March 2013 Volume 28, Number 1
see NEW marketplace section pages 34–35
HAUORA: RIGHT BRAIN LEARNING DR DAVID STEWART | THE RICH KIDS
DISCOVER A WORLD OF LEARNING IN SAMOA. With a rich and vibrant culture, as strong today as it was 3000 years ago, Samoa offers an amazing setting for school group trips. Lifelong memories and friends are gained. Kiwi schoolchildren get the chance to see and feel for themselves how beautiful the islands really are and Kiwi-Samoans get the opportunity to discover more of their heritage. New perspectives are offered, knowledge and pride is always engendered. Samoa Tourism is proud to be involved with facilitating Educational Partnership Programmes, forging closer Pacific relations and making sure more kiwi kids get to experience the beautiful Samoan islands and culture only 4 hours flight from Auckland.
www.samoa.travel
Edventuretours Travel encourages all
schools to take their students to Samoa. We run sponsored familiarisation trips for teacher leaders every year. For more information on how you and your school can become involved with an Edventuretours Samoa experience, visit www.edventuretours.co.nz
Call Robyn Hamilton +64 7 855 9499 or 021 904 209
Editor Liz Hawes Executive Officer PO Box 25380 Wellington 6146 Ph: 04 471 2338 Fax: 04 471 2339 Email: esm@nzpf.ac.nz
CONTENTS
Editorial Board Philip Harding, NZPF President Geoff Lovegrove, Lytton Street School (Feilding) Liz Hawes, Editor Advertising Stephen Tuck, Sales & Marketing Manager For all advertising enquiries contact: Komal Mathur, Michael Lynch, Stephani Ozawa, Sonia Payne Cervin Media Ltd PO Box 68450, Newton, Auckland 1145 Ph: 09 360 8700 or Fax: 09 360 8701 Production Dan Mesnage, Stuart Sue Note The articles in New Zealand Principal do not necessarily reflect the policy of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation. Readers are welcome to use or reprint material if proper acknowledgement is made. Subscription Distributed free to all schools in New Zealand. For individual subscribers, send $40 per year to: New Zealand Principals’ Federation National Office, PO Box 25380, Wellington 6146
march 2013
2 EDITORIAL 3 PRESIDENT’S PEN 6 CHILDREN MASSAGING CHILDREN: Hauora Eva Sherer 9 OBITUARY Dr David Stewart 11 NZPF HONOURS OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS 15 THE RICH KIDS Liz Hawes 21 NZPF CONFERENCE Claudlands Events’ Centre, Hamilton, 9–12 July 23 FIVE KEYS TO BUILDING AND MAINTAINING SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL MOMENTUM
David McKenzie
31 TEACHING STUDENTS FINANCIAL SKILLS FOR LIFE Robyn Scott 32 school lines Lester Flockton 34 MARKETPLACE SECTION Profiles from education product and service providers
36 rural ramblings
Baabaara Ramsbottom
New Zealand Principal is published by Cervin Media Ltd on behalf of the New Zealand Principals’ Federation and is issued four times annually. For all enquiries regarding editorial contributions, please contact the editor. ISSN 0112-403X (Print) ISSN 1179-4372 (Online)
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Cover artwork courtesy of Eliza Michell, (6 years old), Freemans Bay Primary
Editorial Liz Hawes
Editor
If Novopay wasn’t such a serious contractual disgrace, the random madness of its blunders would by now have transported us all to La La Land! Mind you it takes less than Novopay to send educationalists to La La Land in today’s environment. I have the great pleasure of visiting real schools that exist in real heartland New Zealand. They are wonderful. I meet principals who are dedicated, selfless, innovative leaders who continuously inspire and motivate their staff to keep the children in their schools achieving better and better results. Whether they are located in decile ten or decile one neighbourhoods (see the story in this issue p. 15), I am constantly amazed at the energy, intelligence and commitment that teachers invest in making a better future for New Zealand’s kids every day. In particular I am stunned at the work being done to help improve the outlook for kids who don’t live a life of privilege and who arrive at school with few if any learning skills, no sense of self- worth and no hope for their future. They are the kids that this Government says are their priority learners. So far so good. Schools embrace the Government’s aspiration to give kids at the bottom of the social, economic and educational ladder a fairer chance at life. Both teachers and politicians know that education is a key to making a difference for the future of these kids. They don’t want to see them grow up and replicate the cycle of unemployment and hopelessness which their parents have endured. They want to break the cycle of despair and give these kids better opportunities and real options to live worthwhile lives and make a useful contribution to the society they live in. The obvious next step is that the Government and the profession would get together and work out a plan about how to achieve the shared dream. That however is where it all goes horribly wrong and in no time at all the profession is left shaking its collective head saying ‘It’s like the ‘body snatchers’! We have been transported! How on earth did we get from there to here?’ ‘Here’ is a truly bizarre state. It is as lunatic as Novopay. It is where economic imperatives sitting way outside of educational interests or care for the future of New Zealand’s children, choke all hope of healthy dialogue with the education sector. It is where the Government, forgetting all about the educational advisors that could help them form useful policy on addressing struggling learners’ needs, retreats to its back room cabal there to spawn alien policies like Charter Schools. These are publicly funded private schools, fresh out of America and the UK, where they have failed to achieve any measurable gain for struggling kids from poor families. They invent national standards. The standards measure all kids on the same standard at the same age as if they all came from the same background and the same culture on the same day. They allow league tables to flourish. League tables are very useful things for keeping tabs on sports
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results where you expect that the teams in each grade are of the same skill level and ability. Ranking the teams within a grade makes sense, because like competes against like. When league tables are applied to schools you rank the schools according to their performance as if the kids all had the same capabilities, back grounds, school facilities and teachers. This of course is arrant nonsense. These policies are as far removed from sanely addressing struggling learners and their needs as it’s possible to get. But in the back room cabal education is placed on the table as just another public service that needs to be cut back to meet the new slimmed down public service targets. Those are the imperatives that drive educational policy, not good teaching and learning practice, not sound academic theory and research, and not the view of the profession. In the cabal, there are those whose primary interest is the privatisation of public services, including education. In the current environment, they tend to win. We recently watched in disbelief as millions of dollars of scarce public education money was thrown at the elite private school, Wanganui Collegiate, to ‘save’ it. We might see this act as a precursor to what could become common practice if Charter Schools came into the mix. Like Wanganui Collegiate, Charter Schools would have no obligation to accept students who make up the group called ‘priority learners’. They would have targets to meet and the ability to eschew all the restrictions imposed on public schools such as having qualified and registered teachers, and public accountabilities. It is no wonder then that teaching professionals feel they are operating in ‘La La Land’. Everything the Government is doing in its policy department and with its diminishing resources is completely out of step with its number one objective which is to raise the achievement of struggling learners. Where is the policy to reduce the class sizes and increase the number of highly experienced specialist teachers, recommended as the best way to address vulnerable children’s learning needs? Where are the policies to work with multi-agencies to address the children’s fundamental needs for food, clothing and safety, which are precursors to formal learning? Where are the professional development programmes so that all schools can have access to training in culturally appropriate practices? Where are the policies to ensure struggling learners have access to technologies which will assist their learning? Policies which could help the struggling kids have been ignored and replaced with those that live on planet ‘never-never-land’ with Novopay! Novopay may well be the most wacky omnishambles of all time, but it is a perfect metaphorical backdrop for current education policy coming out of the Government’s back rooms.
President’s Pen Philip Harding
National President, New Zealand Principals’ Federation
Novopain Nightmare The last six months of school life have been dominated by the new teacher payroll, Novopay. There is not a tax payer in the country who isn’t wondering how something can go so badly wrong, and indeed whether it can ever be fixed. As one reporter said to me recently, the remarkable story would be that Novopay was working. Initially it was mildly amusing that the Ministry should be managing such a mess, but as the horror stories have continued it is clear that real people are being completely stressed and distracted by the continual errors, overpayments, underpayments, and no payments at all. Payroll staff and principals have simply had enough. During the development phase of the software, Australian company Talent2 was very confident about their platform and its suitability to the task. Parallel runs using the new software were completed that produced pays which seemingly matched Datacom’s calculations, so there was no hesitation when the Minister asked the Ministry whether they should “go-live”. But things are not always what they seem as we now know. Novopay was launched in August 2012. This was despite a survey which was never shared by the Ministry that indicated that schools didn’t feel ready, and were not happy with the training. Another big gap that was not considered with Novopay was the reliance that pay staff and principals had traditionally placed on their local pay clerks. These bright young people stood between the needs of the school and the intricacies of the Collective Agreements. They knew all the mystical obscurities of paying maternity leave, or managing a leave day taken either side of a school holiday. If they didn’t, there were older and wiser heads they could ask. They turned what was in a school’s mind into a single line on a payslip. In the middle of a wakeful night last November I was listening to the news on the radio. The announcer told us that the Oxford English Dictionary had decided that its Word of the Year was “omnishambles”, meaning a situation which is shambolic from every possible angle. I instantly thought of Novopay and now whenever it is mentioned my brain reminds me of this highly appropriate adjective. The problems are significant, and will require the co-operation of the entire education sector. There is absolutely no confidence in its usability, its accuracy, its service centre, its reports, its payslips, or indeed any part of it. Good software is intuitive, yet this interface is not. It would almost be more comforting if every school suffered the same issues, as this would point to an error in an algorithm that
could be easily fixed, but the problems are not general – they are random and school specific. It appears that many are due to data entry errors by Novopay staff – for example mistakes such as entering the wrong school number are what lead to people being paid by schools they have never worked for. The reports are impossible to read. I have heard of one staff member generating over forty lines of “pay code” in a SUE Report. The failure of the reports to accurately report banked staffing lead me to think that the Ministry doesn’t understand the importance of these resources. Swings of tens of thousands of dollars are being reported in banked staffing summaries, but because the need to pay people accurately is of higher priority, any fix has been on the back burner since it was noticed. I don’t believe that any principal in New Zealand will be prepared to sign off on their year’s payroll when the auditor HOW TO SAVE TIME ON CALENDAR FUNDRAISING KEY TIMESAVERS: • COLLATING CALENDAR ORDERS: once your order is complete, Kids Creations will deliver the calendars, diaries, etc., packaged (each child’s order packed) and ready to distribute, collated in class groups • COLLATING RESOURCES: calendar resources are collated into class packs, ready to distribute in class • PERSONALISED ORDER FORMS: we print personalised calendar order forms for you, with your school’s information • GETTING IT RIGHT FIRST TIME: quality control systems to ensure that our calendars, cards, diaries, notebooks and mousemats will impress What other fundraisers are saying about Kids Creations:
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comes calling shortly, and I don’t know how successive fortnights of errors can ever be reconciled back to pre-Novopay positions. The NZ Principals’ Federation wrote to both the Auditor General and the Prime Minister on 21 December, and formally requested an independent review of the processes and quality of the Novopay solution. We are pleased that the newly appointed Novopay Minister, Hon Steven Joyce, has since announced both a technical and Ministerial review of Novopay. The technical review is almost completed as this issue goes to press and we expect that the Ministerial review will take a further three months. I was invited to comment on the terms of reference for the Ministerial review and overall feel that Minister Joyce is making a concerted effort to uncover the truth about Novopay’s reality. We welcome this fresh approach, even if part of the Government’s motivation is to take the political heat off itself. I have also made a formal written request to the Minister to compensate schools for the real costs that implementing Novopay has imposed and have asked for an extension of Charter deadline submission to April 2nd. We know that staff who assist in preparing data for the Charter are often the same staff who are dealing with the continual Novopay errors and these staff are stretched beyond their limits already. Because we do not expect the Ministerial inquiry to conclude inside of the next three months, we will have at least another three months of troubled pay rounds to look forward to. I will be seeking additional support for schools to help us get through the months ahead. Perhaps it is time to transition the Novopay Call Centre teams back into those special people, the local payroll experts. That might give back to schools the time and energy to put into their core tasks, teaching and learning.
