New Zealand Curriculum
- support for schools to implement the National Standards
- continued support for school leadership
- support for NCEA and the learning areas of The New Zealand Curriculum in secondary schools (support for the arts, science, social science, technology and health and physical education learning areas for primary schools will cease)
- some support for implementation of school based curriculum underpinned by The New Zealand Curriculum in primary and secondary schools
- support for Māori medium education including implementation of National Standards and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
- support for provisionally registered and overseas trained teachers
Clearly one can see that priority will be given to literacy and numeracy and the national standards. In the fifth bullet point of seven we get "some support for implementation of school based curriculum underpinned by the New Zealand Curriculum in primary and secondary schools."
Intended or not we are on the way to having the standards becoming the NZ Curriculum. The only way for this not ti happen is for schools to be quite deliberate and explicit in implementing the new NZC with the standards as supporting documentation.
My thoughts anyhow.
NZC, curriculum, national standards in Curriculum, Policy Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:15PM Yesterday was our turn here in the deep south to be consulted on these national standards. What a rushed, surface level experience that turned out to be.
It was the first time I found out or was told that the draft standards were arrived out via working out what a child needed to pass NCEA level 2 and then working back. This was based on the OECD telling us that NCEA level 2 was the minimum needed knowledge level in a modern economy and workforce. Why are we now taking our education policy direction from the OECD? Is education all about preparation for the workforce?
Anyhow, I thought I would assess the meeting based on the MoE purpose as listed on their website.
1 - Professional Development for Teachers and Schools
I found out the MoE have no idea as to what the PD will look like for schools, but feel free to make suggestions in your feedback.
2 - draft changes to the NEGs
Not even mentioned
3 - targeted funding, resourcing and interventions for schools.
there is an extra 36m available for this. However no idea on how it will be spent and what criteria will be used.
4 - overall assessment strategy.
no mention of an overall assessment strategy. It was clear there does not appear to be one.
Therefore based on the draft five point standard, could be below or well below. Hard to say as the criteria is quite subjective.
curriculum, education, leadership, national standards in Learning, education 
