Lessing aint no Doris

A well known Deputy Principal (ninja stare) was at a meeting where several Principals were in attendance. She suggested using google docs for some information sharing and gathering. One of the Principals said "what is google"? "I have yahoo but not google".

It reminded me of the video about the british royal family.

You see its about looking at the world through a different set of eyes. Perhaps my colleague just paddles his own waka and takes care of business in a different way. Or perhaps this principal is an absolute lemon. This of course is not known and in a way not for me to judge but it's one for all leaders to consider. You have staff who are different, they see things in other ways to the way you do. In fact all staff could do with remembering that. More importantly the world of the web may not be there strength, or area of interest but they may be a fantastic staff member.

If we all thought the royal family were Betty and Phil and a few spoilt kids then where would we be.

Consider this :

"Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.' "
— Doris Lessing (The Golden Notebook)

If this rings true with you then perhaps celebrating difference in staff and kids is OK.

Reflective Practice

I need to talk about appraisal and the need for us to get rid of those classroom observations, those goals, those attestation sheets, those books we write in and all other associated nonsense that we have been using for donkeys ages. 

Why is every teacher Guilty before being proven innocent every year? 

What about those guys who have been teaching 20 years and you as a principal know they are very competent but wish they could look to "get better".

ERO visit schools and principals bleat and moan about the process, claiming "its a snapshot" "they missed this" "they missed that" and all of those assumptions are true. Principals who bleat the loudest need to first look at the way they appraise their teachers before taking the whip to ERO.

If your school organises visits, writes up what they saw, writes recommendations, uses senior managers in a hierarchical structure to observe and more, then arent they "doing and ERO" on your teachers. The very same people they bleat too about ERO.

The simple answer is that appraisal is not easy, and I am yet to come across a school that has a brilliant system. We need to do something that will address all the issues, tick all the boxes and make a difference.

There needs to be a balance of several things.

Trust, belief, value.

Firstly what is this crap that teachers need to be attested too every year, so does this mean that you are competent one year and not the next year. How can Principals who use a checklist on an observation really determine your Professional Standards and attest to them. You know they are coming. You have marked your kids books. You have planned the model lesson. The only way to know how you are going is to work with you over a period of time and to see you operate many many times, at all times of the day, prepared and not prepared, hot or cold, wet or dry, there is nothing to hide when we have trust.

As well as trust staff need to know that the hierarchical system isn't the go, isn't fair, isn't sensible, and isn't productive. When this discussion is had, it is time to look to something that we believe in. As teachers we are all different with our ways of dealing with issues and problems but generally a teacher is intelligent and quite opinionated. Therefore any replacement to the ERO model must have an underlying belief from everyone that it's right.

There is nothing worse than an observation from some lemon who offers feedback. You either nod away and take the suggestions or you uncomfortably challenge but remembering you are in a hierarchy. The outcomes of an appraisal need to be valuable, for both parties and they should address needs. 

Conversations are everything but how are they set up to address everything above.

We are working together on a system of reflective practice, having observations that are non judgmental, unplanned, and as pairs or groups. The value comes in the conversation with the observers, the observee is just a vehicle for discussion. Teachers are able to observe pedagogy and discuss pedagogy in a controlled, non judgmental way. How many staff-rooms around the place have those conversations. 

How do I justify the Attestation. Easy - Trust in staff - Belief in what we are doing- gaining Value through the process.

Whos job is it?

While on holiday I went for a walk and had a look through the windows of NZ's worst school. It is difficult to judge why things are the best or worst and you could only say "in my opinion" but the sad truth is that this little school is failing miserably. I spoke at length to a teacher, BOT member, employee, parents, grandparents and other professionals so I got quite an insight. Where has it failed, who failed it and how many years until it gets turned around. How in fact do you save a school like this. I know there are a few out there that are fairly bad, so what are the answers to fixing these schools.

First you have to understand why its failing.

1 BOT are not interested really, they expect their Principal to be doing the work.

2 BOT are well down on skills, good people but down on skills.

3 BOT are in a small community, they have known all the teachers all their lives.

4 Family loyalties run deeper than school.

5 No one has the skill base to challenge the school.

6 MOE don't have the guts to make the hard calls.

7 Principal doesn't have the goods.

8 Teachers don't have the opportunities to be the best they can be, have no role models and are well down on skill sets.

9 The school has employment opportunities in a poor area therefore peoples jobs become more important than education of kids.

10 Everyone talks around the problems without addressing them.

11 A Maori card can be played so MOE are more sensitive and no press is interested in the shambles yet it is 10 times worse than any Selwyn College or Cambridge High.

12 ERO didn't have the integrity or honesty to write a true report in the "best interests" of the community.

13 Everyone walks around saying 'it's not my job"

Ok - there are a few reasons why, and there are countless more.

I don't actually want to blame the Principal, School or Community, it is in fact the system that has stuffed this school. The longer the system lets this shambles continue the longer the circle of failure will self generate in this community.

So why has the system failed.

Unions - they wont allow for dismissal of a poor principal. They just wont let it happen. They have a job for life mentality.