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CHILDREN MASSAGING CHILDREN
The best example of right brain learning process is HAUORA Eva Scherer eva.scherer@xtra.co.nz www.childconnection.org.nz
“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has of course powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead; it can only serve.” — Albert Einstein
What did the genius Einstein have in mind when writing this? What Einstein calls the "powerful muscles of the intellect" corresponds to our left brain, the neocortex, where we learn such skills as mathematics. The "personality" is our right brain capabilities based on the subcortex/limbic processes that correspond to our values of compassion, empathy and love. Both are necessary functions but it is, we believe, the personality that should be at the forefront and lead the way. The Children Massaging Children (CMC) programme is a process supporting the subcortex/limbic/emotional development of the growing brain. The New Zealand Schools’ Curriculum is based on left brain education which prepares our children for the world ahead but the curriculum also encourages right brain Learning by supporting HAUORA lessons in primary schools all over the country. Whilst virtual technology is a useful metaphor for left brain education, the values of empathy and love or right brain learning are best defined through the concept of Hauora and teaching children how to massage children. Let's look more closely and see the relationship and balance between these two types of learning. What do statistics tell us? Most if not all schools in the Western World are equipped with computers. In the USA there is an average of 3 students for 1 computer in the classroom.
Those working in technology recognise the importance of right brain development alongside the left brain and tend to choose schools like ‘Waldorf ’ schools for their children that have a heavy arts related curriculum including play, art, music and physical activities. They recognise the importance of values of empathy, sharing, love and appreciation of nature and prefer that technology is not introduced until children reach their late teens. Young parents working for Google and Apple say: “. . . we make technology as brain-dead easy to use as possible. There’s no reason why kids can’t figure it out when they get older. It’s like learning to use toothpaste.” (NY Times) If virtual reality is introduced while the natural reality experi ential senses are still forming in a child's brain, critical experiences in the development and stabilization of their natural reality are displaced and pushed aside with worrying results. To have an appropriate relationship with a screen-based virtual reality one must first have a well-developed physical, emotional, cognitive foundation in what used to be the only reality – natural experience and relationship based perception – what Einstein named “personality” It is capacity not content that real learning cultivates. The whole body with all its senses, feelings, movement and thought, interacting with the natural world, interacting with peers around them – seeing them when they are happy and feeling happiness with them, seeing them when they are crying ■■ In New Zealand evidence shows a similar trend. Statistics also and being ready to help teaches empathy. indicate that in 75 % of homes there is at least 1 computer. Engagement in the world ■■ We have iPod’s, iPads and the around them; playing, running, Internet. More technological jumping, smelling, touching, Flooded with technology that is novelties are continually being produced. There are laughing, dancing and singing easily ‘digested’ and immediately free technological resources and the quiet, intuitive inner available for teachers ready ‘knowing’ time, sharing meaning forgotten, the natural ability to be used in classrooms all with all surrounding habitants over the world. Thanks to – this is what influences the of children to be empathic the outreach of sponsors development of a healthy, such as "The Gates and responsive is lost. It is easy balanced personality. Foundation" and "Google" Buzzing, flashing, gadget, some of the best lessons to see why this happens when we flat TV screen with animated by the best teachers are artificial worlds and violent understand where creativity and recorded as free online games – “powerful muscles of education media. There empathy originate. is no doubt that children technology” as Einstein called continue to benefit from it, should not be seen by us as this technology. an example of ‘real’ life and yet for many children this ‘virtual It is evident that, whether we like it or not, within the last reality’ has become their ‘real’ life. There is a big danger for future generations to have leaders decade technology that supports left brain learning has conquered with ‘reptilian minds’, the ancient part of our brain controlling education worldwide.
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our most primitive and aggressive needs, combining with tools of high technology. Because of the dominance of technology, we appear to have have lost equilibrium. We miss the right brain learning aspect. Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson warns us that schools kill creativity: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_ education_paradigms.html He contends that: ■■ ■■
■■
Teachers report: little or no empathy in classrooms Teachers complain: students have a very short attention span during lessons Students have little respect for themselves or for others
Flooded with technology that is easily ‘digested’ and immedi ately forgotten, the natural ability of children to be empathic and responsive is lost. It is easy to see why this happens when we understand where creativity and empathy originate. Allan N. Schore, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Bio-behavioral Sciences at UCLA Medical School discovered that during the first 18 months of life a baby builds self-perception and perception of the universe. Elements of bonding and secure attachment influence growth and development of the right hemisphere of the brain which is responsible for intuition, creativity, empathy and social skills. If a baby is surrounded by a friendly, loving environment and if the primary caregivers give the child love and attention, if they communicate through loving touch and language, the child’s self perception and perception of the world around it will be positive. The child will develop high self-esteem and a high degree of trust towards people. It will be optimistic, open minded, interested to learn and investigate the world around it. The child will develop empathy. If however the baby is neglected and raised without loving touch (the main element of bonding and secure attachment) it will grow to be shy, display fearful personality traits with low self-esteem and a negative perception of the universe and them selves. The child will lack the skills of empathy. The ‘hardwire’ or implicit memory in these two cases will be totally different. The first will be connected, optimistic and ready to learn. The second will be lonely, depressed, violent and disconnected, will suffer emotionally and, when growing up and as an adult, will create problems for society. In 2006 an open letter by the Daily Telegraph to the UK Government entitled “Urgent National Debate” was signed by one hundred authorities including. Allan N. Schore, Sir Richard Bowlby and Steve Biddulph. The initiators of this debate warned that 40% of toddlers in the UK and America will not develop a secure attachment.
What are the consequences of not developing a Secure Attachment? ■■
■■ ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Addiction to sensory stimulation in adulthood (sexual abuse, drug use, crime) Depressive and autistic behaviour Violent and aggressive behaviour Difficulty in recognizing the feelings of others Trouble recognizing own feelings Impaired social maturity
The following is from the British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering, 1981, Fahlberg, London. Maria Montessori, claimed that “. . . humankind abandoned in the early formative period becomes the worst threat to its own survival”. During the process of bonding and building secure attachment (which is simply tuning into, interacting and playing with primary caregiver) all the senses are involved. The child’s brain produces endorphins – hormones of happiness which, in a growing brain, influences the formation of rewards pathways. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/reward/ These rewards pathways are the foundation of proper mental, emotional, spiritual and physical development. If the rewards pathway is not properly developed in early childhood then a ‘band aid’ will often be needed later: Antidepressants are one such (highly
Children massaging children – Malborough
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ineffective and often dangerous) ‘band aid’ or management tool. Prozac has been demonstrated to have suicidal effects on children and youth (the Columbine School shooting tragedy was carried out by youths who had been on Prozac for several years). There is an answer, the HAUORA system of Children Massaging Children. Hauora is an indigenous Maori term which stands for: ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■
Taha tinana – physical well-being Taha hinengaro – mental and emotional well-being Taha whanau – social well-being Taha wairua – spiritual well-being
The Children Massaging Children (CMC) program fully fits these objectives. In 2006 Jill Morgan (Dip Tch, ND, RMT) from the Eastern Institute of Technology in Hastings researched the effects of the Children Massaging Children programme on 140 pupils over a 15 week period at the decile 1 Ebbett Park Primary School. Research showed that the program improved the following: ■■ ■■ ■■
Ability to do school work Relationship with peers Children's relationship with their fathers at home
The last finding listed, i.e. the improvement of relationship with father or male figure at home has a huge significance in New Zealand. Changing the atmosphere at home, improving the emotional climate within the family can contribute enormously to the child’s learning process and should be taken very seriously. Most importantly, touch is a universal language that knows no cultural barriers.
