As educators across the country steer a steady course, to bring everyone to safe harbour at the end of the year, we are doing so in a headwind, with crosscurrents and tricky winds.  Despite our efforts as leaders and as a sector through the year, the negative narrative around attendance and student achievement has been particularly prevalent in the media this week.

 
Achieving attendance goals -

Decline in attendance has been an issue for many years, particularly since the truancy model changed in 2013.   We have witnessed further decline throughout the pandemic years.  This week, ERO released a report, based on evidence collected from 33 schools. 

The report concludes that attendance issues are complex.  They occur in all socio-economic bands; there are multiple barriers to attendance from families taking children on lengthy overseas trips during term time to families who cannot afford school lunch or school uniforms. It will take a combined effort of multiple agencies, families and school staff to address this problem.

School leaders can create solutions to reengage students through regionally funded projects. The ERO report was clear that solutions will work only when the cause of absenteeism is understood.  For some students the problem lies with their relationships with peers, with teachers and/or staff.  For others, it is student boredom, not seeing relevance in what they are learning, or that there are more fun things on offer at home.  For some families, it is lack of resources, wellness, family and cultural priorities, that affect attendance.  For other families, holiday time starts early… often.

We can’t fix all these problems, but we can address school-based barriers.  We can support students to make friends, keep friends and connect with peers.  We can ensure school programmes are motivating, fun, relevant and something not to be missed.  We can be creative in how we manage barriers like breakfast, lunch, transport options, uniforms and homework support.

There are also key messages we need to share with parents:

• If students have one week off every term, over ten years they will miss a year of school.
• Being at school everyday matters because of the sequential nature of learning, especially in literacy and numeracy.
• By law, students must attend school and
• One of the highest predictors of education success is attendance levels at school.

Every parent wants their children to be successful in learning and in life. We can do so much in school but there is also a ‘common story’ that needs to be socialized, about the roles staff, students and parents play together in reversing the trends in attendance.  We need to challenge our parents to ‘walk the talk’ with us.

Attendance, achievement and leadership -

Right now teachers are working all hours to plan, teach, assess and write final reports. Meanwhile, we are hearing through (some) media that schools are failing students whose achievement levels are ‘appalling’. 

Through the NCEA ‘Change programme’ a small pilot was developed to trial new assessment tools.  Students trialing the tools produced low scores, particularly in writing.  Data from this little trial has been inflated by certain sensationalist media to suggest that our school system is in crisis, that students are barely literate, that teachers are not doing their job and leaders need to be made more accountable. 

We know student achievement has been declining for some time.  We also know learning is complex, sequential, and positively affected by three key things –

1. The relationships teachers have with their students
2. The content knowledge teachers have and the pedagogy they use and
3. The use of formative assessment to provide students with feedback and ‘next steps’ in learning

Professor Russell Bishop highlighted these at our recent NZPF conference.  He also suggested that if we support teachers to focus on relationships with learners, content and pedagogy and the use of formative assessment strategies, the ‘literacy crisis’ would be over in two years.  Work done through ‘Te Kotahitanga’ proved this.  Further research led by Professor Bishop in Canada and Australia reinforced previous findings. 

Professor Bishop advocates for within-school coaching as the most effective PLD to employ.  He says that literacy (and numeracy) facilitators and/or lead teachers working in classes to model, to observe, to give feedback and feed-forward to teachers based on evidence of student learning, is the most effective way to improve student achievement.  In his keynote address, Bishop stated that rather than trying to find “the” pedagogical approach, school leaders need to focus on supporting teachers to use good evidence-based practices that work. 

This is another ‘common story’ that needs to become part of the post-COVID success story we are leading.