Oh how times have changed, check out this crap from the herald this morning. Residential school Westbridge had 24% of its students not achieve average progress in reading (did 76% therefore achieve average progress). The school is focussing too much on behavior and not enough on achievement and it needs to close. This is just absolute crap. Pick the worst behaved 25 boys from Taupo to Cape Reinga, place them in one secure (prison) environment and then judge the school on achievement! How about judging them on who can sit at the dinner table and have a conversation without a fight starting, or verbal abuse being thrown about. Give these teachers medals, give the principal a medal and shut up NZ Herald you are a pack of tossers. They lazily read an article leaked to them by some politician looking for political gain, and sensationalized it for a headline doing irreparable damage to an honourable Principal and dedicated staff. They could have found out the real truth, taken a day to look at life in a school behind bars and seen first hand how much, skill, passion and aroha is delivered by dedicated teachers who teach in the most thankless job in NZ, now there's a story.
A colleague wrote in a blogpost that the national standards are a joke and that why don't we just start fudging test results and send in fake scores. There were other sarcastic remarks and it was written totally tongue in cheek. The wonderful paper the Dominion Post found out about the post and then made a song and dance about about faking scores. Maybe they should have made the effort to contact the writer of the post and ask for a serious comment - no that requires work.
Look at Kelston Boys vs Auckland Grammar. It was a media circus, and apparently still is.
People when you get a call from the media, never ever ever trust them. They are lazy and unethical, they just want the easy story. They are the new scum of society, they are right up there in trust, with the petrol companies, and banks.
Graham Henry I thought you were going a bit nuts, but now I see with clarity the media are scum sucking mud rakers, and you actually haven't changed, apologies Ted. p.s don't consider steven donald he's crap.
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This is a great post. We have the pleasure of having Wamokoia teachers in our cluster and they are extremely talented teachers who are passionate about what they do. I am amazed by the aroha and mana they show about their school and students everytime I speak with 1 of them. It's such a shame that the Herald has taken this situation in this light, rather than to go into the school and find out what happens there on a daily basis.
Must watch my grammar after the coverage you got in yesterday's Dominion:)
One of the things I enjoyed about the Leadspace principals forum was that it was only accessible by password - in theory meaning that the conversations there were only between principals. EdLeaders hasn't included that function which means our thoughts are out there for all to see (which is why I don't contribute so much to it). I'm not sure of the reason for that change but maybe it needs to be looked at?
When you actually read through the EdLeaders comments thread it is so obviously a wind up comment that the papers should be ashamed of themselves for considering it a story. Clearly humour is to be now avoided by principals. No wonder we are being painted as a grim lot through this whole Nat Standards debacle.
The message that I am getting at the moment is school principals are expected to demonstrate effective leadership in their communites, provide direction and support to the work of others, and build community relationships, except when it comes to following the political issue-of-the-month, which we are expected to blindly follow.
thanks danny i couldnt agree more. something i have challenged the nzei about. i feel it is very poor that thos eleft to bleat are actually good people. its not a good look. and under no circumstances should we have a sense of humour
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