Principal's Page
Kia Ora Friends
This week I was interviewed on National Radio's 'Morning Report' about the new Education Policy announced by Christopher Luxon on behalf of the National Party.
Before I share some of the thoughts I shared in that interview, I would like to be very clear my thoughts have nothing to do with party politics. In my humble opinion, every party in our New Zealand parliament has some good ideas and some ideas that I think are not so good. Our MMP political system was designed to get as many 'good' ideas together as possible from the parties that make up the government and to try to make them work for as many New Zealanders as possible.
Most of you will know by now our staff team at Western Heights is truly dedicated, caring and focused on doing their best for the children in our care. Our school is by no means perfect, but we do have a great reputation for trying to do the best we can for our children.
In announcing their new education policy, a comment was made by National's Education Spokesperson Erica Stanford that "teachers hold their finger up in the air, and decide on what to teach next based on what way the wind is blowing. They just do whatever pops up and occurs to them at the time."
This is an incredibly sad, disingenuous and disturbing statement to make. I think most people would be stunned if they could see the level of thought, consideration, research and planning that goes into developing our school learning plan, our term planning, weekly planning and daily planning.
As a school, we have invested a huge amount of time, effort and research into finding the best tools and systemic approaches to teach literacy and numeracy and to do so in culturally-responsive/child-responsive ways.
Our approach has been in-depth research, trials with early-adopter cohorts of staff, extensive training and support, followed by school-wide adoption with ongoing in-depth support, training, guidance and regular review and reflection.
On that basis, we have introduced the PR1ME maths programme - as used by the four top-achieving international education systems regarding student maths achievement.
We have introduced The Writer’s Toolbox - a complete writing system. Focused on teaching explicit writing skills and providing measurable performance for every year level, and is backed by over 20 years of educational research.
We have introduced Structured Literacy in our junior school. This includes Liz Kane Decodable Text and Heggerty Phonics and explicitly teaches systematic word identification and decoding strategies.It focuses on:
- Phonology.
- Sound-Symbol Association.
- Syllables.
- Morphology.
- Syntax.
- Semantics.
We have introduced The Code, a systematic approach for teaching spelling across the school from year one to six. It includes the Phonological Assessment Screening Tool, a Scope and Sequence, Progressions for each year level with lists that have an explanation/definition to support Explicit Teaching, a Lesson Sequence and supporting activities. It take students' understanding of spelling patterns, rules, and morphology to the next level, developing independent readers and writers.
We have developed a Foundation Curriculum to bridge the gap between Te Whāriki at Kindy to Level One of the NZ Curriculum document.
Aligned with this is our Structured Approach to Play-Based Learning. This curriculum approach teaches children to first play alongside others, then with others, as they develop literacy and numeracy skills via osmosis within that Play Based Learning Framework.
Many of the schools within our Kahui Ako Community of Learning are doing many of the things we are.
Hopefully, we are offering some food for thought. The issues Mr Luxon raised are important and require serious thought and reflection. The proposed 'fixes' promoted by Mr Luxon and his team, I believe, do not show evidence of serious thought, research or reflection. They read more like a 'hot-button' response that will appeal to sectors of those sectors of society who think we need to hammer teachers, hammer basics and test every child constantly.
These methods have been tried and have failed here and overseas. I will share more on some separate pages within this newsletter.
As always - if you have questions or concerns about anything school-related - email me at macash@mac.com, and I will get back to you asap.
My very best regards to you all,
Ash Maindonald
Principal.