BOT Governance - The BOT appoint their Principal but the problem in these small communities is that schools can be the best employers in the areas. Schools pay great wages for these poor communities and people on BOT's are either employed by the school or have family working there. Tell me how a small unskilled BOT can have the knowledge of what a great school does, needs and how it operates. How can a BOT run competency proceedings when they don't have the skills and are dealing with family. Something that serious will never be forgotten in a small community. Governance model isn't working, not every school suits this model.

Solutions, some of them are so it doesn't happen again and others may resolve these ugly situations.

Appoint a commissioner NOW.

Appraise the Principal and assess competence.

Audit the school and the payments to all ancillary staff and community members.

ERO the school with the key ingredient being the kids learning

Fixed term appointments for Principals of five years, where jobs must be re-advertised and interviews before re-appointment. 

Set up a task force of experienced people to trouble shoot these type of schools where they have authority to walk in and clean up a school. It's not a communist state in NZ but someone has to make the hard calls.

It sounds really harsh, who makes the call that this is NZ's worst school, there are more q's than answers, the thing is that not many people want to talk about these difficult situations. I know that I haven't really got the answers and simplify issues as "easy to do". But at least my solutions are somewhat better than MOE ones.

Want to hear what the MOE are doing to help this school in 2009, they are introducing interactive whiteboards, truth.

Cheers John Hattie

I stumbled across some important reading while clearing out the macbook, I'm not on my twelfth novel but I did read something.
I have linked the interview Kim Hill had with Dr Nuttall, they videoed classrooms and went deep into learning/learners/classroom effectiveness. Well worth a read.

Hattie made my holidays with his sunday paper headlines that shut the mouth of many "educators and informed parents" with his on the money comments of effectiveness.

Of course TV3 had to jump on the performance based pay issue which is always the most contentious but you cant win em all.

Usually i sit in the far north and watch education cop a bashing from the uninformed, but no, these holidays have been brilliant. What was encouraging was to read that the ever vote winning National Party were asked to comment on Hattie's article and they could only just agree........ i'm lovin it...

National Standards: The Real Oil

my good friend Perry Rush who is without doubt one of NZ's best principals who runs a bloody great school has the real oil. here is his article published in todays Dominion Post:

So the Education (National Standards) Amendment Act has been rushed into law under urgency without so much as a flicker of debate.

Should we be worried?

In the midst of implementing a visionary future focused curriculum educators are confronted with a law change requiring schools to report on children’s achievement against national standards.

The drive to be open about children’s achievement is in itself laudable. Parents should have high quality information about their children’s achievement and in many schools do.

But it is the inference that student underachievement will be influenced by legislating schools into high stakes testing in reading, writing and mathematics that is troublesome.

The only reasonable assumption of such a policy is that schools are under performing and that testing will make visible poor performance that can therefore act as a public incentive to ‘do better’.

The reality is that New Zealand Schooling has been doing well for a long time.

The 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found that of the 572 countries participating, the mean reading literacy performance of only three countries was significantly higher than New Zealand, two countries were similar, and the other 50 countries were significantly lower.

Of the 57 countries participating in PISA 2006, the mean mathematical literacy performance of only five countries was significantly higher than New Zealand, seven countries were similar, and the other 44 countries were significantly lower.

By any objective standard New Zealand schools are doing an outstanding job at growing literate and numerate students.

Despite this we should not pretend that everything is rosy.

Our government and all New Zealanders should rightly be concerned about the long tail of underachievement that does mark New Zealand as different from other OECD countries. Maori and Pacific Island students are disproportionately represented in this tail.

The recent results of ‘Trends In International Mathematics And Science Study’ (TIMSS) are a cause for concern and should rightly signal the beginning of focused discussion across the educational sector to identify an appropriate response.

But welding a sledgehammer at schools to resolve concern about achievement does not reflect the sort of reasoned and intelligent approach required of a thinking government.

Rather it smacks of a play on our fears.

Substantive debate on the source of underachievement is overdue. It is not surprising though that simplistic analysis abounds and that teachers as easy targets find themselves in the crosshairs.

Consider Dr Pita Sharples comments. “Put the standards up there, teach to the standards, and if they don't reach the standards then fix up the teachers,” he said.

At the Australian Council For Education Research Conference in 2007, Dr Andy Hargreaves identified three significant barriers to effective educational reform: a conservative media, the nostalgia that parents have for their own schooling experiences and politicians that frame policy to capture these markets.

National’s Education (National Standards) Amendment Act represents smart political management but poor educational leadership.

The introduction of National Standards may well have dire consequences for children’s learning.

The corollary of the introduction of National Standards in Britain in the late 90’s was an overt emphasis on Reading, Writing and Mathematics to the detriment of everything else particularly creative endeavor.

The Bush Adminstration’s controversial “No Child Left Behind (NCLB)” initiative has at its core, high stakes testing in the guise of standards based educational reform. Recent studies into the outcome of the NCLB initiative by the Centre on Education Policy have shown that while the achievement gap is closing this cannot be attributed to the initiative.

Primary school leaders already understand and support the importance of core learning.