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The preventative and ongoing values of the CMC programme cannot be ignored. Children who practice CMC in the classroom will learn more easily and will therefore have better career outcomes. They will also later become better parents for their own children. Continuation of the research 6 years later by the same scientist under the umbrella of Auckland University emphasized long lasting benefits for children practicing the Children Massaging Children programme at school. http://childconnection.org.nz/ research/ Children from disadvantaged environments; neglect, depres sion, drug addiction, violent mothers, those who have not experienced loving, positive touch, whose ‘nanny’ is often the television set have their ‘Hardware’, their brain and nervous system, poorly set up and the multiple intelligences that make for a fully-rounded personality cannot be accessed so readily. There is however a chance to change their behaviour by provid ing a new and positive experience at school, kindergarten or other educational establishment with the CMC programme. Technology at school serves everyone but if it is not balanced with right brain learning processes it can only increase the distance between student’s behaviour and their ambitions. The gap between the students who have their brain properly ‘Hardwired’ and therefore are doing well at school and those who have not experienced bonding and secure attachment will also grow wider. We have established that listening to and following the instructions in the “Massage a Back” song in a classroom makes children feel closer to each other, empathically and friendly towards each other without the need for further explanation. According to research by Carolynska Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden children who practice massage in schools do not fight with each other. Supervised by a trained teacher, children who enjoy close contact with each other develop empathy. The same positive reaction has been seen by us regardless of whether the programme is run in New Zealand schools or kindergarten or in Polish ones. We strongly believe in the future of ‘All Brain Education” as it can restore a sense of proportion between the left and right brain hemispheres and if we achieve that the whole of society benefits. Eva Scherer is the CEO of the ‘Child Connection Trust’ and aims to introduce positive touch and massage into the mainstream education system as a prevention of child abuse and family violence. She was awarded a community award for excellence and her Child Massaging Children (CMC) programme has been used in research projects and been the subject of a master’s degree. Eva is a pioneer in this field and her programme helps children relax, teaches empathy and demonstrates how emotional well being and positive self-perception enhance the quality of learning. www.childconnection.org.nz
OBITUARY
Dr David James Stewart 30 October 1933 – 19 January 2013
Based on the eulogy by Kay Tester, Principal, St Brigid’s School, Wellington and Te Ariki Project Regional Director
Dr. David James Stewart dedicated his life to two great loves: his family and education. He was a man utterly devoted to his much loved wife Gaynor, was the cherished father of Craig, Kate and Tracey and adored grandfather of his ten grandchildren. David trained as a teacher and in due course became a primary school principal, academic, Education Centre Director, author of several books and researcher. Latterly, he initiated and developed the Te Ariki project, a professional development programme for school principals. David was an inspiration to many, a mentor and a friend. As a member of his Te Ariki team I feel honoured to share a little of how he touched all of our lives and influenced our thinking as we worked with him on what would be his final major piece of work.
One might have thought that David had reached a point in his career where he could put his feet up a bit more but between the family engagements, delighting in the odd fine coffee and occasional excellent wine, going to the movies, reading widely and spending time looking after his treasured grandchildren, he still managed to keep up an astonishing level of input to school and principal development. David was a man ahead of his time in many ways, not least of all in the area of IT. He left most of us in his technological wake. The ease with which he managed and used technology was captivating and I gather from studying his previous work, he’s always had this aptitude. It wasn’t just the way he operated the gadgets that enthralled us but the web design, the virtual learning
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communities and the web diaries he developed specifically for our Te Ariki project were mightily impressive. David would sometimes arrive at a meeting with a new piece of equipment to try out. Not infrequently, the new gadget would originate from David’s son Craig, an IT expert in his own right. He would take us on a whirlwind tutorial of how the new device worked and we’d do our best to keep up, but despite the clarity of his instructions and his infinite patience, it wasn’t easy keeping up with David! He was senior to us all by a good couple of decades, yet he learned new technological skills like a ‘digital native’. His technological skills sat at the sharp end of the spectrum, alongside his acutely developed perceptual skills. I clearly recall the day when we were all having a telephone conference with David. We were on-line together and sharing the same computer screen. Wendy Bamford in Wanaka, Lyn Bird in Christchurch, Gary Punler in Palmerston North and Liz Millar and myself in our respective schools in Wellington. We were planning our Te Ariki presentation for a conference in Singapore. David had everything ready. He was midway talking us through how we could each take charge of the cursor and edit parts of the presentation, contribute new ideas and enrich our arguments when suddenly the cursor that had been firmly in David’s control began to jump about wildly. David stopped and calmly said ‘Oh I see someone’s trying that out already, is that you Liz?’ And of course it was! We had a great time in Singapore and we were delighted that David’s wife Gaynor was able to join us. By now, David had lost enthusiasm for the traditional ‘talking head’ style of presentation. He favoured the team approach, where we all did our bit. At the conclusion of our session he said, ‘That was superb, just superb!’ He had a special way of conveying the great joy he experienced from watching us present, seeing how we were interpreting his ideas, working with them and growing in our understanding. After the conference David and Gaynor headed off to the UK to visit family followed by a trip to Spain and Spanish cooking classes that son Craig had organised for them. We were especially pleased about the cooking classes because at our next group meeting we were all invited for dinner. We got to taste the new Spanish dishes on the ‘Stewart Menu’ which were absolutely scrumptious and all served of course with the finest of wines. Through Te Ariki David managed to pull together many threads of his previous work and we were the fortunate ones to share this journey with him over the last six years. He told me once that he enjoyed working with us because it reminded
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him of his days working with post-grad students. First there would be the group’s tutorial followed by the organised sessions where we would be allocated streams of work or special topics to present back to the group. David would give himself sessions too. He once allocated himself the job of reviewing two important philosophically based books he was reading. I emailed David recently to say I had finally managed to read and then reread one of those books to make sure I could understand it. The book was entitled ‘Apocalyptic religion and the death of utopia’! ‘Fascinating stuff ’, he said. And of course it was once I could persuade my brain to do the necessary mental gymnastics to unravel all the complex ideas. The supreme gift David gave us as educators was the desire to take up an intellectual challenge and make sense of complex issues – to see education as an intellectual activity, where original ideas can still be created. To build a culture in our schools like the one he developed with us, empowering us to take his work and bring it alive in our own schools and with the teachers we worked with. This of course was the essence of his Te Ariki project. The underlying assumption was that teachers enjoy working together and interacting with one another so if we provide a context and a set of protocols which are supported by appropriate resources, we will get a higher quality of thinking applied to the work that teachers do. David loved the energy and ideas that flow when like-minded people interact. He would facilitate our group with a twinkle in his eye and on the many occasions when we would veer off track, he would gently manoeuvre us back but always with a smile. It was a style unique to him and ever so endearing. David was absolutely true to his beliefs about education. In his view school and principal development had to be achieved through liberal and democratic means. You could not be in David’s presence without experiencing a sense that ‘all’s right with the world’, and while there may be challenges they are not insurmountable. I was doing some reading recently and emailed David a quote that I said I was going to pin on my wall ‘When facing strong winds, some build walls to protect themselves; others construct windmills’. My real message to David was to say that his work, his thinking, his writing is like that windmill for us – the right path to travel with a strong sense of hope and of moral and ethical purpose. David was a good and very gentle man. To be in his company was an absolute joy. He will be so missed by us all but his ideas and his work will live on.
NZPF HONOURS OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS
NZPF celebrated the careers of some remarkable principals in 2012, all of whom have made outstanding contributions to the education sector. ‘It was an exceptional year for the Federation,’ said President Paul Drummond, as he opened the NZPF awards ceremony at the Trans-Tasman conference last year. ‘Today we celebrate a record number of principals who have been honoured with ‘Life Membership, Associate Membership and Service with Distinction’ awards,’ he said.
which sustained both the international organisation and the Auckland Principals’ Association for many years. Madeleine East was singled out for her significant contributions to the education of immigrant students, especially through promoting professional development of their teachers and for her representative work as an NZPF executive member for ESOL, ICP and Export Education. Associate membership award went to Paddy Ford from Dunedin in recognition of his untiring support and advocacy work on behalf of Otago school principals. His expertise has always been in organising both in-school and area-wide professional development opportunities and his focus has never strayed from improving teaching and learning. He established the very popular support network for Otago principals and has assisted in organising two NZPF conferences in Dunedin and Queenstown.
From left to right Madeleine East, Barry Hambleton, Nola Hambleton, NZPF Life Members
Life members included Nola Hambleton, Barry Hambleton and Madeleine East all from the Auckland region. NZPF was in its infancy when Nola Hambleton joined the executive and she was responsible for formulating its first constitution. Nola is also responsible for establishing practices which endure today including communications systems with members, the legal benefits scheme, Government relations, working relationships with sector heads and postal ballot executive elections (now superseded by electronic voting). Her international activities led her to be the first primary principal, first woman and first New Zealander to be elected President of the International Confederation of Principals. Nola’s accomplishments are well recognised both within New Zealand and internationally. Barry Hambleton received high praise for his acute business sense and for securing NZPF’s financial position through increasing the number of business sponsorships during his time on the executive and as leader of the Business Partnership Team. He also used his business and organising skills to coordinate a highly successful International Convention, the profits from
NZPF Associate Member Award, Paddy Ford
Those awarded Service with Distinction awards included Perry Rush, Wellington, Paul Kennedy, John Bangma, Denise Torrey and Philip Harding all from Christchurch. Unable to attend the Melbourne conference, Perry Rush was presented with his ‘NZPF Award with Distinction’ at his Island Bay School, by President Paul Drummond. In the wake of legislation to mandate national standards, Perry took the initiative to gather support from school boards
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and ran a country-wide campaign ‘Boards Taking Action Coalition’ (BTAC). Gathering the support of the boards to oppose national standards was not easy in an environment which made implementing national standards a legal obligation. Despite this, Perry still managed to create a groundswell of opposition to the standards with over 500 boards joining together in their opposition. He was commended for his ethical leadership, professionalism and for standing up for the children whose learning would not benefit from national standards.
