Parent support dips as they understand system

Parents like regular and comparative reports on their children's school progress. Photo / APN

Parental support for the introduction of national standards has fallen slightly following the release of most children's first school reports.

A Nielsen poll of more than 500 Weekend Herald readers who have school-aged children has revealed an increase in the number of parents who fully understand the new system.

However, as more people understood it, fewer seem to support it.

By now, most parents have received their children's first report under the new system - which shows where students are in reading, writing and maths in comparison to a national benchmark.

The poll found 18.1 per cent of parents had a full understanding of national standards compared with 11.9 per cent in a similar Herald poll in February.

Nearly two-thirds said they now had a partial understanding - roughly the same as in February - while 20.6 per cent said they had no understanding at all.

When asked if they supported the introduction of national standards, 62.1 per cent said yes, which is down from 73.2 per cent in February.

The parents who didn't support it increased from 13.8 per cent in February to 23 per cent this month.

Parents were also asked what effect they believed the Standards would have on their children's learning. Nearly half thought the Standards would have a good effect, 38.3 per cent said no change, while 13.3 per cent said it would have a bad effect.

Key things parents liked about the new system included having a standardised system, regular reporting about how children were doing and the ability to compare how a child was performing on a national level.

Things they didn't like included fears it was being introduced too quickly, a focus on getting underachievers up to speed and therefore ignoring the needs of high achievers, pressure on children to perform and additional workloads for teachers.

The poll also highlighted concerns about the areas of the curriculum that weren't covered by national standards. Just over half of the parents felt other subjects - such as social sciences, technology and the arts - were of equal importance to reading, writing and maths, while 5.20 per cent said they were of more importance.

Fifty per cent said they were concerned that national standards could lead to schools focusing mainly on the reported subjects instead of all areas of the curriculum.

The reports are part of the new system and are expected to clearly show a child's ability and explain what parents can do to help their children in their learning.

The New Zealand Educational Institute, the primary teachers' union that has strongly opposed the implementation of the standards, said it was interesting to hear parental support had decreased as understanding of how it worked increased.

National president Frances Nelson said one of the issues at the moment was that the standards were "school based", not national.

In terms of the varying quality of reports between schools, she urged parents to talk to their schools about what worked and what changes they would like to see.

"It's not going to be the same thing across the country."

MANY FEEL LET DOWN OVER NEW ASSESSMENTS

Nearly 40 per cent of Herald readers believe the new primary school reports are no different from what they used to get before national standards came in.

Almost a quarter think the reports are now better, while just over 12 per cent feel they are worse.

Many parents the Weekend Herald has spoken to say they feel let down as the new reports have less information in them than before, especially the ones that focus only on maths, reading and writing or don't include comments about a child's general attitude, social skills and behaviour.

Some say the reports are just too confusing. They miss the old ones, which were easy to understand and full of information about school life.

"I was really wanting national standards; I thought it was a great idea," said Weekend Herald panel member Claire Richards. "I was all for it but the way it's been reported on [in her child's latest school report], I'm just totally confused."

But nearly a quarter of parents believe the new reports are better than before. One father said his daughter's most recent report was great improvement. "It was better than the old one and it was clear."

Education Minister Anne Tolley said although it was important to remember the system was still new there was a wide variance in the quality of the first round of reports. "We're only a few months into what represents a major change in the use of assessment data for some schools.

"I've seen some examples of great, average and not so good reporting so far, and it's vital that parents tell their schools what they do and don't like. These conversations will shape the next round of reports."

She said parents were entitled to clear information on how their child was doing against the national standards in reading, writing and maths. "[But] reports shouldn't only focus on the standards, as parents want information on all the other subject areas [too]."

ONE FAMILY'S CONFUSION WITH REPORT

Auckland mother Louise was so concerned with her son William's latest school report that she had her husband take him out for a meal so they could have a good talk about what was going wrong.

Unsurprisingly, the "pull your socks up" talk was not well received by the Year 8 student and by the end of the night "everybody was very upset".

So, it came as a huge surprise to Louise and her husband, David, when they sat down with William's teacher and were told, "You must be very happy with his first report."

"I looked at her and said, 'Oh, we thought it wasn't that good,' and she said, 'Oh no, he's fine. He's doing very well and we are really pleased with him and he's well prepared for [high school] next year."'

Shocked and embarrassed, they went home to apologise to their son.

"We'd totally misunderstood the whole thing - and we're both university-educated professionals ourselves," she said. "We feel so bad now, we're planning to take the poor boy out again - to celebrate this time."

Louise, who did not want to give her surname, said she and her husband now felt "horrible" about what happened and were speaking out to highlight the confusion some of the new national standard reports have generated.

Louise is now questioning if the new reports with their "complicated systems" are really necessary - or any better than the old ones.

"How I wish we could go back to the old days when reports were simple and straightforward. We've got NCEA just around the corner and heaven knows how we'll cope with understanding that!"