Changes to the National Administration Guidelines in 2000 placed an emphasis on achievement in literacy and numeracy in the first four years of schooling and there is no lack of awareness or skill in the sector in dealing with this challenge.

With the reality of National Standards on our doorstep, the government needs to step into the challenge of positively leading New Zealand through the difficult landscape of curriculum change.

Talking with school leaders to better understand what is being done to address underachievement before major policy shifts are rushed into law would be a great place to start.

The sector deserves a government who wishes to partner with schools intelligently rather than clobbering schools with blunt instruments.

The challenge exists for the education sector too.

Substantive debate by school leaders about National Standards has been glaringly absent. Strong professional advocacy is necessary.

Change will grow when educators confront misinformation about student achievement and seek to hold policymakers to account for their propensity to pander to the ‘Back to Basics’ cry.

Professor Alfie Kohn puts it nicely, “Accountability, (in the guise of tougher standards) usually turns out to be a code for tighter control over what happens in classrooms by people who are not in classrooms - and it has approximately the same effect on learning that a noose has on breathing”.

It is deeply troubling that in a strong democracy like ours there has been no debate about National Standards despite it being near the top of any international list of controversial educational reforms.

Perry Rush
Principal
Island Bay School

National Party

The crime against kids has started with simplified, dumb, uninformed decision making by the national party. this law reform is an absolute disgrace, the brain power behind the National Standards is contrary to every direction our world leading education system is headed. National will be confronted head on by principals like me who will refuse to do A national test and will scream it from the highest mountain. when law commands me to do it i will advise children to be sick, will refuse to supervise, or mark the tests, go slow on other legislative requirements and any other obstructional thing I can think of, to halt national testing...

NOW it is highly possible that National wont be doing national testing BUT if you dont consult with the leaders of education- principals , before bringing in poorly thought out, vote winning policy then EDucation will be the loser.
Im in this game for kids and At this point kids are looking like they will be the loser.

national are making decisions that go against what educators are saying see this article http://www.nzcer.org.nz/default.php?cPath=343_368&products_id=2289


I will give nats time to talk it through and make quality decisions, but i also wait with a megaphone, the power of the internet and a really big stick, as this is "a hill i want to die on". I wont stand by and watch kids crucified and schools go to war with each other over tests and their results.

have a great christmas

Employing Staff 101

What gets a bit sickening at this time of year is the grab for staff for the next year. Interesting that the MOE needs 1500 more teachers to fill the need in the 1 to 15 ratio business (this is another can of worms i want to open on another day-doesn't hattie say class sizes don't matter?).  The teachers are needed in Akld but most of them are in Chch, Dunedin or Wellington. So we get on the big grab, taking anyone with successful teaching experience, anyone who speaks clear english, anyone who was trained in NZ, anyone who has lived in NZ for a bit, anyone who is white....? there I said it, its true ask my Sth African friend, no, no and no all day long in her applications..... It sounds really sad but seems to be a reality, schools grab after one interview, one phone call and offer positions on the spot. My experience in interviews has been that all of those interviewed have either just had or are going to another interview. Usually they have been offered a job and want an answer right away. 

I'm actually looking for someone who wants to be at my school, the problem is that we rate ourselves so high, that we think the best will come to us.

Not True.  If you don't get on the grab, those who don't know your school is amazing will just pass you by. So here are my tips in trying to nab those great teachers who have been offered jobs elsewhere, and persuading them that you are the best option.

In the initial phone call, say that you feel it is really important that teachers look at all options and rule out schools which don't fit for them, tell them that you want a teacher who wants to be happy and feels that the leadership team is one they want to work for.

Say that you hate how schools offer jobs immediately, when they cant be certain that the teacher has had the opportunity to think things through.

Tell them you want applicants to be able to judge you, against other schools and their management teams.

Tell them you know that everyone offers jobs, and that you are looking for someone who wants to look past their first offer to be sure they are happy with their decision.

Its important to get this in and said, before they say to you that they have another interview or that they have been offered a job already.

Ok so they get to interview: after the usual questions ask a few "other" questions.

What are your expectations of leaders in a school.

What type of leadership do you look for in a school.

These questions are there to tease out those other people who interviewed them , perhaps they were those greasy "job offer" type Principals. (you know)

After this ask about other jobs, other interviews, other offers. Have a piece of paper on the table that others in the interview can touch, if touched by your fellow interviewers then this person is a yes.

Now to close you can say that you can offer them a job, but you haven't spoken to the others in the room but you are so impressed that you want to make an offer, however I would like to give you time. If you want them and don't want to offer because its too greasy, say you are keen to have them but you want them to have time to accept. People shouldn't be bullied into a decision, and id like you to think about things, and I will let my DP to get back to you. Hinting that you are keen and want the person but will get someone else to do the small stuff.

They might leave having not accepted but you have the hook in the mouth just wind slowly.

One other thing, give a quick brain model test, that gives you a snapshot of the thinking type you are employing, this impresses the shit out of the applicant and can provide useful information for you.

If you are rejected then you were too greasy, your management team are stuffy and controlling, and you should all join an accountants firm.