NZPF Service Award with Distinction winners Denise Torrey and Philip Harding
NZPF Service Award with Distinction, Perry Rush
September 4th 2010, November 19th 2010 and February 22nd 2011 are three dates now embedded in New Zealand’s history. Two devastating earthquakes and one of New Zealand’s worst mining tragedies had a massive impact on the people of Canterbury and the West Coast. The schools, their pupils, staff and families were one sector of these communities affected badly in terms of buildings and the emotional impact. As history has shown us many times before, tragedy often brings out in people outstanding leadership and service to their communities. The presidents of the Canterbury Primary Principals’ Association (CPPA), firstly Denise Torrey and later John Bangma worked above and beyond their call of duty to support schools affected by these tragedies. They co-ordinated the help necessary and as presidents, both played a substantial role in liaising with the Ministry of Education. This liaison ensured the right support got to the right places and people. What also emerged from these tragedies was the need for instant, correct and consistent information flow between schools, CPPA and the Ministry of Education. Phil Harding as the Information Officer for CPPA spent many hours creating a mechanism for this to happen and ensured that any breakdowns were sorted quickly. As a result of his work everyone had the best information to make the best decisions at all times. The massive and humbling support of the rest of New Zealand towards the schools in Canterbury needed a mechanism and formula to fairly and equitably distribute the resources donated. These three principals spent many hours devising such a formula and distributing the support. For their exceptional effort and service to their colleagues and the children of Christchurch, John Bangma, Denise Torrey and Philip Harding were honoured with ‘Service with Distinction’ awards. After the earthquakes, when it was deemed essential for his residential students to be sent home, Paul Kennedy, principal
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NZPF Service Award with Distinction, John Bangma, Christchurch
of Halswell special school, was free to take on a new project to help his Canterbury colleagues. In a unique partnership between CPPA and the Ministry of Education the concept of ‘learning hubs’ evolved to allow children whose schools had been shut down or temporarily closed to continue to access learning. The project required expert leadership and coordination and Paul was the right person for the job. These hubs were later recognised as a crucial step in the path back to normal schooling for Christchurch children. For his work coordinating and staffing learning hubs for Christchurch children after the earthquakes, Paul Kennedy was awarded the ‘Service with Distinction’ award.
NZPF Service Award with Distinction, Paul Kennedy
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THE RICH KIDS Liz Hawes
Two years ago, Matt O’Dowda’s career took a radical lurch residents brimming with spare cash to titivate their gardens or in direction. From the comfort of his medium sized decile eight fill their homes with the latest electronic gadgetry. For many it’s a country school he packed up his not inconsiderable leadership struggle to buy a book for the house because Maraenui has one of experience and headed off to Napier to face the challenges of a the highest unemployment rates of any suburb in New Zealand. very different school environment. Matt became principal of Like the community surrounding it, the local Richmond Richmond School in one of the poorest suburbs of the Hawke’s school was struggling too. It had received seven reports from Bay region. Matt talks to NZ Principal editor Liz Hawes about the Education Review Office (ERO) in the previous eight years how he has adapted to his new school community and discusses when Matt O’Dowda turned up to take over its leadership. The the challenges of lifting children’s achievement through changing school was experiencing persistent student underachievement the school’s culture. and ERO reports indicated that it needed a complete change of In January this year, The Dominion Post published a story culture to address all of the concerns. about New Zealand’s Children’s Commissioner, Dr Russell ‘When I first came here, the culture of the school very much Wills. In contextualising the story the reporter wrote the reflected the culture of the streets,’ said Matt. ‘Violence was following: normalised and there was a lack of respect, dignity and most ‘Children’s Commissioner importantly, hope. Kids were Russell Wills recalls delivering I was flabbergasted that the not happy. They were angry, prescriptions for his pharmacist spoiling for a fight and didn’t dad in impoverished Napier children in my new school had been have any idea how to actually suburbs as a young lad. He drove play together, share or do through the same area with his left to flounder for so long and anything co-operatively,’ he said. own children recently and said it that despite statutory intervention There had been a history of had become poorer - and worse high staff turnover at Richmond than that, people had lost hope.’ the Ministry had made no positive and there was no supportive Wills was quoted as saying, staff culture embedded in the ‘There’s car wrecks and beer progress for the kids of Richmond school. Staff spent much of their bottles and the houses had School time in ‘survival mode’. At one deteriorated ... you just wouldn’t time the school had boasted a send a kid to deliver scripts around those streets now, which I roll of around 300, but gradually, as the playground both on and think is really sad.’ off the school grounds became tougher , the parents took their Richmond School is in the Napier suburb of Maraenui which girls away. By the time Matt arrived the roll was 70% boys. Two is at the heart of the very area that Dr Wills is talking about. It thirds of the children are Māori and one third Samoan. There is not a suburb awash with top of the range possessions. Nor are is one pakeha family.
School welcome
The girls get dressed ready for Kapa Haka
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Performing for the parents and the nearby Kindy kids
If Richmond School, which had dropped to a roll of 80 children, was to survive and make a positive difference there had to be changes made at every level. ‘Four weeks into the new job I sat down and had a long think about what I’d been observing in the classrooms and around the playground and decided first, to write to the Minister of Education. I said I was flabbergasted that the children in my new school had been left to flounder for so long and that despite statutory intervention the Ministry had made no positive progress for the kids of Richmond School.’ With that off his chest, next was to put a plan together. ‘Key to my plan was attracting inspirational teachers to change the school culture and splitting up kids in classes,’ said Matt. With the plan winging its way to the Head of the Ministry’s resourcing unit, Matt began a recruitment drive for specialist teachers who could make a difference.
‘I was very fortunate to know some excellent teachers who, like me, were motivated and energised to make a difference for kids in Maraenui,’ said Matt. Throughout the first term Matt lived in the classrooms because it was essential to change the poor relationships which had existed between teachers and the children. ‘Relationships with the kids are everything and I had to have teachers who could both build relationships with these kids and teach at the same time. Expectations of excellence and doing everything properly were set, classes were kept very small and the kids began to respond. We were determined that they would no longer feel that they couldn’t succeed, or that there was no hope for the future,’ he said. ‘I intended that the kids would be known as the ‘rich kids’, rich in skills and rich in belief,’ he said. Once he had his new Board established, Matt decided he would
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W E N
Finding a spot in the garden for the new art work
Messages from Dr Suess motivate from the class room windows
Enhancing the environment of the school with art work is important
Morning tea time
start with sport. His first mission was to build some facilities and ‘Most of our children have had no pre-school education so acquire sports equipment. they need to acquire some skills before they are ready for formal He built a bike track around the whole playing field with learning,’ says Matt. ‘We keep the beginners in the reception support from the District Health Board through the Kahungunu class until they are ready to move into formal learning. Here Hikoi Whenua and a not for profit organisation called ‘Bike On they are taught by a teacher who also has extended experience NZ’. The organisation was initiated by Paul McArdle and Meg as a Kindergarten teacher,’ he said. Frater and was first known as the ‘Bikes in Schools’ programme. Alongside the fitness programme, Matt introduced Kapa Its intention is to provide bicycles, helmets and bicycle tracks Haka and the school choir. These two activities not only gave on primary school grounds so that children can learn to ride, the children a sense of pride and identity but like the cycling especially children who have no cycling experience at all. programme, imposed a culture of ‘achievement through ‘Improving our school environment so that the kids could discipline.’ learn to be kids and safely participate in normal kids’ activities ‘I couldn’t have been more proud,’ said Matt, ‘as when we was our first focus,’ said Matt. ‘Fitness and discipline for our kids entered our children in the East Coast Region Choral Federation was one of the top items on our list Competition. They sang in four and now every one of them has an Expectations of excellence part perfect harmony. They won opportunity to learn to ride a bike three awards. ‘The Best Overall and doing everything properly and keep fit.’ Choir’, ‘The Gold Performance The cycle track was not the Award’ and ‘The Best Test Piece’. only environmental change. were set, classes were kept Their competition came from all Matt also established both flower very small and the kids began the primary schools in the entire and vegetable gardens and a fun region, and our kids won!’ dinosaur garden, play equipment to respond. It is successes like this that Matt and a smart new school entrance uses to build the children’s sense of so that the children were coming into a pleasant environment belief in themselves and extend that belief into academic areas. which they would come to respect, feel safe in, enjoy and take ‘We have concentrated very hard on writing and reading,’ said pride in. He also bought new furniture for the class rooms and Matt. ‘It helps of course having very small classes and teachers established a ‘reception’ class. who are highly experienced in reading recovery as well as ‘The produce from the gardens is cooked on sight for the classroom teaching,’ he says. ‘The intensity of the programme kids and is also used to make pizzas for fundraising,’ said Matt. is very demanding with every child having forty disciplined ‘The kids make the pizzas to sell so that they learn the value of minutes of writing every day and all of the children are working to earn money for extras such as going to school camp,’ getting both small group and individual teaching attention he said. every day.’ N Z Principal | M a r c h 2 0 13
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Learning to print in the ‘Reception Class’
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Creating stories on the iPad
Motivating messages abound in the school
‘We are now making remarkable progress with 65% of all the children up to or exceeding expectation in writing’, said Matt proudly. New technologies are also part of the learning mix for Matt’s ‘rich kids’. ‘Our children benefit hugely from using ipads to record themselves reading their own work then listening to themselves. They pick up errors so much more easily and quickly correct them when they hear it for themselves,’ he said. ‘It’s instant self assessment.’ It’s not surprising that the kids love their ipads. They make movies every day. ‘They can take photos from a story book and replicate them on the ipad then using the pictures they tell the story doing their own voice-over. They even add music for effect!’ says Matt. In this way the children are improving their oral language, their clarity of speech, fluency, engagement in learning and gaining confidence, all while they have fun! ‘The ipads are very empowering and I was just so thrilled to take a group of our kids to Waikato University where they presented to 120 people on how they use ipads for learning,’ said Matt. ‘That was a huge achievement for those children.’ A third of Matt’s children are of Samoan culture so he has established a bilingual Samoan transition class too. ‘It’s an everyday class where the children learn until they can manage in a mainstream class. That might be six months or perhaps a year for some.’ There are two Samoan teachers and a teacher aide on the staff, all fluent in the language. Matt is a strong believer that knowing and understanding your own culture first is critical to developing a healthy identity and making progress.
