The national standards are in the news today and are a hot topic with leaders in the education sector. I urge you all to think about what is important for your children. Coming to school should be much more than just reading, writing and mathematics. Providing a rich, creative and stimulating school is what I believe will make a difference to your child's learning and more importantly their lives. Literacy and numeracy will be a focus in our school as it already is. Literacy is the springboard to most other learning. I am committed to teachers collecting evidence of achievement and assessing how effective they are being when they analyse this information. I am also committed to giving parents honest, accurate and useful information in regard to their child's achievement.
One of the reasons that schools are so wary of the standards is the negative impact they have had in countries overseas. Please post a comment, but before you do you have to read these articles they puts things into context nicely:
Also, ask yourself these questions;
Why are the government doing this? Is it for the children or is it for votes?
There is no doubt that very few people would say no to whether we want to lift standards in education. But will the hasty introduction of standards do this?
Seems a double edged sword. I want my kids to have a rounded education, to be given the opportunity to gain confidence and excel at what they are best at this may be in the arts, sports, or through academic success. However I also need to be assured that if my children shift school, or classrooms that the results they are obtaining is to a high standard, that each school or teacher is measuring against the same standards, that the information I am receiving can be used to help them. As a tax payer and NZ citizen I need to know our children are getting the best education that money can buy. And as far as I can tell at present there is no clear way of measuring this across all our schools.
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