Parents urged to engage in standards consultation

19th May 2009
For Immediate Release

NZEI Urges Parents And Teachers To Take Part In National Standards Consultation

Teachers and parents need to get out and have their say on the government’s draft national standards for numeracy and literacy, says the education union, NZEI Te Riu Roa.

The draft standards are now out for consultation and there are meetings scheduled around the country with education groups and parents.

The government’s aim is to standardise how teachers measure student achievement and progress, how they report on it and how they can better identify and support students who are under-achieving.

The timeframe for implementing the new standards is tight with plans to have them in schools by the beginning of next year. NZEI says it’s important that as many teachers and principals as possible attend the consultation meetings and have their voices heard.

NZEI President Frances Nelson says “schools are already using national assessment tools but those at the chalkface need to know what the standards are going to look like and think about how they will work with them. Much of the assessment work we do in schools relies on good teaching practice and teachers’ professional judgement. That won’t change.”

For parents, the consultation process will give an opportunity to have some input into how they want schools to report on their child’s learning and progress.

“We want to see that the information collected is used for teaching students and for informing boards and parents about how well students and schools are doing. However any move to make school assessment information available nationally for league table comparisons would be destructive and defeat the purpose of implementing the standards,”
says Frances Nelson.

“League tables take the focus off the learning needs of children across a broad range of areas and instead put the emphasis on school ranking solely on literacy and numeracy results.”

NZEI looks forward to receiving feedback from the consultation process, but in the end it believes the test of any new system is whether it supports the learning and achievement of all children.

ENDS

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