It all sounds great but very exhausting work, but Matt assures me that there are huge rewards. ‘When I see the teachers getting a buzz out of seeing the kids do well and progressing, that gives me the greatest buzz,’ he says. A big focus the day I visit the ‘rich kids’ is practising for the Kapa Haka competition. The children ran through a practice performance for their parents at lunch time. ‘Not all our parents will be able to go through to Hastings to watch their children perform,’ said Matt, ‘so we have invited the parents to watch them today.’ The work Richmond school is doing with the children, giving them confidence, self-esteem, skills and belief in themselves Matt hopes will rub off on the whole parent community. It’s a very open school and Matt warmly welcomes all his parents any time. Parents are treated with whanaugatanga, as extended family. He’s also planning some evening English classes for the Samoan parents and wants to give parents access to a whanau room where they can use computers and the internet. They are immensely proud that their children are doing so well and that the roll is growing. There are no donations asked of parents and no stationery bills to pay. Matt finds the extra funds from grants and pub charity to help the school cover these expenses. The parents help too. The school has won the contract to clean McLean Park.The parents do that work and the money comes to the school. ‘More than anything else, we want to turn our kids into good people,’ says Matt, ‘people who have hope and who believe in themselves.’ If anyone can achieve that goal, it will be Matt O’Dowda.
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ADVERTORIAL
Wā n a n g a t i a t e P u t a n g a Ta u i r a
National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement
How well are our children learning? A national monitoring programme The National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement (NMSSA) seeks to assess and understand student achievement across the curriculum at the primary level in New Zealand and monitor changes over time. It replaces and builds on the strengths of the previous National Education Monitoring Project (NEMP). A light-sampling approach is used to gain a national picture of what year 4 and year 8 students know and can do. Over a fouryear cycle, information is collected about student achievement across the NZC, including key competencies, and literacy and mathematics. Attitudinal and contextual information is also gathered to better understand the factors that influence achievement. NMSSA provides high-quality information about the achievement and progress of Māori and Pasifika students, and students with special education needs. In 2012, the focus was science and writing. This year the focus is mathematics, and health and physical education.
The arts, reading, technology, and social sciences will be the focus in 2014 and 2015. Information about language learning will be collected in 2015. Each year 200 schools are randomly selected to take part. Their participation is very important for ensuring nationallyrepresentative samples of students at year 4 and year 8. During term 3 each year, trained teacher assessors visit each school to carry out a range of assessments including paper-and-pencil, one-to-one interviews, individual and group performance activities. Teacher assessors, and the schools they return to, gain substantial professional benefits. Teachers have the opportunity to improve their understanding of assessment practices, reflect on their own class and school practices, and consider the understandings, knowledge and skills that children have in particular learning areas. There is opportunity to work closely with diverse learners at two class levels in a variety of schools and to work with and share ideas with other teachers. The ongoing support of schools is very important to gathering high-quality national monitoring information. The NMSSA team therefore recognises and appreciates schools participating by being part of the national sample that is assessed or by supporting staff to conduct the programme. National Monitoring Study of Student Achievement Educational Assessment Research Unit, University of Otago College of Education, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand Tel 03 479 8561 | Fax 03 479 7550 | Email nmssa@otago.ac.nz
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NZPF CONFERENCE
CLAUDLANDS EVENTS’ CENTRE, HAMILTON, 9–12 JULY
The conference venue is the very new Claudlands Events’ Centre on the East side of Hamilton. It is just a short walk from the Centre to the town bridge, across the mighty Waikato River and into Hamilton’s lively CBD. The Waikato river has become a defining feature for Hamilton and subsequent councillors have invested heavily in its development. There are now extensive walking tracks on both east and west river banks which are beautifully planted and well used by joggers, bikers and walkers. These walkways offer escape and tranquillity from the bustle of the busy city. Hamilton boasts a number of Olympian medallist rowers and it is not unusual in the early evening to see the new generation of rowers training on the river. A very popular bar and café culture has developed at the southern end of the CBD and there is no shortage of botanical gardens, historical and cultural activities to entertain visitors. The timing of Conference 2013 ensures delegates will conclude the school term not only well informed with many new exciting ideas, and inspired and motivated for Term 3, but also on the door step of the greater Central North Island region. Following your professional learning experience with us we invite you to take in the numerous tourism highlights in the Waikato/Raglan areas, or perhaps venture a little further to the Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Rotorua, Taupo or Waitomo areas all of which are just a short drive away. Check out the conference website at www.nzpfconference.co.nz and register now to make sure you take advantage of early bird rates. The people of the Waikato are already looking forward to meeting and hosting you and your colleagues in July next year.
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Strength in PErfOrmanCE Strength in PErfOrmanCE
It is now time to start planning for the annual NZPF Conference, this year to be hosted by the Waikato Principals’ Association in the city of Hamilton, in the last week of term two. Usually annual conference involves expensive flights which stretch budgets especially for small schools. Having the conference in Hamilton means that the vast majority of you can drive your car to conference where parking is not a problem. Hamilton is a short drive from Auckland and north, a brief trip from the Bay of Plenty and moderate distance from Taranaki. It is likely to be one of the cheapest conferences you will attend this year! The conference will be three days of inspiration with the theme “Power to Innovate” providing an exciting backdrop for a series of high quality national & international speakers, along with energetic discussion and professional debate. Professional development (PD) is a critical feature of school leadership. Opportunities to participate in PD have diminished in recent years and the NZPF annual conference has thus become very popular. Organisers are aware of this and have applied concentrated effort in choosing programme speakers who will cover a broad spectrum of current and emerging issues. Organisers are proud to have secured Te Radar as MC for the conference and Sir Graham Henry, a trained educator himself, will also be addressing us. We anticipate a vibrant social calendar too, involving generous sponsors who will be focused on networking with educational delegates from around New Zealand and overseas. Events planned in the evenings and beyond the Conference will also appeal to delegates and partners.
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in and expand the service was based on nothing more than their own demanding maternal expectations for their own children. “Very soon after we took over we asked Chris Bartels to join us and since then the demand has just kept growing.” The three working mothers captured the disciplines they were developing, into comprehensive operating manuals and created a foundation for consistent performance, no matter who might be in charge of a sKids centre on any day and in any school in New Zealand. “But in the past six years, there has been a growing awareness that after school care can contribute much more to school outcomes. This is something we knew from the outset,” said Dawn. “We have created a model of child care based on balanced rest, exercise, mental stimulation and nutrition. “We also understood the limitations of two working parents and single parent families and how the one or two hours in which we have responsibility for their children can be a great help for them and a settled family life. “It has been largely parental common sense that has created the demand for our way of caring for children.” That demand in New Zealand now sees the ideas of three working mothers offered to over 3000 New Zealand children every school day in New Zealand. sKids children are also now being cared for in Australia and England with interest being shown in other countries. To find out more about sKids, please contact chris@skids.co.nz or visit www.skids.co.nz
Five Keys for Building and Maintaining Sustainable School Momentum David J.C. McKenzie
Introduction Let’s face it. We all want our school’s to grow and be better places from when we first started to when we leave. When we leave we want people to celebrate the successes of our time there and not celebrate that we will no longer be there. As a new appointment to a school, quick change can be easy. There will automatically be style differences, personality shifts and perspective changes. It is commonly known as ‘the honeymoon period’. The weaknesses of the previous Principal become your first point of focus and so we get quick runs on the board by working in those areas. Yet leadership is not about quick fixes, easy runs and only hanging around a few years until it gets tough and then you’re out of there. Schools need more than that. Teachers need more than that. Children deserve and require more than that. True leadership stays the course and hangs in there through thick and thin. True leadership is resilient, persistent and committed. So how do we grow our schools when the new broom has swept clean, when the honeymoon is over and when all the easy runs have been scored? Therein lies the challenge to us as Principals. How do we build and maintain a sustainable forward momentum for growth for our schools after five years, ten years or even fifteen years? Here are five keys to building and maintaining sustainable momentum. Key Number One: Manage Professional Learning We as principals need to be strategic around how we manage professional development and that we don’t give our staff Prodevitis. Prodevitis is where we can overwhelm our staff with so much professional development, so many courses, so many conferences, so many visiting facilitators, that there just isn’t enough time in the day or week for our teachers to teach properly. Teachers become so busy with days away, after school meetings, readings for this, preparation for that, observations for yet another visiting facilitator, well, the children begin to suffer. Teachers can only take so much. The very thing that we think produces momentum, professional development, when undertaken too much, when over-used, produces the exact opposite, burn out, over-commitment, brain freeze and worst still resentment towards your leadership. Prodevitis is a momentum killer. A good professional development formula to follow includes . . . ■■
Whole staff: Participate in only one school wide, whole year, professional development focus for all teachers. This provides a unity of focus and in depth work. This generally can be maintained through a staff meeting structure so teachers will not feel overwhelmed with additional commitments.
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Passion PD: Support teachers to grow in their passion subjects. We want them to become experts in what they love doing so that they can lead others. A staff full of a diversity of passionate curriculum experts is very energising, very supportive and very affirming. Passion PD is not burdensome to staff. They lap it up and love it. Responsibility PD: Provide opportunities for teachers to grow in their areas of responsibilities. Growing them in their skills shows that they are valued and appreciated. As they grow, the capacity within the school grows. TOD: Utilise Teacher Only Days for whole staff professional development for practical areas such as First Aid Certificate renewal or visiting another school in operation. A TOD acknowledges that staff are busy people and allows a unity of focus. Here’s another idea. Provide your staff with course reflection time of ½ for each course. When we had spare banked staffing this was a very practical way to show to staff that their PD was valued as you gave them time to reflect and begin to implement their learning.
