Structured literacy, school testing – three lessons to restore NZ’s education system: Alwyn Poole

Our nation used to have a reputation for having a world-class education system. Photo / 123rf

THREE KEY POINTS:

• The Government has earmarked $67 million as part of Budget 2024 to transform how our children learn to read.
• The funding will pay for books and resources for teachers, support development for teachers and the introduction of phonics, as well as additional support for students who require it.
• The new Government is also introducing ‘back to basics’ of an hour of reading, writing and maths a day for every school child from Year 1 to 8.

Alwyn Poole founded the Mt Hobson Middle School and the Villa NCEA Academy in Newmarket and held support coaching roles at Hamilton Boys’ High School and St Cuthbert’s College (Epsom). He now heads Innovative Education Consultants, conducting research into the education system.

OPINION

Our nation used to have a reputation for having a world-class education system. It was well earned, and a lot could be attributed to strong values and aspirational alignment between families and schools (in that order).

No commentators would say we are in that situation any longer.

The new Government is making marginal gains. The prescribed hour of reading and maths each day will create a gain through the early levels.

The “structured literacy” programme will lift some students, but it is nowhere near as effective as proponents would like to say, and Education Minister Erica Stanford has acknowledged that – with the aim of only 80% of Year 8 students being at curriculum level by 2030.

Despite teacher union protestations, the new charter school model will improve outcomes for some students and this is another positive gain. Will state schools and teacher unions be prepared to learn from the different models and levels of creativity?

It will be interesting to see if the unions spend another six years spending member subs on opposing a small number of schools – or bend their backs to improving the state system and the quality of our teachers.

Parents are sick of union antics with negativity about our students, imposing strikes and paid union meetings and supporting the cynical teacher-only days that invariably are aligned with long weekends plus empty carparks, and are never associated with an agenda for teachers on that day.

The lack of achievement in our present system has multiple effects. Many school-leavers are locked into low-income roles or become NEETS (not in employment, education or training). Our productivity as a nation continues to be a low point of the OECD.

Our education system remains seen as a developed-country outlier of the lowest level, discouraging millions of dollars of revenue from international students. Many of our hardest-working and achieving students are doing their tertiary study overseas – with a high likelihood of staying there.

Schools, teachers and unions make all manner of excuses for lack of achievement. They blame families and the students. They make statements such as “success can be whatever someone defines it as”. They blame the qualifications system for not showing their students in a good light.

While acknowledging the marginal gains the new Government is generating, they will be truly infinitesimal unless three major things change:

A Crown entity for parenting

New Zealand establishes a Crown entity for parenting that pervasively informs every expectant and current parent of the very best ways to care for their child from within the womb up until 5 years old.

This is not ideological – it is truly science-based. How to nourish and prevent any harm within the womb. How to care for and stimulate a newborn. How to speak thousands of words into the mind of a child. How to encourage activity.

How and what to read to every child from 2 years old – every day. How to introduce numeracy every day.

Education Minister Erica Stanford's aim is to have 80% of Year 8 students at curriculum level by 2030.

Kids wanting to be at school

We need to get children not only to school, but wanting to be there and positively engaged.

For many children schools are the site of their trauma. Schools need to work out how to fully involve families. To realign their values with family values – especially around the extremes of recently proposed sexuality education that concern so many.

A type of 1970s-80s thinking from adults and decision-makers that students should simply get to school and parents should be punished if they don’t is not going to work.

We also need to acknowledge the old adage that you cannot learn if you are not at school is nonsense. Many students, including those achieving the very highest levels, have found they learn better away from the classroom and four hours a week in a classroom with an old-paradigm teacher wastes at least half of that time.

Schools need to set goals

Every high school needs to publicly set goals around key metrics that require improvement from their staff, students and families.

These goals should acknowledge exactly where the school is at, but increment on a yearly basis. They include attendance (which should be weekly published by schools), NCEA Level 1, 2, 3 and University Entrance (UE) for leavers, student retention until 17 years of age, employment, apprenticeships and tertiary study destinations of students and surveys of parental engagement.

This would create a whole new category of success for New Zealand schools, i.e. those that are improving outcomes yearly. Given that our top 30 high schools have 87% of the leavers having UE and for the bottom 30 schools it is 2.7%, this is desperately needed.

This change can happen – it solely depends on political will. All concerned parents and citizens may do well to drop Minister Stanford a note to encourage it.