KEY POINTS:
I have read with interest and concern the reports and commentaries about the need to provide food for hungry students in schools serving low-income communities. As the week went by, the predictions of the number of students reported to be arriving at school without having had breakfast, and thereby too hungry to effectively participate in schoolwork, appeared to grow significantly.
Admirable as it may seem to be to provide food in schools for hungry students - an initiative I'm sure is welcomed by many schools as immediate help for students in need - so much more still needs to be done.
I had considerable experience as a secondary school principal of a decile one* secondary school between 1985 and 2001, where the complex issues surrounding the educational underachievement of far too many of the school's students needed serious attention.
It became obvious there were no quick fixes. Any single initiative proved inadequate as it was often variably resourced, with no assurance of its long-term continuation and with indistinct links to any greater strategy.
For successful implementation of an educational initiative, the school had to provide administrative support, which often ended up being an extra resource cost on the school, especially when the initiative had run its course as a "pilot programme" and further external funding or support wasn't forthcoming. The teachers I worked with soon learned to be somewhat cynical about how long well-intended "improvement initiatives" would last and whether they were ever really part of a well worked out strategy for improved educational outcomes.
In 1995, a group of nine decile one secondary schools were invited by the Ministry of Education to participate in the Achievement in Multi Cultural High Schools (AIMHI) schooling improvement programme. AIMHI was set up to address a number of critical issues confronting these schools at that time. These included: students' underachievement; their variable standards of health and well-being; their high levels of absenteeism and transience; and the quality of teaching and the appropriateness of teaching practices for Maori and Pasifika students (the majority groups in these schools). There were also: questions about effective governance and leadership; the lack of adequate teaching and learning resources (including property); and a lack of effective communication with the schools' communities and parents in particular - all large, complex and interrelated issues.
After 10 years of operation, AIMHI has made significant progress. It initially benefited greatly from research from Kay Hawk and Jan Hill of Massey University, who identified in detail the extensive and co-ordinated action required for these schools to improve educational outcomes for their students.
The Ministry of Education supported AIMHI with special funding and it closely monitored the co-ordinated schooling improvement initiatives implemented by AIMHI principals and their boards. The schools are now seen as positive learning environments and all have recently had a series of good reports from the Education Review Office. There is now strong quantitative evidence of significant increases in student achievement in the AIMHI schools. In some areas of the curriculum, students are achieving at or above the national average for all schools and well above the average for decile one schools in all areas.
One of the most important of the AIMHI initiatives has been Healthy Community Schools. Since 2002, AIMHI schools have been funded to provide on-site health and social services for students.
Registered nurses, social workers and community liaison workers were employed through specially provided (pilot) government funding. The schools, in effect, became "full service" providers of social services that went well beyond the educational work normally expected of schools. The co-ordinated approach has seen some very positive social and educational outcomes. The schools have become proactive and increasingly competent in making links with Government and voluntary agencies that can work as part of an integrated approach to addressing students' needs - anything from addressing previously undetected vision and hearing difficulties, serious dietary problems (especially obesity and the early onset of diabetes), drug use and abuse, sexuality issues, bullying, and gang and physical abuse problems. Developing a full service structure has meant that the AIMHI schools have successfully been able to go well beyond single interventions such as providing food for hungry students, and instead tackle the many issues that may cause students to turn up to school hungry.
Healthy Community Schools is at the end of its pilot phase and, over the last 18 months, AIMHI has been negotiating with education, health and social work agencies to seek ongoing funding for the initiative. None of the schools will be able to continue the services at existing levels without the extra funding. The danger is therefore there that one of AIMHI's most promising initiatives may founder for want of ongoing resourcing. In schools, we may be first and foremost teachers and not nurses and social workers but we have got used to the very successful work done by our professional colleagues "on site" and which increasingly appears to suggest significant savings to be made by using schools as co-ordinated and proactive agencies for helping adolescents through some critical formative years and avoiding the high costs of addressing social dysfunction later on.
*DECILE ONE
The Ministry of Education uses a decile rating system for school funding. Decile one schools have the highest proportion of students from low socio-economic backgrounds.
AIMHI SCHOOLS
The nine AIMHI schools are Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate School, Tangaroa College, De La Salle College, Otahuhu College, Mangere College, Southern Cross Campus, Porirua College, Tamaki College and McAuley High School).
* Bill Gavin was Principal, Otahuhu College 1985 - 2001; Co-ordinator of AIMHI Schools 2002 -2006 and is now Acting Director Southern Cross Campus, term one, 2007