Key Number Two: Encourage Staff Stability Staff turn-over is inevitable. There will be OEs for BTs, LTR for maternity leave, retirement, promotion, spouse shifting etc. It happens. Sometimes it happens in waves. It is part of having staff. It is part of the job. In fact, a certain amount of staff turnover can be healthy for momentum as it maintains a freshness and richness within a staff, it brings in new skills and new dimensions. Yet there is a tipping point for staff turn-over when it becomes detrimental to the momentum of the school. Put bluntly excessive staff turn-over is a momentum killer. With excessive staff turn-over the energies of a school turn inward. They have to. Staff need to be inducted and supported into the school systems, culture and community. A good portion of that energy comes directly from us as principals and our management teams around us. The big question that needs to be asked is how much is too much staff turn-over? Where is the tipping point where the school’s momentum wavers, stifles or worse still shrinks? ■■
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Manageable: In terms of teachers, a turnover of one in four, or one in five is natural and manageable. This equates to 20–25% per year. As stated above this can be healthy and useful providing a fresh feel to the staff each year. Wavering: Between 25% to 50% momentum begins to stagger as there is more possibility for tippage. If you have up to 50% new staff then that is an increased portion who do not know each other, do not know the children, do not know the parent community and are unaware of school systems. Mistakes will
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occur more regularly and it’s your door they are knocking on itself. This can be celebrated in increments of 5 years. We for the fixes. can go deeper and acknowledge personal events such as engagements, weddings, marriage and births. ■■ Stifling: At two in four (50%) or three in five (60%) new ■■ Acknowledge Efforts: Staff, all of staff, support staff and appointments in a year I believe school momentum for teachers, work hard to keep everything in a school ticking growth is stunted. Here there can be less than half of a staff over. The contributions of many staff members move into left from the previous year. This throws onto those remaining what is known as the realm experienced staff, whether they of discretionary effort. They want it or not, the strain of As leaders there are significant effectively ‘go the extra mile’. This leadership and organisation of events. This consumes and drains realms that we can influence adds value to a school and needs to be acknowledged. Staff could be their energies. At this point organising events such as camps, we have to be careful that our to help build and maintain taking children to extension experienced staff don’t leave due sustainable momentum for the activities, running lunch time to excessive workload. With this coaching sports teams, scenario so much time is going schools that currently are under activities, catering for some difficult children’s into just doing the day by day needs etc. When we acknowledge there is no capacity for forward our care. these efforts we send a strong signal momentum. that we value and appreciate our ■■ Shrinkage: Beyond 60% (three out of every four, or four out staff. This is a very positive and affirming environment to of every five) and I would argue that organisation knowledge work in and staff enjoy such a working climate. has been heavily compromised and the school will go ■■ Maintain transparency: Staff appreciate transparency. They backwards. With next to no staff from a previous year it is want to know that there are no hidden agendas, that they are hard to build on experiences, reflect on past school learning part of the process, that they will be consulted about things and then move things forward. that impact upon them, that we will treat them honestly and The obvious question that needs asking after saying all that fairly. Dodgy staff politics, perceived lying and deceptions is the following: can we as Principals encourage and influence are killers to staff stability. They are toxins that will drive staff healthy stability within our staff? I believe that we can but it is away. Driving staff away is a momentum stopper. not a science. It is a way of operation that produces a positive ■■ Have fun: Staff spend a lot of time at school, sometimes more staff ‘family’ culture that human beings enjoy being part of and than they may spend with their families, especially during want to remain in and contribute towards. term time. We want them to come to work and enjoy this To encourage staff stability and so secure on-going momentum experience. Having fun is part of that. There is an appropriate here are some ideas. place for humour, jokes and laughs. There is a place for ■■ Listen and Act: As my years of principalship mount up I relaxation and just enjoying the company of each other. Here find myself listening, with my eyes and my ears, more and are some examples. • One day we learnt that staff member who didn’t like gnomes more to what people are doing and what people are saying. (as cute as they are). Mysteriously, the day after this was Staff have good ideas for improvement that need to be seen discovered, pictures of a gnomes appeared in different places and heard. All our school communities, even with some of around the school, including the staff toilets! their criticisms, can promote thoughts that then build towards • Laughing at ourselves and our personality quirks helps new initiatives. By listening with our eyes and ears we can keep things light. I’m a precise, it is openly known amongst gain valuable ‘next-steps’ for the school. When staff see that the staff, so it might as well be a joke as well. My office is their ideas have been noticed, genuinely heard then brought tidy. I like the staffroom kept tidy. I like things in on time. through into actions they know they are in a place of mutual It is just who I am. I can’t escape it so I might as well respect. This encourages stability. laugh at it. ■■ Celebrate Milestones: The milestones that occur within a • On Wednesday it is Soup Day. The staff have put together staff can be many. An obvious one includes registration for a roster and a different person each Wednesday bring some beginning teachers. We can also celebrate length of service soup and bread. It’s just fun seeing what surprise there is within the school or length of service within education for lunch on Wednesday.
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• At the end of each term, on the Friday, we have either a shared lunch or get someone to cater using the staff social fund. It is a great way to end the term. • At the end of the year we play ‘Angels and Mortals’ where we each pull a staff members name out of the hat and have to buy them a gift of less than ten dollars that is placed under a Christmas tree in the staffroom. Then at a morning tea in the last week we get to open our gift and guess our ‘angel’. Set the Pace of Change: We want our schools to grow and become better and this requires change. Too much change can overwhelm staff members as it unsettles certainties. When certainties shift staff can take time to settle. When there are too many uncertainties we have effectively taken our staff into a metaphorical swamp. They don’t know where solid ground is any more. They begin second guessing themselves. They come back to us all the time for confirmation of how to do this and what should be done for that. It is up to us to manage the pace of change to ensure that there is enough solid ground to maintain trust, support initiate and preserve confidence. Expect Professional Excellence: Being a teacher is professional occupation. It requires tertiary study to obtain a degree and there is time, two years, where a teacher must prove that they are competent enough to be fully registered. It is our professional duty as principals to acknowledge the professionalism of our teachers and work to maintain this consistently across a school. Communicating, discussing and debating together what this looks like is a positive and healthy part of a school. Teachers want to be part of something that is of quality and that has standards. The challenge with this is to still trust, still respect and still encourage flair. We need to be careful that we don’t lock down excellence into a one dimensional picture created in our minds only. Each teacher needs to be given enough freedom to be who they are and be excellent as a teacher in that.
Key Number Three: Maintain a Balance of Experience within Our Staff To maintain momentum we need to keep an eye upon the level of teaching experience within the whole of our teaching staff. Teaching experience does count. Teaching experience is needed within a school. I would argue that teaching experience within the profession and at a particular level within the school could count as much as up to one stanine for a child’s learning achievement. That is significant. Our appraisal system even acknowledges this by having teachers progress through several stages – Beginning Teacher, Fully Registered and then finally Experienced. As with staff turnover, there are very similar thresholds relating to the level of experience within a staff. Of particular attention is the number of beginning teachers / overseas trained teachers (BT / OTT) a school can manage without eroding momentum. ■■
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Manageable: In terms of BT /OTT one in four, or one in five is manageable. This equates to 20 – 25% of a staff over two years, as registration is a two year process. Wavering: Between 25% to 50% BT /OTT over two years, can cause a school to stagger as this is, on the maximum of this threshold, has only one experienced staff member to each BT / OTT. Given that the experienced staff members will most probably be the tutor teacher, that means every experienced staff member is a tutor teacher. Busy! Stifling: Two in four (50%) or three in five (60%) BT / OTT over a two year period, is where I believe school momentum
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for growth is stifled. At the upper end of this thresholds there will have to be one staff member overseeing at least two BT / OTTs. The level of meetings, observations and support that this requires adds considerably to that experienced staff members workload. Potentially the Tutor Teacher will also be an AP, DP or Lead Teacher and the things for them begin to be stretched. There then begins to be co-ordination issues around, release teachers, release time and release space. Shrinkage: Beyond 60% (three out of every four, or four out of every five) BT / OTT over two years and I would argue that organisation strength has been heavily compromised and the school is in danger of entering a difficult downward spiral. The level of experience has become too low and children’s learning could well be at stake. All we would need as a Principal is an ERO visit and then watch the stress levels spike to dangerously high thresholds for our health.
Key Number Four: Get the Right Thinking in the Right Place The New Zealand school system is designed around a model called, way back in the late 1980, ‘Tomorrow’s Schools’. This model created multiple tiers of responsibilities, each with a different functions, in order to enable our teachers to do the job that they are trained to do. Of particular importance to us are the functions of the BOT, our roles as principals, and the role of the service staff. Each tier requires a different way of thinking. Failing to get the right thinking in the right places can cause momentum to waver, stifle or shrink. ■■
Governance Thinking: Governance thinking is future thinking. In order for our schools to operate well we need governance thinking. The role of governance thinking is vested in the Board of Trustees. This thinking is future
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focused, big picture, strategic, priority orientated, vision directed. It is thinking that is reflective and proactive. It listens, observes, considers and analyses. It looks for trends and patterns. One of the common flaws within a BOT structure is that the Board effectively functions like a superPrincipal causing the Principal to functions a super-Secretary. That type of operation will only maintain a school, it won’t grow it. Leadership Thinking: Leadership-thinking is people focused. As Principals we need to be leaders of people. Leadership of people requires us to think how we would like to be treated and then act that way towards our staff. Leadership thinking means we embody the vision, values and beliefs of the school in order to provide a human example of what we would like others to follow. Leadership thinking means that we work incrementally, bit by bit, day by day, through people to improve the school. We plan out the weeks and terms. We ponder on the complaints and gossip. We tirelessly positively promote the children, staff and school to the community. Resource Thinking: Resource thinking is support thinking. As Principals we need to be managers of resources. When we think about resources we need to think about storage and retrieval systems. We need to think about keeping up to date with changes in technology. We need to think about maintenance of buildings and development of the infrastructures to support learning. We need to think about the money needed to make all this occur. All this is geared towards supporting our children and staff to undertake their key roles. Service Thinking: Service-thinking is client focused thinking. The Service Centre within our schools is crucial. Getting the right thinking in this domain can solve so many problems. The office manager (and all other office staff) need to have efficient and effective parent focused systems. There needs to be strong communication links. Office staff need to be asking themselves so many questions. What is the right way to do this? Who needs to know about this? When does this need to occur? A deeper question that a service centre needs to consider is . . . ‘Is the level of service we provide to and for parents accurate, timely and friendly?’
