We would be hard-pressed to find a day, this term that has not had a mix of ‘handbrake and accelerator’ moments.  The daily ‘stop-start’ logistics continue to rule many school communities, as staff and students fall to COVID and winter illnesses.  Add the winter weather events and progress in learning can feel a bit ‘stop-start’ too. 

The flip side of this is we continue to seek out the excitement of special events to share with our students.  Think back to Matariki and now the Commonwealth Games. These events created new learning, demonstrated the rewards from striving for success, sometimes defining a new personal best and sometimes exceeding it. Successes can be large or small, but all are exciting,  rewarding and fun.  This is the antedote and the accelerator that can create so much joy through learning – for students, teachers, staff and leaders.

The De-streaming Debate – Are we the hand-brake?

In New Zealand, many schools practise ability grouping to cater for the diverse learning levels in our classrooms.  It is hard work, but it is how New Zealand trained teachers have used teaching time to support our tamariki in their learning.  

When looking at research on student achievement, we have one of the highest ability grouping rates in the OECD (only lreland is higher).  We also have one of the biggest gaps in achievement between our highest and lowest achievers.  A recent OECD report has stated that the two key factors that predict high achievement are:

a)  The extent to which students are taught in mixed-ability groups and
b)  The opportunities they are given to learn

Dr Christine Rubie-Davis is the author of ‘Becoming a High Expectation Teacher’.  She states

‘Becoming a High Expectation Teacher explores three key areas in which what high expectation teachers do differs substantially from what other teachers do: the way they group students for learning, the way they create a caring classroom community, and the way in which they use goalsetting to motivate students, to promote student autonomy and to promote mastery learning.’

Looking at longitudinal data in New Zealand, there is a strong corrolation between the ability group that students are placed in at six and the stream they will end up in when they move to secondary school, which in turn, plays a large part in determining their future pathway beyond school.

What needs to change?

We teach in groups for efficiency, and traditionally New Zealand teachers have set groups up for direct instruction based on ability.  Researchers wanting to promote equitable outcomes for all students suggest flexi-grouping should be used as a basis of classroom organization, so students have multiple opportunities to work and learn with and from each other during class lessons.  A combination of flexi grouping for class work and ability grouping for direct instruction, could be one way to solve the fixed group / fixed-thinking dilemma.   This shift in pedagogy could then prevent a gifted critical thinker having to work in a low reading grouping because their decoding skills need work, or a student who excels in building 3-D objects never getting to explore this talent because their number strategies skills put them in the lowest mathematics group.

Conversations we need to lead

‘Ako’ is the concept of learners learning with and from each other.  If students have opportunity to work in mixed groups, when not engaged in direct instruction with the teacher, the ‘de-streaming research’ tells us they will achieve greater success in learning.  If we are to create a system that excels at creating equitable outcomes for all students, we firstly need to identify we have a problem with what we currently do.
  
Next, as leaders, we need to lead conversations with our teachers to unpack the research as it relates to “how we do things” in our classrooms and our school.   The ‘De-streaming Debate’ is challenging leaders to support teachers to review, reflect, re-think and re-learn ways of organizing classroom programmes, so they stop applying systemic, disempowering brakes that impact on Māori and Pacific Island students achieving to their potential.

Let’s be the accelerator 

If we could tune our classrooms as we tune our cars, all students would experience rich learning experiences in a range of flexi-groups - and the acceleration in learning outcomes could be remarkable.

Principal Advice and Guidance:  (PASL) 

The PASL team is the legal team that supports principals when they run into employment issues with their Boards of Trustees. 

To join PASL principals need to be a member of NZPF.

PASL Legal Cover to increase from 2023: 

At the recent PASL Board Meeting, Directors discussed the level of cover PASL provides.  If a principal with a PASL contract has an issue that requires legal support and intervention, they have been able to access ‘up to $25,000’ of legal intervention.

After deliberating the issue, the PASL Board of Directors agreed to increase the level of cover, without increasing the subscription fee to join PASL.  It is with pleasure that I announce that

from January 2023, for no extra fees, PASL legal cover will be increased to $30,000.  

PASL legal support for principals is available to all current NZPF members.  PASL gives you access to highly experienced lawyers who have been advising and supporting school principals with legal disputes for many years.  This legal benefit increase is very timely as we enter the beginning of a new Board of Trustees cycle, where employment-related issues can arise.

And a final word about advice and support if you need it -

When principals have an employment issue, there are several places you can go for support – NZSTA Helpline, NZEI Principal Liaison Officers’ Helpline, the NZPF Helpline or the PASL Helpline. 

New Mathematics Curriculum Road Show Dates

With the MOE, we have negotiated to do seven more NZPF-MOE Mathematics Curriculum Road Show dates workshops in Kerikeri, West Auckland, Te Puke, Gisborne, Central Otago, Timaru and Invercargill. 

Please find information about how to register in the notices below.

Follow up Mathematics Curriculum ZOOM Hui: 

For those principals who have already had the opportunity to attend a Mathematics Road Show with Rob Proffit-White, we have our first follow-up NZPF Mathematics ZOOM Hui coming up on Thursday 18 August – 3.30 pm to 4.30 pm. 

Please email office@nzpf.ac.nz to register yourself and staff you would like to attend so we can send you a ZOOM link.