Cameron Slater <camslater@gmail.

com>

Crap # 1
1 message

Rik Fothergill <rikf@abelsoftware.com> Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 11:34 AM

To: camslater@gmail.com

From: Perry Rush <southwelly@gmail.com>

Subject: For Your Urgent Attention
To: "Perry Rush" <southwelly@gmail..com>
Date: Monday, 1, November, 2010, 9:39 PM

Dear Principal or BOT member

My name is Perry Rush and I am Principal at Island Bay School in Wellington. I am writing to you as the
coordinator of the 'Board's Taking Action Coalition' (BTAC), the group of Boards that have passed the
resolution voting 'no confidence' in the National Standards with the action of deferring setting student
achievement targets in 2011.

Firstly congratulations for your decision.

Second, I wish to inform you that we are close to a national release of the strategy. This will occur this
Wednesday 3 November. We currently have 225 Boards of Trustees who have signed the resolution: a
really significant group.

There are several organisational matters that I need to appraise you of:

1. The launch date is highly confidential. Principal's please ensure that the Board Chair is informed before
Wednesday. Board contacts please ensure you forward this email to your principal as not all principal email
contacts were provided.

2. A press release will be issued on Tues afternoon that is embargoed until Wednesday.

The press release will be sent to you Tues afternoon to ensure you are informed of the media statement.

3. Be aware that the names of all schools signed on in each region will be issued to the media upon request.

4. Each region has a local coordinator (Principal and a BOT chairperson). I will inform you of these people on
Tuesday. Please use these folk as spokespeople for the strategy if approached by the media. Alternatively
you are welcome to give out my details if you wish me to comment to the media at any time. Contact details
are at the bottom of this email.

5. Expect a bit of heat in response to this strategy. Your may be contacted by the Ministry and our message
must be consistent. The flaws are serious...a revision in partnership with the sector and to the satisfaction of
the sector is required....targets will be deferred until such time as an appropriate revision is enacted. You are
welcome to refer the Ministry to me for further comment about the strategy.

6. I will produce a weekly update of events and advice every Monday morning. Look out for this in your
email.

7. We have a strategy to build on this initiative. We aim to inform ALL Boards of schools yet to sign on of the
range of options available from expressing concern to taking action. This will be sent to all schools nationally
on Thursday. We anticipate the momentum picking up considerably from this point on with many hundreds
more schools advocating for change.

8. Please read the guidance below regarding Karen Sewell's recent letter to schools about expectations for
charters.

Should you have questions that you wish to clarify please I can be contacted by anyone in the network on:

021490079 or email southwelly@gmail.com

Advice on Karen Sewell's letter

Planning and Reporting 2011

In her letter to schools dated 8 October 2010, Secretary for Education – Karen Sewell has outlined a new
time frame and “guidance” for planning and reporting (incorporating national standards in literacy and
numeracy) through schools charters in 2011 and beyond.

The Section 4 Timeline identifies both legislative requirements (unchanged) and Ministry SUGGESTED time
frames (in italics).

To meet this new timeline, a number of things need to be in place including –

The ability for your school to comply with the unexpected and compressed (suggested) timeline
requirements for planning and reporting;
Understanding within your school about what the standards mean to enable consistent target setting
and judgements on what achievement “look like”;
Confidence that sufficient quality professional development has been both accessible and undertaken
by professional staff that will enable the critical judgements (OTJs) to be made;
A moderation framework that enables cross-school judgements rigorous enough to be able to report
comparative information nationally;
Sufficient resources within the school and the sector in each of reading, writing and mathematics
standards to ensure that consistency of understanding as a basis for decision-making is possible;

Without these essential building blocks in place it is doubtful that schools can comply with the suggested
guidelines the Secretary for Education has outlined.

The NZCER survey (http://www.nzcer.org.nz/default.php?products_id=2659) has confirmed NZEI’s July

survey of 740 schools. Clearly, for the majority of schools, it is simply too early to expect this work to be
done well or with any confidence.

The information reported at school level will continue to be underpinned by reporting against the norm
referenced assessment tools. Using the current norm referenced assessment, the data will tell parents and
school communities where a student’s achievement sits alongside others of their age group or year level.

.
By contrast, assessments against the national standards (at this stage) will be a “best guess” at where a
student sits against an “aspirational future-focused” standard. It is important that students and their parents
as well as your board of trustees understand the difference between these two assessment processes and
the stage your school is at in the transition towards implementation of national standards.

NB - The reporting of student achievement data generated by the targets you set for 2011 will inevitably end
up in a league table in 2012. The work of the data group has been discontinued without a satisfactory
resolution around how data could be used solely for the purpose it was gathered.

Finally, thank you. I am proud to part of a group that is prepared to advocate for the best possible outcomes
for children.

Perry Rush

Principal

Island Bay School

Ph 04 9393010

Fax 04 9393011

From: Whaleoil [mailto:camslater@gmail.com]

Sent: Thursday, 4 November 2010 11:27 a.m.
To: Rik Fothergill
Subject: Re: National Standards

Send it through

From: "Rik Fothergill" <rikf@abelsoftware.com>

Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 11:26:15 +1300
To: <tipoff@whaleoil.co.nz>
Subject: National Standards

Hi Cam.

Are you interested in me forwarding emails form Boards of trustees who are opposed to the national
standards this, or is it not really your thing?

Let me know if you want some of the crap that is arriving in my inbox.

Cheers, Rik.