Key Number Five: Grow You If you are like me, you’re thinking about school more times than you are physically on the premises. It could be 2.00am in the morning where you are pondering a difficult situation. I do a lot of thinking about school on my morning run between 6.00am and 6.50am. It’s a physical blow out and a mental reflection time. The one thing that I have learnt is that the growth of the school and the growth of my thinking are inextricably linked. The other way to put this is that I don’t know what I don’t know and since I don’t know it, it is unlikely to occur. We as principals need to go to the NZSTA courses, attend leadership courses, attend the conferences, go to courses with our staff, be part of the whole staff PD. At each one we need to be looking for that one idea, that one improvement that we can take back and make our places better places. I work on the concept of one good idea per hour of PD. It’s like gold mining. There is a lot of excess material to work through to find the nuggets but when you find them they are very precious and add value/momentum to the school. This growth within us is not limited to our knowledge and skills. It is important that we grow as healthy, well-adjusted human beings. In fact, as leaders we need to be the most welladjusted and together people on our staff. A lot rests on our
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shoulders. The more we know ourselves the more useful and strong we can be to others. Knowing ourselves means we know what we like or dislike, it enables us to set the boundaries for the professional playing field. It also means we know our strengths and we know our weaknesses and with our weaknesses we get people around us in those areas and allow them to shine. Knowing and growing in ourselves has several aspects. ■■
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Getting Over Ourselves: The more we get-over-ourselves, the more effective we become as leaders. By ‘getting-overourselves’ I mean things such as: stop taking things personally (as hard as I still find this); knowing our weakness and laughing at them; not having to be the font of all knowledge and the originator of all good ideas; being comfortable with another’s success. I know for me there was a time where I had what I called Super-Hero Principal Syndrome. I thought I had to be all things to all people at all times. Rescue this. Solve that. Fix that. ‘Yes’. ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’ again to everyone’s requests. I can do it because I am me. To speak like Yoda off Star Wars, ‘Foolish I was’. I had to get-over-myself so that the school could actually grow properly. Growing Our Character: Character is the chemistry of relationships. As leaders we find ourselves with people’s lives under our care. If we have personal issues, anger issues, selfesteem issues, jealousy problems, honesty issues, they will leak over all others around us. We might think we are hiding them. Don’t be fooled. Our issues will be dissected and analysed by our staff that have to put up with them. To be blunt . . . us being obnoxious prats is a quick way to drive away staff and destroy a school. Managing Our Minds: Let’s be honest. We deal with a huge amount of diverse and challenging stuff. There can be some fantastic highlights and astounding achievements. There can also be some immensely stressful situations that we struggle to see the light at the end of the table. We need to manage our minds so that the tough stuff doesn’t turn into bitterness, health destroying stress or even depression. Each one of those is a real school momentum stopper. Tips to managing our minds include: maintaining a healthy diet; keeping up the exercise; getting to sleep at the right time; keeping interests outside of school; spending time with family; and way too under-rated but possibly the most important . . . learning how to forgive ourselves . . . and learning how to forgive others.
With school momentum it is one of those things that you don’t know it has gone until it has left. Sadly, once you’ve realised its left, it has actually been gone for around a year or two. Getting it back won’t happen with one silver bullet. There is no one off quick fix. We deal in a world of thresholds, constraints, margins and limitations. Yet, that is not an excuse for inaction. As leaders there are significant realms that we can influence to help build and maintain sustainable momentum for the schools that currently are under our care. I have shared five with you. You will find more, that I am sure of. Use what you have learnt and what you have discovered to grow healthy forward focused schools that are great places for staff to work in and . . . great places for the children of today and of tomorrow. They deserve that much from us. David McKenzie is a Principal with 17 years experience spanning two Southland schools – Knapdale (1996–1999) and Edendale (2000–today). Through courses, conferences, professional discussion groups and hard-won on-the-ground practical experience his understanding of the crucial role of a Principal has grown and deepened. He states that: “Quality principalship is vital for quality schools. What we as principals do and don’t do is foundational and fundamental for success.”
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ADVERTORIAL
Guidelines help effective road safety education choices New guidelines help schools assess the value of road safety education initiatives offered to their students
The skills, attitudes and behaviours that young people employ when contributing to a safe road system need to last a lifetime. Effective road safety education takes this into account, engaging students in deep learning that gives them the critical thinking and values they need take action at the right time to help others. Various providers offer road safety curriculum resources and learning experiences to schools. Will these help students turn out like the young man in the Legend TV ads, and enable them to “internalise a really complicated situation in their head” and stop a mate from driving drunk? The Guidelines for assessing Road Safety Education for young people are now available to help school leaders and teachers assess whether such initiatives support the school’s work to achieve high quality student outcomes. The guidelines are published by the NZ Transport Agency. They were developed in consultation with the road safety and education sectors and are available on the NZTA education website. The heart of the guidelines is six questions to guide school leaders through a review process when assessing the efficacy of road safety education programmes. These help schools ensure decisions are tied strategically to student outcomes. As the Best Evidence Synthesis report on School Leadership and Student Outcomes found, leaders of high-performing schools use clear criteria aligned to pedagogical purposes when identifying suitable resources. These guidelines provide the clear criteria needed to assess road safety education programmes. That will prove useful, says Dr Paul Potaka, principal of Nelson Central School. He reviewed the guidelines in draft form. “The NZTA has compiled a comprehensive and well founded set of guidelines that ought to help schools sort out the wheat from the chaff in terms of road safety providers and their programmes,” he says. “The questions and the answers will take some time and energy to work through but the effort will be well worth it. Schools will make choices that are relevant, worthwhile and complement their overall school programmes and planning.” The questions cover: ■■
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How an initiative contributes to the school’s learning outcomes How students and teachers build on the learning experience If the programme aligns to a whole-school approach, or to best understandings about novice drivers If students will see the educators as credible and effective
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How the programme will be monitored and evaluated If the initiative has positive learning experiences that promote on-going outcomes.
NZ Transport Agency Network User Behaviour Jennie Gianotti says the guidelines tie road safety education to what schools already know about effective teaching and learning. “The guidelines help schools consider if road safety education programmes provide the right experiences to help young people take ownership of the values and knowledge they need to make good decisions on our roads.” A paper called Changing Mental Models is available from the research section of the Guidelines. Authors Mary Chamberlain and Pam Hook explain that research shows that a one-off lesson, use of scare tactics or providing information alone does not change young people’s long-term attitudes and behaviour. They argue that effective road safety education in schools can align with how young people learn best, be motivating while creating the dissonance that leads to deeper learning, and can focus on building the competencies needed for making decisions and taking action. The Guidelines for assessing Road Safety Education for young people include further research links, FAQs, presentations and case studies. http://education.nzta.govt.nz/guidelines
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The Smart Money Digital Story Competition is co-sponsored by the BNZ and the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income. It is open to all New Zealand Year 7 and Year 8 students, and entries can be in English or Te Reo Maori. The competition aims to improve and promote financial capability in primary and intermediate schools. Students can enter as individuals, in small groups or as a class, but all entries MUST have a supervising teacher attached.
Teaching students financial skills for life Robyn Scott Education Manager, Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income Children growing up in the 21st century face financial and skills to take charge of their own lives. Giving them real issues that previous generations didn’t have to worry about. examples at school will help them make more informed decisions When our parents and grandparents were at school, we lived in the future. in a mostly cash society – credit cards and loans simply weren’t The positive benefits of financial literacy stretch beyond available. Now we live in a world where plastic rules, students the classroom. There are spin-offs for families and the wider are likely to graduate with a qualification plus associated debt, community. I know of many examples where students have gone and school children want the latest mobile phone. home and spoken to their parents about money and the pitfalls of This means our children face debt for the first time after the financial decisions at a much Talking about money shouldn’t discussion was started in class. earlier age such as signing up to Talking about money shouldn’t a mobile phone contract, under be an adult’s only topic and it is be an adult’s only topic and it is standing tax and KiwiSaver irresponsible to send kids out into the irresponsible to send kids out if they have an after school into the real world without the job, and overdrafts and loans real world without the skills they need skills they need to make the when they start university. If right choices. they don’t have the appropriate to make the right choices. In November last year, the money skills they are susceptible to making poor decisions and Ministry of Education released its first financial literacy can end up in worrying financial situations. resource for social sciences. As part of the Building Conceptual In 2004, the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Understandings in the Social Sciences (BCUSS) series, Taking Income began working with the Ministry of Education to develop Part in Economic Communities provides teachers with methods a framework to help teach students about managing everyday to develop their students’ financial literacy within the context of money. social sciences and addresses the fact that children begin making The goal was to integrate financial literacy into the curriculum financial decisions as soon as they have access to money. and prepare young Kiwis for the real world. One survey at the This resource will give your teachers the foundation they time, showed students felt that having a credit card was a rite of need to feel confident to incorporate financial literacy into their passage, but only a small percentage understood the necessity curriculums. of paying it off in full each month. In the last 10 years the financial literacy movement in New This work with the Ministry culminated in a pilot to test the Zealand has come along way. More and more curriculums across framework in 2009. However, the hard work wasn’t over and in the country include financial literacy and new and innovative some respects the initial resources produced were just the start ways to teach financial literacy in schools are beginning to be as the Commission looked for ways to encourage and empower adopted such as the Smart Money Competition being run by the schools to teach financial literacy. Commission and BNZ. It’s an interesting new take on teaching Over the last three years, the Commission has heard feedback financial literacy in schools, and one that puts the children in from teachers about the great work that’s happening in schools charge as Years 7 and 8 students are asked to make a short movie around the country. One of the most rewarding aspects of about being smart with money. The competition is being held teaching financial literacy in schools is seeing how engaged for the first time this year and I encourage you to have a look at children are when learning about money. the website and get your school involved. It’s all about making it real. Students at one boys’ high school Your teachers are better equipped than ever before to ensure are given the scenario of buying their first car. They need to the best outcomes for your students and lead them towards a work out a budget and investigate what they can afford. It really financial future that is secure and rewarding. With the help of hits home when they realise it isn’t just the car they’re buying – resources like BCUSS, and the Smart Money Competition more insurance, petrol, registration are all costs they didn’t consider. Kiwi kids can walk out of the school gates with life skills that will Teenage boys don’t want to be told that flash cars are out of their benefit them and their families. league, but this exercise really gets the message across and teaches The ‘Taking Part in Economic Communities’ teaching resource them to think about the hidden costs of purchases and how to was published online in October and distributed to schools budget for ongoing expenses. in November. For more information on the Smart Money Financial literacy equips young people with the knowledge Competition go to www.smartmoney.org.nz.
