National Standards too rushed - report

NZEI president Frances Nelson. Photo / Mark Mitchell

National Standards implementation has been rushed and the mandatory 2012 reporting date is too soon for teachers to make sound and consistent judgments about children's learning, a report has found.

The Council for Educational Research report says 88 per cent of principals and 80 per cent of teachers said the timeframe for the introduction had not been long enough to allow them to make sense of the National Standards before using them this year.

National Standards set clear expectations of where students should be in reading, writing and maths and require schools to send home twice-yearly reports to parents with information about their child's progress.

Information gathered during this process next year must be reported to the Ministry of Education in 2012 so it can see where children are not achieving and decide how to improve that.

The report's chief researcher, Cathy Wylie, said although most schools had begun implementing the standards in the first six months of this year there was considerable variation in experiences and reports to parents.

She also said the degree of variability across schools suggested 2012 might be too soon to expect judgments against National Standards that were "sound and consistent".

Education sector union NZEI said the independent report provided "yet more evidence" that the standards were unworkable and that there was widespread confusion among schools and parents.

President Frances Nelson said it justified the strong concerns which continued to be expressed.

"The Government has repeatedly ignored calls to trial the standards but how much more evidence does it need to realise that it needs to stop, listen and address the serious flaws in its National Standards policy?".

But the ministry's group manager for curriculum, teaching and learning, Mary Chamberlain, said 2012 wasn't too soon for schools to report back.

"What they are saying is if we want the results to be consistent within and in between schools then it may be too soon to expect that. Well, we know it is going to take time and there will be an increase in consistency as schools further develop their understanding of the standards and moderation practices."

The report was released on the same day as a ministry-initiated study on how the implementation is going.

The ministry report found although most principals felt they understand the purpose of National Standards, few felt supported enough to lead the implementation of them. Just under 50 per cent described themselves as "minimally" supported and just under a quarter felt "not" supported at all.

They were struggling to know how to use the standards with English language and special needs students. They were also concerned information would be used to create league tables and pupils consistently "below standard" would become less motivated.

Ms Chamberlain said a website was being created to help teachers with online moderation.

Education Minister Anne Tolley said a sector advisory group had been set up to discuss any concerns.

She said schools were still required to report back in 2012 and there was no plan to change that.