Better Public Achievement Information to help lift student achievement
A few weeks ago I organised a meeting between school principals from Kapiti and Horowhenua with Education Minister Hekia Parata in the Beehive.
In particular we discussed the challenge of lifting student achievement. Overall, most students do well and our international scores for reading and writing are good – higher than Japan, Australia, the UK and USA.
The problem is that around 20% of students leave school without adequate literacy and numeracy, which is not good enough to hold down a job in the modern economy.
In response, the Government has set an ambitious goal of ensuring that 85% of 18 year olds achieve a minimum of level 2 NCEA (or equivalent) by 2016.
Having robust, good quality information that helps us all to understand and support a student’s learning is going to be crucial.
This is why we introduced National Standards, which are signposts showing what Year 1 to 8 children should be able to achieve in reading, writing, and maths, and by when. Plain language reports are now sent to parents on their children’s progress twice a year.
National Standards help keep parents and families up to date on how children are doing, help ensure we catch those falling behind, and help all learners to succeed.
The data will be reported for the first time in late September as part of Public Achievement Information, which will also include Education Review Office (ERO) reports, schools’ annual reports and NCEA information.
This information will be easily found online in one place at the Ministry of Education’s Education Counts website in September.
This will let parents see how their child’s school is performing, and will allow the Government to see how well the system is doing as a whole.
Given this is the first year National Standards data has been submitted, the data is going to be variable. This is why the Government is working with schools to improve the quality and use of this information.
I’m disappointed to see that a few local schools haven’t submitted their National Standards information. Overall, I believe parents will welcome having this information.
As a parent myself I appreciate plain reporting against National Standards, and I’m looking forward to even more information being available to parents.
From my diary
*Cabinet met on Monday and Parliament is sitting again this week
*On Monday I hosted Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye at a dinner event in Otaki
*Tuesday evening I gave a speech at a forestry awards dinner in Rotorua
*Friday I have a range of local visits, including with social service providers Life to the Max in Levin.