Position regarding the introduction of National Standards

Position regarding the introduction of National Standards- Publication date: 18 May 2010

Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa/NZ Childcare Association's position regarding the introduction of National Standards

Preamble

In 2009 the Minister of Education announced the introduction of National Standards (NSs) into schools for children in years 1-8 effective January 2010.  NSs have been developed for reading, writing and mathematics and written reports on progress will be provided to parents twice each year. Teachers will use a range of assessment tools to assess children's progress. 

The government believes that NSs will ultimately lift achievement in literacy and numeracy by being clear about what children should be achieving and by when.  The standards have been developed on the basis that children ‘at the level' will be on the right trajectory to achieve NCEA level one in year eleven.

NSs are expected to link expectations about student progress and achievement to the New Zealand Curriculum.

Schools' 2011 charters will need to include specific school-wide targets for student achievement in relation to the National Standards.

Schools will also be required to report aggregate data to in their annual reports in 2012.

NZEI Te Riu Roa has opposed the implementation of NSs on a number of counts:

  • That these assessment tools have not had adequate trialling and hence may lead to misleading assessments
  • That children assessed as ‘below the standard' will become de-motivated and more likely to fail
  • That the funds used to assess and report against National Standards would be better utilised in supporting learning
  • That teachers will likely teach to the standards and this will narrow the curriculum, undermining the breadth of learning in the new National Curriculum
  • That there are already sound assessment and reporting practices embedded in schools.

The New Zealand Principals Federation supports this view.

The early childhood sector is not directly affected by NSs as these apply only to the compulsory sector.  Children leaving ECE services will not be assessed against NSs until one year of schooling.  However questions are being raised in the public and professional domains about possible impacts on ECE, leading to such questions as:

  • Will parents expect ECE services to prepare children to achieve NSs through more formal teaching of literacy and numeracy?
  • Will there be a push from outside the sector to bring instruction for, or similar assessment to, NSs into ECE?

ECE teachers are also wanting to lend their support to the arguments against NSs put forward by their professional colleagues in the compulsory sector.

Developing our position

In order to develop a position we have done the following:

  • Jan Taouma (Council member) and Gillian Dodson (Manager Member Services) attended the NZEI Te Riu Roa seminar on national standards and reported back to the Council, staff and membership, including circulating various position papers.
  • A survey of the membership was carried out to ascertain their views on this issue, specifically: what information did they have, what effect did they expect NSs to have, what was the reaction of parents and had this begun to affect their interaction with schools.

Results of member survey

Forty five members (ie 7%) replied. This is a low response rate, suggesting that the majority of members may not see this issue as highly relevant to them.  The low response rate means findings cannot be generalised wider.

Of these most (N=44) knew about NSs.  The group was evenly split between knowing enough and wanting to know more.

The (58%) majority did not agree with NSs however a sizeable minority (31%) did support them.  Comments supported the intent of improving children's learning but most did not feel that NSs would do that, or at least, not without significant risk.  Concerns were expressed regarding the unproven nature of NSs, potential labelling of children and the need for better resourcing of teachers. One supporter commented "there will be a standard to reach, our children deserve this."

Respondents were spread in their views about impact on ECE with the majority (29%) feeling that there would be ‘some impact'.  Comments clustered around the view that parents may become more anxious about school achievement and pressure ECE services to introduce more formal learning, narrowing the curriculum to ‘numeracy and literacy'. Services enrolling new immigrant families commented on this as a current issue.

The majority of services (65%) had received no interest from parents in national standards nor seen a rise in parental interest in formal learning, however around one third of services reported increased parent interest in NSs and/or formal learning.  A number commented that their parents were resistant to NSs.

Most services (89%) hold conversations with the local schools about transition to school and appeared pleased with the relationships they had established.  Eighty nine percent felt capable of articulating ECE learning and assessment theories and practices to parents and primary teachers.

Members asked to be kept informed about the rollout of national standards and especially any suggestions of ‘downwards push' to the ECE sector.

Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa/NZ Childcare Association's (NZCA) position

As a professional community of ECE teachers and employers we are vitally interested in New Zealand's educational policy.  We strongly support the new NZ Curriculum which connects with Te Whaariki ECE Curriculum and is underpinned by concepts of learning and learners that are consistent with our values and beliefs.

On the basis of our mission and vision and the feedback from our members, it is proposed that NZCA adopt the following position on National Standards.

We support:

  • the intent of Government to lift achievement in the compulsory education sector
  • Government's position that ECE educators can be trusted to effectively facilitate learning including literacy and numeracy learning, using Te Whāriki.

We are concerned that:

  • NSs will compromise the implementation of the NZ Curriculum, in particular that NSs will focus on outcomes (short term, narrow) rather than key competencies and learning dispositions (long term, wide) and that the policy will lead to teaching practices that narrow the curriculum.
  • the implementation of NSs may have negative downwards effects on teaching ECE should parents become anxious about their children's ‘test readiness', and consequently
  • children will lose their love of learning and develop anxieties (and thereby lower their achievements).

We seek reassurance that:

  • children who are deemed to be not ‘at the standard' will be taught in a way that enables them to gain the self confidence and competence they need for learning success.
  • School and ECE teachers will be adequately prepared and resourced to undertake appropriate assessment
  • the impact of NSs will be adequately evaluated so that any negative impacts can be immediately addressed and that this information will be widely available in the public domain to enable informed debate.