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School Lines Yesterday’s – Today’s – Tomorrow’s Schools Selective memories, more myth making and opinionated panaceas
Lester Flockton feedback, feedforward, Feedup, feeddown lester.flockton@otago.ac.nz
New panaceas are being fermented in the brewing pots, and again the brewers seem to be over-represented by a small quarter of vocal researchers and academics – people whose profiles depend on “pop” (publish or perish), patronage, and a populace that is either indifferent or lacking in time or ability for rigorous critical analysis of their claims, opinions and recipes.
Measurable outcomes prescribed from above have become for some (not me) the single-minded view of the purpose and effectiveness of schools. A Leadership academic claims, “The self-managing school model should not be treated like a sacred cow – it needs to evolve to meet current needs”. A Literacy academic told Radio New Zealand last year that more central control over schools was needed for standards to improve. A Schools researcher recently suggested in the “opinion” page of our daily newspaper that a national network of around 20 education authorities be established and responsible to a national director who would be part of the senior leadership team of the Ministry of Education. “Each authority would have ultimate responsibility for the quality of the schools in their area . . .”. (Ultimate responsibility usually leads to ultimate control!) The common assertion is that Tomorrow’s Schools have had their day. The fomenters claim they are not suited to achieving current educational goals, with too many boards, principals and teachers struggling to “measure up”. The assumption is that “current goals” (e.g. five out of five students succeeding according Ministry measures and regardless of realities) are a valid and balanced basis for judging whether today’s school system is working. There are repeated claims that Tomorrow’s Schools have not led to any system-wide gains in student performance or learning, new approaches to learning, or greater equality of educational opportunity. But were these the intentions of Tomorrow’s Schools in the first place? It seems that failure to measure up in raising student achievement is now very conveniently the fault of principals and teachers, and more particularly Tomorrow’s Schools, which means ‘self-managing schools’. There are two flawed assumptions behind such views. One is that education should be driven by
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instrumental purposes (measurable outcomes on a narrow range of educational outcomes) and that other purposes highly relevant to modern times are of lesser priority or importance (e.g. key competencies, values, the Arts, Social Sciences, etc.). Measurable outcomes prescribed from above have become for some (not me) the single-minded view of the purpose and effectiveness of schools. The other flawed assumption is that student achievement or lack thereof is almost entirely the result of their teachers and school leaders. Tacking along this line, Ms Parata, the “smooth communicator”, claims “too many kids are falling behind because they are not getting the quality teaching and leadership that all the evidence tells us makes the difference for Maori and Pasifika learners, those who come from low socio-economic homes, or have special needs”. Such nonsensical quarter-truths
are either political deception, sheer ignorance, or most likely a a return to more central control over schools administered by combination of both, particularly since in truth “all the evidence Government bureaucrats and committees will really fix the sotells us” that factors outside of called problem? As Eisner (2003) the school account for around the idea that policy I know no safe depository of cautions, 75 percent of the difference in can be prescribed from on high, students’ achievements. the ultimate powers of the society issued ex-cathedra, and lead to So is it fair and reasonable to improved outcomes, is delusionary. suggest that Tomorrow’s Schools but the people themselves Moreover, David Lange, Prime are the underlying problem amidst Minister and Minister of Education all of this? It seems that too many “opinions” on this matter are responsible for introducing Tomorrow’s Schools, chose to quote accompanied by a yearning to return to structures and conditions Thomas Jefferson on page one of the policy book that set out the akin to those that operated under yesterday’s schools. But let’s direction for the reforms: be honest. While some were good, others most certainly were I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the not. Let’s not be fooled into thinking that Yesterday’s Schools society but the people themselves; and if we think them were all rosy. Far from it! Selective memories and legends from not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a times past invariably lead to a lot of myth and mischief making. wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from New Zealand is a very different place to what it was 25 or them but to inform their discretion by education. This is so years ago when Tomorrow’s Self-Managing Schools were the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power. introduced. To suggest that the system needs to change is to wantonly deflect attention away from the real problem – the Jefferson also said “a government afraid of its citizens is a social and economic conditions that have been newly created in Democracy. Citizens afraid of government is tyranny!” Don’t our society since the inception of Tomorrow’s Schools in 1989 – be afraid to expose nonsense and make truth known – and be conditions that directly impact on the capacity of at least one in wary of the smooth communicators! five students to benefit from and respond to quality education. The Children’s Commissioner reports 270,000 children in NZ live in poverty, including 40% Pacific children and 27% Maori Reference children. It is no co-incidence that such numbers match up to 1 Eisner, E.W. Questionable Assumptions About Schooling. Phi the numbers of students who are not succeeding in school. It Delta Kappan, May 2003. pp. 648–57 is time the public woke up to this, and for truth and fairness to enter the debate. After all, who is naive enough to believe that
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Rural Ramblings All change please . . . Baabaara Ramsbottom
My father was a trainspotter in his youth. This hobby involved standing at train stations with a notebook and writing down the names and numbers of every train that passed. Shockingly, my mother was in full possession of this information when they began dating – in fact she even recalls several early dates which incorporated standing on railway bridges with notebooks and matching anoraks. In her defence my father did also own a red MG sports car which must have added some James Bond mystique to the otherwise nerdy persona. This hobby must have been a whole lot more exciting in the days of steam when trains had names like The Flying Scotsman. After I was born my father sold the MG (no room for a carrycot) and instead bought a full size steam engine and a steam roller which he charmingly named after me – or possibly (and less flatteringly) it was already called Helen Louise and he named me after it. New Zealand is a mecca for steam fanatics and whilst my living in Feilding was never planned, I can’t help smiling when a traction engine steams down the street or I hear the steam train whistling on its way to Taihape. When we first arrived in New Zealand I hauled my oldest son around every sacred steam site I could. Marcus Lush obligingly filmed Off the Rails, a TV travel guide to New Zealand Railways, and we did the Taieri Gorge Railway (he cried most of the way), Silverstream Railway (we sat behind the engine and he got smoke in his eyes), Tokomaru Steam Museum (he slipped over on a patch of oil) and the Raurimu spiral culminating in dinner at Taumarinui RSA (he fell asleep at the table) . . . by the age of 3 he was suffering severe steam train overload and started hiding under the covers and whimpering when I revealed in hushed tones our next exciting trip to see a real steam train. I had to stop. But now I have a second son and he deserves to appreciate his railway heritage. Helpfully, Santa brought him a wooden train set complete with a genuine Fat Controller. After Christmas we headed up to the Coromandel. For Manu’s first train ride we visited one of Marcus’ Top 10, the Driving Creek Railway, built pretty much single handedly by a visionary and possibly slightly eccentric potter named Barry Brickell. Just to prove that steam is in the blood our train driver was born and bred in New Zealand but his father had been a steam train driver in England. Whilst my father’s love of rail is rooted in traditionalism, an aversion to throwing anything away (“It might come in handy”) and avoidance of change; I prefer to think that mine is all about a love of travel and adventure. When I resigned from my first teaching job after only a year to move to Kuwait my father was horrified. In his view a good job was a job for life and I needed
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to knuckle down and work towards a promotion. My mother was horrified for quite a different reason – it was 1992 and the Gulf War had finished barely 12 months ago. In the past I have been something of a change addict – before I came to New Zealand I hadn’t lived in the same house for more than 2 years of my adult life and had an aversion to visiting the same place twice or teaching the same unit a second time. However, recently I am finding myself questioning the current pace of change and even the need for change (the latter may just be an allergic reaction to Novopay!)
On the day I went back to work the school microwave packed up and it was only a few years old. So I took it to town for repair and was told I could buy a new one for less than the cost of even the most basic repair. They obligingly offered to get rid of the old one. Back at school I went through all of our computer hardware and found that the vision of reduce, reuse and recycle cannot easily be applied to technology purchasing. I now have a pile of e-waste in the hallway. According to Wikipedia I could classify my sculpture as an objet trouvé (Translation: found object) “Found objects derive their identity as art from the designation placed upon them by the artist and the social history that comes with the object . . . The context into which it is placed (e.g. a gallery or museum) is also a highly relevant factor.” I have a sneaking suspicion the very meticulous chap who signs off my building warrant of fitness may consider my corridor sculpture to fit more within the definition of a hazard. I now have the task of finding a suitable recycling option – one of my Board members offered his farm rubbish pit but I declined as I think schools should lead the way in doing the right thing. Thankfully there is an e-cycle centre in Palmerston although the cost of recycling my sculpture is a hefty $63.50 and I wonder whether most e-waste ends up as landfill. Of course my father would keep it all; it might come in handy.
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